Expectations were high for this Victorian gothic horror written by Mark Gatiss and guest starring Simon Callow as Charles Dickens. But did it pass or were our expectations too great?

No doubt there will be obvious comparisons with The Talons of Weng Chiang so lets get them out of the way first. The Unquiet Dead certainly shares Talons' potent mix of horror, drama and comedy, as well as boasted some impressive location filming at night, Here however, a foggy sinister London is replaced by a busy, snowy and equally sinister Cardiff.

It also concentrated on creating atmosphere, tension and character and the pre-credits sequence was spine-tingling and effectively designed purely to scare the audience! The episodes slower pace did make me wonder halfway through, if some of the younger and newer viewers would be getting frustrated by the lack of action, in comparison with the first two episodes.

However, the seance scene was spooky and the joke about a "Happy Medium" was wonderful. The climactic scene in the mortuary boasted some wonderful special effects, especially the Gelth turning nasty, plus some more horror to scare the kiddies, as the corpses came to life and killed Mr Sneed.

Rose's scene with Gwyneth in the parlour were particularly well paid by the actresses concerned. Eve Myles managed to make Gwyneth a sympathetic and tragic character without being pathetic. Billie Piper's performance was similarly excellent here, successfully conveying her horror and objection to the Doctor's idea of helping the Gelth by using corpses, which was a neat little subplot and another way of broadening Rose as a proper reasoning character, rather than just a cipher. Even her kidnapping and bundling into the hearse which could be construed as being a traditional and cliched plot device was turned on its head as Rose later stands up to Mr Sneed and accuses him of wandering hands…

Simon Callow's portrayal as Charles Dickens was superb. Callow could have hammed it up for all its worth or played it for laughs. Fortunately, he gave us a very subtle and melancholy performance showing Dickens at first, as a tired old man but then after his encounter with the Doctor as someone whose outlook on life has gained new momentum.

The last scene with The Doctor telling Dickens his work lives on was very touching and well played by both actors.

Any bad bits? Well, who in their right mind would seriously ask a corpse who rises from his coffin, "Are you all right?" I certainly wouldn't and as a Funeral Director myself. In fact, I have to say that The Unquiet Dead has probably done for my profession what Terror of The Autons did for Policemen!

Cracking episode though guys… Keep it up!!

Sure, the production values were very high, and this called to mind the glories of season 14. But in terms of story and characterisation, I think 'The Unquiet Dead' was more 'The Ultimate Foe' than either 'Talons' or 'Ghost Light'.

I say this because, other than running around with a grin on his face, what did the Doctor actually DO? In terms of solving problems and dispatching enemies, he was pretty useless. It was his mistake to let the gas creatures through into our world - a flaw following from his obvious sympathy for another near-extinct species, but a misjudgement all the same, and an embarrassing one considering his earlier moralising to Rose (a 'different morality' - dangerous territory). If this is what it means to make the Doctor more sensitive and human, then it is not necessarily a good thing. Then he told Rose that he would not leave the servant girl while she was still in danger, but in fact he let her kill herself to get him out of a problem he created! (Incidentally, this reminded me of the end of Revelation of the Daleks, when the lamentable sixth Doctor is unable to resolve the situation and similarly relies on another sympathetic character to take the rap.) Also, did he lie to Rose about her being already dead?? And then it was Dickens and not the Doctor who had the idea of turning up the gas lamps to save the Doctor and Rose from dying.

I have felt with all three episodes so far that there are traces in the Doctor's character of something very dark and powerful - no doubt forged in him by his experiences of 'the war'. (I was not happy with the vindictive way in which he killed Cassandra - would any previous Doctor have done that?) This has the advantage of making him more mysterious - even to us old hands - but it comes at a high moral cost, which risks compromising the integrity of the character.

Good things: Simon Callow's performance, afore-mentioned production values, Billie Piper still good. The theme of 'its not ghosts, its (pseudo) science' was a welcome echo of earlier episodes (The Daemons etc.).

Iffy things: this script was less tight than previous ones (why the seance? why did the creatures reveal their true intentions before making sure the servant girl was not in a position to stop them?) and less playfully ironic in its self-references. Some moments just a but too 'Buffy'.

The resolution was too quick - reminiscent of the Davison two-parters. And there was a problem of scale. The gas creatures were going to take over the world, but they only seemed to threaten a handful of people in one house. I suppose the same criticism could be levelled at 'Image of the Fendahl', but then IotF had twice the time (i.e. four 25 minute episodes) in which to build up a credible threat.

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.