There's been something missing in this first David Tennant season up until now, which was present in the Eccleston one. Last season, there was a sense of daring about the whole idea of bringing back "Doctor Who" to mainstream audiences and making them love it again. Last year they weren't content to just do original series ideas with today's money and techniques... they wisely also used some of the writing tricks and innovations that the writers of the books and the audios developed in the wilderness years, like featuring Rose's extended family and seeing the consequences of her TARDIS travelling on them, or of her going back to meet her dead father, or getting rid of Gallifrey and the consequences on the Doctor, and so on. While the majority of the stories this year have been very good, as a whole, this year has felt like just more of the same of last year... until "Love & Monsters," where Russell T. Davies has chosen to go out on a limb and do one of the "rad" styles seen in the books and the audios at least a few times every year. It's been shocking to a lot of hardcore fans, who perhaps gave up on supporting the series when it was off TV and didn't pay any attention to the books and the audios in the wilderness years, or else they would've seen innovative material like this before. Fans with a narrow focus on what they think "Doctor Who" should be (like, say, the Troughton or early Tom Baker years) and should always be are not going to enjoy this story. Fans with a more eclectic and open-minded range of tastes of the sort the Doctor himself would probably have will, I hope, agree with me and have had a lot of real fun while watching this very successful experiment.

When you think about it, it's actually not that much of an innovation; seeing the world of "Doctor Who" through the point-of-view of one of those ordinary people who get caught in the background of the Doctor's adventures. It's been done in other genre TV series, and it's really just something this TV series has never done before, and it's high time it did, if you ask me. The really clever part is in writing these formerly background characters so even-handedly and well-balanced... never making Elton seem too geeky, or else he'd just be a Clive-from-"Rose" clone and not very sympathetic to the at-large audience...never making the others in LINDA too obsessive either and in fact having them get more interested in each other than they are in the Doctor. Until our villain turns up, they're very close to being a "Doctor Who" fan club, and I'm sure the regular gatherings so many of us around the world have were Russell's starting point. It's only when the fat collector who wants to absorb the Doctor himself turns up that it stops being fun, which again is a parallel to fan groups... there's often that one who joins who ruins it for everyone else out of his own greed, when everyone else just wanted to have a good time talking about how weird it all is. Sure, he introduces you to the lost sound file of the TARDIS you've never heard before, but he's done it for his own ends, not to help you, and didn't you have a lot more fun making your own crap music (for this read "amateur fan video")? Russell's found the truth behind the best and the worst of we our communities and dramatized it in "Doctor Who" itself, and that's the really original part that I can't recall anyone doing before.

I think this was the best guest cast the series has assembled yet, which was quite important since Tennant and Piper are on a 60s-era-style almost-not-in-the-episode schedule. It's hard to pick a favorite, and the only reason I'm going to single out Shirley Henderson as Ursula Blake here is because I love her so much in the "Harry Potter" movies, and she brings much the same "strong wallflower" energy to this part here. She's fantastic. Our main protagonist and antagonists were excellent as well, them being Marc Warren as Elton and Peter Kay as Victor Kennedy and the Absorbaloff. Warren's got a sort of vulnerable intensity about his face, particularly in his eyes, and he reminds me a lot in looks of Mark Strickson (Turlough from the Davison era). So he was fun to watch, as was Kay the Absorbaloff. Again, I'm American, and Kay's act that's so well-known in the UK hasn't reached me over here, but I can see how he's so successful as a comedy actor because he's clearly a talented actor first and foremost, and knows exactly how to time and pace a scene for maximum effect. I loved watching the glances he'd throw in concert with the gestures from his cane when telling people not to touch him.

I'm also in that corner of people who love the idea of the Absorbaloff, and especially how the faces of his victims are not only visible but still active (and Ursula's complete with her glasses!). He's also a bit rubbish and easy for the Doctor to defeat, which in a comedy episode is exactly what you want, and his comeuppance is quite amusing, but also touching at the same time as LINDA unites to fight back against him.

Now, some of you undoubtedly are so attached to the Doctor and Rose that you're a bit upset that they're not in this very much. This is true, and there shouldn't ever be a steady diet of that, but this once is very interesting, and in any case their effects on the story are everywhere. Rose is present through her connection with her mum, and how she and Jackie defend each other from what they think are Elton's less-than-noble advances into their circle. Jackie had quite a bit of time, and while it started out with the typical almost sitcom-style humor from lusty Jackie, it turned 180 degrees to her genuine love for Rose after she phones, and to her protective instincts of both her and the Doctor now when she finds that photo in Elton's pocket. Again, there's touching truth hidden here behind the humor, and I should add that Camille Coduri in these sequences gave what was by far her best performance in the series to date. And I love that when Rose does finally turn up, she's so ticked with what Elton did in upsetting her mum that she has a go at him before she even acknowledges the Absorbaloff is there. And then there's the Doctor's more direct influence on Elton's life... his failure to save Elton's mum when he was a child and how that memory has been blocked out of Elton's mind, until finally the Doctor tells him all about it and we get that tear-jerking home film footage set to what I assume is another ELO song. There must be countless people like Elton who were affected by the things going on around the Doctor, and it was long past time we saw the situation through one of their eyes. But best of all was the lesson that Elton took from all of this, which is that although the Doctor's life (and life in general) is so much darker and so much madder than we're ever taught, he also thinks it's so much better than we're taught as well. I think Russell just wrote what he's going to have on his own tombstone when he wrote this line. Intellectually, I'm not at all sure I can agree with it. People who get caught up in historical events usually get literally trodden on... ask a war refugee, a tsunami victim, an amputee from a bomb attack, or Ursula-the-paving-slab at the end. Emotionally, I would really like to believe in this "isn't it exciting" philosophy again, the way I could when I was a child. Elton also tells us that "we forget because we must" and quotes Stephen King saying "salvation and damnation are the same thing," and these are my problems these days... there's too many things I can't simply forget anymore, and I can't often ignore the damnation for the salvation. But I do know this... I was smarter as a child than I am as an adult, and every great "Doctor Who" episode reminds me of that, and with every one of these that we get, it gets easier for me to listen to my smarter, younger self.

Other random observations... I love that the twin planet of Raxacorocofallipatorius is simply named Klom. I've never listened to ELO before and am now thinking I should start... Ursula-the-paving-slab is a very funny idea, so much so I'll forgive the obvious science problems. I loved the little flashbacks to the three alien invasions we've seen in the present day since "Rose," and how Elton tried to portray these as him being in on the big secret, even though most everyone in the world must have heard of at least the last two. The TARDIS sound effect truly is the most beautiful sound in the world.

I do have one small niggle with this episode which will prevent me giving it a full 10 out of 10... how did the Doctor know where to find Elton at the end? I'm sure there are many ways to explain this, but we need at least a clue as to how this happened. I will say 9.5 out of 10 for "Love & Monsters." More like this please, Russell... just plug that plot hole next time.

After the accomplished space opera of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit we come crashing back down to Earth with arguably the most self-indulgent RTD script to date: one egocentrically centred around the producerВ’s previous Who efforts (with inevitable flashbacks, or reconstructions, of scenes from Rose, Aliens of London and The Christmas Invasion; and a central plot which derives itself directly from the first episode Rose) and featuring what resembles a fat, flatulent Sil with a Bolton accent from, surprise, surprise, the twin planet of the Slitheens, the contrastingly monosyllabic Clom, courtesy of an admittedly generally straight performance from Peter Kay. Kay is reasonably believable as the villain Victor Kennedy, rising subtly above the fairly cheap quips and one-liners from RTD. What is absolutely absurd however is how once Kennedy reveals himself as an alien, Kay suddenly slips into his native Bolton accent. Well, weВ’ve had a Mancunian Timelord previously, so why not a blob from Bolton? I donВ’t think itВ’s being a snob to prefer aliens speaking in non-regional accents В– remember the stick the fans used to chuck at Stor the Sontaran in Invasion of Time for his slight London twang? And, indeed, the vaguely Glaswegian Vardans in same story? And the Canadian Cyber Leader in Revenge of the Cybermen? Not to mention the Brummie Vervoids? As far as I recall though, those were the only comparable examples to the Bolton Abzorbaloff. RTD also gifts us with the first ever alien to have its name chosen for it by the incidental characters, which further gifts us with probably the funniest moments in this fairly comedic story as Kay remarks with a hand gesture, В‘Abzorbaloff В– I like thatВ’. I suppose though this was fortunate as I was thinking prior to screening that to have a name so obviously descriptive of oneВ’s primary function would be absurd. But what we actually have in the Abzorbaloff is a comic-book alien that smacks, particularly vocally, of the Vogons from HitchhikerВ’s Guide to the Galaxy, wherein В‘itВ’ would more appropriately sit. But not in the essentially straight sci-fi of Doctor Who; well, mostly straight anyway.

The scene near the beginning in which the Doctor and Rose are chased back and forth from behind the conveniently placed walls of a corridor В– the set clearly structured purely to achieve this pantomime effect В– is utterly ludicrous and slapstick in the true Scoobie Doo vein. Literally, this is like watching a cartoon. It might be vaguely amusing if it wasnВ’t such an utter clichГ©. Other scenes which sit incongruously in the Who cannon for their sheer comedy include the shot of the Abzorbaloff hiding behind a newspaper as he burps from his latest absorptions, and the inevitable scatological moment when one of his absorbed victims says В‘you donВ’t want to knowВ’ (where she is) as the monster lifts its hefty rump to a fart sound (or has Kennedy been buying chairs from Sunshine Desserts?). But by far the most ludicrous scene in this entire story is that of the sweating, heaving Abzorbaloff chasing after Elton Pope in broad daylight В– if IВ’d just switched on at this point I would have assumed this was some repeat of The Tomorrow People or even Rent-A-Ghost. Well, almost anyway. Yes, this is a fairly well realised monster visually, though utterly comic-book in design, and the effect of the victimsВ’ faces straining out from his stomach is very well done and pretty sinister in its own way (reminding me of the Timelord faces on the tomb of Rassilon in Five Doctors), but come on, this is stuff. Yes, I know the monster was created by a kid, but that doesnВ’t mean in turn that the entire episode has to be scripted and directed as if playing to a purely juvenile audience.

Having said this however, Love and Monsters (a title uncannily like a certain Ian McKellan film) is in other ways certainly not geared towards a juvenile audience. The obvious and tedious flirtations between Jackie and Elton aside, we have as a grand finale a rather blatant allusion to fellatio at the end when, holding the face of Ursula precariously close to his crotch, Elton inevitably ejaculates (excuse pun), В‘We even have a bit of a love lifeВ’! Or is that my own murky imagination at work there? I think not. Such innuendo might be the common fodder of most modern TV programmes post 9pm, but it has absolutely no place in what is essentially an escapist family programme. The polar В– or rather, bi-polar В– swings between slapstick juvenilia and libidinous innuendos are becoming uncomfortable trademarks of RTD scripts, and betray an imagination В– or in some instances, lack of one В– which quite clearly doesnВ’t fit within the parameters of Doctor Who; is misplaced in the medium altogether. This isnВ’t to say that RTD doesnВ’t display a certain flair in snatches of sharp dialogue and a certain understanding of zeitgeist, but these assets to his writing В– hyperbolically inflated beyond rationality though they are В– are simply not suited to Doctor Who.

Love and Monsters goes some way beyond RTDВ’s previous attempts to give Doctor Who a complete face-lift beyond recognition into the Noughties: it is an episode which is the true distillation of this producerВ’s vision for the programme, one sodden in egocentrically plugged authorial self-references, an innuendo-laden, scatological comic-strip which manages just to have the edge over previous atrocities such as Aliens of London due to its unique narrative slant via the sufficiently appealing central character of Elton Pope (who, thank God, actually likes a reasonably good band too) who draws us into his obsessive little world of Doctor-spotting, shot through his home video camera. Ostensibly this unusual directorial approach works: it is refreshing to view the Doctor through the eyes of someone else, a stranger, and ironically the few brief glimpses we have of the Doctor reveal him as a more interesting and subdued enigma than the majority of this seasonВ’s episodes so far. Maybe we actually need a little less of him in a way in future; to catch him in glimpses as one often felt with the early Tom Baker performances. What I mean is, the Doctor should be on screen as much as possible, but not always so pivotally as he has been in recent episodes. Let the incidental characters take over from time to time. Love and Monsters then serves a similar function to the penultimate Sherlock Holmes episode, The Mazarin Stone, which too only featured the central actor Jeremy Brett in scenes at the beginning and the end of the episode (but due to BrettВ’s ill-health). As a one-off experiment this was an interesting idea, but was inevitably blasted out of the water of credibility by too many OTT (remember that term, once seen as synonymous with the Graham Williams and latter JNT era/s?) moments. And what on Earth were those snatches of LINDAsВ’ extra-curricular activities all about? The shot of them jamming was not only very embarrassing, but also completely and utterly superfluous to the storyline В– so why do it? Because you can? ThatВ’s not enough reason, especially within the tight confines of 45 minutes. The inevitable price of such frivolous indulgences is the lack of time to explain anything about the alien menace in question В– apparently the Abzorbaloff just wants to scoff a load of Timelord and then nick the TARDIS to plague the universe with his pointless appetites. How interesting. Nothing about how did he get to Earth or anything as mundane as that.

The sub-plot of Elton recalling the Doctor appearing in his house when he was a child was nicely woven in, with a lightning-quick explanation from the Timelord regarding the nature of the menace he came to deal with: В‘a shade escaped from the Howling HallsВ’. It would have been better perhaps to have featured more of this sub-plot, lifted though it sounds from the Sapphire and Steel train station story.

For me this episode was a pointless gap-filler, and in the main, quite embarrassing and disturbingly reminiscent of Season 24В’s comic excesses. On the conceptual and scriptural level it was evidently experimental for the Who format, which did not entirely misfire, but did serve to show that here RTD wanted to indulge himself once again, at the expense of all Who convention, but IВ’m left wondering, what for? Did this episode add anything to the legacy of Doctor Who? I donВ’t really think so. Nothing worth a third viewing anyway. This concept might have suited a Who spin-off production, but not Who itself. Love and MonstersВ’ boasts a uniqueness of approach which is not engaging or compelling enough to justify itself, due to its essential silliness and mawkish attempt at sentiment. It only just has the edge over the facile New Earth due to its unconventionality and knowing humour, but is a close runner up for worst episode this year so far.

4/10

This episode is likely to divide afficionados of Doctor Who into two very different camps. The first group may have been embarassed by this episode because of its overt humour, or infuriated by the lack of Tennant and Piper for much of the episode, (except in flashback), or bemused by the sudden change of mood between the previous two-parter and this episode. After one viewing, I was probably a member of this first group. A long-term viewer of the show (my earliest certain recollection is of Autons breaking shop windows off-camera, and I remember being almost ashamed to watch "Timelash" in my student halls TV lounge), when I spoke to my school pupils on Sunday (I work in a boarding school) I heard nothing but praise from the 16-year-olds so I watched it again with my 10-year old daughter who had gone out for a bike-ride in the middle of the first screening.

I studied the episode rather more closely and with a more open mind and found myself migrating to the second camp, a fan of this episode. My daughter, too, enjoyed it much more. Indeed I felt moved to submit this, my first ever review to Outpost Gallifrey. I should like to defend this episode on a number of grounds.

Firstly: there is room, and always has been room, for comedy in Doctor Who. Donald Cotton proved that with the Myth Makers and the Gunfighters in the '60s. Pertwee knew how to raise a laugh as demonstrated in his dressing up in "The Green Death". Tom Baker became increasingly comedic and there is broad humour in the scripting of classics such as "City of Death" (Exquisite!)

You have to be a very long-term viewer to recall a totally Doctor-free episode. As a means of resting the hard-worked regular cast, it was policy to switch attention from Doctor to Ian or Barbara or Susan. Indeed, the Hartnell era saw the only episode featuring no regulars. I didn't time Tennant's and Piper's absence from the screen but it certainly felt longer than 25 minutes. Might we still have had the ninth Doctor, had this sort of story been offered to Ecclestone (who has cited the exhausting schedule as a reason for quitting after one year).

As for the sudden lightening of the mood from the Satan Pit, I can cite many such changes of mood in drama. In West Side Story, the comedy song "Gee Officer Krupke" takes place after two characters have died at the ends of switchblades. In Jesus Christ Superstar, King Herod sings his ridiculously camp ragtime number after Christ's arrest. The point I'm making is that by changing the mood in what seems to be an inappropriate manner, the composers, and in the case of our programme, RTD, are asking us to enjoy a laugh, but then they have set us up to feel guilty at our complicity in this humour.

As for the programme itself:- Marc Warren was magnificent. We have all known nerdy fans who falsely claim to have a life beyond fandom. I will probably be lynched by fandom for this next comment, but have we found a new companion? This was an amazing parody but very true to life. Similarly the other members of "Linda" are very well delivered. Camille Coduri, as the lonely, desperate housewife, sex-starved Jackie was brilliant.

Now for Peter Kay, outrageous and threatening, camp yet sinister, in human form was again a great comedy act. As the Abzorbaloff, (and I loved the costume and the absorbing effect) I couldn't help but wonder who his role-model was. I suspect the near-nude scene was heavily inspired by Little Britain's favourite health-spa resident. I nearly expected to hear "Call me Bubbles!"

Do I have any criticisms? Well, I do feel sorry for Elton. How on earth is he to forge any meaningful relationships now that he's permanently hitched to a talking flagstone?

This must be the worst "Doctor Who" episode of all time (makes the Horns of Nimon look outstanding). Where was the Doctor? Where was the plot? The Abzorbaloff was a fantastic creation, could be one of my favourite monsters, apart from the dodgy northern accent (well done to the Blue Peter competition winner), but the rest was simply dreadful. Real "car crash television" - I couldn't stop watching this out of disbelief that it could get any worse, but it did.

The episode was reduced to cheap slapstick from the start, with the Doctor and Rose chasing around after a pantomime alien like something out of Scooby Doo. After the first Eccleston story (Rose), I always thought it was a shame that the writers didn't do more with the conspiracy theorist idea (Clive the anorak tracking the doctor's different appearances in history via the internet, etc), and it was nice to see the idea resurrected through the LINDA group. Shame this was wasted on such a rubbish "story", and some moments like the band performing ELO covers just made me cringe. Most of this episode was irrelevant to Doctor Who.

The only light relief for this viewer was Jackie Tyler's attempted seduction of Elton, though probably I should keep my own personal fantasies about older women out of this J. Even the moral background of the Doctor was undermined - given his love of humanity, he would never reduce a human being to a life as a face grafted onto a paving slab. Another ridiculous ploy just to get in a cheap knob gag. Davies should be sacked for this!

Overall, this was embarrassing filler - surely it would have been better to extend one of the other stories into a two-parter (The Girl in the Fireplace?), taking more time to build the story, as in the classic series. The quick editing and high tempo of many of the episodes in this series has left me cold, and I would much rather have some suspense and proper character development than this kind of cartoon comedy. Truly awful.

Well, what DO you say about an episode that really doesn't much feature the Doctor or Rose, and whose villain is a monster who came from a Create-A-Monster contest won by a nine-year-old?

First off, you say that it was a bit of an experiment. Not really a filler episode, per se, but not one that's really relevant to the overall storyline (such as it is), despite the Torchwood references and the deeeeep foreshadowing to something that we pretty much all know is going to happen anyway because for the second year in a row BBC couldn't keep their big yaps shut. Yeah, the Doctor and Rose kinda take a backseat in this one, but then again, how many New Adventures did this happen in? Speaking of the NAs, did anyone else notice that one of the centerpiece motiffs in this story, Elton seeing the Doctor as a young lad, was kinda sorta lifted from Damaged Goods? Yeah, thought so. Anyway. The motley crew known as LINDA. Less fan geeks than UFO abduction survivors, I reckon. The idea of a support group formed around people who've encountered the Doctor has been seen in numerous fanfics, although usually it's with former companions as its members (at least the ones I've seen). Hmm, makes ye wonder for a tick whether or not a cameo from Liz Sladen wouldn't have been too out of place, but I digress. Although that would've been something. "I saw him when I was child." "There's always this police box." Then we get Sarah Jane popping in with "Oh yeah, big as houses the thing is. Did I mention I used to shag like jackrabbits, I mean, er, TRAVEL, yeah, travel with him?" Ah well, another comedy gold moment missed. That's what you have me for. You know come to think of it, didn't it strike anyone else as a bit odd that everyone in this support group save one has ever encountered the Tennant Doctor? I mean, Bridget was the only one who even mentioned the vague possibility of there being other Doctors. Ummmm and what about that website that Mickey used to maintain? Oh, wait, and wasn't Eccleston only on the front page of a major newspaper and on live worldwide TV once? Gosh, can't countenance that anyone's ever seen HIM, now, can we. Bit of an annoyance, that, really. Nice one, RTD. Jackie was White Trash, more or less, but hey, what do you expect. Oh, yes, and the Abzorbaloff. Yes, it was created by a nine-year-old. Very cute, especially since the winners of a previous competition on Blue Peter way back when never actually got to see their creations actually on the show, but then, well, sorry if anyone out there happens to be one of those past winners, but they looked gawdawful. Even by William Hartnell era standards. Meanwhile, in today's day and age, we actually get to see said monster on the show, and he's basically a mixture of Fat Bastard and that really obese bad guy we saw on an episode of Monk once, played by some comedian I've never heard of, which means something to most British viewers I reckon but means less than a thimbleful of jackshit to me. Making it come from the sister planet to the Slitheen was, well, a bit of a copout, really. And...that's it. I really can't think of much more to say. The monster really means that little to me in the grand scheme of things. I mean, when the Doctor couldn't even be bothered to fight him, what does that tell you? And the music. Good GAWD was it the worst. ELO? Foreign language versions of "Unbreak My Heart?" That one song that caused John Belushi to destroy a guitar in Animal House? You've GOT to be kidding me. Same rule applies to that Scooby-Doo chase at the beginning. Good Lord. But in the end? Elton did have a fascinating story. Being visited by the Doctor as a lad. Being an eyewitness to the Auton attack in "Rose," the spaceship crash from "Aliens of London" and the Sycorax incursion, kinda gave him a bit more of a perspective. A bit tragic, too, with some of the worst repression of memory I've ever seen if he can remember the Doctor but blocked out his appearance being tied to his mother dying. The true love of his life is a cement block (I don't even wanna touch the "love life" comment there), and he's seen a bunch of death and destruction because of the Doctor, directly or (mostly) indirectly. Makes you wonder how long his sanity CAN hold. So, yeah, it has flaws, it's not RTD's best script, but I liked it OK. Basically. Or something.

Aah, there you are. Thank you for agreeing to meet me at the beach, and I see you've brought binoculars as well, just like I asked. Marvellous.

Now, take a look out there. See that point, just below the horizon, that pinprick of a dot, got three corners, but you can barely make them out? It's a fin. Belongs to a Great White, must be about three miles out.

And turn 45 degrees to your left. Yes, that's right. Look down the shore, he must be about five miles away by now, the wiry gentleman in the long brown coat? Yes, that's him, the Doctor. Look at him, all snug in his deckchair with a banana dacquiri, feet up, and absorbed in his back issues of the Beano for the afternoon.

I think you'll agree, that's about the nearest he'll get to jumping that shark.

I Love Love & Monsters. I do. I really do. It was like being introduced to one of your best friend's new boyfriend/girlfriend in the pub, finding out they are *really* interested in the same sort of things you are, leading to an animated discussion about it for the rest of the night, talking about it in ways you have never done before and wishing last orders could be put back by several days.

10 Things I Loved about Love & Monsters were:

a) The Doctor and Rose trying to defeat a member of the group who won this year's Eurovision for Finland with different coloured buckets of water.

b) Klepto from 'Making Out' playing on a school piano in an ELO tribute session.

c) BBC4 showing an archive ELO concert an hour or so after Doctor Who finished, but not daring to admit there was a connection (bet there was).

d) Jackie Tyler missing Mickey and flashing her dirty under-trollies in the launderette.

e) Peter Kay chucking in a few Brian Potter ad-libs ('Avanti!')

f) Giving new viewers the chance to reminisce about past episodes (Rose, Aliens of That London, The Christmas Invasion) in a far more satisfactory fashion than showing old clips painted red in a Cyberscope.

g) The Abzorbaloff speaking like an old rip from Bolton who's too late for the first house at Mecca Bingo.

h) Ursula keeping her glasses on after being absorbed.

i) Disproving the age-old theory that relationships between a red-blooded male and a paving slab are impossible/unseemly.

j) It confirms that Doctor Who is just the most super-fun programme ever.

Do you know, I've always thought lists are a very lazy way to review things, but I didn't want to faze any casual surfers out there with an impenetrably huge block of text about how much I Love Love & Monsters.

I hope hard-core fans don't get all prissy and precious about this epsiode. There was so much warmth in there, and a clever little display of how much this series is scratched into the conscience of the British public. So far, only Sarah Jane's 'proper goodbye' tops it for me this series.

Unless of course, the rumours about the Christmas special being called 'The Santa Pit' are true. That'd be untoppable.