A season opener, introducing a new Doctor. The return of a camp villainess, who assumes the identity of the Doctor's companion. A story which derives from popular science headlines, but which is not remotely scientifically plausible. Ring any bells? OK, so New Earth isn't as bad as Time and the Rani, but the fact that the comparison is possible is worrying.

What a curiously unengaging first episode. If you've not yet seen it, here's my advice: forget all the hype about this season being bigger and better, turn off your critical faculties, and sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Good points first: it's visually stunning (full marks to everyone in the production and design departments), well directed, and both lead actors are clearly having a ball. Anything else? Well, here's where the reservations start creeping in. We get our first visit to an alien planet (hurray!) - but not only is it a dead ringer for Earth (I know, the title tells us that much), complete with human extras who could've wandered in off the street, but most of the story is set indoors. Mystery is piled upon mystery (who has summoned the Doctor? who is spying on Rose? what is the Face of Boe's secret? etc.) - but we're either given the answer straight away, or not given an answer at all. Either way, no tension is generated. Oh, there was one other positive (in fact, the only time for the whole 45 minutes I felt gripped) - the trailer for next week looks great.

What went wrong? Is it just that expectations were too high, and that after the marvellous 'The Christmas Invasion', anything was going to be a disappointment? I don't think so. Sadly, the fault lies in the script. First, the pre-credits sequence. Rose's mum and boyfriend say goodbye to her as she catches the train to go off to university - or may as well do for the amount of excitement or emotion in the scene. (Actually, that would have been an improvement; it would at least have made us wander what was going on.) Second problem - in their first full episode together, Rose and the new Doctor get separated very early on and spend very little time with each other. Third problem - the attempts at comedy felt forced and (to this reviewer at least) just not funny. Everything had to be heavily signposted and laid on with a trowel - what happened to lightness and wit? There are quotable lines in 'The Christmas Invasion' that still make me laugh, so RTD can do humour; but when he gets it wrong, it seems to go badly wrong. (Cassandra-as-the-Doctor dancing and Cassandra-as-Rose's false Cockney speech particularly grated).

Other reviewers have commented on aspects of the plot that just didn't make sense (e.g. mixing the various intravenous drips and curing the Flesh by spraying them with the resulting mixture, and then having them transmit this cure by touching each other). I'll mention one more: how come, if the Flesh suffer from all (human) diseases, the plague is not airborne? (Answer: having it being transmitted by physical contact enables lots of running away down corridors, and also makes the AIDS symbolism stronger. Fine; so just don't say they have all diseases, then). It was also unclear how the different elements were connected. Was it just a coincidence that Cassandra and the Face of Boe ended up in the same location again? And why re-introduce them when neither had anything to do with the Cat-Nurse-Nun plot? RTD clearly loves his creation Lady Cassandra, but I'm afraid he didn't make me care about her in the slightest. Consequently, the ending just felt flat and dull, rather than emotional. Overall, it felt like plotting by numbers, formulaic and derivative. (Which is a concern, this early in the Who revival). Is the problem that the other producers and writers are so in awe of RTD that no-one submits his scripts to the same level of scrutiny as those from other writers?

Maybe I'll revise my opinion when I've seen it again, but my first impression was that this is the weakest of the 'New Whos' to date. I'm still looking forward to next week; but let's hope that along with the spectacle (Werewolf! Queen Victoria! Matrix-style Kung-Fu Monks!), there's also some excitement, wit and engaging characters.

It's back, New Earth and New Doctor! Was it worth the wait? - God yes!

While I know there will be people out there complaining that it was another RTD script with echoes of The End Of The World, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the sinister nature of the Cat Nuns and the light hearted fun of Rose vs Cassandra, there was some subtle (and not so subtle) humour in the dialogue that I felt worked as well as the visual humour!

Billie Piper steps up another gear in her acting (is that possible?) and was fantastic while imitating Cassandra. We got to see the new Doctor show his darker side from the end of The Christmas Invasion, his speech about there being no other higher authority was chilling, this Doctor has balls! (as Cassandra pointed out when she took over his body)

David Tennant continues to grow on me apace, he draws your attention with his intense looks and cheeky smile and a brilliant balance of light and dark moods.

So what did New Earth give us?

The Doctor and Rose FINALLY on another planet, great effects with the flying ships and the futuristic buildings ... how many New's was it?? Not much relationship development between them but I expect that is to come, step forward Episode 3 I would think.

Cassandra back with a larger part in the proceedings, a contrived but satisfying end for her (note to RTD though - Margaret, Cassandra - not every character deserves such an ending)

The Face of Boe - did someone say Bad Wolf? Setting up the thread of the series in a slightly less subtle way. My only question is: in "The Long Game" he was pregnant - what happened to the child as he is now the only Boe left?

The Cat Nuns, oh how I wish they could have had more scenes! We got to see one clawed paw and that was all, surely we haven't seen the last of these feline creatures?

Overall a much stronger opener than in series 1, straight in with the action and setting an expectation that the next episodes will just get better. Having seen the 9th Doctor's relationship with Rose grow so strong last series it will be interesting to see how she adapts to the new one.

Having seen brief glimpes of the next few episodes I shall be willing the next 12 weeks to go as soon as possible .. Saturday nights are back in business!!

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...

It's a generally accepted truth that fandom usually has a problem with the current incarnation of the show. Classic examples are the DWAS's Deadly Assassin demolition, the demonisation of Graham Williams and DWB's anti-JWB hate campaign.

While there is no denying that there are differences in quality and tone between the periods mentioned above, the fact remains that when the shouting died down fans realised that they actually quite liked the period they'd just been decrying. How does that work? Because now the show was silly / violent / not on the air anymore, and they didn't like that even more.

It's another generally accepted truth that those who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Here we are in 2006, and the accepted orthodoxy is that Russell T Davis cannot write "good Doctor Who".

I have just finished watching New Earth, and I thought it was lovely. There was humour, action, some great acting, some medium-good effects and a perfectly good plot. Russell T Davis seemed to have taken heed of some of the criticisms of his plotting last year and carefully foreshadowed the things he'd need to hang turning points around - good for him.

It seemed to me that there would be plenty here to please even the grumpier sections of fandom - dingy, green-lit corridors. A Doctor who saves the day. The suggestion of a "story arc". A very "New Adventures" moment when the Doctor takes Cassandra back to meet her old self. All this and pustulent zombies too.

Yet, upon logging on to Outpost Gallifrey I find that the same old depressing sledging has started up again. Grumbling from people who think that Doctor Who should be a dark, adult show like it used to be, despite the fact that it has never been any such thing.

I would suggest that a portion of fandom isn't doing itself any favours here, and could probably do with a bit of a paradigm shift if it is going to walk proudly towards a happy future.

Firstly, Doctor Who is a children's show. Always has been, always will be. The books might have fooled a few folk into thinking that it was actually a textually dense sci-fi series with lots of intricate plotting and death and space battles and stuff - but the actual series was a bunch of ropey old nonsense with plot holes galore, that got across the line with jokes, the occasional scary set piece and a clutch of inspired performances from the leads.

So you guys making big lists of But It Just Doesn't Make Any Sense would be advised to check out Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood's excellent About Time series, and be comprehensively assured that it was ever thus.

The other problem that faces the weird mass mind of organised fandom is prejudice. It has become received wisdom in much of online fandom that "RTD's episodes are the weakest". Ideas like this have power to influence our expectations, and I genuinely think that a lot of people are sitting down to watch an RTD episode with a preconceived notion that they will not like it. With this mindest, they are more likely to nitpick than laugh, shiver or expirience all the good things.

New Earth was a great, fun piece of television. I reckon some of you know in your hearts than when Producer X is in charge in 2008 you might well dislike his vision too - if Producer X knows what he is doing, that is. Fans dislike change, and change and renewal are vital to a show's continued success - and a show that panders exclusively to its fans will die a death.

If that happens, you'll be desperately wishing you could have Doctor Who as good as New Earth every week. Why not enjoy it now? This is what Doctor Who is like in 2006, and it's wonderful.

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!!!

Looking at the early UK newspaper reviews, this hasnt been received too well...I loved it personally. Yes it was silly but what's wrong with that? It made the contrast with the sad ending to the episode so much better....

One review said that Billie Pipers cleavage would only get her so far....well, suffice to say it didnt bother me too much...It would have been nice to have a bit more Zoe Wanamaker..maybe had her voice over the Doctor's and Rose's and a trick was perhaps missed by not showing Cassandra/Rose's point of view when she changed.

As for the new Doctor, I enjoyed him immensley. David Tennant can obviously do the funny stuff but he showed that he has that steel needed for the role as well. This certainly shows with the Cat Nun scene.

I think the backlash to the hit first series has started now but not every episode is going to be emotional and upsetting a la Fathers Day or The Parting of The Ways. I think you have to have funny and sad, crying or glad as contrasts or you dont believe each of them when they come around.

You could definitely see it was a Russell T Davies script for exactly those contrasts. He walks that line of happy and sad more than any other writer on the show. Before the Anti-RTD crusade starts...just jump in the TARDIS and imagine when he leaves the show. Think about who might take his 'Dalek Emperor' role....the care and attention he brings to the show, the care and attention that he brings out in others....those will be big shoes to fill...

I think most importantly the kids will love New Earth and I'm actually going to agree with my missus for once...that Doctor Who is a kids show...as someone said the kids show that adults all adore...