Greedily gurning, the Dr rushes in where humans fear to tread,

Recklessly indulging his ‘fix' to confront aliens-this time the dead!

Ecstatically emphatic to enigmatically elucidate, and educate

All of HIS opinion, ignoring Rose's advice to seal a maid's fate.

Tut Tut TimeLord! Your character is written to complicate??

Etheral effects nicely impressed on the Victorian set, fittingly dressed.

Xtras a plenty ensured a busy Cardiff reality, ripe for gaseus stiffs compressed.

Peculiar ‘hammy' tongue lolling out of mouth zombies sometimes looked wrong

Effecting occasional ‘corny' cadavers which weakened make-up most strong.

Controlling editing of varying blue and white faces needed on the dead throng.

Tightly and effectively written

Analysing Dickens' life with Christmas Carol juxtaposition. 

That, like Ebenezer, he found meaning and deliverance from his melancholy.

Immediately to my mind the JOURNEYING THEME of life's folly

Ongoing, runs like myriad streams; Dickens', Roses, the Doctors too, 

Nicely meandering and full of refreshing promise the whole

Series through!

We've seen the Ninth Doctor in a contemporary setting, and we've seen him in a futuristic one. So how does he fare in the past?

Rather well, actually.

The BBC have always known how to pull off period settings with considerable style, and The Unquiet Dead is certainly no exception. It looks absolutely gorgeous. However, Doctor Who has never been about cosmetics – it's about tight scripts and scary monsters, and this episode has both. The story is simple enough to be told in a half hour episode, but this allows for a more sedate pace, and a chance to build atmosphere and character. There is a huge two hander scene between Gwyneth and Rose in the middle of the episode, which fleshes out both characters enormously, whilst still being relevant to the plot and the ongoing arc story. It's beautifully played by the two actresses involved, and in a delightful reversal from The End Of The World, Rose is the cause, not the victim, of culture shock with her awareness of the future.

The Doctor also has some wonderful scenes, where he not only accepts the alien Gelth at face value, but extends the hand of friendship to them. His solution to their plight is sickening for Rose, and makes us stop to think about his moral values. Clearly this Doctor sees the big picture far more clearly than we or Rose do, and it's a superbly written scene which emphasises his alien-ness so effectively, without ever feeling forced.

The Gelth themselves are a simple, yet effective creation. The CGI isn't awful (for the second episode in a row) and the walking dead would give nightmares to most adults, never mind children. The scene where the zombies trap our heroes in the cellar is easily the biggest behind-the-sofa moment of the series so far. Doctor Who has become genuinely creepy for the first time since Androzani.

The biggest delight for me, though, was Charles Dickens. Simon Callow effortlessly justifies his status as one of the top British actors of the day, and stands head and shoulders above the rest of the (excellent) guest cast. His rapport with The Doctor is a delight to behold, and his scenes in the carriage with his number one fan made me smile from ear to ear. Dickens gets all the best lines, too, my personal favourite being “What the Shakespeare…”. 

If the rest of the series can maintain the incredibly high standard of this episode, I fear I'm going to run out of superlatives by the end of April. I don't award 10/10 lightly, but this is the second time in as many episodes I find myself doing so.

I'd been enjoying the new series so far but this episode broke the trend. 

Firstly, can I point out something for the benefit of all would-be sci-fi writers? 99.99999% of all history involves no famous people whatsoever. The Charles Dickens character added nothing to this episode and using a historical figure is a lazy plot device which allows the writer to forego establishing a character the audience can connect with. It also stretches credibility that Dickens just happens to be in the same place and time that the TARDIS accidentally materialises. The scene where the Doctor tells Dickens how great he is was excruciating and had no sense of reality. Frankly, hardly anybody in literary circles cares about Dickens now and it's hard to believe that anyone will in another thousand years, so the fact that the Doctor has even heard of him shows appalling cultural bias. Britain is not the centre of the universe. 

The special effects were lovely to look at, but it felt as if the plot had been designed specifically to let the BBC FX department show off. Special effects are not the point of a series, they are window dressing. And even at Ј1 million an episode, the BBC is not Lucas Film and any special effects done on a licence budget are always going to come off as cheap. 

This was the second episode in a row that had Rose banging on a door yelling "get me out of here." Billie Piper has done a great job in capturing Rose's sense of wonder, but three episodes in, the character really needs to become more three dimensional. 

Similarly, I'm concerned about the direction that the Doctor is being taken in. Eccleston's performance in "Rose" was spot on, but more recently there's something worryingly ordinary about both the performance and the character itself. I suspect there's been a conscious move to try and make the Doctor more "human" and it's becoming irritating. For example, it strikes me as entirely wrong and ridiculous for the Doctor to be constantly apologising for things (for the fact that Charles Dickens will die, for rescuing Rose from her life as a shop girl, for the death of various supporting characters....the Doctor's seen too much death to be taking it so seriously). 

I hate to say this, but this episode has the overall feel of very obviously being written by a fan. Whilst Russell T Davies is, of course, a fan of the previous series, he's a good quality writer who conceal this in his writing and approach the job from a neutral standpoint. Mark Gattiss doesn't manage this. The insertion of Charles Dickens wreaks of a desperate attempt to bring credibility to the whole venture - something you might expect from someone who's spent his life defending a Who obsession. But next episode is a Russell T Davies product, so hopefully it will see a return to previous standards.

With the Doctor and Rose firmly established as characters now, The Unquiet Dead was free to start developing the storyline and chronology of Doctor Who, as well as bring in other Guest characters like Charles Dickens without taking anything away from the main characters.

The first two episodes of the New Series were written by Russell T Davies, but now it was Mark Gatiss' chance to show what he could do. And it turns out he could do a lot.

So what was The Unquiet Dead about? Well the title says it all really. Or does it? The main story goes like this; dead people are coming alive in Cardiff. The Doctor and Rose arrive and find out that the TARDIS got it wrong, again. Instead of Naples in 1960, the Doctor and Rose find themselves in Cardiff, 1969. Meanwhile, Charles Dickens is telling the story of The Christmas Carol to a captive audience, when all hell brakes loose, well some spooky blue spirits do anyway. As the Doctor walks through the streets of Cardiff reading the local paper, he hears the screaming from the theatre and rushes towards it. Rose is knocked out and taken, again and then locked in a room, again, only this time with some not-so-dead people in coffins. The Doctor gets to the house where Rose is, after hitching a lift with the bewildered Dickens, or Charlie as the Doctor called him, he finds Rose and has an encounter with the strange blue spirits. After finding out that a local servant is psychic, the Doctor is tricked into thinking these spirits need help. He later finds out that they are actually yet another hostile race wants to take over the world. It isn't the Doctor however, who saves the day in this story, he's too busy feeling sorry for himself at the thought of dying in a dungeon in Cardiff. No, it's Charles Dickens who gases the place ready for the Psychic to torch it with a match. That's the abridged version.

So now you know the story (you probably did anyway from actually watching it), we can answer the question, did Mark Gatiss achieve what Davies didn't in the first two episodes? Capture the real essence of Doctor Who.

Firstly, the storyline was good. An ordinary situation for film, but with that extra Doctor Who twist, namely the Doctor. In The Unquiet Dead, the Doctor displays some of his more traditional traits such as a callas disregard as to whose carriage he uses. He's funny, focused and has his eye on the bigger picture. The way the psychic servant described the images of 21st century London from Roses mind was brilliant, as was the reaction of the Victorian populous to the Doctor's attitude. This story was altogether more Doctor Who. But what of the presentation?

This episode was directed well by Euros Lyn and he obviously knew what he was doing when creating the atmosphere and setting. The sets didn't look as fake as they did in previous episodes and the monsters actually looked like they were meant to frighten people. The graphics were also much better for this episode, giving the whole experience polished feel. The Doctor regained his somewhat detached mentality, thinking of the greater good before small, short-term morals.

But despite all these improvements on previous episodes, The Unquiet Dead still didn't get deep enough. This is not so much the fault of Mark Gatiss or Euros Lyn, but again the length of the episode and the continuing emotional relationship with Rose, which is too much like the Doctor falling in love. We will have to see over next two weeks, with the first two-part story, if these are the main reasons for the shortfall or whether there is some other factor keeping Doctor Who from getting back on form.

I was not very impressed with the first two episodes of the new Doctor Who but after seeing tonight's I just have to say…. Hell yes!!!!!! It is one of the best new things I have seen on British Television for quite a while. I am no ‘TV-buff' and I rarely bother watching anything at all so I am not the best judge about the state of current television but this was truly brilliant.

Eccleston was humourous, eccentric, moody and mysterious in all the right proportions and did some excellent work living up to and exceeding the potential showed in the first two stories, which I found rather showy, shallow and contrived as if they were an extended introduction just to prove a point. The Unquiet Dead really hit it for me and if the rest of the series stays as good I will be impressed.

I find the new (well, either previously unused, new or redesigned because as we know there are a few in there) TARDIS console room rather odd though, it is like a sort of cross between the organic spaceship on Farscape and the TARDIS set used in the 1960s Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing. There is a sort of half organic, half junkyard feel to the whole thing, which after watching the BBC Three documentary accompanying this series I can see is totally intended but for me you just can't beat the classic 70s/80s TARDIS. I found the 1996 one a little two gothic and Wellsian for my tastes. I was not a huge fan of the wooden/stained glass console room used by Tom Baker for a while either. I have always had a bit of a hatred of mock-Victorian ‘futuristic' technology along those lines, so it is an improvement on the TARDIS as last seen in my own view. I love the way you can see the ‘Police Box' sign, window and even the old police telephone from the inside though, that little touch pleased me immensely.

Eccleston and Billie Piper were fantastic and the supporting cast was superb, the writing (ominously by Mark Gatiss this time out instead of Russell T Davies) was exquisite and gave the perfect balance I have always adored about Doctor Who at its best. I couldn't help but think of my all time favourite ‘The Talons of Weng Chiang' with the Victorian setting and it is these sort of references back and signs of continuity that I feel are important. The new series should be new but should not be so new that is not Doctor Who as it used to be between 1963 and 1989.

I find Eccleston's lines a bit alarming, I have to concede that. It is a much more modern and working class mode of speech and I have to confess to preferring the eccentric, elaborate and often donnish affectations of the scripts where The Doctor was not so readily mistakable for an, albeit rather remarkable, common Earthling.

What I do like is the fact Rose Tyler (Piper) does not accept The Doctor as her superior and is very forthright and blunt in disagreeing with him. Some co-stars in the series have tended to be a little too submissive and overly trusting and I like how this is a more complex relationship in that it is extremely apparent The Doctor and Rose are really different, they see things in very different ways but they do have an understanding, respect and empathy for each other that allows the friendship to work. The relationships in the new series are the one thing that have not struck me as contrived and forced, you can understand how everyone fits together in every scene.

I also must give an entire paragraph to Simon Callow. He is an actor that just becomes a character in such a real way that even though he is a very recognisable person (to me at least) he is ALWAYS the character when you watch him, not many who are so recognisable can consistently manage such a trick. I think Christopher Eccleston and Billie, although good actors, do not quite make that jump. I can't help but see them partially as the actor. Callow's gift is a rare one so I don't expect anyone to live up to such pure brilliance in acting. This is not meant to be negative about Christopher and Billie in any way, only positive about Simon Callow.

This is how I want to see Doctor Who. An excellent plot, brilliantly and believably acted with an unforced but highly effective humorous edge to it. I laughed out loud several times but this did not take anything away from the seriousness and horror of the story unlike Rose and The End of the World where I felt they tried for cheap laughs.

I have to honestly say that it was fantastic and that I am far more optimistic about the future of the series than the first two episodes had caused me to be. If this marked difference is purely down to the writing I think the BBC should hand the series over to Mark Gatiss, who is now even further up in my estimation than he was because of The League of Gentlemen. They should at least bring him in to write more and be a script editor, a role in which he will bring as much ingenuity, originality and humour as Douglas Adams did in that role during the late 1970s. I think Gatiss has an excellent grasp of what Doctor Who was, is and should be.

I am a bit sad about Eccleston leaving now that I have seen his potential in all its glory. The temperament of the ninth doctor is very reminiscent of Tom Baker's portrayal in some ways. I have seen at least one childish sulk, several losses of temper and numerous sudden mad grins in just these three episodes but he also brings something more damaged and edgy and I am starting to think after a couple of false starts that he has nailed it perfectly.

Now, someone please send me a TARDIS (or an untrustworthy Canadian television employee if you can't find one) I want to see the rest of this series. NOW.

I was not very impressed with the first two episodes of the new Doctor Who but after seeing tonight's I just have to say…. Hell yes!!!!!! It is one of the best new things I have seen on British Television for quite a while. I am no ‘TV-buff' and I rarely bother watching anything at all so I am not the best judge about the state of current television but this was truly brilliant.

Eccleston was humourous, eccentric, moody and mysterious in all the right proportions and did some excellent work living up to and exceeding the potential showed in the first two stories, which I found rather showy, shallow and contrived as if they were an extended introduction just to prove a point. The Unquiet Dead really hit it for me and if the rest of the series stays as good I will be impressed.

I find the new (well, either previously unused, new or redesigned because as we know there are a few in there) TARDIS console room rather odd though, it is like a sort of cross between the organic spaceship on Farscape and the TARDIS set used in the 1960s Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing. There is a sort of half organic, half junkyard feel to the whole thing, which after watching the BBC Three documentary accompanying this series I can see is totally intended but for me you just can't beat the classic 70s/80s TARDIS. I found the 1996 one a little two gothic and Wellsian for my tastes. I was not a huge fan of the wooden/stained glass console room used by Tom Baker for a while either. I have always had a bit of a hatred of mock-Victorian ‘futuristic' technology along those lines, so it is an improvement on the TARDIS as last seen in my own view. I love the way you can see the ‘Police Box' sign, window and even the old police telephone from the inside though, that little touch pleased me immensely.

Eccleston and Billie Piper were fantastic and the supporting cast was superb, the writing (ominously by Mark Gatiss this time out instead of Russell T Davies) was exquisite and gave the perfect balance I have always adored about Doctor Who at its best. I couldn't help but think of my all time favourite ‘The Talons of Weng Chiang' with the Victorian setting and it is these sort of references back and signs of continuity that I feel are important. The new series should be new but should not be so new that is not Doctor Who as it used to be between 1963 and 1989.

I find Eccleston's lines a bit alarming, I have to concede that. It is a much more modern and working class mode of speech and I have to confess to preferring the eccentric, elaborate and often donnish affectations of the scripts where The Doctor was not so readily mistakable for an, albeit rather remarkable, common Earthling.

What I do like is the fact Rose Tyler (Piper) does not accept The Doctor as her superior and is very forthright and blunt in disagreeing with him. Some co-stars in the series have tended to be a little too submissive and overly trusting and I like how this is a more complex relationship in that it is extremely apparent The Doctor and Rose are really different, they see things in very different ways but they do have an understanding, respect and empathy for each other that allows the friendship to work. The relationships in the new series are the one thing that have not struck me as contrived and forced, you can understand how everyone fits together in every scene.

I also must give an entire paragraph to Simon Callow. He is an actor that just becomes a character in such a real way that even though he is a very recognisable person (to me at least) he is ALWAYS the character when you watch him, not many who are so recognisable can consistently manage such a trick. I think Christopher Eccleston and Billie, although good actors, do not quite make that jump. I can't help but see them partially as the actor. Callow's gift is a rare one so I don't expect anyone to live up to such pure brilliance in acting. This is not meant to be negative about Christopher and Billie in any way, only positive about Simon Callow.

This is how I want to see Doctor Who. An excellent plot, brilliantly and believably acted with an unforced but highly effective humorous edge to it. I laughed out loud several times but this did not take anything away from the seriousness and horror of the story unlike Rose and The End of the World where I felt they tried for cheap laughs.

I have to honestly say that it was fantastic and that I am far more optimistic about the future of the series than the first two episodes had caused me to be. If this marked difference is purely down to the writing I think the BBC should hand the series over to Mark Gatiss, who is now even further up in my estimation than he was because of The League of Gentlemen. They should at least bring him in to write more and be a script editor, a role in which he will bring as much ingenuity, originality and humour as Douglas Adams did in that role during the late 1970s. I think Gatiss has an excellent grasp of what Doctor Who was, is and should be.

I am a bit sad about Eccleston leaving now that I have seen his potential in all its glory. The temperament of the ninth doctor is very reminiscent of Tom Baker's portrayal in some ways. I have seen at least one childish sulk, several losses of temper and numerous sudden mad grins in just these three episodes but he also brings something more damaged and edgy and I am starting to think after a couple of false starts that he has nailed it perfectly.

Now, someone please send me a TARDIS (or an untrustworthy Canadian television employee if you can't find one) I want to see the rest of this series. NOW.