After a pair of variable character pieces, Torchwood gets brutal and bloody again with 'Combat', written by actor Noel Clarke. Having earned some popularity as Mickey in Doctor Who, Clarke here earns even more popularity by wiping the floor with the professional writers who have written the rest of the series: Torchwood has proved itself a shaky and erratic venture despite its usual entertainment value and 'Combat' is easily the best episode of the series to date.

The plot of 'Combat' is basically Fight Club with Weevils, but Clarke makes it work very well by taking it in unexpected directions. It is fairly obvious to the audience from the title and other clues what is going on almost from the start, and waiting for Jack and the team (who think that the Weevils are being used as weapons to murder people) catch up might have been frustrating. But once Owen goes undercover and meets the mysterious Mark, we get the unexpected development of Mark guessing that Own is connected to "those two in the SUV" and not really caring; he still shows Owen what he wants to know, and although he tries to force Owen to enter the cage, there is no indication that he actually wants to kill him. Mark himself is a great character, with actor Alex Hassell perfectly cast in the role: he's simultaneously charismatic and oddly repulsive and the overall effect is of a charming thug. The motivation of the fighters ("too much disposal income, not enough direction, that's us") makes an effect contrast with the recent spate of megalomaniacs and psychopaths.

'Combat' is really Owen's episode and Burn Gorman, who has shown promise despite the fact that his character is intentionally but sometimes overwhelmingly annoying, finally comes into his own here. With Owen falling apart following after falling in love and then being abandoned in 'Out of Time', Gorman conveys his emotional turmoil very well, as Owen gets involved in bar fights, rudely and rather cruelly ends his affair with Gwen, and eventually becomes so nihilistic that he talks the gun out of Mark's hand with a smirk and casually steps into the cage, standing still as the Weevil tears into him. The fact that he berates Jack for saving his life at the end suggests that the character isn't going to quickly become all sweetness and light again any time soon, and suggests interesting directions for him the remaining two episodes of the season.

The rest of the team is not forgotten though, Clarke demonstrating a fine grasp of characterization. Gwen's relationship with Rhys starts to reach breaking point, from the pre-credits sequence in which they are having dinner together and Rhys realizes that she is ignoring him. He angrily tells her, "You're just absent" before swearing at her and thus causing her to furiously leave with Jack. Despite Jack repeatedly warning her not to let her life outside of Torchwood "drift", things are clearly reaching breaking point, as she doses Rhys with retcon so that she can tell him about Owen without permanently ending their relationship, before returning to the Hub alone and weeping into a pizza. Eve Myles is very convincing in these emotional scenes, as is Kai Owen as Rhys.

Jack meanwhile continues to play the leading man with panache, and is clearly enjoying himself when he answers the dead man's phone and casually promises to stop the group kidnapping Weevils. The team work well as unit here, with Toshiko gleefully monitoring Mark's background check on Owen and pointedly asking Jack if he'd be prepared to let a human get beaten up and abducted as bait in the way that he is with a Weevil. Ianto gets the least to do here, but even the Weevils get some development, as one of those help in the hub weeps pitifully in its cell as its fellows are tormented.

Director Andy Goddard does a fine job with the episode, the "Fight Club" scenes in the house and Owen and Jack's bar brawl looking convincingly brutal, although bar far the most unpleasantly violent scene is Mark's punching of the helpless chained Weevil, which is really rather disturbing. The best thing about 'Combat' however remains the near-perfect balance of plot and character, and the fact that the episode has a consistent tone throughout; Owen's fake jellied eels business adds a flash of humour, but it neither detracts from nor clashes with the drama. Sadly, Torchwood has proved that it can't maintain this level of quality, but with a second series already commissioned I fervently hope that Noel Clarke gets to write for the series again.

After all the adolescent shagging and innuendo that litters Torchwood like turds on a beach, 'Captain Jack Harkness' finally gives the series a mature and touching gay relationship, whilst continuing to develop Jack's character and building up tension in preparation for the series finale. The relationship between the two Captain Jacks is handled subtly and touchingly, and in a series that has seen a statistically unlikely number of the regulars demonstrating bisexual tendencies, it is very pleasant to finally have the issue of same-sex relationships addressed by a writer who, as in her previous 'Out of Time', appears to actually be an adult rather than a horny and sexually confused teenager pretending to be one. The mutual attraction between the Captains is underplayed for most of the episodes, and largely conveyed by the body language of actors John Barrowman and Matt Rippy, and is a genuinely touching example of unrequited attraction, with Jack telling his namesake, "I just think you should live every minute like it's your last" and nobly even persuading him to go after his girlfriend and kiss her goodbye. Even more touching is the climax of this subplot, as the pair kiss passionately, but does have one minor problem associated with it: it is virtually impossible to believe that an officer in the military in the nineteen forties would be stupid enough to kiss another man like that in front of a crowd of people, especially when that crowd includes his men, and it is, unfortunately, even more unlikely that they would then follow him into battle, which we know that they do from the minute that Jack reveals the circumstances of the Captain's death. Making a stand for equality is great; doing it in a story set in that era makes the writer look like a romantic fool.

Nevertheless, 'Captain Jack Harkness' is a very strong episode, and in addition to letting the star of the show get something approaching a meaningful emotional connection with somebody, it also asks fresh questions about him. The mystery attributed to Jack in the series has largely concerned the fact that his team-mates know little about him; the audience however knows that he is from a different time zone, that the hand in the jar with which he is so obsessed is the Doctor's from 'The Christmas Invasion', and that he can't die as a result of Rose resurrecting him in 'The Parting of the Ways'. What 'Captain Jack Harkness' does is reinforce how little even the audience knows about him, as we learn, "I went to war when I was a boy. With my best friend" and that the enemy ("the worst possible creatures you could imagine") forced him to watch his best friend tortured to death, and then they let him go. More strikingly, we also learn that we don't even know his real name. Although ironically, it's also at this point that Jack's refusal to tell anything more on the grounds that Tosh wouldn't want to know starts to wear thin, because the audience would clearly like to know.

In the midst of all of this, writer Catherine Treganna gives the rest of the team plenty to do. Whilst the sexual politics of wartime England are ignored, the racial politics are not as Toshiko faces inevitable problems in wartime England ("Why's George dancing with a Jap?"); interesting, the bile all comes from the wives and girlfriends of the soldiers rather than from the soldiers themselves. Tosh also gets to use her brain by trying to find a way to communicate across time, whilst Gwen gets to play detective, Owen determines to save his friends whatever the cost, and Ianto is forced to take desperate measures to stop him, insisting, "Jack would never allow it" when Owen starts trying to find a way to open the Rift. Unfortunately, in an example of just how ridiculously overwrought Torchwood tends to be, Ianto decides to try and stop Owen not by, for example, hitting him over the back of the head with the butt of his gun, but by actually shooting him, which seems a little extreme. Although in retrospect, this pales into insignificance next to the tripe that follows. The script also reminds the audience just how screwed up Ianto must be by this point, as he tearfully sobs, "Jack needs me!" having only previously been reminded about Lisa, which is presumably meant to count as interesting characterisation, but just serves as a reminder that the script-editor is a hack.

'Captain Jack Harkness' also introduces the profoundly sinister Bilis, a man who exists in two separate time zones and who has spun an elaborate trap that inexorable starts to close around the Torchwood team, as he skilfully manipulates them all. Director Ashley Way makes the scene in which Jack and Ianto find a picture of Bilis an impressively sinister moment, by reminding the audience that Gwen is alone with him in the theatre, and coaxes a supremely chilling performance from actor Murray Melvin. Melvin emphasises just devious and cunning Bilis is, and although Ianto realises, "It's a trap! Billis wanted you to find it" when Owen locates the missing piece of the Rift Manipulator hidden in his clock, he fails to prevent its use. All of which builds suspense up for the following episode, although one final annoyance concerns that the fact that we don't get an explanation for who built the Rift Manipulator: the nearest we get is actually in a deleted scene on the DVD release, and that only raises more questions as it raises interesting possibilities about exactly who built the Hub.

Overall, despite some flaws, 'Captain Jack Harkness' is a rather good episode. It benefits from a very polished production, with the nineteen-forties scenes invoking the look and feel of the period perfectly, right down to the music: the BBC is renowned for this sort of thing, but it's still appreciated. The end result is an episode that provides a promising set up for the series finale, as Bilis trap causes the Rift to open. Which makes it a real shame that the finale in question is about as entertaining as being kicked in the testicles.

I had an epiphany about Torchwood whilst reading Dan Abnett's novel 'Border Princes: the team we see on screen consists of a bunch of amateurs guided by a man with no official existence. Whereas Torchwood London was a large professional organisation with soldiers and hardware, Torchwood Cardiff is a group of hastily recruited scientists (and one policewoman). I recently followed on an on-line debate about the difference between Torchwood and UNIT, but for me the answer is simple: I'd call UNIT if I wanted a bunch of professional soldiers to stand shoulder to shoulder in the face of overwhelming odds, trusting them to face possible Armageddon with stiff upper lips; I'd call Torchwood if I wanted double penetration and a fight.

On this basis, the series suddenly makes more sense, but the problem is that the series' writers don't seem to like addressing it on screen, so we get the "Beyond the police, outside the UN" nonsense, with self-indulgent tripe such as Jack chastising the Prime Minister on the telephone, which programs the audience to believe that Torchwood is a professional outfit whilst witnessing the fact that it isn't, as everyone fights and bickers and shoots each other. This gives the series a uneven feel, which is why it looks even sillier than it actually is. And this is never more clear than in 'The End of the World', when the team faces an overwhelming threat and simply falls apart, because they *aren't* professionals. Everyone ends up turning against Jack, deciding to open the rift, and Owen shoots him repeatedly when he tries to stop them, and it doesn't help that at the first sign of rebellion, he starts snarling at everyone, firing Owen and reminding everyone of their failures. The end result was described as one internet reviewer as "hilariously bad television", an excellent summation of the overwrought excrement that head writer, and the man responsible for such dross as 'Cyberwoman' and 'Countrycide', Chris Chibnell scrapes together to bring Torchwood's first series crashing to a halt.

Frankly, 'End of Days' is an utter mess. Murray Melvin continues to impress as the terrifyingly icy Bilis, and happily the character seemingly escapes, raising the possibility of a return appearance, but he turns out to be working for a steaming great clich? in the form of Abaddon, "the Great Devourer, come to feed on life". Abaddon is a vaguely Lovecraftian godlike being/ancient evil trapped beneath the Rift, and thus derivative of hundreds of similar characters, including the Beast from 'The Impossible Planet'/'The Satan Pit'. Unfortunately, whereas the Beast was voiced by Gabriel Woolf with some decent lines, Abaddon is a big snarling animal with no dialogue, and thus vastly less interesting. The idea that Abaddon's shadow steals life is quite neat, but as soon as it is revealed the denouement becomes predictable, as Jack's inability to die gets put to obvious use.

Then there is the bickering, which is overwrought, hysterical nonsense even if you buy into my amateurs theory: when Owen incredulously asks Jack, "The whole world is going to shit and you're going to fire me?" he raises a very good point. All the regulars portray a welter of emotions very convincingly, but by God it's a load of shite. To up the ante, Chibnell kills off Rhys, but resurrects him at the end, which is an enormous cop-out, and part of a larger saccharine ending, with group hugs and kisses, all after the tedious five minutes in which we wait for Jack not to be dead anymore, over which lots of nauseating overblown music is poured. The long-suffering Rhys gets stunned by his girlfriend without explanation, locked up, and a knifed to death by a sinister aging fop, and it is at this point, especially when he tells Gwen, "You better tell me exactly what's going on. 'Cause I've taken some shit from you over the last few months" that I start to wonder why he still bothers with her.

There are some decent moments here (Rhys's murder, as Billis simply appears in the cell block, is very creepy, and the idea of plague infecting present-day Cardiff is a nice touch, a consequence of time travel rarely explored in Doctor Who), but not enough to salvage the episode. 'End of days', and the series, ends with Gwen asking Jack, "What visions would have tempted you?" and getting the reply, "The right kind of Doctor?", before the sound of the TARDIS materialising echoes around the Hub and Jack disappears. It produces a cheap fannish thrill, but mainly it just gives me an odd feeling of relief that Jack has been temporarily rescued from the squabbling idiots he's forced to share Torchwood with.

To start on a positive note, I’m glad to say that finally Tennant seems to be coming into his stride in the role of the Doctor – apart from one or two inappropriate bursts of manic energy, overall he gave a far more restrained performance than in many previous episodes, and I’m glad to see his hairstyle was more restrained too (combed flatly forward rather than gelled up into a spiky quiff as in the previous series).

This episode’s good points first (seeing as it’s the season of goodwill). The plot, though ludicrous, seemed fairly tight and to fit together adequately, with some attempt at explanations towards the end. The Queen of the Racnoss was well realised – if one overlooked the blatant black lipstick up close – bearing a passing resemblance to Tim Curry’s Devil in the Eighties film Willow. It would have been nice to have seen her scuttling about, but you can’t have everything. The Racnoss spaceship was well-designed too, and it was a nice festive juxtaposition to have it shimmering in the Cardiff night sky like a star. The Santas are always effective, even if rehashed from last year’s Christmas Invasion (they’re obviously freelancers too). There were occasionally strong and successfully witty exchanges of dialogue between the Doctor and Catherine Tate’s Donna, who didn’t turn out to be as irritating as she could have done. It was also nice to hear a mention of Gallifrey towards the end. The scenes with the Doctor showing Donna the creation of the universe was extremely well done, not rushed, quite slow-paced and very convincing – reminding me of the Fourth Doctor showing Sarah-Jane the devastation of Earth by Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars (though as opposed to Tom Baker’s gloomy gravitas in said scene, this time we get a slightly annoyingly enthusiastic and awestruck take from the current TARDIS incumbent. However, Tennant’s line about the human race’s way of making sense of the chaos with ‘Christmas trees and calendars’ was actually quite touching and accidentally poetic). And, even though I’m not really bothered about action scenes in Who, the TARDIS was put to very good – and pivotal – use, especially in the well realised taxi chase scene. In short, this episode, though ultimately superficial and camp (see below), is still an improvement on last year’s far more pedestrian and Star Trek-esque Christmas Invasion. This time, not a simple alien invasion, but something more intrinsic and complex – though why wasn’t the Queen flushed down the plughole, which would have been a nice touch, rather than blown up in her spaceship by a tank (cue the old UNIT denouement cop outs)?

On the downside – and with all RTD stories, there’s always one of these (bar perhaps Tooth and Claw) – the script, though fairly breezy and amusing in places, is still littered inevitably with legion popular culture references and maddening bursts of the very kind of mundanity one watches Dr Who to try to escape from. Yes, Lance’s mocking of Donna’s spoon-fed philistinism – so endemic a part of our modern culture – was admittedly quite funny, and yet RTD is not a writer who actually offers any really viably challenging alternative to such mediocre TV fodder, in spite of his holding free reign on one of the few series’ with potentiality to do this. This was exemplified by the complete crassness of the Big Brother scenario in the first series’ season finale – surely even Channel Four’s ratings for said ‘programme’ couldn’t ensure a four billion year run? (No doubt only the equally interminable Coronation Street could manage that). In short, RTD just can’t do polemic – or possibly can, but just can’t be bothered. Ironic then that a writer who consistently brings in banal pop culture references into his stories, and who opportunistically cashes in on the popular consciousness in terms of scenarios whenever he can (ie, Big Brother, Weakest Link and Trinny and Suzannah) – to save money on sets and time on the hard work of mapping out decent polemic – should in turn mock the very sources of his plagiarisms whenever the whim takes him. This is clearly a writer who doesn’t really take anything that seriously – including, unfortunately for us, Doctor Who. If he’s not pointlessly dragging in the most infuriating aspects of modern culture into the series (the Tylers, Kylie references and so on), he’s then sending them up and laughing at his own mock-creations (Jackie, Micky, Donna and so on). If the Graham Williams’ Whoniverse was like the Home Counties, then RTD’s is firmly entrenched in the peroxide blandness of Essex. Well, not all British people are from Essex – or Cardiff for that matter. Self-indulgence then is RTD’s greatest flaw. It sometimes seems as if he is making the series just to play to his mates over some beers.

Apart from one particular flourish of Gershwin-esque music at the Thames Embankment scene, which was fairly ok (though utterly ill-suited), Murray Gold has continued to excel himself with another truly atrocious and inappropriate score, dominating practically every scene so you sometimes have to strain to hear the dialogue (yes, I know Dominic Glyn and Mark Ayres used to do this too, but at least their scores were evocative and imaginative). I think Murray Gold is the lovechild of Keff McCulloch and whatever troglodyte bangs out the excruciating scores for Harry Potter. This is Doctor Who – not a Hollywood blockbuster! Some atmospheric music please – and less intrusively at that! Murray Gold should simply not be allowed to write another score again. He gets worse and worse and clearly has absolutely no feel for Doctor Who at all. His music is generic, tinny and dramatically dampening; it shows little originality or sign of true engagement with what he is scoring. It’s just bad music. Get rid of it.

The real solecism of this episode is of course the continuing re-emergence every now and then of the Doctor-Rose ‘romance’. This is just getting beyond the joke now. She’s gone for God’s sake. Just drop that thread – it was tedious and irrelevant anyway. The Doctor’s tearful look at the end of the episode when mentioning her name again could only be the expression of someone mourning a lost love affair – there’s no other way to interpret it, and apparently all concerned with the production of the programme today have absolutely no problem with this needless and undermining intrusion into the traditionally Sherlockian Doctor. Well, it’s a great pity it ever happened in the first place, and I just hope to God the same cheap plot device doesn’t resurface with the new companion in 2007. The writers just have to rise above such easy slush, and get on with decent story telling and more intelligent focus on the Doctor’s true character and nature.

What with heartache, a Doctor drooping like a lovelorn dog, stray brides and romantic flashbacks in discos… I don’t know. What’s going to be next? Four Daleks and a Funeral (well, he’s got those glasses)? Who, Actually? Well, we’ve already had Doctor in Love.

Overall then an inevitably break-neck and frivolous episode but admittedly fairly successful as pure children’s entertainment. And thankfully, apart from the slightly lewd comment from the Doctor whilst Tate’s cleavage bulged into view, ‘they’re bigger on the inside’, no other inappropriate sexual innuendoes were evident this run. Hopefully we’ve seen the end of the Kenneth Williams’ Doctor, and are going to see more of David Tennant’s from now on.

Well after 27 episodes with Billie Piper in the role of 'Rose' I've got to say that when sitting down to 'The Runaway Bride' on Christmas Day I was a little apprehensive - What would it be like? Would I like it? How would this first episode without Rose compare to the previous 27? Well let's say now, all things considered I thought it was absolutely fantastic.

David Tennant put in one of his most confident performances yet as the Doctor. He seemed very comfortable with his role - something that lacked a little during Season Two. He's no longer the new kid on the block. Meanwhile Catherine Tate seemlessly fitted into the role of Donna, the instantly likeable loudmouthed, and dare I say extremely naieve bride about to be married. It's summed up after the Doctor finds out she missed the events of 'The Christmas Invasion' and 'Doomsday' - 'That big picture Donna, you seem to keep missing it'. Between the two of them they created a fantastic rapore with each other throwing in honest humour, drama, shock and the occassional flashes of darkness that set this episode apart from some of the others.

Of course the dyanamics between the actors that have contributed to the success of the episode would be nothing without the plot to hang it on. Here we had exactly the right balance. The honesty is that this plot was something light - like Christmas wrapping paper, something to wrap all these relationships together whilst staying in the background until the big climax. This allowed the opportunities for the writers to linger over some parts to give explanation, to develop the unsaid, whether it be the brief moments spent discussing how the Doctor spent last Christmas, or whether it be the moments looking at how Donna's relationship to Lance developed. I know that some people may not have liked this - but it's ideal for the series longevity because here we have a story which any viewer could watch regardless of whether they'd seen any other episode of the series.

How have I made these judgements? Well, the eureka moment so to speak is when Lance's true colours have been revealed. You know the relationships built up throughout the episode are successful when you get that genuine sense of sympathy for Donna that Lance has treated her so badly. This all brings things to a thrilling climax and one that leads to the Doctor finally saying the name of his home planet - fantastic!

This episode was the ideal Christmas romp, providing the right injection into the show to cope with the loss of Rose. Of course we know the series has a bigger mountain to climb now - we can see the success in one episode, we have even had a sneak preview into Season Three - the tantalising glimpse of an old foe, and a new companion. How these episodes will gell together though is anyone's guess, but if this is anything to go by we shouldn't have any problems...

I've always been a champion of Russell T. Davies. While there have been a few elements that have mildly irked me - the over-reliance on earth locations being the main one - I've always defended him against the "sack him now!!" brigade. He put in huge amounts of effort and love into bringing Doctor Who back to the screen, and has provided the country with good quality Saturday teatime entertainment time and again.

My loyalty is slipping, perhaps. Last year we were given a Christmas Special; this year I felt like it was more of a Christmas Ordinary.

Averageness is not something I necessarily object to per se - we all have off-days, not everything can be cream of the crop. What I didn't like about this Christmas special, though, was that it felt like Russell Davies by numbers, it felt like a repeat. It worried me that, at a time when RTD should have been dazzling us with newer and greater things, he was so clearly saying, "well, it worked last year..."

Wouldn't Christmas have been the perfect time to have finally lifted off from the surface of the earth and have seen magical worlds of wonder? But no, more 2006 London ordinariness. Yet another mouthy Cockney (Rose Tyler Extra Strength; or a terrifying concoction of Rose and Jackie) whose plans with a somewhat hapless black boyfriend are shattered by the arrival of the Doctor. Those robots Santas, who last year were so creepy in their fleeting role, now just feel reheated and too much autons/cybermen/clockwork robots. The killer Christmas trees again (the baubles are bombs this time? Did a 10-year-old write this?). A big ugly alien with a big ugly spaceship floating above London. Yet more running and screaming as a casualty-free massacre erupts in the city streets (don't these people get tired of running and screaming? And the little girl with practically minutes to escape the marauding laser was sadly laughable.) A very familiar-feeling final confrontation in a very familiar-feeling underground lair. At least we were spared BBC News 24 on this occasion.

As for the ending... well, the Doctor has always had dodgy taste in women, as we know often preferring whiny airheads over proper companionship, but Doc 10 going all gooey-eyed over Donna's refusal to join him in the TARDIS was a low moment, even by his standards. I was half expecting him to say, "Donna, would you like to... ah, uh, never mind". Now, that would have made up for a lot.

So, what of the rest of the episode? David Tennant was good as ever, Catherine Tate had some moments (I'm not a fan of her show, but she was okay in this), and the spider costume was impressive. But it was all dramatically redundant - The Doctor saved the day by knocking some robots out with his sonic screwdriver, pocketing their remote-control bombs and using them against the baddie. Yes, it was as easy as that. There was never a real feeling of peril to any of it. Even The Doctor's rage as he flooded out the spider's nest - while nicely acted - felt like yet another box checked. Oh, and we mustn't forget to mention how great humans are.

So, it was okay. No big crime. Except... I just hope this isn't RTD out of ideas. Does he have anything else in him? Could he do a Castrovalva or a Warrior's Gate or an Enlightenment, or example? I'm beginning to see the template now; it's beginning to be a bit too obvious how the magician does his tricks.