This was an absolute belter of an episode, in which Russell T. Davies has shown that he can be an excellent Doctor Who writer.

We are perhaps in safe territory for Doctor Who, or the BBC in general, when we go into the Victorian era. But even so, it was wonderfully recreated and I was personally pleased to see that the period was accurate and dignified without easy resort to Empire-bashing. Ms Collins was very good as Queen Victoria, just occasionally let down by slightly weak dialogue. I was also impressed with the rest of the supporting cast, and I applaud the number of heroic characters - Captain Reynolds, Sir Robert and Lady Isobel too. It is always nice to see the Doctor save the day, as he does, but it is also good to have some other role models - you don't have to be the cleverest man in the universe to do the right thing. Father Angelo was also suitably chilling as a bad guy: I don't know where the monks learned their moves, but maybe worshipping the wolf has some unknown advantages?

We are only a few episodes into his time as the Doctor, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that David Tennant is brilliant. I love his portrayal. For all that I shall be grateful to Mr. Eccleston for reviving the character, I always felt that he never quite got it right with any degree of consistency. I am so excited by the Tenth Doctor, he has boundless energy and fun, which also makes his serious more pointed and his mystery more mysterious. Good job, keep it up! And loved the Scottish accent. Ms Tyler was average here, although for her that is still Oscar-winning good in my book. The attempted joke on 'we are not amused' was awkward, a little embarrassing, and made her look dumb, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment overall. I also thought she made a good companion, showing strengths that the Doctor does not always have - good interpersonal skills with Flora the maid, for example - and helping others get out of trouble. Her attempt at a Scottish accent was laugh-out-loud funny, and indeed the dialogue was snappy throughout.

The best thing about this episode was that the plot was so well devised. Not only did everything fit together well at the end, but I did not see it coming because the buildup was so subtly done. It is so much more satisfying when pieces carefully laid out tie together, especially when it is the Doctor who works it all out. The scene in the library was memorable for several reasons - the wonderful pan shot to the Doctor and the Wolf either side of the wall, the sound of the wold creeping round the room, the Doctor's comments on books being the greatest arsenal, and then his realisation just before the wolf comes crashing down. Great entertainment, unbeatable.

This was one of my absolute favourite episodes of the new Doctor Who. Even so, some minor criticisms: what were they screaming at in the pre-credits sequence - just a man in a cage? Shouldn't the diamond have been in the machine, rather than on the floor? And please, spare us the terrible overacted monarchy-are-werewolves stuff - could have been funny, but was simply too much as it turned out.

Interesting to see Queen Victoria announcing the creation of Torchwood, although as an end-of-episode teaser it simply couldn't live up to the textbook- enigmatic Face of Boe from last week!

Overall, a great romp!

In short, I hated it.

No, really, this has to be the single worst episode of RTD's run to date.

I mean, let's ignore the fact that this was basically just Spin Off Setup #2. Let's ignore the fact that that whole ending dialogue between the Doctor and Rose was really ripping off: Kim Newman's "Anno Dracula" novels, Clive Barker's comic series "Night of the Living Dead: London", and that one Garth Ennis Hellblazer storyline ("Royal Blood"?) in which a royal is demonically possessed.

No, let's instead focus for a wee moment on how for the most part this episode made Queen Victoria out to be a charming doddering old nanny type, who really really missed dear old Albert (indeed, Alan Moore's From Hell made references to Victoria possibly using psychics to try to contact Albert from beyond), as opposed to the HAG who helped set human sexuality and development back about, oh, 200 years or so? Now far be it for me to dispute the notion that just because Something is True, Something Else Can Also Be True, but I'm watching this, as Vickie spends half the episode acting like the maid from the Disney cartoon version of 101 Dalmatians, and I can't help but think of something I learned in freshman year Honors Family Studies class, in which something like 20% or so of all births ended with death to the baby and mother because of Victoria's attitudes about nakedness, so well jolly joked about in this episode, because doctors WOULDN'T LOOK AT THE WOMAN'S VAGINA AS SHE'S PASSING A BABY OUT OF IT, instead delivering babies with THEIR HEADS TURNED?! Yes, these are the things I think about watching Doctor Who.

[Yeah, OK, Victoria "banishing" the Doctor and Rose was more along the lines of what I envisage Victoria as, but I mean, come on. Really.]

But hey, yes, instead, let's gloss over the completely historically illogical quaint idyllic Scottish KUNG FU FLICK we get at the beginning. Hey, I actually thought that was pretty cool when I saw it in the trailers but as we actually get into the story it MAKES NO FRACKING SENSE. How the Hell you gonna tell me Scottish monks are learning wu-shu in a time when Japan had JUST opened its borders and China was a feuding warlord state from Hell? And the worst thing is, the only time we ever get any HINT of it again was the HMIC disarming Victoria's captain of the guard, and then THEY DISAPPEAR FROM SIGHT! The Hell!

The Doctor is a punk? With a hint of Rockabilly? IN WHICH UNIVERSE, BABE? In THIS one he just walked off the set of Quadrophenia and wears Buddy Holly glasses. Meanwhile, hey, I know, let's rehash all the Ace-"noble-savage" jokes from "Ghost Light" but never actually get Rose INTO the period dress now that we've made a big frakkin' deal over how "naked" she was.

The werewolf is an alien? Get outta here, we've never seen Supernatural Explained As Aliens before, naw! Especially not in the Victorian Era, a time period we've NEVER been to before, especially not accidentally or anything! *koff*UnquietDeadwhichIalsodidn'tmuchcarefor*koff* And in the end, all this leads up to the Super Sekrit Origin of...the big honkin death ray in "The Christmas Invasion." Um, yay.

I was so so looking forward to this one, and I was so so let down. I just don't get it. What the Hell is going on with this season so far?

Oh, and look, Sarah Jane Smith, K-9, and Tony Head next week. Maybe once I scrape the fanwank glaze from my monitor, there'll be a good episode. Maybe.

We were not amused, tho. Oh no, not by half.

I thought this episode of Doctor Who was a decidedly mixed affair. It had a fairly silly beginning, a good middle and a groan inducing end.

The beginning sequences - the ninja monks, the ease with which the Doctor and Rose latched onto the Queen and Her Wooden Bodyguards and the Doctor not cottoning to the Shifty Goings On at the Spooky House - were quite dire. As the story picked up its pace, it improved. The actual appearance of the werewolf and the pursuit through the halls of the house were moments replete with film horror and classic gothic imagery. The middle segments also featured the Doctor and Rose being a true partnership and employing the detective work which brings out the best facets f their personality and makes them the heroes of the story. The end returned us to twee again, as the Queen gave the Dcotor and Rose fairly pointless knighthoods and then banished them. Russell T Davies also trew in an overt mention to 'Torchwood' for anyone who did not watch the 'Christmas Invasion' episode or catch the name of the huse in which this week's action took place.

The Doctor and Rose annoyed me at points throughout this episode. Their awe and wonder at exploring space and time has now become a kind of smugness, as they giggled and whispered their way through the episode. Rose's efforts to make Queen Victoria say 'I am not amused' may have been intended to make her funny, but she merely came off as being a bit shallow.

Pauline Collins as Queen Victoria gave an equally mixed performance. Her Queen was witty and had a sense of fun as opposed to the dour widow who mourned her husband. I like the idea that Prince Albert (who was one of the driving forces behind the Great Exhibition) was secretly working towards defending the empire from supernatural forces. However, her scenes at the end were grating. The cheesy and silly 'knighting' of the Doctor and Rose was followed by an equally ludicrous U-turn in which she told the Doctor he was banished from the Empire. The Doctor hardly took this seriously; mainly because he and Rose were in such a giggly mood.

Davies decided to give Queen Victoria the task of shamelessly name-dropping 'Torchwood' into the end. The idea that she founded Torchwood was an inspired one. However, I would have appreciated a bit more subtlety, as opposed to her saying the name Torchwood a multitude of times in the space of about 45 seconds. 'I will call it Torchwood, the Torchwood Institute....the Doctor should beware, for Torchwood will be waiting.' Queen Victoria also brought a dose of scepticism to the Doctor Who adventures - her disapproval of the two travellers' almost cavalier acceptance of the dangers surrounding them was obvious but not overdone and her Queen maintained a quality of being aloof despite the Doctor's knowledge and his overtures of help. However, as I mentioned before, our Mr Davies managed to destroy this undertone of mistrust and make the Queen's concerns over the Doctor a near full blown emnity in their final scene together.

The episode also touched on the theme, once again, that the Doctor's actions have conseqences and that his seemingly innocent travelling in time can bring destruction in its wake. His adventures this week have given form to the same Torchwood that will one day invoke his anger when it destroys the Sycorax. The Doctor's actions cause ripples in time and are not simply self-contained adventures every week.

To sum up, a fairly unoriginal offering which made me cringe for the most part but which also continued several of the series' long-running themes and had the occasional moment of brilliance.

Tooth and Claw is not a bad Doctor Who story, but it is one that could have and should have been so much better. It does have a lot of good things going for it. There was an excellent monster which looked fairly frightening. The cast as a whole put on a good performance and were convincing in their roles. The setting looked nice and managed to feel fairly authentic from a historical point of view (Alright as a Scot with an interest in history I did have some issues with some parts of the plot, but no more than I have done with any number of period dramas). Together these elements had the potential to make a classic story.

And therein lies the problem: Tooth and Claw is not a classic episode of Doctor Who. A number of minor defects combine to spoil it. Firstly the opening with the monks went for spectacle rather than substance and logic. Why train the monks in martial arts rather than arm them with conventional weapons or brute force? The Kung Fu proved totally irrelevant anyway as the monks abilities were not really eluded to again. Indeed the monks just disappear from the plot after Father Angelo is killed. Equally why on Earth would Victoria knight the Doctor is she was going to banish him and Rose. What happened to them? Why did they not attack after the wolf was defeated? This to me smacks of a script in need of another draft.

Another negative is the ending came across as a laboured and I thought it was an unsubtle way to set the ground running for a future story arc and next year’s spin off. In my opinion, it would have been far better to hint at what was to come, by leaving the name of the house seen, but not spoken and to have omitted Queen Victoria’s final remarks completely. The Bad Wolf arc worked so well because we had no idea those words meant. This episode has completely blown any suspense over what Torchwood is.

A further problem and one which I fear bedevils too many of Russell T. Davis’ scripts is the nature of the humour. There is nothing wrong with a bit of comedy in Doctor Who, but too many of Davis’ stories attempt to get laughs via silliness. The Slitheen were an obvious example of this and here we have a ridiculous conclusion about the Royal Family being werewolves and an increasingly annoying running ‘gag’ about Rose trying to get Victoria to say we are not amused. Oh yes and Rose’s attempt at a Scottish accent…. Other writers like Stephen Moffat have struck a perfect balance between humour and drama, with the lighter side of their stories being far wittier and more intone with the rest of the piece.

I don’t think Russell T. Davis is a bad writer and he deserves credit for turning Doctor Who into the most talked about BBC programme. Moreover, he has some wonderful ideas and can write excellent stores when he puts his mind to it, but I do wonder if he is overstretching himself. I suspect that by writing several episodes on top of executive producing two series he is not giving himself the time to fine tune all his scripts.

Nonetheless, Tooth and Claw was better than most T.V. programmes and my criticism of it is just a sign that I have come to expect great things from 21st Century Doctor Who.

You know, if there was ever any question that the Doctor plays with time and space, it's all cleared up now. At the end of the "Christmas Invasion" special, they're standing outside the Tardis getting ready to go, in the dead of winter in the middle of all that "snow"...and in the beginning of this episode, when they're actually going, it's a lovely spring day with no spaceship-ashes in sight.

Why does the Doctor have companions? Why does he drag people away from their otherwise ordinary lives (and often into terrible danger) to whirl around through time and space with him? I think I know why. It's like all of time and space is a movie, and the Doctor has seen it all before. Watching a movie you've seen before, even if it's the best movie in the world, can get really boring--but if you have someone else watching it with you, someone who's never seen the movie before, then it's like the movie becomes entirely new to you as you see it through their eyes.

And that's what the Doctor's companions are to him--an audience. But not just for him, for the rest of the universe too. As long as he's got a young friend or two along, he can savor their amazement, and sights he's seen a thousand times before can seem entirely new to him. The Eccleston Doctor was too brisk, too serious, too ridden with survivor's guilt from his part in a time war that ended the entire rest of his race to appreciate it. He was never able to lighten up very far; the burden of his survival was always with him like a dark cloud. But the Tennant Doctor seems to have regenerated his world-view along with his body--and that's immediately apparent as soon as the credits are over and the Doctor and Rose step out onto an entirely new world, with a gloriously-rendered CGI city in plain view. Rose is awed, and the Doctor basks in it. And then it's off to a hospital complex to see the face of Boe...and also the face of Zoe, as Zoe Wanamaker returns to her role as Cassandra, the last surviving human. The funny thing is, though, Zoe actually has a lot less screen time than we realize, when we think about it after it's over.

The mind-swap/possession schtick has been done many, many times over the course of science fiction--at least half a dozen times in _Star Trek_ alone. (You could always tell when Brent Spiner was getting frustrated in his role as Data, because along would come another "Data gets possessed or otherwise just plain acts all crazy" episode to give him a chance to show off his range.) I wouldn't be surprised if it had even been done before in _Doctor Who_, as they've already done just about everything else. The thing about a good mind-swap show is, it has to make us suspend our disbelief in a rather unusual way. We have to _believe_ that this character, played by one actor, has been somehow "infected" with the soul of the other actor--and isn't just the same actor putting on a different mannerism. It's one hell of an acting challenge--and for all that people were prone to pooh-pooh Billie Piper's acting ability early on, she did a heck of a job with it here. It was easy to forget, over the course of the episode, that this was still Billie, just putting on different mannerisms--I found it easy to believe that this was the ghost of Zoe Wanamaker inside her head. David Tennant had less of a chance to show off, but he managed the trick just as well. As for the fellow who played Chip, well, I never saw him enough to know for sure, but he seemed to do a passable job for the lines he had.

It was great to see Cassandra again, even for just a little while. Like the best villains, she was painted in not entirely unsympathetic tones. Ironically, her portrayal here seemed to be almost the opposite of how she was portrayed in "The End of the World". In that episode, we saw her dedication to life, doing whatever it took to survive right down to becoming little more than a brain in a tank, as having made her inhuman--a coldly conniving rhymes-with-witch who thought little of killing off a space station full of spectators for the sake of her business interests. And yet here she was painted as much more human--looking back wistfully at the last time someone had ever called her beautiful, and being so shaken by her time in the mind of the infected zombie that even the Doctor, who had only moments before been railing at her to get out of Rose's body, reached out a sympathetic hand in spite of himself.

At the beginning of the episode, we could hate her. By the time her blackmail scheme against the cats fell through, we could love to hate her. Then by the end of the episode we found ourselves hating to love her, as she actually became for a time a sort of surrogate companion, helping the Doctor in his scheme to cure the zombies. I'm sure I wasn't the only viewer who wished she could have found another body to continue living. (Why on earth she couldn't just have had another brainless zombie body cloned for her from her own surviving tissue, I don't know.) The only thing that really struck a sour note for me about her appearance was her sudden change of heart at the end: "don't wanna die, don't wanna die, don't wanna die...oops, I'm in a body that's dying. I guess I've outlived my time and so I'll go ahead and die after all." It wasn't really believable for me that after all this time of trying to stay alive, she would suddenly decide so quickly to chuck it all. But the ending, where she gets to go back in time and die in her own arms, did provide a sort of fitting grace note to the character. And you never know, time travel being what it is, maybe we'll see her again after all. (It would have been funny if she had actually, at the last moment, left Chip's body and possessed _herself_, but that would probably have opened up too many chronologically weird and paradoxical areas.) Since this was an external intervention in Cassandra's timeline, I wonder if that would have changed Cassandra enough that she ended up as a different person? But that would be paradox, and which is why thinking too much about time-travel stories tends to give one a headache.

I have to wonder, given the Doctor's speeches about how it's Cassandra's time to die and so forth, whether he will be quite so sanguine when he comes to the end of his own final regeneration. After all, some of the Doctor's past adversaries have been Time Lords who were out of Regenerations--the Master for one, and his own accuser in the Trial of a Time Lord arc (which was in fact _himself_ at the end of his regenerations) for another. But I can't imagine the BBC wanting to let the show end for the sake of a little thing like running out of regenerations.

I have to admit to being very impressed by the makeup effects for the cat people. I've often wondered what anthropomorphic felines would look like in live action (being a bit of a furry fan), and this episode of Doctor Who shows them off very well. I'm still not sure how much of it was makeup and how much was CGI, but they looked very believable and real, not just like people wearing furry masks. I would have rather liked to see more of them than just this episode. Perhaps, like the Slythene, they might return at some future time. It would be a pity if they didn't.

The Face of Boe continues to be an enigmatic presence in the series. I wonder if he was always intended to be thus; he started out as just a big animatronic face in a tank, appeared a couple more times in the series, but now...he's still a big anamatronic face in a tank, only much more mysterious. And the third time he meets the Doctor will be the last time. Like the Doctor, he is the last of his race--and although he had been dying, the Doctor's actions in saving all those clone humans somehow revitalized him and showed him there was still more to see in the universe. So, in the end, the Doctor acted for the Face of Boe much as his own companions have done for him.

The storyline of "New Earth" moved along at a very rapid pace--perhaps too rapid. There was so much story-stuff to fit in, what with two different sets of villains, a Matrix-like chamber full of clone zombies, the return of the Face of Boe, and so on, none of the ideas really had room to get fully-fleshed out, or even necessarily properly explained. This episode might have done better as a two-parter, with more explanatory and exploratory material stuck in. The solution to the zombie problem felt a bit rushed and deus-ex-machina, not to mention a trifle silly and unscientific in its execution. And then the ending with Cassandra dying in her own arms was a perhaps a trifle over-sentimental. But in the end, that's kind of what _Doctor Who_ is all about, so I suppose I can't knock it too much.

“New Earth” requires a couple of viewings. Before moving on, I suggest that viewers looking for an objective opinion on the story are best to give the episode a repeat look. Why? Because there is a great deal going on, arguably a little too much for a 45 minute slot, but personally I would rather a Who episode brimming with ideas than the old fashioned four episode story that consists of the Doctor running back and forth up and down wobbly corridors.

“New Earth” is a tale that combines a heavy mixture of storylines and ideas. We are introduced to a future planet and society that in turn opens up a curious medical mystery. We have the welcome return of the Face Of Boe who is preparing to pass on a major secret to the Doctor. Another past character pops up in the form of Cassandra who is back from the dead plotting revenge. On top of all this, we have new humans; deep dark experiments breaking out unleashing havoc. With a rather large dabble of mind swapping to boot; it’s a busy story.

The story is the first new televised Doctor Who to be set on a different planet. The opening shots of New Earth are beautiful and the use of outside location combined with computer imagery gives the future planet a very honest and believable ambience.

The hospital is nicely designed, using a mix of studio, CGI and Cardiff architecture to create this key location. Like the planet itself, it works well. The lower levels may slap ardent fans with memories of the Nestene lair in “Rose” because, well, that’s what it is. Personally I’m okay with location reuse. As a Doctor Who fan I’m used to a lot worse and Blake’s 7 used the same area of the same quarry a good 4-5 times through the series. Veteran fans can’t grumble, the location is redressed and works well within the context of the story. In the end, that’s what is important.

The return of Cassandra is a surprisingly welcome one. Moving Cassandra away from the living skin trampoline allows the character to be reused without rehash; she isn’t just back for more of the same, she’s back to cause havoc in an entirely different way. This time Cassandra is jumping bodies in the hope of finding a new vessel for her snobbish persona. Given how well this works in context to the story, I can forgive Mr Davies for using such an old sci-fi clichй. The mind swap truly injects new life into an old character. Furthermore her reintroduction serves as a bridge the series divide for the new audiences, reminding them this is still the same show and operates as strong comic relief to a rather visually nasty story.

The mind swap also gives Billie Piper and to a lesser extent, David Tennant, something new to play with. Wisely, the mind swapping is kept mostly with Piper; the tenth Doctor needs space to expand on his own without too much mind control interference. However, when the Lady Cassandra possesses the Doctor, Tennant doesn’t shy from the chance to have some real fun.

Piper is excellent as Cassandra, and it’s nice to see her getting a chance to have some laughs. Piper has proved she can do drama on several occasions in Series One, but aside from acting as a humour foil, she never got a really proactive comic role. In “New Earth” Piper is virtually flawless. You really believe she’s Cassandra and it’s rare to see such versatility in young TV actresses, being they are so often picked for the aesthetic than broad acting ability. Once again, I must doff my hat to Miss Piper, from her shallow pop star roots she has come far.

“New Earth” has a script full of both comedy and drama that should keep the casual and ardent fan watching. The supporting cast give a solid performance, and the make-up throughout the episode is exceptional. The feline Sisters of Plenitude look super and it’s a pity that the TARDIS doesn’t actually work because a bit of time travel back to 1989 could have done wonders for the Cat People in Survival.

So let’s look at the new fangled Doctor. Not quite as show stopping as he was in “The Christmas Invasion”, Tennant’s Doctor is a little more subdued in comparison. Probably a good thing in retrospect as there is always a danger of the show being suffocated if it’s lead man hogs the spotlight. Tom Baker’s era suffered from precisely this problem in the later years of his tenure.

Nevertheless, Tennant has the chance to portray some comedy, drama and serious Doctor energy throughout the episode. His character retains those elements quintessential to the Doctor; he’s compassionate, eccentric, dynamic and heroic. As with his seventh and ninth regenerations, he has a nasty temper when people cross his ideology and he is still willing to risk his own skin if it will saves others. Certainly a more charming Doctor than the more sorrowful ninth Doctor, and not as in control as the seventh. He has the sparkle of the forth and the dashing dynamic of the fifth. He’s a good mix of what’s come before with a dab of something new. Tennant is very different to Eccleston yet unlike previous regenerations, say between Baker and Davison or Troughton and Pertwee, the character of ‘The Doctor’ feels less challenged. He’s a different man once more, yet he retains far more consistency than many of the previous transitions.

So what’s wrong with “New Earth”? First off, let’s dispel some fan criticism. In “New Earth”, there is what some people would call ‘serious plot holes’, which to me, can be translated as ‘aspects of the plot which aren’t explained because they really aren’t that important’. Strangely, we still live in a time where sci-fi shows are meant to punctuate every last aspect of the plot. People are still looking for the “What’s going on Doctor?” or “What is it Doctor?” or “What are you doing Doctor?” type of explanations. The frustrating thing is, that any fiction that creates such a futuristic Earth is all made up anyhow. Any explanations that are forthcoming are no more than technobabble, yet for some reason, fans still feel cheated without it. “How do the drug compounds work?” “How does mixing the drugs make them more potent?” “How did Cassandra move her essence from one being to another?” It all boils down to needless babble, wasteful babble and dull, dull techno babble. We are told what the drugs will do in the same way we used to be constantly told that “reversing the polarity of the neutron flow” would remove a force field. We know Cassandra can jump bodies, we also know such a feat is physically impossible, so why do we need to have it made pseudo-factual by some technowaffle? We don’t need to waste valuable story time with superfluous explanations, yet if the fans don’t get these answers they condemn the story. After years of complaints about excess technoyawn from Star Trek, I’d hoped fans would have moved on from expecting explanations at every corner - clearly not.

It’s a pity that there are such wasteful demands on the show as it’s real focus is the drama, not the sci-fi pokery. Television and it’s audience are slowly learning that no matter how much we move fiction into future or onto other planets, the drama always remains contemporary. Only be being contemporary in it’s dramatic elements can a story create the audience empathy it requires. Nowadays, science fiction dialogue and plots are trying less and less to be “out of this world” fearing sounding silly. I far rather that Cassandra and her ilk use contemporary terms like “chav”, offer dialogue with relevance to contemporary satire or play 21st century pop music than continually attempt to create new sci-fi jargon. It’s those pop culture and topical elements that help give the series a stronger rapport with a greater audience. I don’t mind people not liking this writing approach, but it’s a pity the writer gets attacked for “terrible writing” when it’s simply using a specific writing technique.

While I appreciate sci-fi does have a more natural requirement for explanation than contemporary drama, I don’t think it needs to waste valuable character and plot time explaining what makes no sense anyway. With Buffy, Battlestar Galactica and now Doctor Who moving in this direction in the sci-fi genre, fans need to move on too. It’s not just perceptions of sci-fi that are changing, it’s sci-fi as a whole. We are no longer being spoon-fed – get used to it.

That said, there are still a few glitches here. The Rose and Doctor connection is laid on a little thick for my taste. Not an objective criticism for as we all know, sexual tension sells to mainstream markets and it’s mainstream interest which justifies budget. Doctor Who exists comfortably because of mainstream support, not fan loyalty. Personally, I found the dialogue outside the TARDIS a little icky but I know I just have to like it or lump it – it has to be there for the shows continual broad success.

Also in regards to such mainstream contexts, Rose does spend an awful amount of time touching herself in front of a mirror. Certainly, this works within the context of the plot but does feel a little ‘for the dads’ and that is an element of ‘old Doctor Who’ I hoped we were moving past. Most likely this was simply a character requirement to the episode, but it did feel slightly overdone and Piper has had a large makeover for this season. I just hope there is no attempt to move Rose into sex symbol territory. Keeping mainstream interest is one thing, but I’d hate Doctor Who to lose the dignity it has created for itself.

That said, such “show concerns” from fans like myself are amusing mocked by the writer, who seems to enjoy adding references that seem there just to irritate our anal fandom. Such references to certain Doctor body parts being “hardly used” are bound to create fury by purists. Good on you Davies, keep on pushing the boundaries. Doctor Who should never be safe, no matter how much many fans would like it to remain within certain boundaries.

Another minor gripe is the music, some of which is a return to the “End Of The World” motif. It’s not bad at all, but a little heavy at times. This has always been a problem in the new series, feels it could be pushed back a bit in the mix.

On the first watch of “New Earth” I was a little dissatisfied. There is a lot going on and as such it does sometimes feel as the story is screaming for some space to expand certain scenes. The contagion’s final cure in the finale feels a little rushed. The episode made a big issue of the amount of human containers opened in the basement, yet we see only a roomful of humans cured and that doesn’t give the impression of how fast this cure must be spreading through the diseased humans. It’s not a major issue, but the episode suffers from a few similar minor quibbles that on a first viewing seem bigger than they actually are.

Overall, this was a nice journey into the future and proof the show has come far from “Rose”. It’s not perfect; it’s a little over crammed with plots and ideas which in turn do take a slight toil on the pacing, but in comparison to the old show, it’s still miles out there in terms of script, production and drama. A good watch, an even better second viewing, this is far better than some of fandom will admit to. This is good New Who and while I fear for it’s critical success, with the media looking for a time to knock down what they’ve spend a year to build up, I think the production can be proud of this entrance into the second series. Well done – ignore the old school thinking from the sci-fi community and keeping moving forwards. My grandfather always used to say things were better in the old days and now I fear, it’s turn for my generation to start declaring the same.