Not bad at all! I think this story is probably one of those episodes that will make more of an impression on the younger viewers, but from an adult point of view I enjoyed it very much too.

We were given a very intriguing and original story, which started off very well in what seems an ordinary suburban street, but then very quickly an atmosphere of uneasiness is established as you just know something is going to happen to that child! This pretitle sequence ends very chillingly with the childВ’s drawing coming to life В– real nightmare stuff for any kids watching.

David Tennant is as engaging as ever in his performance with Billie Piper as his В“LewisВ”. I assume the Doctor was associating himself with Inspector Morse?! His first scene was hilarious when he lands the Tardis so that the door wonВ’t open, but then rematerialises again in the right place. The Doctor is certainly much better at steering his ship than he used to be! Tennant also seems to be basing his performance on a dog, i.e. he licks everything (like the wall in В“Tooth and ClawВ”, he goes down on all fours to study the lawn, and stick his fingers in a jar of honey! Very dog-like behaviour, but a great part of his characterisation!

The most chilling part of the episode was undoubtedly the drawing of the dead father. When Rose first opened the wardrobe doors I was almost expecting her to walk inside only to end up in Narnia, but thankfully it was a bit more original than that! I think what made it work well was the fact that when he was В“coming down the stairsВ” towards the end we only ever saw his shadow. What you donВ’t see is always more chilling in my opinion.

It was great to hear Huw Edwards commentating for the Olympics too!

So all in all a fine tale. Nothing outstandingly brilliant and wonВ’t be a В“classicВ” for me, but it was certainly a well told and original story, which IВ’m sure kids will have been scared of.

And of course the В“next timeВ” trailerВ….. oh how I am looking forward to next week!! Those lines are there yet again though:

Q: В“What are they?В”
A: В“Cybermen!В”

I donВ’t care though as I think itВ’s gonna be fab.

Phew- a welcome return of the show known as Doctor Who after last weekВ’s strange interlude. A brief word, however, about last week: despite my disliking of Love and Monsters, I was absolutely delighted to be proved wrong about the audience figures for the episode which were actually up on the Satan Pit, and it is even better news that the figures for Fear Her are an improvement still. I shall refrain from further alarmist concerns about viewing figures therefore. As for my hasty and uncharacteristically blunt review of episode ten, I should perhaps praise RTD for provoking in me the sort of reaction that made me type what I did. But whilst accepting that the number of reviewers prepared to give the experiment the benefit of the doubt outweighed those who werenВ’t, I still cannot find it in me to change my opinion of the episode itself. I have praised RTD stories IВ’ve enjoyed and sincerely hope he will again produce the goods with the season finale, but if episode ten is the future rather than just a one-off, I would contend that the showВ’s future would be short-lived.

Fear Her, however, was something of a little gem ( or is it that I am just relieved that we are back on track after last week ) written by the man who brought us the highly enjoyable Life on Mars. This appeared to draw ( no pun intended ) on various sources, including Sapphire and Steel ( again! ) and most notably the Exorcist, where yet again we have the premise of something potentially evil lurking in suburbia, although the story is no less entertaining because of this. I didnВ’t find the collection of neighbours particularly animated or convincing but I suppose IВ’ve been slightly spoiled by the brilliant cast assembled for episodes eight and nine which made this lot suffer by comparison.

This was an episode that returned Rose to the role of the saviour of the day but this time coming as it did as an exception rather than the norm it didnВ’t irritate me or appear to undermine the credibility of the Doctor to the extent that it did in the last season because there it seemed to happen with monotonous regularity. In this story her powers of deduction, began in the IdiotВ’s Lantern before being unceremoniously cut off in their prime by the Wire, are extended and she gets a chance to do a convincing Jack Nicholson impression with a pickaxe. By all accounts she enjoyed it and it shows- perhaps the episode was named after her? I can sympathise with those who have felt her character has been treated rather unevenly this season to say the least but I felt that they got it about right for this story.

There is much to scare the children here. The kids who have become confined within the paper that Chloe has drawn them on can still show their anger at being trapped, so that their facial expressions on the paper can change; and the evil Dad lurking at the back of the wardrobe- the very stuff of nightmares. It was a nice touch to have the residual energy lingering on and still posing a danger even after the alien threat is ended by the location and subsequent charging up of its spaceship. And so Chloe and Trish, together, have to confront their fears and defeat the energy- this could have been a blunt and unsubtle В“ Doctor Who takes on domestic violenceВ” piece but instead is handled in such a way that it feels fully part of the story.

As for the Doctor conveniently stepping in and running with the Olympic torch this to my surprise didnВ’t annoy me and I actually found it quite funny, but perhaps this was because it caught me on a high of post Love and Monsters relief where usually I might have cringed.

And then the scene is set for the RTD finale, not so much because of the DoctorВ’s warning of trouble ahead, of something sinister approaching, but because of his refusal to ratify RoseВ’s assertion that nothing can split them up. В“ Never say neverВ” is all he will say. Looks like RoseВ’s dream of that shared mortgage is in jeopardy.

A welcome return to form, Fear Her scores a solid 8/10.

As fans we really can give the producers of Doctor Who a hard time. In the old days, producers got so little feedback (except ratings) that they could blithely carry on making a mess of the show (stand up John Nathan Turner) almost unfettered by fan criticism. But every now and then, you start to suspect that we've gone too far the other way. I know that lots of people hated Love and Monsters. Someone complained in the OG chat room this evening that the production team's risks had not all paid off. So what? Would you rather a bland show that DIDN'T take chances, that didn't have a go at getting outside the box. Noone complains when Joss Whedon or Chris Carter turn a show's format on its head and experiments. Who remembers Buffy's "Hush" - for my money one of the most exceptional episodes of television ever produced, or more obviously "Once more with feeling".

I write this because I can already imagine the complaints about "Fear Her". So let's get something straight: this episode was a filler, virtually a bottle show: almost entirely filmed outside on a modern estate. It can't have cost all that much to put a red light in a cupboard and get someone to shake the doors. But who cares? They've got to make some of the episodes cheaper so we can have a great finale and great episodes like the two parter set in space a few weeks back which was, for my money, phenomenal. Nobody, not Joss Whedon, not Chris Carter (stand up - Millennium!) gets it right every time. So thank God that they did something with the budget. It wasn't a great episode of Doctor Who, but it wasn't terrible. Russell's kept leaving Rose on her own this season (do you think he might be trying to tell us something?) thinking the Doctor isn't coming back. So, OK - Russell we get it.

Look, it wasn't a great episode, nor a great script. But it wasn't bad either. In fact, I was surprised at how quickly the time went when I was watching it. In fact, it was still better than New Earth, my least favourite episode of the Second Season so far. Although I'm sure that my fellow reviewers will probably slate it - I think a lot of the criticism will be unfair. This was a filler episode and I don't think anyone was pretending anything else. But who cares about "Fear Her", after the trailer for next week. It was worth sitting through tonight's episode just for the trailer!

The trailer for S1's season finale opener was pretty good, but pales into insignificance behind what I saw tonight. I wasn't planning on watching the trailer, but the moment that the Doctor Who music faded suddenly leaving behind the ethereal "Doctor" incidental theme (oooh ooh ooh oooh!) (which I LOVE, by the way - Murray Gold's music continues to get better and better) I was hooked, hooked, hooked. Rose's voice over left me breathless with excitement, fear and foreboding. I definitely saw, I definitely saw (Look away now, spoilerphobes) a dalek weapon shoot someone as clear as daylight - but whether it was from a dalek or from the Torchwood people who have stolen the technology, who knows. I'd be willing to put money on the Daleks appearing in the next two weeks. The whole thing looks fabulous, exciting and I wonder how I'm going to make it through the week. Everyone - just get over "Fear Her", you'll be panting for more RTD Doctor Who next week! I swear it!

Fast-paced, intriguing and with a suitably epic feel... But enough about the trailer for next week's Army of Ghosts, what was Fear Her like? Yes, you've got to feel sorry for writer Matthew Graham, lumbered with the dodgy episode 11 slot, forever to be known as 'the cheap filler episode before the big season-closing two-parter'. Last year it gave us Boom Town, which, I confess, was better than expected. But then I wasn't exactly expecting a lot...

But enough already - what about the episode in hand? Well... um... it was, er... all right, I guess. I don't recall hiding my eyes in embarrassment (well, perhaps just the once) or having to negotiate any unbelievably bad plot holes. But at the same time I didn't particularly find myself being drawn into (sorry) an exciting story. Possibly because there wasn't one.

After doing 'different' last week, Doctor Who tackled 'small'. An insignificant corner of a bland housing estate and only two real characters, apart from the Doctor and Rose. Nothing wrong in that. But you do need something - a bit of danger, a bit of intrigue, something to stop the viewer's mind from wandering. And the story of a small floaty alien thing possessing a lonely 12-year old girl in an attempt to meet some new friends wasn't it.

Both Abisola Agbaje as Chloe and Nina Sosanya as her mother Trish turned in good performances, unlike the actors playing the light-relief council worker and the 'pensioner who senses something's wrong', both of whom seemed to be reading their lines off cue cards, possibly for the first time. And Huw Edwards really ought to stick to (proper) newsreading.

The Doctor casually drops his 'I was a Dad once' line into conversation, which was obviously a bit of a bombshell for Rose, but not for folk that remember he used to have his granddaughter along as a travelling companion, once upon a time. Reasonably sinister use of a shadow and a red light and a voice growling 'I'm coming to hurt you' (hurrah for old school effects!) gave the story a bit of a lift, but it was a case of too little too late, really. Then there's the cringeworthy climax, with the Doctor trotting along with the Olympic Torch while Huw Edwards blurts on about love. Aw, shucks. Then the Doctor chillingly mumbles something about storms coming for no real reason, apart from to drum up some excitement for the next episode.

I'll remember New Earth for its awfulness. I'll remember The Girl in the Fireplace for its greatness. But Fear Her, which was neither, I'm liable to forget entirely. Oh well.

So, just the Army of Ghosts/Doomsday two-parter to go. Can it give the season a much-needed lift? Let's hope so. A couple of thoughts crossed my mind after watching the preview. Firstly, with Rose saying that this is the last story she'll tell (or words to that effect), maybe she won't get zapped - after all, how's she supposed to tell the story if she's dead? And secondly, that looked and sounded suspiciously like a dalek gun at one point. Is Russell T Davies going to succumb to that classic teenage fanboy fantasy and pitch the daleks against the cybermen? God, let's hope not.

"Fingers on lips!!"

A touch of 'Sapphire & Steel', a sprinkling of 'The Twilight Zone', a hint of 'Beasts'. Add my favourite David Tennant performance to date, great direction, a sparkling and quotable script, Andy Pryor,as per, doing an excellent job on the casting front...and stir.

Result? (Besides dodgy cooking allusions, that is?!) A delightful 45 minutes of television that I thoroughly enjoyed. Matthew Graham just seems to 'get' current 'Doctor Who'. Apart from the abusive (dead) father, there are no villains in this story; just a lonely alien being empathising with a lonely human child. The Doctor understands and, with a lot of help from his friend (Billie in great form...again) the day is saved again. (and he gets a cake decorated with ballbearings!!!)

Speaking of the Doctor...well, I've hardly been backward in coming forward with my praise for David Tennant, and here he gave a lovely performance, aided by great lines, sympathetic support and the ever impressive Euros Lyn. "I'm being facetious...there's no call for it." "I've got a colleague...Lewis!" "I'm not really a cat person..." "Thanks! I'm experimenting with back-combing...oh." "I'm help." And, most ominously, "Never say 'never ever'" ....all delivered with aplomb. Moments that had me cheering included the Doctor picking up and running with the olympic torch ("Feel the love"...Ahh, I'm just a hippy at heart, I think) and the and the *gorgeous" fingers on lips scene...bit of a "Go to your room" moment. If he carries on in this form, David Tennant might well become my favourite timelord, period.

Nina Sosanya and Abisola Agbaje performed well as the damaged mother and daughter, and Abdul Sallis gave a completely winning performance as Kel the council worker. He takes pride in his work! (the "council axe...council road" bit had me chuckling.)

Some 'previewers' refered to this as a low-key, "hemmed in" episode. Maybe. Maybe that's why I liked it so much. The (almost) present day settings need to be varied with more alien worlds, and I hope that will happen, but stories with this much zest and warmth I can live with! (and Season 7 is easily my favourite Pertwee season.) Childrens drawings. 'Evil' in a wardrobe. Paranoia on a normal street...it works. Aside; anyone pick up on a 'Survival' part one vibe? Especially when that darn cat appears...

No 'Next Time...' caption this week; just sombre music and a Billie voiceover. Some things about 'Army of Ghosts' have been revealed to me (Cheers, The bl**dy Observer!) but thankfully much is unknown. Can't wait...

Anal point-scoring mode...'Fear Her' gets a 9/10. I'm off to read the reviews of 'Love & Monsters' now...a quick glimpse has suggested my thinking it'd get a mixed reaction is something of an understatement!

That's why I really like this site...such diverse opinions. And no-one slags off other reviewers who might disagree with them...he says, cautiously leading up to the fact that 'Love & Monsters' has grown on him and gets 8/10, despite certain reservations.

Cybermen, Torchwood, Rose Tyler's "last tale" (no spoilers here).....Here we go.

So another Saturday night and another sub-standard filler episode of Doctor Who. Fear her? Not really. Fear RTD? Definitely! You know, a lot has been said about this TV series over the decades with its men in rubber suits, silly stories and supposed 'wobbly sets', but one thing it would be difficult to accuse this show of is a lack of respect for its audience ... until now. It's alarming to see how - from the 'Christmas Invasion' through to 'Fear her' last Saturday - Doctor Who has become horribly formulaic, dull, smug and silly. Indeed, we may look back at this entire current series in the not-too-distant future and view it as nothing more than a warm-up act for Torchwood. The stories have been high on originality, but low on substance with an increasingly hackneyed and embarrassing 'monster of the week' structure to each episode. It doesn't seem to matter who or what the monster is, why it exists, where it comes from, or what motivates it (i.e. the 'pilot fish' of the Christmas Invasion, the cat nuns, the monks and werewolf in Tooth and Claw, 'The Wire', the demon/devil in the Satan's pit, the Absorbalov and so forth. All that matters is that it's a monster and it needs to be stopped. Oops, sorry, first it needs to threaten Rose so that the Doctor can get angry and righteous and then stop it (usually with a combination of sonic screwdriver and psychic paper). Then we can end the show with some long monologues explaining what just happened and the moral lesson learned. Of course, leaving some monsters mysterious is great (as with 'The Satan Pit), but there has been a long tradition in Doctor Who of starting with a 'monster', but by the end of the story we (i.e. the audience, the Doctor and his companions) come to understand this monster as something more complex - and often something much more challenging and/or terrifying. More than this, efforts have always been made to explain, or at least make some kind of sense of monsters and events within the narrative of the story told. Indeed, it's the Doctor's ability to reason through a mystery that has been the attraction of the series for young and old since the show first began.

What seems to have happened this series is a move from having an essential 'realism' to the Who universe, to an attitude that treats the whole world in which the story is set as an ironic in-joke that RTD can share with his audience. Even the Doctor and Rose seem to exit the TARDIS each week with a smug self-knowing grin waiting for the next 'monster' (nudge-nudge-wink-wink) to appear. This kind of irony can be used to great effect, and has been used on successful shows like Buffy, The X-Files, the various Star Treks, Lost, etc. But it only works as the exception to an established and respected rule. For RTD, his ironic take on Doctor Who IS the rule and as such it makes for stories which appear silly and childish to newcomers and embarrassing and alienating to existing fans. Worse still this ironic bit of fun then jars terribly with the sudden gear shift that inevitably happens midway through each episode when the monster becomes an actual (albeit short-lived) threat - again, usually to Rose - leaving the audience to reconcile these strained and conflicting elements in a very limited and often rushed time frame. The trouble is that there isn't an adequate pay-off for audiences wanting to go through this and as a result we have seen a steady drop in audience figures and general lack of interest in the show from the media. As it did in the late eighties, the show is fast becoming thought of as 'a bit of nonsense', or a kid's show. This is made all the worse by RTD admitting as much each time he is interviewed on Doctor Who Confidential and through his scripts which create and then hinge on his worrying mix of ironic childish silliness and adult innuendo. Of course what the makers of this series are forgetting is that great children's books, films, television, you name it, weren't 'good' because they were written for children. They were just good. Also they were not as a rule ironic, simply good stories that took themselves just seriously enough for the reader/audience to do the same. Arguing that we shouldn't take some of these stories too seriously because they were written for a young audience is a tired old excuse for rubbish and badly made TV. I don't know about you lot, but this excuse as used by both the programme makers and fans alike is something the children on my planet would find insulting ... now where did I last hear that?

Last Saturday's episode 'Fear her', like 'Love and Monsters' and the 'Idiots Lantern' before it, is an all too familiar form of this 'ironic' and ultimately corrosive attitude to good science fiction and fantasy storytelling. What is far worse in this episode, however, is that for a second week fans are short-changed in another blatant attempt to save money by having a 'monster in suburbia' story in which the Doctor and Rose become hermetically sealed in a tiny and dull earthbound world in which people merrily trust them enough to tell them everything they need to know and let them roam around their houses and streets as children vanish. A world were suitably ethnically diverse homeowners wander around their dead end street like characters in a computer game, and were 'cockerney' council workers not only take great pride in tarmacing a small section of road, but are also a great means of moving the story along with their senseless exposition. This kind of sterile fantasy of Britain is fine on other BBC shows like Eastenders, Holby City, Doctors (pardon the pun) etc., but its insulting and just plain weird on a show like Doctor Who. Add to this the (god it hurts just to think of it again) torch of love crap with the Doctor running up to light the Olympic flame!

Come on people! Please God, look at what I've just written - the Doctor carried the Olympic torch to the sound of a faux BBC commentary talking about love and unity!! As fans we've got to stop being apologists for RTD and start opening our eyes to what is going on. Our favourite TV show is being hijacked by a glossy, morally hygienic, and ultimately hollow British Broadcasting Corporation vision of England and Doctor Who. It's an insidious form of propaganda and we're the ones cheering it along for fear that if we don't then our favourite show will get cancelled! Yet with every uncritical and apologetic review we as fans are giving RTD and co. an even more powerful warrant to make this kind of nonsense and then to abandon the show (and its spin offs) when the BBC and all concerned have made enough money. If we are happy to sit and accept this kind of ironic simplistic rubbish as a good example of British television (let alone science fiction) then we deserve the show to be cancelled after Series 3 - which is undoubtedly what the BBC will do if viewing figures continue to drop (World Cup or no World Cup). One final thought, this series (like the previous one) is obsessed with 'those that get left behind'. Is it just me, or have we spent so much time in the company of these people that it is now us, the Doctor and Rose that are getting left behind? Left behind whilst the rest of the potential Who universe of time and space is left unexplored, as well as increasingly left behind more exciting and challenging imported TV shows.