Series two is back, but after three long months of waiting for more Tenth Doctor was it worth the wait? Quite frankly I felt not.

This was a disappointing story where everything but the storyline felt right. The acting was superb, especially the leads, the visuals were of the highest quality and I have no complaints about the sound. The locations had atmosphere and you could smell the hospital reception.

Everything that went wrong with this episode fell down exactly in the same places of RTDs efforts of season one. Notably the over the top writer self-indulgence with completely irrelevant, almost fetish, investigation of some characters and the taking of unwanted side tracks with plot threads. The latter were agonising as it took time away from what could have been a far deeper and more interesting plot. The death ridden flesh stock was a fantastic idea and could have been worked well, instead they instantly turned from lifeless corpses (a psuedo realistic hard line cure) to Joe Bloggs with a slight cold seemingly just to make a happy ending. The theory of them containing every disease was interesting, yet the Doctor took twentyish cures and instantly they are fine. As for the body-swapping, we've been there and done that; the "lets swap every couple of seconds" also made it painful to watch. Cassandra was bearable in series one and should have been left there. Her desire to live was the key to the character until the plot line said otherwise.

My idea on seeing the script would have Swap Cassandra for other more interesting points, for example the cat people, who were they and why did they care so much for selected humans?

The positive's were there. David Tennant's Doctor was excellent. The portrayal of the Doctor was moody yet controlled and consistent, something even Christopher Ecclestone took a while to do. Rose took a more mature approach, and I thought Billie handled the body swap well. The latter saved the episode from complete farce.

After such a long wait I was disappointed and even felt my self reaching for the remote after half an hour. I felt myself asking if RTD and the BBC team would accept such scripts from the third party writers. I think not!

RTD has proved in the climax of season one he can write, and the historic guest writing has been superb. Hopefully, and I also believe this will be the case, things will get better and this meaningless plot was a blip. Roll on the rest of season two, I've waited long enough...

Mixed emotions about this one if IВ’m perfectly frank but the positives still far outweighed the negatives. It was a typical RTD story, crammed with ideas, imagination, fantastic dialogue, excellent characterisationВ…no complaints on any of those scores. It also had some murderously funny moments too, which for once are entirely performance driven rather than inherent in the script.

My biggest problem was with what we didnВ’t see. This felt like a much longer story squeezed into fourty-five minutes, you can literally feel the plot bursting to be free of that minute time frame and allowed to breathe. The plot isnВ’t, so the viewer isnВ’t either than the episode moves so fast you donВ’t have any time to consider anything that is going on. There is just far too many ideas here for any of them to be dealt with satisfyingly; the mind invasion, the sinister nuns, New Earth itself, CassandraВ’s return, the mutant rampageВ…any one of these concepts could have held the episode up but instead they all command your attention. What is it like to have your mind taken over in such a perverse manner? Why did the citizens of New Earth come to this particular planet? What is their culture like? How long have the Nuns been experimenting on humans? How did Cassandra end up under the hospital? What happened to the mutant population after their release from the diseases? There is so much potential here, so much to explore that this would probably have been better had it been one of the books, with their unlimited running time and chance to get inside the characters heads.

But what about everything we did getВ…

The look of the episode was fantastic as we have come to expect but to actually have the Doctor and Rose step out onto a new planet with spaceships whizzing by and a whopping great alien city in the background is marvellous and proves the show is willing to go much further this year now they have won over their audience. What with the Sycorax and now the Cat Nuns they are clearly ready to experiment with some more imaginative looking aliens too and the Nuns look painstakingly realistic, and shockingly beautiful. Add to this some stylish sets (arenВ’t they huge?), some clever visuals (such as the expanse of mutant cells) and a foot tapping (if repeated from last year) score from Murray Gold.

I can say with my hand on my heart I know I am going to absolutely adore David Tennant as the Doctor; a far more laid back and fun loving Doctor than Christopher EcclestonВ’s exciting portrayal. He creates a great deal of entertainment just being on screen, regardless of the story and director James HawkesВ’ comments that Tennant is bounding with energy in each shoot is apparent with every take. Whilst he clearly hasnВ’t forgotten his past he is far more willing to let go, with the ninth Doctor it was more like he needed to show Rose wonders to convince himself the universe is still a marvellous place but with the tenth it is like he is re-discovering that joy for himself. That great image of him lying back on the apple grass, hands behind his head, spaceships floating by, flirting like mad with RoseВ…he is clearly loving every second of his life. Which is what makes his stronger moments all the more shocking and his reaction to the Nuns mutant battery farm is astonishingly good (В“HOW MANY?В”). Unpredictable, just as he should always be. Even better is his ecstatic reaction to curing the diseased humans and brilliantly, cuddling up to one of them.

IВ’m sure there will be people out there who are horrified at the whole mind swap plot but for me this was the best part of the episode, a chance for Billie Piper to truly let her hair down and show us what she is made of. I expressed my dissatisfaction at RoseВ’s characterisation in The Christmas Invasion because she was a bit useless (I know I know that was the point but it still rankled) but here she is right back on top. Her excitement at stepping out of the TARDIS onto an alien planet is affecting and the relax atmosphere between herself and the Doctor bodes very well for the future. But surely she steals the episode with her interpretation of Cassandra (В“IВ’m a chav!В”), who ever knew Billie was capable of being such a bitch! ItВ’s brilliantly funny (especially when she snogs the DoctorВ…oo-er!) and things get even more slapstick when Cassandra dives into the Doctor allowing Tennant to really do some scenery chewing of his own. Frankly Cassandra in these two is so much fun I wanted her to stick around at the end.

Once again I am amazed at RTDВ’s skill at making something so insanely absurd extremely poignant. He pulls it off a few times here. The whole mind invasion is clearly being played for laughs until suddenly Cassandra jumps into one of the diseased and back into Rose and her description of their loneliness and desperation to be touched is real reality booster. But even more compelling is the ending, which sees Cassandra (a totally ridiculous character) travel back in time and visit herself when she was still flesh and blood and tell herself she is beautiful before dying in her own arms. It is written and performed beautifully and if IВ’m perfectly honest I found this ending more affecting than the end of Parting of the Ways. Something about the way the shallow human Cassandra suddenly realises what she is being told and her selfless attempt to save the life of somebody she has never met. Plus it is great to see Zoe Wanamaker in the flesh.

So what weВ’ve got here is a fast paced, enormously entertaining and surprising episode, leaving you feeling shortchanged only because as a two parter it could have been so much more. It is a confident and stylish opener, rich with performances and special FX and is more than enough to keep the kids happy.

Attention, especially these days, is always more heavily focused on season openers than most other episodes in a series, apart from maybe the concluding episode. After all, if the first show flops, then who’s going to watch the rest? In 2006, viewers don’t stay as loyal to a programme as they did in years gone by if it fails to live up to expectation. So, when watching the first show, the critical eye is more ready to spot possible flaws in a script, especially, it would seem, if that script is written by a certain Mr. Davies.

The episode gets off to a good start, Rose saying good-bye to her Mother and Mickey, while the Doctor fires up the TARDIS’ engines. Then they’re off, further than they’ve ever gone before, and into the titles. A nice little sequence that does well in whetting the appetite for the adventure to come.

As for the story, it’s good to see the TARDIS land the Doctor and Rose on an alien planet at last, and the effects by which this is achieved are pretty good. I can’t believe what I’ve read from some reviewers that the city of New New York, the hospital and the air cars aren’t convincing. Sure, I suppose if you watch this sequence frame by frame with a magnifying glass against the television screen, it will probably not stand up to scrutiny, and maybe it doesn’t compare to such earlier astounding effects such as the Doctor’s encounter with the Skarasen in the last episode of Terror of the Zygons, or the totally convincing planet of frighteningly realistic insects in The Web Planet, but they are pretty damned good. In fact the whole scale of the episode has moved up a notch from the last series, and the overall look is much more “Sci-Fi” than anything we saw in Christopher Eccleston’s series. Although in one scene, it’s apparent that the same location was used as for the Nestene lair in Rose. Surely some other location could have been found, or it could have been shot differently.

However, after a nice piece of reminiscing from the Doctor and Rose, they receive a summons, via the Doctor’s psychic paper, to the nearby hospital - which is where their troubles start. I’m not going to explain every detail of the plot, as there are many places on this site where you can read that, and the majority of people reading this will probably have seen the episode anyway, but as far as originality goes, the plot itself isn’t exactly new, even though, with recent events from our own hospitals concerning MRSA and the like, it does appear pretty up to date and topical. But Cat people, plague carriers, mind swaps - all have been done in Doctor Who before, although not in the same story. Here though, these elements are presented well, with the sort of originality that doesn’t make you question too much of what has gone before in the series. The story moves at a brisk pace, and never seems to lag, which isn’t difficult as add Cassandra to the mix, and you have a script that is almost heaving under the number of elements put into it. The downside of this being that, towards the middle of the story, things get a little bit manic, as not only are we presented with the threat of the escaped plague carriers, but we then have Cassandra swapping bodies left right and centre. Even though this is very humorously done, maybe we were presented with one body swap too many and the humour diffused somewhat the menace of the plague carriers.

The music of Murray Gold continues to be very good, and certainly, in parts, sounds more like a feature film score, and the beautiful, haunting piece of music for the scenes with the Face of Boe is particularly memorable (had the tune in my head all evening). I know many people are not fans of Murray Gold’s music, but it’s a far grander sound than a lot of the music from the old series. My only objection being to the tweaking of the theme tune, both beginning and end. There was nothing wrong with the theme in the last series and I believe that if something’s not broken, you don’t fix it.

As usual with Russell T Davies’ scripts, if watched on a superficial level, they appear to be full of plot holes, such as the plague carriers having speech and being able to think for themselves. But if you actually watch and listen to the dialogue, all of these issues are covered. Even the dodgy science of using intravenous solution, sprayed onto the carriers to cure them, suits the rest of the science of Doctor Who. After all, the series is about a man who can change his appearance, is 900 years old, travels time and space in a ship disguised as a telephone box and encounters monsters who, for the most part, want to take over the universe. If you accept that, then it’s slightly mad to then question other aspects of the series’ science, unless of course you decide on whether or not you’re going to like and accept a story based purely on who the writer is.

As for the supporting cast, again they rise to the challenge. The Cat nurses, while although guilty of a terrible crime against humanity, still allowed you to feel for them, because they truly believed that what they were doing was right. I really felt for the Novice as she was led away by the police at the end of the story, even though I knew I shouldn’t. And special mention must also go to Sean Gallagher as Chip, Cassandra’s loyal servant, who, having allowed his Mistress to inhabit him, meets with Cassandra as she used be, and in a beautiful piece of symmetry at the end of the episode, becomes to last person to tell her she was beautiful before dying in her arms. I had to admit, being the old softie that I am, to having a lump in my throat by this point, and was pleased to see that this series is obviously going to continue to trend that began in the last series of being more emotional.

The regulars are used well throughout this story, with Billie Piper showing that she has a good flair for humour. And what of David Tennant? Did he live up to expectations? The answer has to be yes! He manages to bring across a Doctor, who is humorous, ruthless, fun-loving and like a dog with a bone when something gets into his head “you should have a shop,” and manages to achieve all this within minutes of each other without it looking forced or unnatural. I loved Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, I think he managed to break the mould where the characterisation was concerned. But his portrayal did have one down point, and I found out what that was when I was watching New Earth for the first time - The Doctor is back! The ninth Doctor was so different, that for much of the last series, he didn’t feel like the Doctor. David Tennant does!

New Earth is basically a fun romp, a story that’s there to launch a series and to be enjoyed without being over analysed to the exclusion of all else. And in that, it succeeds.

8/10

While not a huge fan of Russell T Davies' writing, I thought that 'New Earth' was up there with the 'The Parting of the Ways', 'Rose' and 'The End of the World' as one of his slightly better offerings. It was the first time that the new series had taken the Doctor and Rose to an alien planet as opposed to London, Cardiff or a space station and it was more akin to classic Who science fiction.

This episode was also a much better vehicle for David Tennant to impress as the Tenth Doctor than the self-indulgent and rather twee 'The Christmas Invasion'. He was more of a lead actor in his own right, as opposed to his appearance at Christmas, where I just found myself missing Christopher Eccleston. Billie Piper played a slightly more confident Rose Tyler, now more of an equal companion as opposed to the wide-eyed assistant to Christopher Eccleston's slightly more paternal Doctor. We did not actually see much of Rose in this episode. Instead, Davies treated the audience to seeing Billie Piper perform her take on Zoe Wanamaker's villainess Cassandra.

The return of Cassandra was good way of linking the second series in with the first and reminding viewers that this was the same Doctor Who. While this initally seemed like a straightforward sequel to 'The End of the World', the body-swap plot made Cassandra a slightly more three-dimensional character as she came to the realisation that it was time for her to die. Davies created an enjoyable story out of the combination of the dark plot line featuring the human plague carriers and the almost farcical scenario which had Cassandra body-leaping from Rose to the Doctor and back again. The popular culture references that Davies loves to insert into his scripts and which often serve to detract from the sense of Doctor Who's other-worldiness were kept to a minumum. I know a few other reviewers have complained that Cassandra, being from five billion years in the future would not know what a chav was. However, it is established several times that she as able to draw on the feelings and memories of the person she was controlling and knew what a chav was because Rose knew. The combination of Davies' writing, the direction of James Hawes and some nifty special effects helped to create a genuine futuristic sense to the surroundings and a pervading sense of danger which culminated in the dark scene where two of the nuns casually murdered a plague carrier begging for help. But then, I suppose it wouldn't be Doctor Who if the seemingly kindly cats weren't up to something fiendish.

The return of the face of Boe seemingly set up the long-term mystery for this series, like the 'Bad Wolf' idea did for Series One. The two scenes with the face of Boe where they talked about its knowledge of the universe helped to create the sense of a great and mysterious world going on outside the hospital set and reminded us that there are forces in the expanse of space that are beyond the Doctor. I am willing to bet that the Face of Boe was going to tell the Doctor that there are other Time Lords still alive. Then again, maybe not.

This was a good opening episode for the new series, introducing Doctor Number Ten properly and bringing back some familiar faces to make the viewers feel comfortable with the new Doctor. Thankfully, Russell T Davies usually smug and pop-culture ridden writing style was kept to a minimum making this one of his better adventures.

Well the waiting is over once again and David Tennant has made his first full entry into the folklore of Doctor Who. Whereas Chris Eccleston's opening season was almost all filmed in very dark and sombre backdrops, the first thing that is obvious about season two is how colourful it is going to be. From the moment Rose stepped into the Tardis on a bright old earth day (what has happened since Christmas I wonder??) to the arrival on New Earth with its rich blue skys and apple green grass, to the white and clean interior of the hospital - this was a new brighter Doctor Who.

A typical RTD script gave a generally light feel to the story, although the scene of the plague victims was pretty well Land of the Zombies stuff and quite scary for younger viewers. The humour was well paced with superb performances from David Tennant, Billie Piper (excelling herself as always) and Zoe Wannamaker. The plot was however somewhat rushed and left no time to explore the history of this wonderful (??) new earth and its inhabitants - in fact it moved along so quickly that when the Doctor and Rose took Cassandra back to her past, there was a feeling that the Doctor had very quickly abandoned the mutants - what was to become them - how would they be educated??? Indeed the character of Cassandra was far more interesting this time round - she was not the major villain we suspected from her first outing. But how had she got to be in the hospital - how had she still got spider spies and where did they disappear too? Many unanswered questions. I suspect that the first story was intended to "break the audience in" for what appears from the clips shown to be a rollercoaster of very exciting and fast paced adventures to come.

The air of mystery came from the returning Face of Boa - he spoke of a third encounter with the Doctor when a secret will be revealed - hmm stay tuned! All in all I enjoyed this first adventure. I suspect however that the best is yet to come and I have very high hopes for next week's "Tooth and Claw" which looks set to be a classic!! Oh - and every time I see a glimspe of the Cybermen it sends a shiver down my spine. What a great 12 weeks left!!!

I'm afraid I missed the teaser, which I understand had the goodbyes with Mickey, et al... But when the Doctor and Rose stepped out of the Tardis on to New Earth, I was pleasantly surprised that the landscape they emerged into really did look as good as the publicity stills which have already been published. I like the green circle as a future sign for hospitals, as a circle is a bit like a wedding ring, signifying continuity and life, something that never ends. I could almost smell the "apple grass" on which they lay in the sun, and then thought "Oh, Oh!" as one of Lady Cassandra O'Brien Dot Delta Seventeen's pet spiders espied Rose's blond hair and scurried along closer, prompted by Cassandra herself, but controlled by her slightly unusual sidekick, "Chip" who, we eventually discover is a "forced bred clone" and "worships his mistress".

As the Doctor and Rose walked into the Hospital Reception area, it reminded me uncannily - and with all due respect to those who were there - of the inside of the World Trade Centre that we saw in the documentary 9/11, coming across with the same kind of impresion of size and space, and because this was Doctor Who, with a sense that something was going to happen; but what?

Then, came one of the great moments that in my opinion brought out one of the most wonderful "Rose Tyler" facial expressions when she saw one of the Nuns with her face uncovered, and exclaimed to the Doctor, "They're Cats!" The Cats/Nuns/Nurses by the way are absolutely beautiful, extremely well done, and completely convincing in the way they look, move, speak, the way they are attired, and it is only a shame that we couldn't have got to know them a little more; although I really loved the one who explained to the Doctor about the legend of the Face of Boe, that one day he will impart a great secret to a wanderer without a home. Didn't the Doctor's face look a picture? Then towards the end when the Face of Boe spoke to the Doctor, it looked for a moment that the secret might come out. But this is evidently still early in this story-thread, and the Face of Boe tells the Doctor that they will yet meet for "a third and last time", leaving us to wonder just what..? Hmmm...

However, there was more to come before all this, and as the Doctor was walking around the hospital coming across people with all sorts of ailments - of which he seems to have an almost routine knowledge - we begin to see what the newly regenerated Doctor is really like. Is it just me, or did he really seem like the Doctor we once saw in "Resurrection of the Daleks"? At one particular point, when the Doctor was asking about the petrifying ailment the big bloke - the Duke of Manhattan - was suffering from, I really thought that I was watching Peter Davison at his very best. But, no, this was David Tennant at his very best, or at least the very best I have seen him since "Casanova".

Now then! To Rose's "possession" by Cassandra... This was superb. This was done in a way that metaphorically "killed two birds with one stone" so to speak. As well as seeing a brilliantly executed characterisation of Cassandra inside Rose's body, with the consequent crossover of mannerisms, and the wonderful line, "I'm a chav!" we also got the opportunity to see just what else this wonderous actress Billie Piper is really capable of... And Billie, to quote straight from the Ninth Doctor, "You were fantastic, absolutely fantastic."

But we were treated to more yet; because in those scenes where Cassandra spirited herself from Rose, to the Doctor, back to Rose, and at one point to one of the pursuant diseased clones as well, we were witnesses to some truly wonderful acting by David Tennant. The Doctor's rage at Matron Catz on discovering the horrific nature and extent of their human clone "lab rats" infected with "every disease in the galaxy", telling her that there is no higher authority, that "It stops here with me," really emphasises his status as a Time Lord, indeed, as far as we know the Only Time Lord. Or is he? I guess that only RTD knows that. And his underlying "calm" when questioning the Matron as to what had happened to Rose was a deep telltale sign that the Doctor does indeed care very much about his beautiful young companion.

Cassandra herself? It was nice to see Zoe Wanamaker in the flesh so to speak. Those outside the UK may not know, but in Zoe Wanamaker we have one of those rare creatures, an actress who can do serious, and who can do comedy, indeed almost anything, and do it well. In short, Cassandra does Zoe Wanamaker great credit, and vice-versa. And she is good looking as well. I still have half a feeling that we haven't seen the last of Cassandra; and the scene where Chip, with Cassandra's "spirit" in him tells the "human" Cassandra that she is beautiful and then "dies" in her own arms was touching. The fact that the Doctor was willing to do that for Cassandra showed us his compassionate side too...

But not half as much as the scene in the lift, when the Doctor and Cassandra - still in Rose's body - empties all the sachets of different coloured medicines into the "disinfectant shower" and at great risk that it might not work, entices the despondent diseased human clones into the shower of who knows what? "PASS IT ON." Yes indeed.

The joy in the Doctors exclamations as the people, "a new sub-species" the Doctor calls them, were miraculously healed, put me in mind of the ninth Doctors joy at the mass healing of the "gas mask heads" in "The Doctor Dances". What's more it was done with great originality, without seeming to be a good idea merely repeated in a different location, which I suppose it was really.

My only criticism of this new story is that there was so much happening in forty-five minutes. This really could have been a two parter to my mind, which would have allowed us to explore a little more in terms of the "New Earth" that the Doctor and Rose were visiting, and also for some deeper character exploration which would have enhanced the story without seeming to pad anything out. I think it will take a little time to get used to tthe new Doctor, for as Rose said, he is "so different", but as Rose also said at Christmas time in the Sycorax spaceship, "good different".

I am guessing that David is sandbagging at present, and that he will put things into the role of the Doctor, at which we will yet marvel. Rose is brilliant. The Cats are beautiful, and I think - hope even - we will see them in the future. New Earth was great. So next it's off to 19th Century Scotland, Queen Victoria, and a werewolf. That I've just gotta see... Effort 9/10. Quality 10/10.