The wait is over, the Doctor is back, and, erm, the season seems to have opened with a pantomime. The 45 minute format should be a canvas for creating richer stories than the 25 minute format of yore, with greater emphasis on characters and their plight, not an excuse to fill the show with bad jokes and improbable set pieces. I was looking forward to having my fears about David Tennant proved wrong, but after watching him gurn, shout and simper for the duration of the episode, I'm still to like him at all as the Doctor. Every single previous Doctor has been played with some weight, a distinct feeling that this character is ancient and that behind his humourous nature there lies a huge alien intelligence. Instead, here we get him saying 'I've still got it' when Rose/Cassandra kisses him, and generally being a bit damp for the whole episode (and not just during the disinfectant shower). Once he settles into the part and decides on a coherent portrayal I'm sure he'll be many people's favourite Doc, but for now, to me at least, he's David Tennant playing dress-up.

Thematically this episode not so much borrows as steals outright from other sources. It's a shame that Doctor Who, of all shows, is reduced to stealing ideas from lesser programmes. I spotted elements of Farscape, The Matrix, Star Trek and The Outer Limits that had been lifted outright. Suspending disbelief was a chore throughout, with dodgy CG vehicles, worryingly contemporary sets and garb, and something of a cop-out ending. RTD is a wonderful ideas man, and has brought the Doctor back in such a way that a current audience will accept him, but after the superb Christmas Invasion, New Earth is an enormous let down. The episode has already instantly dated thanks to the use of the term 'Chav'.

Its one saving grace, for me at least, is the gorgeous Billie Piper. What a girl! She handled the hackneyed possession subplot and cringe-inducing dialogue really well, and no doubt made Dads up and down the country grin while 'examining' herself when possessed by Cassandra.

Actually, it did have another saving grace, and that was the onscreen appearence of Zoe Wanamaker as the human form of Cassandra. I was very impressed with the final scene, not just her performance, which was spot on, but also the scripting of the scene; the kind of scene where RTD really shines. This pleased me immensely.

Maybe I am being a little harsh about the episode. No doubt kids loved it, and I am ecstatic that the BBC and the crew have put so much blood, sweat and tears into making the Doctor an icon all over again, its just that they can do so much better than this. SO much better. They have some of the finest talent in the world, and this is their chance to show those damn Americans how to make original science fiction. They did it it the last series, here's hoping that this one improves rapidly.

However... The teaser for next week's episode looks utterly brilliant (not to mention the looped trailer on BBCi- the rest of the series looks superb). Here's hoping.

New Earth- 4/10 for the story, 10/10 for Billie.

Interesting to note the tendency of some Who fans to contract Russell T. Davies' name to RTD, forging an unconscious connection with his somewhat inferior predecessor, arch-murderer of a once-great series. The comparison is extremely limited, in my opinion. Contrast series opener 'New Earth' with its amateurish counterparts 'The Leisure Hive' or 'Battlefield' and this instantly becomes apparent (imagine - people actually used to have to live like that!)

'New Earth', even the most ardent Davies acolyte must be forced to admit, has numerous unfortunate flaws, but it is still, at a rough estimate, about a million and three times better than anything ever written or conceived by Turner, Bidmead, Saward and Cartmel combined during the woeful 1980s. The script positively crackles with relentlessly clever wit, and strains throughout under the weight of an entire series' worth of highly original and inventive ideas.

Davies is a risk-taker, confining the Doctor to bed for much of 'The Christmas Invasion', then wilfully disrupting further development of his relationship with Rose by having both characters alternately possessed by returning villain Cassandra for most of 'New Earth'. This proves to be a very successful device, by and large, although Billie Piper's usually-spellbinding acting strains ever so slightly in her first scene as Cassandra, particularly when expected to declare, somewhat incongruously, "I'm a chav!" (references to popular culture are far from my favourite things).

This was a very demanding departure from Rose to foist upon Piper, and illustrates Davies' justified confidence in his cast, but she generally copes with it admirably. Her interplay with David Tennant once the plague carriers have been released from their cells is one of the most entertaining aspects of the episode, with both actors turning in fine comedy performances. Indeed, all four actors who play Cassandra are to be congratulated for sustaining the character throughout the episode - a considerable achievement, if you stop and think about it. Sean Gallagher, in particular, should be praised for his genuinely moving portrayal of her eventual acceptance of death at the episode's conclusion - another risky subversion of audience expectations which, happily, paid off.

If only the same could be said for all of them. The resolution of the main plot, for example, has the pungent whiff of deus ex machina about it. It's hard enough to swallow the fact that ten or so plague carriers can be cured by spraying them liberally with food colouring, let alone that they can then pass this cure on to their fellow-sufferers with their hands, assisted by a special effect bussed in from 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'. The reason this is a ridiculous bit of pilfering on Davies' part is that the Holy Grail is, at least, holy, and therefore likely to be able to cure grievous illnesses at a stroke, whereas the cat-sisters' solutions are anything but, and should surely at the very least have had to be administered intravenously (although this would, admittedly, have taken considerably longer and been far less exciting).

Come to think of it, the sight of David Tennant at the heart of this, hugging awe-struck clones, grinning widely and shouting joyful platitudes such as "life will out!" was ever so slightly embarrassing. His inaugural performance proper as the Doctor is generally highly promising, but here he is more Messiah than Time Lord. This is a comparison that Davies seems to be making more and more as the series progresses: this is a Doctor who cures people by seemingly miraculous means; he is referred to in connection with the Face of Boe as "the lonely god"; the words Bad Wolf and their appearance through space and time are related by the Dalek Emperor to "the truth of God", and Rose's Time Vortex-charged alter-ego also seems to have something of the divine about her. It's an interesting theme to be exploring, however tentatively, although it is perhaps worryingly reminiscent of the fabled Cartmel Masterplan.

Any other complaints are comparatively trivial, although the CGI effect for the infection of various characters and extras by the plague carriers is poor enough to be worthy of mention. It has to be asked whether it was necessary to show this on screen, especially given that the actors quite obviously had to stand very still in the shot in order for the effect to be inserted. One lesson Davies should learn well from the legacy of the classic series is that genuinely unsettling effects can be created entirely through the power of suggestion.

After seeing 'New Earth' for the first time, I have to confess I felt slightly dejected, because it was just so different from what I was expecting, but repeated viewings have convinced me that this is actually a good thing! Risk-taking makes for exciting television, and all of the flaws evident in this episode can be generously forgiven on account of the fact that, as a non-Who fan I know put it to me over the weekend, it was still better than practically anything else broadcast on terrestrial television so far this year. And, to conclude somewhat triumphantly, and with a frisson of cliche, roll on 'Tooth and Claw'!

A good, solid start to the season – not spectacular, and not as good as The End of the World, but then again sequels never do live up to the original. There was a lot of fun to be had, however, and Tennant and Piper were both on top form. Tennant can do flippancy and anger very well, and although comparisons to Tom Baker are often thrown around casually they do seem to be bearing out, albeit with the Tenth Doctor being rather more human and less aloof than the Fourth. Piper’s moments as Cassandra excelled, and she didn’t put a foot wrong throughout the entire episode whether she was being Rose or her possessor. The kiss scene – well, that was a throwaway bit of fun, although the Doctor’s reaction was intriguing – “still got it”, eh?

The central idea of the plot was interesting, but I’m not sure it was brilliantly executed. I didn’t take to the lumbering zombie-type patients, but some of the hospital stuff was very good, particularly the cat nuns, who looked absolutely stunning, a wonderful prosthetic and make-up job that has to rank as one of the best we have seen in all of the new series episodes so far. The characterisation of the nurses was also well done, in that you could see why desperation to cope with all of the diseases they had to deal with had led them to this point. It’s not a new idea, by any means – something similar was even done using clone humans for vampire food in Jon Blum and Kate Orman’s Who novel Vampire Science – but it was quite chilling. Having said that, the fact that the plague clones seemed to have been able to learn to walk and talk and think purely through a kind of process of osmosis was far too convenient for my liking, a bit of a shortcut to enable us to feel more sympathetic towards them, perhaps.

Speaking of plot devices being a little too convenient for the plot’s own good, all the body-swapping all seemed a little too easily done. Cassandra needs a massive great machine to get into Rose the first time, but then after that she can just spit herself into and out of anybody in the immediate vicinity at will? I realise that we’re not really supposed to question these things too closely, and it did of course make for the hugely entertaining shenanigans of having Piper and Tenannt playing Cassandra, but think there could have been a better way to do it.

Although it was a shame Zoe Wannamaker didn’t actually feature more she was very good, as previously, at getting across Cassandra’s character without having an actual physical presence, although of course this time we did get to see her in the flesh at an earlier period where she seems rather more sympathetic. The rest of the cast didn’t really have very much to do, with the exception of Sean Gallagher as Chip, who I thought came across very well indeed. He too had to play Cassandra eventually, and his touching little moment when she/he/it goes back in time at the end and meets her former self was very well played, although you have to wonder if giving Cassandra a heart back at that moment changes her future actions in any way, and if so would her previous actions in terms of what we’ve seen in the series still have happened? She’d already mentioned the occasion as being the last one upon which she’d been told she was beautiful, but she remembered that before she’d actually gone back and done it.

Definitely best not to think about that one too hard!

Enigma and mystery has always been one of my favourite parts of the show, so having the Face of Boe suddenly decide to get better and not impart his message after all was a nice little teaser. Irritating for the Doctor, of course, but we’ll find out eventually – Davies said a while back in DWM that when he was told of the series three commission he immediately moved one line from this episode to the beginning of series three, and it has to be this one, surely?

Visually, the episode only fell down for me a couple of times – the first lift shot looked a little old-fashioned for the year five billion and seemed to have been taken from Rose, and I could have sworn that the gantry in the intensive care unit was the same paper mill location as the Nestene Lair from that episode, or at least looked very similar to it indeed. (A listen to the commentary download confirms that it was indeed the same location). But then again, I don’t suppose it really matters, and only sad fans like us would notice such things!

Aside from that, it was stunning – the futuristic cityscape laid across the Gower Peninsula, and particularly the massed ranks of the intensive care pods showed The Mill at their very finest. Davies seems to enjoy setting them challenges and they always manage to rise to them, and with that opening scene on New Earth with its wonderful landscape you can see why they wanted to open the second series with this.

Last year the theme of the year five billion plus was everything has its time and everything dies. Now, in the wake of New Who’s great success, the caveat seems to have been added that sometimes, these endings aren’t quite as set in stone as they might previously have appeared.

Hardly an intriguing title or indeed concept, New Earth for me committed the ultimate sin of being very boring. I actually left the room to make a cup of tea about half way through it (I tend to get itchy feet during most RTD stories), round about when the Doctor's confronting one of the Sisters of Plenitude outside the human guinea-pig banks. And I lost all my interest a bit later on (despite the revivification of my cup of tea) after the cringe-inducing scene in which the Doctor is possessed by Cassandra, contorting his gangly frame in a very Kenneth Williams-esque moment – I’d half expected an ‘Oh Matron!’ to ring out from a pair of flaring nostrils. Given the camp hospital setting replete with – inexplicably cat-faced – nurses, this might have fitted the bill. The aforementioned scenes with the alternately Cassandra-ised Rose and Doctor smacked instantly of the equally atrociously executed scenes in the abysmal McCoy debut, Time and the Rani; I hate to say it, but I’d probably still rather trawl through the latter story than New Earth which, as with the first episode of last season, Rose, does not hold up to a second viewing and will be an episode I’ll probably never view a third time. Why? Because there’s absolutely no depth to it whatsoever, and not even any vague sub-text or sense of potential hidden layers either in plot or script promised by re-viewings to give me the incentive to stare somnolently through it more than twice. Detail was the key ingredient to the classic series, even in the worst ever stories such as Nightmare of Eden or Paradise Towers, there was still always an almost tangible collage of ‘detail’, layers of it to excavate through each time one viewed the story. RTD sadly offers us pretty much none in any of his episodes bar possibly The Long Game. End of the World just about staggers up to a couple of re-viewings but not much more than that, and is poisoned by its ‘Toxic’ intrusion. Funnily enough I didn’t mind Boom Town – despite its Rent-A-Ghost/Tomorrow People-style shenanigans and utterly ridiculous plot, as in this episode alone RTD wrote some truly affecting dialogue, in the restaurant scene. The woefully unimaginative, non-juxtaposition of two TV programmes that have somehow miraculously survived for thousands of years (i.e. Big Brother and The Weakest Link) in Bad Wolf was only just rescued from the realms of inexcusable absurdity by the more imaginative interpretation of Trinnie and Suzannah, and a fairly eventful and climactic final episode in Parting of the Ways. Only in the second episode did RTD deliver anything resembling polemical satire with the new religious fanaticism of the Daleks, the best contribution he’s made yet to the development of the series.

RTD’s scriptural scatter-gun tactics produce sporadic bouts of good scripting in New Earth, particularly relating to the hospital policies discussed between the Sisterhood, but again, as in his previous offerings, he misses a golden opportunity for genuine topical satire: a comment on our new PPP Trust hospitals would have been nice, and the Doctor’s witty quandary about the lack of a ‘shop’ on the ground floor and the palatial superficiality of the hospital itself, cue Rose’s line ‘hardly the NHS’, only qualify as schoolboy level satire, but not as the genuine article. Similar opportunities were missed in The Long Game (bar a couple of vaguely satirical lines from the Nurse) especially; and any topical tags in the End of the World fell completely flat on their faces, in particular the Earth being run by the National Trust when the logical progression would have been International Trust. Oh well, not everyone can be Robert Holmes I suppose. But most people can at least be Bob Baker and Dave Martin, and RTD even falls short of their scriptural standards. He is genuinely good at dialogue when he puts his mind to it, but one gets the impression he loses interest easily, even in his own story lines.

As with The Christmas Invasion, New Earth’s visual spectacle – bar the highly unconvincing spaceship graphics and obviously superimposed hospital exterior – is not enough to keep it afloat, and the plot simply fails to inspire or even particularly interest. Nothing new is being said or done that hasn’t been said or done in a Who story before. The zombies were very reminiscent of the freeze-dried corpses in Dragonfire, a comparable story in many ways, though even more preferable I feel to New Earth’s rather sterile, gimmicky filmic schlock. This music is really grating on me now too – apart from a fairly well orchestrated, though wholly inappropriate John Barry-esque score halfway through, the rest of the irritatingly tinny music either end of the episode was tacky to the ear. The music needs more menace and atmosphere; as does the direction in general.

A new smugness is forming already between Rose and the Tenth Doctor, which simply has to be abandoned. The Doctor must take the series by the scruff of its neck from now on and dominate it. Tenant is beginning to show signs of this here and there but his sudden moralistic outbursts sit oddly on his generally laidback persona, as they did with Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor too, an incarnation best suited to the polarities of clowning or introspective brooding as typified in The Curse of Fenric, but not to the face-contorting outbursts of Battlefield and Ghost Light. Let’s hope Tenant is more carefully handled. He’s a good actor, he has charisma to an extent, but I’m still not convinced by him yet. He’s one step up in suitability from Eccleston but he still would have fallen far short of my own shortlist. Nevertheless, he has the potential to make the part his own for a memorable tenure, and could well prove a fairly distinctive Doctor in time.

From what I’ve read about the next episode, Tooth and Claw, it could very well provide the redemption as a Who writer that RTD presently needs. We’ll see…

New Earth score: 4/10

There’s an album by Roxette called “Don’t Bore Us Get To The Chorus”, and that very much sums up Russell T Davies’ “Doctor Who” – which is very much what this is, lest anyone still be in any doubt.

Admittedly, there’s little time for foreplay in 45-minute, self-contained episodes – and, to continue the metaphor, Davies has everyone’s kit off (almost literally in “New Earth”!) and down to business minutes into the episode.

One of the most-appreciable differences between the classic series and the 21st-century version is the lightning-quick pace at which the current vintage is generally delivered. And, if “New Earth” is anything to go by, Series Two is not only going to continue that trend – it’s going to be an even-faster ride.

On the story, had you read any of the previews or even paid a cursory visit to any spoiler sections, you’d have pretty much worked out what it was about and more or less how it was going to pan out.

At least the Doctor Who fan would have – I think the “average” viewer coming to the episode unfettered by too much knowledge (which is so much the best way, shame so few of us can wait) would have found the basics hugely entertaining.

A zip through to the Year Five Billion 23, a hospital run by cat nurses, an encounter with a familiar and popular enemy from the previous series, who body-swapped with both Rose and the Doctor, the revelation that the cats are in fact farming humans for medical research, a few chase scenes, and the Doctor cures the plague-ridden. “Everybody lives”, you might say – well, almost everybody . . .

Sounds great as a prйcis, and worked pretty well on screen. Having said that, I had a pre-series pecking order of the episodes I thought I’d enjoy and would fare best, and “New Earth” was quite low on it – lowest, actually.

Whether that holds true, only viewing of the next 12 episodes (none of which I have seen as I write) will tell. To equate it with an episode from last season in terms of popularity, I’d liken it most to “Rose” – erring towards style over substance, and you’d be surprised if better episodes weren’t on the way.

Yet, like “Rose”, “New Earth” was a tasty hors d’oevres.

The visuals were amazing – well up to, and I think well in excess of last year’s triumphant efforts. Loved the early scenes of New Earth, and the sheer scale of the hospital’s human “pens” was breathtaking for a TV series rather than a big-budget movie.

A huge bonus was the cameo of the Face of Boe. What an absolutely-stunning piece of visual effects that is, and well worth the return visit from last season’s “End Of The World”. Reminds me of a giant Yoda, except the voice has more - and the correct amount of - gravitas!

OK, you could argue the point about why did he feel the need to pull The Doctor all the way to the year Five Billion and 23, only to tell him . . . well, that he had something of great magnitude to tell him, but he wasn’t going to tell him after all.

Hopefully, the denouement will be fitting for a character which I’m sure originally was only a bit part, but has grown into the potential for something more substantial – both metaphorically as well as literally.

Is Boe going to be this season’s Bad Wolf? Possibly not quite – but I can’t wait for his “third” meeting with The Doctor, and it’ll be a great shame if, as he said, it is also the “last”. There is much I, for one, would like to know about Boe . . .

And what of the stars of the show? Hard to imagine anything less than excellence from David Tennant and Billie Piper, and they had loads of good moments here, courtesy of Davies, of course.

I preferred Tennant in “The Christmas Invasion” where, in retrospect, he set far too high a standard – he made a sensational debut in that, and really stole the show.

Of the big two, “New Earth” certainly belonged to Piper. Rose has grown a lot since her first meeting with The Doctor, and looked fabulous here. Piper’s portrayal of the Cassandra-possessed Rose was excellent, bringing Zoe Wanamaker’s character to life perfectly, changing her voice and mannerisms to suit.

Tennant also made a fine job of portraying the Cassandra-possessed Doctor. I’m not sure Davies would have written those scenes for Christopher Eccleston. Tennant would be the better of the two at “camp”!

Great snog between the Cassandra/Rose and the Doctor – and line of the show, “I’ve still got it”, from David Tennant. He really does deliver those plum lines!

I thought the “curing” of the disease-riddled humans by dousing one in the Five Billion equivalent of Dettol and having them “pass it on” was a quick way out rather than a particularly-clever way out.

And, the sudden acceptance of Cassandra that her time was up didn’t really reconcile with anything in the character up until that point – although it did make for a fairly-poignant ending.

I could see the logic in bringing back Cassandra as a link to the previous series and, although it was a pity the “trampoline” version didn’t have much screen time (understandable for cost reasons) she was really brought to life by Piper particularly and Tennant, based on Wanamaker’s original interpretation, of course.

All in all, “New Earth” wasn’t a classic, but a satisfactory season opener, with enough good moments to ensure it’ll be worth the odd revisit.

I believe I said last year at this time that the relatively lightweight story "Rose" was exactly what the series needed to start with, using the golden mantra of drama that goes "start small and build." I feel somewhat the same about this story, "New Earth." It's too early for a big emotional wringer sort of story like a "Father's Day" or a "Parting of the Ways," and it also sort of seems too early for a classic machinations sort of story ala "Empty Child." Instead we start with a bit of a romp, which as romps go is pretty entertaining, which is then lifted big time by some eye-popping direction and special effects work. This is the best "Doctor Who" has ever looked (bar one very glaring sore thumb of a moment I'll get to below)... up until next week anyway, and the week after that, and so on, as I have a feeling this high level is going to be maintained through the rest of the season. I might as well start there...

And my goodness those effects looked nifty. New New York and its air traffic was a spectacular outdoor vista of the sort we don't often see in TV or movie s.f. in that it looks amazing and cool and is at the same time a really great-looking place to live. Most of the time we're stuck looking at gorgeous enormous cities that look like they've forgotten how to maintain septic systems. This... wow... it looks like the sort of place saintly realtors go when they die, only much more crowded. Then we get inside the hospital and the interiors seem to match that look very well indeed, and then the Sisters of Plentitude turn up sporting what must be the best prosthetic make-up I've ever seen in anything. People who work on scifi shows that have a lot of this all seem worried about making it look good enough for the switchover to HD-TV, and based on this, "Doctor Who" shouldn't have to worry one little bit. I also very much liked the actress playing the Sister who was tending to the Face of Boe. Her voice and her performance made her character really come alive. And then on top of that there's loads and loads of extras all with boils on their faces during the plague zombie bits, and there's Cassandra again, and there's that sequence of zooming up and down the liftshaft. That all looked fantastic and at least as good as anything being done on any other show anywhere at the moment... certainly in these quantities.

The only thing about the look of the show that didn't work (which I alluded to earlier) is the scene when the Doctor and Rose/Cassandra head down into the "intensive care" area where all the zombie plague people are. It's extraordinarily obvious to me that they are reusing the same stairway in the paper mill that they used last year on "Rose" for the confrontation with the Nestene, and I can't believe they thought they could get away with it simply by painting the railings white. It completely wrenched me out of the moment and the plot. It's a gaffe in production worthy of those in the original series, and I really hope we don't see anything like this happening again. The reuse (for the second time!) of the above-the-lift footage shot for "Rose" for the lift here on New Earth should likewise be retired.

Now then... what about that story itself? Well, the best thing about it was that I couldn't spot how the Doctor was going to solve it until he did. There were all sorts of little things peppered throughout the episode that seemed to be just there for laughs or just details that filled out the world we're in, but most of these were in fact brought back at the end in the solution. Examples of this include the winch that's needed to hoist up the big fat man which gets used to get the Doctor down the lift and the disinfectant shower that's in the lifts. Cassandra's plot had this too, what with the film she's showing us at the start where she mentions the last time she was called beautiful, which turns out to have been herself doing so thanks to a lift in the TARDIS at the end. Another very good thing about the story was the medical plot with the plague zombies, and how for once, we get to hear just _why_ zombies go around trying to grab and fondle people... it's because this lot have never touched a human before in their lives and long for physical contact. That's very neat, as is the "laying on of hands" Christ-like solution to the plague which is very in keeping with an Easter weekend broadcast. The general premise of the hospital was OK too... not too original (the Big Finish audio "Project: Twilight" has a similar set-up in it), but topical. It reminded me a bit of "Terminus," only not nearly so depressing. And there were other nice little touches and details in names that Russell often drops in which I quite liked, like the Duke of Manhattan or calling Chip "Gollum" at one point, or the "NNYPD," or Cassandra's antique film projector, and especially the apple grass. Is it specially imported from Steve Jobs' front lawn? I do also like the legend surrounding the Face of Boe and how he'll tell the Doctor his secret someday... but not just yet.

The "average" thing about the story was the body-swapping stuff with Cassandra projecting her mind into Rose and the Doctor and others and possessing them. This is a very by-the-numbers s.f. cliche, which come to think of it the original series never actually did, but as these things go, it was made pretty entertaining, not so much by the writing but by the performances and impression skills of Billie Piper and David Tennant. I do wonder at Cassandra apparently being able to do this even when she's away from her equipment, and I especially wonder at how she takes over the Doctor, who is after all supposed to be able to place a barrier around his mind. He's no pushover when it comes to possession, but Cassandra's able to march in there and run him like she's Sutekh? There's also one enormous plot hole right off the bat where we're never told exactly why Chip and Cassandra were scanning the countryside with a spider-bot in the first place.... was it just on the off chance that Rose and the Doctor were going to turn up? It's a little depressing to see since it's a hole that could be so easily plugged as well.

Like I said earlier, there isn't really any big emotional journey for the Doctor and Rose (and the viewers) this week... just an average adventure for them, but that's exactly what we need in the first episode of the season before the meatier stuff comes later. And bar just a few gaffes here and there, it was a very fun adventure, and certainly wonderful to just stare at.

8 out of 10 for "New Earth" I think.