This show is simply magical.

Were there problems with the plot? Of course. Did it matter? Not a single bit. Ok so why did the humans have clothes? How did they know language? And there are about a billion questions about the nuns and New Earth. Still, the show is 45 mins long now and it's not going to change. More than anyone I miss the 6 part episodes where every character had a chance to shine but look at what they were able to do here! From the opening shot with flying cars and a huge New New York to gaze at, to Billie Piper steaming up the screen (and dare I say acting very well also!), to the flawless portrayal of David Tennant, this show is absolutely brilliant. It's just a wonder to watch!

I would go so far as to say that some of these plot holes and strange characterizations make it the classic Doctor Who redesigned as opposed to a brand new show with merely the Doctor Who name (which they easily could have done).

The Face of Boa is awesome! He looks cool, he gives great dialog and we will be seeing more of him! What more could you want? As for Cassandra, I admit that she was so incredibly evil and prepared to kill all aboard Satellite One that it's hard to swallow that she merely gives up. I was half hoping for her to jump into her younger self when the Doctor walked off but I feel like we had had enough of her anyway. She was good enough to visit again but not good enough to be a reoccuring character in my opinion.

Also in my opinion, this show rivals anything on television right now, plot holes or no. The effects are top notch, the acting is great, the Doctor has been recast superbly and we are in store for one hell of a ride. I can't wait for next weekend!!!

What a smacker ... and the episode was pretty darn good too!

Was it just me or did that kiss not last ages? Billie Piper playing Cassandra certainly did not miss the target, that's for sure.

Chris Eccleston must have been raging he didn't hang about for a second series and missing out on the big kiss off after all that flirting in the last series (though he did get some lip action with Captain Jack in the end!).

Watching it in his Salford home, I wonder what he made of it all.

I was very impressed. The touching start as Rose says her goodbyes before joining the Doctor was a nice and somewhat understated introduction given all the whoo-hah and hype that has surrounded the show over the past week. It was a simple and effective start.

The arrival in New, New York couldn't have been much better and I loved the wee robot spiders returning and of course, Cassandra. That was good we actually got to see Zoe Wanamaker in the episode too. What with Anthony Head and Pauline Collins still to come, the show really has attracted some A-list actors to the series - something which was impossible when the show came to an end in 1989 when Bonnie Langford and Ken Dodd were the celebs we had come to expect. How times have changed!

The lift shower scenes were terrific and funny and I loved the references to the NHS and the Doctor's concern about the lack of a shop. The Sisters of Plentitude were absolutely terrific and terrifying in equal measure judging by the Tardisode which was very scary indeed.

The true purpose behind the sister's plan was well executed and even the Face of Boe speaking was worth the wait and gives a sense of mystery in the same vein as the Bad Wolf intrigue from the last series. It might have been good if a few clues were offered but he disappeared just like the Tardis!!!

Given that the team working behind Dr Who now know they have a lead actor who will stay for the course, it is interesting to note how much the BBC are supporting the show with "Totally Doctor Who" and even reference made on the Radio 5 Live News Bulletin this morning!

One thing that did strike me after the Christmas Invasion and New Earth is that we still haven't really seen the Doctor and Rose adjusting to each other yet though they seem to get on pretty well! With the Doctor being out of action for most of the first episode while Rose was taken over by Cassandra for the majority of New Earth, it has been an interesting dynamic on Russell T Davies part and we will have to wait until Tooth and Claw to really see the relationship grow.

A very satisfying start to the new series and one which Russell T Davies can take some pride in. I thought it was good that the Doctor took Cassandra back to when she was a human and the final end. You never usually find out what happens to some of the Dr's enemies at the end of episodes but it gave something of a human touch, with overtures to "Dalek".

Tennant is very much his own man with his new uniform, sense of humour and manic personality which is shaping up to be very exciting.

Perhaps the highest complement you can pay to him is that it did not really strike you at any point that he was not the Doctor and he seamlessly fit in to the role as if it had been his all along. A very polished performance by both Tennant and Piper and something which looks positively sparkling. Who-rah!!!

The Doctor and Rose find themselves 23 years after the events in THE END OF THE WORLD on the planet New Earth. The Doctor has received a message from the Face of Boe and they travel to a hospital run by Cat Nuns where he is a patient. The Hospital seems to be able to cure everything and everyone. Meanwhile, Rose gets separated and finds herself at the mercy of the bad old trampoline herself – Cassandra, who did NOT die on Platform 5 apparently. As Cassandra implements her plan, the Doctor finds himself facing the terrible secret of the Cat Nuns and we find that there is a terrible price to making the sick well.

On the plus side, this episode is very fun and witty. The dialogue is top notch and very fun to listen to. David Tennant falls into the role of the Doctor with ease giving the character a much more energetic and manic Doctor than Eccleston gave us. Billie Piper is absolutely brilliant with what the story does to her character. It’s her best performance yet. And of course Cassandra is just a great, wonderful character and it’s good to see her back. The Special Effects are amazing and the make-up on the Cat Nuns is perfect. Or should I say purr-fect? Okay, I’ll stop.

On the negative, there are so many things going on that the plot falls by the wayside in many places. I had the same problem with this that I had with THE LONG GAME. I think the story concepts are bigger than the 45 minute time frame allows them to be. GAME had a great concept with a piece of meat controlling the populous through the news and there was a resistance to that which the never explore in depth, NEW EARTH with the concept of killing one creature so another can live, also not explored. But am I asking too much from a 45 minute episode? Maybe. At least those concepts are out and we can talk about them, which is something that the new series has that Big Finish does not have – commentary on social and societal issues. But when all is said and done, this is a really good episode. It is scary, funny and thought provoking. It’s good Doctor Who. It's good television.

It is a strange thing. I was eagerly awaiting the latest Dr Who episode, however my enthusiasm was mixed with a certain trepidation. Russell T Davies was the writer and I hadnВ’t been very impressed with his previous work. The rumours on the grapevine had further fuelled my anxiety. When I sat down to view this episode, I had no expectations of greatness.

Which is just as well. New Earth isnВ’t a bad story, it has a few good moments and Billie Piper puts in a decent performance. Sadly it shares the same flaws as itВ’s predecessor The End of the World.

The story is a collection of good ideas which are not cemented together with the glue of a good plot. I liked the idea of a hospital with secrets, it was also good to see Cassandra back. However it is marred by RTDВ’s inability to use simple logic.

The most troubling elements concern the guinea pigs in their closets. I canВ’t think of any reason why they knew language? How could they move when cooped up cells for all their lives? Why were they wearing clothes? Why not grow bodies without the thought processing parts of the brain. Surely the Sisters should have known better.

Strangest of all, why did all the В‘FleshВ’ look like lepers. If they had been infected with every known disease, IВ’d expect them to show different symptoms. Instead they looked as if they had wandered off the set of Terminus

The worst part of the story though was the way in which it was concluded. The Doctor cures the lepers by spraying them with a mixture of all cures the Sisters have gathered. Intravenous cures. That is poor science and is more suitable for the realms of fantasy.

In the far future Modern faculties still use pulley operated lifts. I suppose RTD thought that would look cool, just like the improbable fan from TEOTW.

Cassandra is a character with an iron will to live. Well until the end anyway when she has a sudden change of heart and just goes quietly. What a cop-out.

Also the scenes where she complains about Rose being a Chav are jarring. Cassandra is a lady from 5 billion years in the future, she should have no idea what a Chav is. Then she starts mangling slang once in RoseВ’s body. This highlights a problem I have with RTDВ’s scripting, which is his insistence on cramming in contempary culture into every story. Bad Wolf was a good example of this.

The whole body swapping/possession element was hackneyed. How many times has this Sci Fi staple been used now. No new twist was added to the stereotype.

The Face of Boe doesnВ’t contribute much but I think that something is being set up for later, so IВ’ll let that pass.

The acting in this story was competent, though nothing stellar was on offer. Billie Piper was effective in portraying Zoe WanamakerВ’s mannerisms, though my dislike of the Rose Tyler character prevents me from being too effusive in my praise. Zoe Wanamaker was decent as Cassandra, though I doubt it is really a role that tests her abilities.

David Tennant as the Doctor, hmmn. IВ’m still undecided. He gurns a little too much in this story and he hammed up his atheistic scenes near the end. He is pretty good when quieter though, he just needs to turn the volume down a bit.

The SFX was OK, apart from the opening scene on New Earth. The CGIВ’d flitters looked awful and totally artificial.

Murray GoldВ’s music was poor once again. His music never stops and the Bondish strains played during the dramatic scenes were very irritating.

OVERALL GRADE 5/10

A unaffecting opener, entertaining but full of holes.

I’ve read many reviews of New Earth, and while I will agree that there is much going on in the episode and it could use a few more minutes of exposition, much of the griping I see as a longing for the past format of the original series.

I say, ‘shut up and enjoy it!’ The “new” Doctor Who is all about rectifying the problems that the original series ran into beginning in the 1980s: taking itself far too seriously. While at times I wish that some of the stories had more depth, all in all they are great entertainment and have an absolutely wonderful feel to them. For the first time in Doctor Who television history one can actually relate to the characters. You can actually put yourself into the shoes of the characters and imagine what it would be like to be there, to feel and sense and be part of these adventures. Russell Davies has done a stupendous job of making Doctor Who fun again to the point where I find it hard sometimes to re-watch the original series due to the heavy-handedness and seriousness it sometimes took.

“New Earth” opponents have claimed that the story has too many ideas left unfulfilled and concepts that need more attention. Some say that the Cassandra body transfer concept needed more flushing out, or that the cat people should have been more thoroughly evolved as characters or the idea of the plague more expertly discussed. But why? That’s not the point of the story. The point of the story is that it is about renewal and humanity – with a dash of mystery as all good Doctor Who stories should be.

The story evokes the common themes of Doctor Who and the character of The Doctor: a love for life, a desire to understand and to explore. The ancillary concepts of the cat people and the virus were merely plot devices to help bring out those themes and having the Face of Boe around was to add some plausible mystery. None of this particularly bothered me as the themes came across clear as crystal and it was all great fun to watch! Great fun!

The original series would have spent the first 20 minutes explaining New Earth, the next 20 minutes with Cassandra and the body transfer, the following 20 minutes on the cat people and the disease and the final 20 minutes on the resolution. No doubt there would have been 40 minutes of unnecessary padding in that 80 minutes of television and the point of the story (renewal and love and enjoyment of life) would have become muddled in self-referential hubris and nonsense. Who needs that when a tightly written 45 minutes of fast paced action gets the message across just as clear with a very heart-warming ending where Cassandra bids goodbye to her future self in a scene one would never have expected from such a deliciously malevolent character.

New Earth is not without its flaws, but all in all, the core audience (which is not the old fanbase, but a 21st century cadre of smart young children) will find it wonderful fun with a solid message: life is important, life is beautiful and most of all, must be respected cherished and revered.

ItВ’s back!

One ridiculously long wait later, and we have the Doctor and Rose all to ourselves for the next 12 weeks. This time, however, thereВ’s nothing to prove В– only to improve upon. And therein might lie the problem.

I was hoping that Russell T Davis would give us a premiere of delightful proportions, throw us into a new adventure and new arc which would bring all of last yearВ’s fun and excitement back again. I have always admired him as writer and have previously noted that he was by far the best-qualified to bring the Doctor back. The success of the show has proven this to be true. The one issue with last seasonВ’s run, though, was that the Davis-penned episodes (or, at least, those without the built-in enjoyment of a season finale) were a little patchy at times. New Earth, then, was going to be an indication of what we could expect this year.

The verdict? Well, as ever, somewhat mixed.

Rose and the DoctorВ’s relationship, by far the strongest aspect of season 1 (or 27, blah, blah, blah), is present, correct, and just different enough to promise another year of televisual pleasure. The effects are, for the most part, even better than before and work just fine. As ever, the matte painting backgrounds were a little sketchy at times, and the plague CGI was kind of ropey, but this was balanced out by the astonishing New Earth backdrops.

The problem, then? Davis STILL has a problem meshing his excellent character work with the sci-fi adventure yarn that Doctor Who has to be. The premise, cloning beings for medical research, is a good one, with depth and resonance. ItВ’s disappointing, then, that the adventure aspect of the episode is so by-the-numbers. The Doctor is captured, but escapes rather easily, the clones are released and act like dull, plague-ridden zombies, rather superfluous characters that we care little about are endangered. It is the B-plot which is the soul of В‘New EarthВ’. The return of Cassandra is slightly naff, but makes for some great body-swapping comedy and banter (a Davis strength that even his most bitter detractors cannot possibly deny). The episodeВ’s conclusion, where Cassandra gives herself a last moment of pleasure, is bizarrely touching, and much more affecting than the one-dimensional zombies and shallow cat-nuns which had preceded it.

Davis is a self-confessed sci-fi fan and really needs to let loose with that influence, instead of rushing through bog-standard running around scenes in order to get to the next character moment. Still, itВ’s a lot stronger than В‘RoseВ’ as a start to the season.

As far as the cast go, Tennant is still settling in, but has done so a lot more quickly than Chris Ecclestone did В– it wasnВ’t until В‘DalekВ’ that I felt he was really В‘myВ’ Doctor. Tennant is almost there, though, and when completely comfortable will clearly be a wonderful Doctor. A few more opportunities to show the DoctorВ’s power will help.

Next week, Scotland, warrior monks (which IВ’m reserving judgment on until I see their role in the story В– please donВ’t be a meaningless Matrix rip-off!) and a superb-looking werewolf.

WeВ’re off В– and not a sign of a new В‘Bad WolfВ’. Although, what is the Face of BoeВ’s great secret ...