That was a nice surprise. From the preview after The Doctor Dances, this looked, to be blunt, a load of tripe. But, to come after the masterpiece that was The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances story is a hard job anyways.

The whole character piece of the Doctor was something new that has really only been looked at in the books. RTD does give real depth to his characters. This was echoed in the Rose-Mickey storyline too. We're seeing real consequences for both their actions. Consequences of the Doctor's actions was dealt with in a fleeting way in 'The Face of Evil' but this is a whole episode devoted to it. The meal between him and the Doctor was great stuff.

Captain Jack didn't have much to do in this episode, but having the three of them in the TARDIS and then seeing them at the restaurant enjoying themselves really made me feel like they'd be fun to travel with in TIME AND SPACE! But then thats why we watch isn't it? Because we all wish we were part of the TARDIS crew isn't it?

If have a few quams it would be that the whole Nuclear power station thing was tied up far too quickly - it never built up to any kind of threat. Using the rift from episode three and other 'tie-in' matters made this episode feel very patchy overall. Great scenes and good humour but patchy.

Let's hope the Daleks notch this series up again.

The rumours indicated a Slitheen presence. The previous week teaser made it crystal clear. A big spoiler there in all kinds of ways! Compared to the rest of the season (a high comparison to be sure) the Slitheen are one of the least successful aspects. There motivation is fine, rather well thought out actually, but their lumbering bouncy image, and gastric emissions were a little too embarrassing for my tastes.

But anyway, back they come В– actually back one of them comes В– in the form of Margaret Blaine (Annette Badland). The Radio Times announced it was one of the funniest episodes thus far В– so I was hoping for a sleeper hit of the year. It would also be nice to see Cardiff, which I think is a magnificent place.

I enjoyed Boom Town В– it seemed more reflective than the majority of episodes В– and we learnВ’t quite a bit more about this new Doctor and his Companion Rose. ItВ’s ironic that when the Doctor gains a new companion, it is the existing TARDIS team, and 2 recurring guest stars, that get the meat of the story. Boom Town has a story in there, something about a rift in Cardiff, and the Slitheen channelling badness through it to destroy the world В– but it is mostly a character piece of 5. I think I will go through those characters one at a time in order of importance in the episode.

Captain Jack has just joined the crew. HeВ’s looking particularly confident too in his tight T-shirt and Jeans В– the innuendoes flew pretty steadily too. I hope they donВ’t overdo this aspect of his character В– itВ’s just staying within the line for childrens TV, but only just! But I am sure Jack is more than this В– and he does help the Doctor with some technical stuff later on. He's a playful fellow, and that's nice to see.

On to the first of the recurring guest stars В– Mickey. I always preferred Jackie, but I can see the need to talk about Rose and Mickeys relationship. You feel rather sorry for Mickey, but heВ’s hardly been written affectionately throughout the series. Him and Rose talk about stuff, but itВ’s the argument that stands out. Rose has treated him badly, but the Doctor is so much more interesting В– thereВ’s no comparison.

Rose herself doesnВ’t really have her finest hour in Boom Town. She enjoys the running around with the Doctor, Jack and Mickey В– but then is forced to confront her callous treatement of Mickey. Then she leaves him when the problems start. I really like Rose, but this aspect of her character did her no favours, even though most would have run away with the Doctor.

Annette Badlands portrayal of Margaret almost stole the episode. Russell T was right, on the basis of her performance here, she did deserve more screen time. Hers was a sympathetic portrayal of an alien race. I didnВ’t quite buy her reformation, but she was doubting her whole way of life by the end. There wasnВ’t that much of the Slitheen itself, in the flesh, either В– which I was grateful for. Annette Badland produced a wonderful performance. And I find myself quite liking the Slitheen now!

The main character, as it should be, was the Doctor. I thought he was brilliant from the start of the season, but now heВ’s well and truly took his place alongside the great Doctors of the Past. They all have a place in DW History, and Eccleston (in spite of doing only 1 season) totally deserves his place on the mantle. In Boom Town he was excellent again. I loved his acceptance of the challenge that Margaret flung at him - the last meal scene. ItВ’s also nice to see him fiddling around the TARDIS control room. We spent longer there in this story than any В– and that was wonderful.

ThereВ’s also another character here, one that Russell T was keen to push forward В– Cardiff. I spent a wonderful week there once in early 2000 В– it looks even better now. Boom Town has persuaded me that a weekend visit is definitely in order.

Hardly likely to be top of the Season Poll, but good strong character based writing all the same. What Russell T has done this season has been extraordinary. HeВ’s the one on the pulse of these wonderful characters В– heВ’s the main creator В– and Boom Town shows again how wonderful this new season of Doctor Who really is. 8/10

So... here we go again... an episode that demonstrates the good, the bad and the ugly of Who 2005.

The case put by Russell T Davies (RTD from now on... although there is a strong tendency to call him RTDTour...);

"the doctor meets an old enemy...."

Ah.. yes...the Slitheen... really old enemy... haven't seen them for... oh at least six weeks... and what were they in...oh yes the travesty that was Aliens of London... did they deserve an encore? No.

And before all you RTD worshippers howl with derision... there was some merit in the portrayal here... of the lone survivor and the moral/ethical dilemma posed by the conflict with the Doctor... but doesn't that sound remarkably like 'Dalek'? - and boy was that done soooo much more effectively. And if like me you watched Confidential... you have to admit that this "character piece" (RTD's description not mine)... was built to lead up to the dinner scene... (mmm done so much better in 'Heat' RTD...) ended up being little more than an apertif to the Season finale main course...

"Oh MICKEY you're so fine....NOT?"

There has been FAR TOO MUCH exposition in regards to the characterisation of Mickey/Rose... the point of 'disrupted relationship... time travelling has it's consequences on those that are left behind... blah blah blah..." Haven't we got this already? Personally I DO NOT CARE what happens to Mickey. Exterminate him... drop him in a vat of acid... He is the most overused pointless 'accessory' character since... well Adric... and at least he died in a good episode... What next... Mickey turns gay and falls for Captain Jack? Bored already!

Oh and that's something that this episode did give me.. moments of boredom. I never thought I'd say that but I was bored by some of the proceedings... (anytime Mickey was on screen for starters)... and I sat waiting for some good bits... and anticipating the trailer for next week... now that is a new Who experience for me... so congratulations RTD you've added a new dimension to Who that as a 37 year old fan I hadn't experienced before. (And yes I do except some of the later Graeme Harper produced Baker stories were bland... and Nathan Turner did meander off into the ridiculous ditto 'The Happiness Patrol....' but I can honestly say that I was NEVER bored).

So that's some of the bad and the ugly... but wait... there was a jewel... there was a moment where I held my breath and thought there could be hope...

"BAD WOLF"

The translation moment... when Eccleston's Doctor mused on 'where the name for the project came from'... he has been paying attention... a reward for all of us who have been tuned to it's significance and then.. grin and gone. Pity. There was a real sense of foreboding built up in that brief moment... if only that could be made to permeate a full episode.

So there you have it... a poor effort. No real sense of threat... more Rose/Mickey squabbling... Captain Jack (a potentially interesting character) reduced to TARDIS engineer, with as much to do as Nyssa in Kinda, the Doctor pontificating about 'what to do with Margaret... an unwanted Slitheen sequel... a painting by numbers reference to the time rift... ludicrous time 'surf boards'... and an ending that just smacked of... we really didn't know what to do with Margaret... "She's an egg.... " An egg that shouldn't be allowed to hatch another crazy plot like this one... oh and it was in Cardiff... no Millenium stadium though....

I'm still deciding whether this is the lowpoint of the season or not... but I'm so heavily torn between Aliens of London (which did have a cool spaceship crash in it's favour).... World War Three (which I'm struggling to find a redeeming feature in)... and this that I think it might be easier to declare all three a Slitheen tragedy and be done with it... oh and did I mention fart gags... bet the 6 year olds loved that... ????

Another RTD duffer... Mr Gatiss, Shearman & Moffat... keep submitting your stories... and please can one of you write the Cyberman story for Season Two.....

And now for real trepidation and dread... the final two... reality TV pastiche... and then the Daleks... Bad Wolf next... the reveal at last... and of course it'll be RTD all over again. Please please no more RTDtour... if you want to harken back to "the mystery of the good old days..." then next week it is time to deliver!

"When I say run....RUN!"

I rather guess that the production team of "Cutting It" are glad that they allowed Annette Badland the time off to star once again as Margaret 'Slitheen' Blaine in ""Boom Town," and so am I...

This was pure genius.

When the original two Slitheen episodes (AOL/WW3) aired a few weeks ago, I didn't quite know what to make of the Slitheen race, which turned out to be not a race, but a family. This is the first new 'monster' in Doctor Who since the McCoy years, unless we count the ones in "The End of the World", and they seemed as if their creator has been watching Del Boy, Claude Greengrass, and the bunch of fellas from "Last of the Summer Wine" and somehow mixed them all up to create an extra terrestrial version, to come and blow up the world and sell it for fuel. We did not seem to learn a great deal about them, considering how many of them there were.

This time, there was just the one, and we saw deep into the Raxacoricofallapatorian psyche. (I wouldn't try saying that under the influence of anything). We learned that the Family Slitheen were sentenced to death in their absence some years ago. We are not told the nature of their crime, but are left to ponder that it was something dark if indeed it warrants a death penalty.

Margaret's 'date' with the Doctor as her final request before being transported home to her own planet was darkly humourous, and allowed us to get closer to this character than any in Russell T. Davies's episodes.

This getting closer to secondary characters was not confined to Margaret either, as we also saw quite far into the life circumstances of Cathy, the journalist who seemed very knowledgeable about the incidents which supposedly had occured to people involved in the 'Blaidd Drwg' (Bad Wolf) Nuclear power station project. And this, even though we didn't see her for long, and at least she wasn't needlessly killed off.

Margaret's being touched by Cathy's talking about her boyfriend, and her unborn child, evidently reminding her of the sadness of losing her own family in the wreckage of 10 Downing Street meant that we saw the kinder side of this particular alien, despite her obvious and original intention.

Captain Jack was brilliant when Mickey knocked on the door of the Tardis. "Who the hell are you?" reminding me somewhat of Bart Simpson. Then the banter between the Doctor and Mickey seemed very natural, and the laughing and joking in the cafe afterwards was an apt illustration that even for adventurous time travellers there are relaxing moments of 'normality.'

That however, was all to change when the Doctor saw a familiar face on the front page of the paper being read by a bloke at another table.

The Doctor's line to the male secretary, "She's climbing out of the window isn't she?" was the perfect precursor to the hilarious chase, with the communication all being done by mobile phones. (Does this make Chris Eccleston the first Doctor to use one?) Margaret's teleportation being countered by the Doctor's reversal via his sonic screwdriver, then re-established by Margaret, then the Doctor, then... et al, was a joy to watch.

As this episode was set in Cardiff, I wondered if the 'rift' closed by Eve in 1869 would come in to the story, and I wasn't wrong. It seemed logical that Margaret would want to use it for a purpose other than to just blow everyone up, and her escape attempt might have worked with the use of any other power source. But Margaret did not reckon with the Doctor, and his statement to her that "This is not just any power source. This is the Tardis, MY Tardis." was very powerful, and signalled to us that "This - Is - The - Doctor" speaking, and a signal if we needed one that Chris Eccleston has effectively established himself as THE DOCTOR in the most powerful way possible.

It remains a crying shame that we will only have him for two more episodes, as I think he could have carried on for a long time.

But what of Rose? Well, she must have been missing Mickey, because she asked him to bring her passport, which she then admitted she didn't really need. We were given lumps in our throats as they talked in depth about things, and in the middle, Mickey tells Rose that he's been seeing 'Patricia Delaney', who according to Rose, he doesn't like any way. "But you left me!" spouts Mickey in a moment of frustrated annoyance. And so, when the rift opens and the Doctor makes for the Tardis with attached 'Slitheen prisoner' in tow, Rose does the same.

This is when Margaret is 'treated' to a sight that not many have seen, the very heart of the Tardis, which even the Doctor does not know the full strength of.

When Margaret is reduced to a Raxacoricofallapatorian egg, in which she effectively has a second chance at life itself; the Doctor, Rose, and Jack work very nicely together to close the rift and allow the Tardis to complete its 'recharging'. The Doctor's "Thank you all" was a nice touch to illustrate that he, Rose, and Jack are now a team.

Rose goes off to find Mickey, although she seems to deliberately make little effort to find him, perhaps angry and confused about his revelation about Patricia Delaney. This juxtaposition of normal and not so normal lives criss-crossing in emotional turmoil leaves us with more drama to come in future episodes as Rose and Mickey wrestle with their very unusual relationship.

I could say something about Direction, effects, camera angles, lighting and so on, but I'm not really expert in these sort of things. Suffice to say that they all looked fine to me. I will say one thing about the music, and that is to all its critics, "Lay off." The music in any television drama sets the atmosphere, and is designed to accentuate whatever kind of mood is depicted in the particular scene. The reality is that this will work for some, and not for others.

I look forward to the final two episodes with wanton glee. 10/10

I was dreading В“Boom Town;В” a recycled monster and a recycled location with В‘cheap money saving episodeВ’ written all over it. In the run of things so far IВ’d say itВ’s the worst episode bar В“The Long Game,В” though even that show was good В– itВ’s just the standard of the series has been so high when an episode like В“The Long GameВ” or В“Boom TownВ” comes along itВ’s easy to be disappointed.

Though rather cheap it was, В“Boom TownВ” was a good story based on an interesting premise В– the Doctor returning to face the consequences of his actions. In true Russell T. Davies style, we also had some brilliant character moments, and although the Slitheen was being re-used from earlier in the season the story was different enough to the earlier two-parter to work well. In fact, the alien menace in the story could have been anyone; this wasnВ’t really a shock-horror scary monsters story, it was a more psychological piece.

The episode began with a lot of energy; the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack work wonderfully together. Throw Mickey into the mix and you have an even better dynamic. The scenes with Mickey and Rose, brilliantly played by both actors, gave this episode and continued to give the series as a whole that all important grounding in real life - the idea that when the Doctor whisks someone away with him in his TARDIS, there are consequences - and Mickey has arguably suffered more than anyone as a result of the Doctor taking Rose with him on his travels. The episodeВ’s end where Mickey sees Rose but turns and walks away rather than run to her was quite painful. I can only hope that we see more of Mickey, even if this was the end for his relationship with Rose.

Speaking of В‘consequences,В’ thatВ’s exactly what the Doctor came face to face with when he finds the surviving member of the Slitheen family has become Mayor of Cardiff, planning to blow up the entire city using her В‘Bad WolfВ’ power plant just to escape the Earth! Surely Earth isnВ’t that bad? Given more screen time than in her previous episodes, Annette Badland was excellent as Margaret Blaine, the Slitheen disguised as the Mayor of Cardiff. Can you believe Davies even gave her a fat-sounding name (was it something like Blon Phat Phodge?), as well as making her wobble down the road, feebly attempting to escape? She played her character on a knife-edge, maintaining the perfect balance between humour and horror. More than that, at times in the story you do almost sympathise with her, especially when she is describing the manner of her execution and how she was brought up to kill.

Of course, at the end of the day sheВ’s evil to the bone and the TARDIS degenerates her to an egg to give her a second chance. This I found interesting for two reasons; firstly, just like in В“The Doctor DancesВ” we have an episode where (barring a few murders of officials that no-one really likes) В“EVERYBODY LIVES!В” making me think the last two episodes are going to be very, very dark indeed. Secondly, and most importantly, once again itВ’s emphasised that the TARDIS is a living creature. Thinking about all these В‘Bad WolfВ’ references the Doctor and Rose have come across on their travels, they must either be pure co-incidence (as the eternally optimistic Doctor very amusingly reasoned, wearing that trademark grin) or perhaps the TARDIS knows something about this В‘Bad WolfВ’ menace and is using itВ’s telepathic circuits to influence the people around it, wherever it lands, into saying, or using, or writing or even naming a power plant В‘Bad WolfВ’ to warn the Doctor of some impending danger. Is it a person? Captain Jack В– Mr. No Memory? Is it the Daleks? I cannot wait until this Saturday to find out!

As usual, the comedy moments were frequent and highly amusing. Margaret making excuses to the reporter for all these officials who died suspiciously in her presence was particularly funny, as was the DoctorВ’s В“sheВ’s climbing out of the window isnВ’t she?В” line, as well as all that teleporting! The Doctor stealing the newspaper out of the hands of some random bloke, MargaretВ’s feeble attempts on the DoctorВ’s life in the restaurant which he resisted without blinking an eye. Brilliant stuff.

As for next weekВ’s trailer, although IВ’d heard and hoped and prayed the Daleks (noteВ… plural) would be back IВ’d given up hope once I heard that В“Bad WolfВ” would be the reality TV episode. Not being a fan of В“Big Brother,В” В“The Weakest LinkВ” and В“What Not To WearВ” I didnВ’t have high hopes for an episode which, after 11 episodes of hype, HAD to deliver and I had serious reservations that it might be too gimmicky. Now it looks like this reality TV thing is just a front (hopefully that part wonВ’t go on much longer than half an hour) and not only to we have the Dalek menace as the real threat, we have an alien planet (at last!) and an entire battle fleet of Dalek ships! В“The Daleks' Master PlanВ” for the new millenniumВ…

We live in hope!

I feel slightly guilty about slating Russell T. Davies as he's the man responsible for bringing the series back. An easy question for detractors to be asked is "would you rather the show didn't come back at all?" While I am duly grateful to him and all concerned, that doesn't mean I'm going to pretend to like what I don't.

Therefore, I now apologise to Davies for the roasting I'm about to give him.

The Davies backlash really started with Aliens Of London; we were all excited at Rose and optimistic for The End Of The World, but Aliens Of London, despite a loyal core of followers (fair enough), has had a lot of venom directed its way. I contributed to this, as I spent forty-five minutes in a permanent state of cringe, and now Davies proves that the ability to catch lightning in a bottle is not necessarily a good thing as he gives us Boom Town, one of the biggest piles of tripe I've ever seen shamefully tramp out bearing the name of Doctor Who.

Eleven episodes in and I believed myself to have a much more realistic idea of what to expect from a Russell T. Davies episode. I was predicting a characterisation-thick and plot-light episode, and that's what I got. I was also expecting an OK runabout that would kill time before the finale. I was naive.

Davies's flair for characterisation is his main weakness when writing Doctor Who; the programme has always been about plot, which in turn produces characterisation. When Davies has made his own show from scratch, like Queer As Folk, he can tailor it to meet his strengths and have it fully character-led. What he's trying to do though with Doctor Who is to impose his own style on an incompatible format, the effect of which is like watching a child stick a fish in a bucket of water and expecting it to thrive. Without plot characterisation is worthless as it has nothing to derive from: it is simply a bunch of actors blabbering to each other. It is through a solid plot that episodes like Father's Day can work as character pieces, as people have a good (and, more to the point, interesting) reason to be talking to each other. Unfortunately Boom Town has no such thing, with a hackneyed and clichéd tale of world destruction that could have come from an episode of 1960's Batman - not to mention that the central idea owes more to Mark Gatiss's imagination rather than Davies's own. The lack of plot is even less excusable since the episode features almost exclusively established characters, negating the requirement for time-consuming introductions. I know this has been discussed before, but hey, he keeps doing it, I'll keep saying it.

Another problem with leaving so little room for plot in a very limited episode length is that what plot there is seems to be condensed and force-fed to us in a couple of scenes. As such Boom Town gets off to a truly dreadful (and self-consciously camp) start with a wooden actor ranting about not building this dangerous nuclear power plant, which if nothing else is a rip-off of Chinatown. He then proudly gives us "it's almost like somebody wanted it to go wrong", which would have seemed clumsy twenty years ago. This is followed after the titles by some of the most horrendously crude exposition since The Space Pirates, with the Doctor explaining to those who've had a serious brain injury since the series started about the rift over Cardiff and what the TARDIS looks like a police box. Fair enough really, I mean it is three decades since The Unquiet Dead aired, and there's no chance of a DVD release in the near future. Oh, wait...

Things settle down a bit once our heroes meet Margaret Slitheen, but not for long. I was quite proud that I spotted the bad wolf reference all on my own (I lived with three Welsh people at university and I couldn't help but pick something up) but was then let down by having it ground into my face like half a grapefruit, possibly because it's all coming to a head next week. Once she's caught the whole thing shudders to a halt: Mickey is crowbarred into the narrative and sent off with Rose, allowing her to tell him about all the amazing alien planets we don't get to see. Meanwhile the Doctor has an intimate soiree with the Slitheen, were Davies wows us with finger darts when he should be advancing the story. All this time Captain Jack is sidelined in the TARDIS, the paper-thin episode having no room for him.

What next? The Doctor orders the cheque, perhaps because he's realised that nothing's happened yet and there's only five minutes left to tie everything up. We get to see what Jack's been doing - actually we don't, we just get to see the effect since the idea of a nuclear power station has ended up going nowhere. Then, all of a sudden, it transpires that the alien wasn't actually helpless and pitiable but was in fact bad to the bone all along (now what other episode have I seen that in?). This I hold as a big mistake as it negates the earlier fleshing-out of her character (Davies resorting to his base strategy), which at least served to make World War Three less annoying (it was never as annoying as this though). The final nail in the coffin comes as Davies resorts to the most shameless contrivance imaginable, which I wouldn't have thought was possible after The End Of The World. Yes folks, the TARDIS is alive! Well, as long as it's convenient anyway! Then the baddie looks into a bright light and disappears. That's it. That's a major spoiler, but since it's such a damp squib I don't suppose anyone who hasn't seen it would care.

There are, I should say, a few good points about the episode: the farting is cut down (if they'd left it at stomach-rumbling to begin with I might have been more forgiving towards Aliens Of London); Joe Ahearne's direction is as dependable as ever and the scene where Mickey cuts dead Rose's story of an alien world by telling her of his new girlfriend is an effective contrast between the human centre and wild spirit that makes up the show. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near enough to save the episode. As my Mum said, if she was a teacher this episode would have had "see me" written on it in red ink.

All in all then, Boom Town feels like a cheap stop-gap. With no new monsters or extravagant locations shoots it is simply a way to fill a gap in the schedule; so sad that Davies has run out of ideas after less than one series. This leads to one final question: can the Daleks save his credibility? The Daleks can be very good or painfully bad, it just depends on the writer. Oops, just answered my own question...