I'm pleased to say that most of the reservations I was having about part one of this story, "Aliens of London," were wiped away by the concluding installment. This mostly involved the Slitheen and how strange and funny they were being portrayed, but this week's episode gave us completely satisfactory and actually very entertaining reasons for all of it. They also looked better this week I thought than they did in those closing moments of last week... their effects seemed more consistent across-the-board.

The Slitheen seem to be a sort of cross between the Foamasi and the Dominators. I say Foamasi because they're almost like a mafia family, are interested in an irradiated planet (or what they hope will be one), and fit their huge bodies inside smaller human suits. And I say Dominators because of their scheme to turn the Earth into a radioactive fuel planet in the same way the Dominators did. The difference is they've all got a terrific sense of humor and are really enjoying their work. One moment that I loved was when the female "MI-5" Slitheen went into the PM's office and gushed over how the hot line phone was actually red. And you've got to love an alien species that has the line, "Victory should be naked!" They also simply must have understood the irony in their warning about "massive weapons of destruction." I've really grown to love these guys, and in fact I wouldn't mind seeing (or hearing) them again sometime.

Hilary Jones, MP Flydale North really came into her own this week too, as I was guessing she would seeing as they landed Penelope Wilton in the part. That the Doctor realizes she'll be a future Prime Minister was also not wholly unexpected. I loved watching her find her backbone as the episode progressed, until she finally realizes she can and must order the Doctor to push the button to destroy Number 10 (or at least to tell Mickey how to do it). I wouldn't mind seeing her again someday too. (I wonder if she's the one that eventually gets deposed by General Mariah Learman prior to "The Time of the Daleks"... and this episode explains why the head of government seems to be in a palace by that time, as No. 10 got destroyed.)

I also really enjoyed Mickey and Jackie's scenes together, with them almost bonding through their whole dodge-the-alien crisis and over how dangerous the Doctor is. Mickey wound up gaining the Doctor's respect to the point where he offered to make him a companion as well, and I was really glad to see that develop. The Doctor's continual goading of Mickey was beginning to annoy me as I thought it was taking the Doctor too far down the disagreeable road, but their eventual sort-of reconciliation really capped that off nicely before it got too out-of-hand.

The set-piece of the Doctor, Rose, and Hilary coming up with the Slitheen's weakness for vinegar was nicely handled as well... "Narrows it down!" sounds as though it could become another Ninth Doctor catchphrase like "Fantastic!" is (if there's time in his brief tenure for more of this). The way it ended brought a huge smile to my face too... with Jackie splashing the vinegar on it... it standing there for 5 seconds, letting off a huge fart, and then exploding all over them. My one hang-up with this scene is that I can't see from the way this is played out how the Doctor, Rose, and Hilary on the other end of the phone know that the alien has just died and come over all relaxed, when all they would've heard is a strange exploding sound and then not a word from Jackie and Mickey as they just stood there looking stunned.

This brings me to my other hang-ups with the episode, which actually apply to "Aliens of London" as well, and that's the almost Graham Williams-era-like sloppy way in which the Doctor is able to get his own way with guards, be they policeman or military. Russell T. Davies has gone to great lengths to address some of the common-sense questions people always had about the characters, such as "doesn't Rose's family miss her?" and the like, but he's apparently turned a blind eye to a defiance-of-common-sense problem I had with the original series, which seemed to come up most often in the Graham Williams-produced stories. This is how trained guards or police so often don't do as trained guards or police would do when the Doctor is in the scene. Example: in "Aliens of London", he accidentally lands in a cupboard just outside where a whole bunch of the soldiers are, and they train their guns on him. There is then a scream, he shouts "Defence Plan Delta" (like that means something, which it clearly doesn't) and runs out, and rather than anyone trying to stop him or shoot him, they just start following him and doing what he says. This is wholly unrealistic and does not make sense. Here in "World War Three," the 'General' outright orders the police to shoot the Doctor then and there, but they don't... he gets to blather on for a good 15 seconds more before the lift arrives and he gets into it and escapes. And even as he's escaping and they've all still got a clear shot at him, no one pulls the trigger. This is again wholly unrealistic and does not make sense. (Though some of this might be down to Keith Boak's direction and not cutting or staging the scenes quite right to avoid this problem, but it could equally be scripted by RTD.) And then there's the business about how Mickey can hack into the UNIT website and the website of the Royal Navy under instructions from the Doctor using a single password. The UNIT one I can buy as he worked for them and probably put the back door in himself at some point. The one I can't buy is that you can not only hack in the Royal Navy's website with that same password but also access a firing control on a submarine and have it fire a missile. Missile firing controls in every navy around the world are kept well off-line just to prevent things like this from happening... and even the off-line controls have extra safety things like those two-operators-have-to-turn-keys-simultaneously things. They got that right in "The Invasion" in 1968, so why this here? They could've still accomplished the same task by simply having the Doctor or Harriet call up the submarine over voice and issuing some passwords and orders to the captain of the sub that could've been in the Emergency Protocols (which they had at this point). So why not do that instead of stretching credulity with this lazy hacking solution? Still, the fact that it could've been done right doesn't make it feel like quite so much of a cheat, and I'm not going to dock the episode too much for this faux pas, but I hope that things like this get thought through better in future episodes.

I'm also very skeptical of the idea that the UK would turn over its ability to launch its own nuclear missiles to the Security Council of the UN. This feels like a sort of callback to the "destructor codes" scenario back in "Robot," but given how nearly disastrous that turned out, I can't believe that program continued after that story. From a security point of view it makes no sense for any nation to do this, especially one that's a member of NATO. Surely turning over the codes to the UN would violate some NATO duties for defence that the UK has?

Enough though of these plotting problems... back to the good stuff, and I've saved the best for last, and as we've come to expect, the best is the character work between the Doctor and Rose and the people around them. Rose remains as strong in this episode as she was showing in the last one, and also shows she's clearly been listening to even the Doctor's technobabble when at one point in the "narrows it down" brainstorm she blurts out that the alien ship had a slipstream drive. She's quickly come to trust the Doctor implicitly as she doesn't ever hesitate to jump into the situation, even with her mother pleading with her not to, but I have the feeling this trust is going to be to a fault at some point. We can see that on the Doctor's face, when Jackie repeatedly asks him if he can guarantee Rose will be safe, and he can't answer her, because he knows that she might not be and might join the list of his companions who didn't make it. That moment of him being silent and not answering is Eccleston's best work to date I think. I wonder if at some point there'll come a story where the Doctor decides that Rose needs some sort of lesson to teach her that they are not as immortal and infallible as she seems to be thinking they are, what with their 4-0 record after this story. (That'll probably be the season finale, I'd guess.)

Say, what happened to the alien ship in the Thames anyway? It's still there, isn't it? And couldn't the Doctor have used the missile on it instead of Number 10 and thus stop the Slitheen wanting to launch the nukes since they'd no longer have a ship to go hide in? (maybe it had shields... or maybe it would've had a big explosion of its own when its power core went up or something that would've hurt loads more people)

Oh, and why, on the morning of the potential nuclear strike and the news shows are showing those live shots of London, does the shot of Big Ben still have smoke coming out of the tower? Surely the fire would've been out by then!

And one last point I want to make... did you notice that this episode began with a Slitheen vs. humans _corridor chase_? Anyone at home playing the drinking game, take a drink. At least this time it wasn't any old corridors... it was 10 Downing Street's!

So, episode rating... 7 out of 10 again. And I'll give the whole story that too. The alien portrayals and motivations got cleared up, but there were some plot holes that really could've been plugged up without too much trouble which weren't.

Far, far better. Any problems that I had with Aliens of London are successfully ironed out and as a whole this works very well indeed with each storyline being paid off with a great deal of style. The comedy, drama and excitement mingle together to create a thrilling 45 minutes of television and for the first time this season I actually got the very real impression that I was watching ‘old style’ Doctor Who. If you were plummeting to the depths of TV hell and watching Celebrity Wrestling on the other side instead of this then shame on you.

I know this will leave my good friends Mike Morris and Rob Matthews spitting blood but World War Three felt like a really good episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not only because it was well performed and filmed but there is a terrific thread of humour running through the episode that keeps things electrical on screen. The characters all have a marvellous chemistry and all get very funny lines, which helps to balance the crisis with entertainment. Don’t get me wrong…this isn’t light entertainment, not when you are talking about nuking the world and aiming missiles at Downing Street but the humour compliments the action brilliantly, helping you to like the characters and really care about the danger they are in.

Would any other show do something as daring as crashing a spaceship through Big Ben and blowing up Downing Street? After the reaction to 9/11 it is understandable that terrorist attacks on TV have calmed down a tad with only natural disasters acceptable to see famous landmarks destroyed (ie The Day After Tomorrow). How like Doctor Who to jump in feet first with these unforgettable images…certainly the destruction of Big Ben was all talk at my work place last week. It is the shows bravery and unashamed melodrama that has kept it going for so many years. You want Dinosaurs roaming about London? Or the Loch Ness Monster peeking up from the Thames? Now we can add these glorious shock images to the list and even better, we now have the budget to support such spectacle. And they just look fab.

The Slitheen come off much better in World War Three mostly because we always suspected they were supposed to be comedy aliens and they are now confirmed as such. Their cute, bug eyed appearance and wickedly funny lines combine to create an alien race with one of the most ingenious schemes ever to grace the series. Selling the nuclear remains of the Earth during a recession? What, have they let Margaret Thatcher run the universe or something? There is nothing more amusing than a being chased around corridors by monsters and if you are going to do then why not choose the most spectacular locale to do it in…10 Downing Street! The FX team pull off the rubber costumes and CGI with minimal fuss, you can obviously tell which is which (and occasionally those fingernails are a bit too rubbery to have the knife edge sound effects playing over them) but I was so caught up in what was actually going on I can only remember nodding at the scene where the Doctor, Rose and Harriet are being pursued by three CGI Slitheen and commenting “That is so cool.” Whether arguing over whose disguise belongs to who or uttering a quick “BOL-“ before being blown to smithereens, this was simply a far better attempt to appeal to adults as kids with the aliens than the last episode and the incessant farting (which made a brief appearance but was not dwelled upon, much as it should have last week). Personally my favourite Slitheen moment came during the climax when the missile has been launched and everybody is getting nervous and excited and we cut back to the Slitheen for a quick second all waiting by the phone for the emergency codes and one of them cries “Ring, damn you!” Absolute genius.

Of course there is a more serious side to the episode which began in Aliens of London dealing with Rose’s return home and her mothers integration into her new life. This is where Russell’s writing is at its best to be honest. Whilst this episode has sold me on his ability to write good science fiction, I was always convinced that he could write good human drama and he excels himself here. I love how it is slipped into the chaotic moments without feeling intrusive, any other series would be mad to take a second out of the end of the world to discuss a distraught mother worrying about her child but Jackie’s concerns feel real and her “Can you promise me my daughter will always be safe?” when a bloody missile is heading for Rose really hits home. World War Three has proven that this two parter is far more interested in Jackie than it is in Rose which is probably no bad thing, we can emote with Rose in any episode but our rare glimpses of Jackie have got to have a real punch. And boy has she come on since the first episode, now she is a fully fleshed out character, funny, sharp and pathetic all rolled into one. I think she is great and has been responsible for the most emotional scenes yet. Her quiet “Don’t go sweetheart” at the end is heartbreaking and for a second you want Rose to stay. It says something about Russell’s writing for ‘straight’ drama that I found the final scene of World War Three far more satisfying than that of Aliens of London, big blobby aliens are all very well but a mother and daughter being torn apart is just shattering.

And wow! That was Mickey! I really wanted him to hop in at the end, I think Noel Clarke has relaxed into the series and would make a pretty cool companion, had he accepted the Doctor’s offer I think there could have been a nice bit of tension on board the TARDIS. It is the Doctor’s nasty comments about him that make Mickey such fun, despite how has been treated by our favourite Time Lord he still hacks into the Royal Navy and saves the day. There is something wonderfully boggle-eyed about Mickey, that he is constantly being confronted with things that are just beyond his comprehension and Clarke has the comedy coward with a heart down pat. I find his character very appealing (and not just because I think black guys are hot) because he does what a situation demands, he’ll pick up a baseball bat and fight even if his instincts are telling him to hide under a table. The “I just saved your life!” “How embarrassing!” scene was excellent.

The least Doctor-ish episode is followed up by the most Doctor-ish episode. How bizarre. Three episodes in and Eccleston has got it. Not perfect mind because he still grins inanely during some tense moments (I really wanted to punch him when that lift door opened and the Slitheen was standing there…and he grinned!) but he is afforded some strong, emotional moments, which really suit Eccleston. Plus he is given some very witty dialogue, which reminded me of Tom Baker at the peak of his powers, his whole sequence with the sonic screwdriver and the alcohol was very funny and delivered to perfection. It was his dilemma between saving the world and saving Rose that I found most satisfying and rarely has the Doctor’s love for his companion shone through so bright. When he tells Jackie over the speakerphone about how dangerous his can be you believe him totally.

I feel I should say a few words about Murray Gold whose incidental music has been given a good slagging off week after week now. If you don’t like synthesised music then you are fans of the wrong show! I think he understands the show perfectly, slightly camp but full of excitement, he gives the action a real boost and scores the emotional moments with appropriate beauty. He certainly did a brilliant job with this episode with his constant, jittery score throughout the missile sequences and a tear-jerking finale as Rose is reunited with her mum. Bravo.

The first two parter can only be seen as a success. Perhaps my bad feelings towards last week was because I was frustrated at not being able to see how this concluded…no…there were some genuine problems there. But World War Three addressed them and improved them and made for a far more entertaining and powerful 45 minutes.

Now we have a set of ‘regulars’ that extends beyond the Doctor and Rose, I cannot wait until we pop back and visit them again.

After a somewhat dissapointing start to this two-part episode, I waiting with a slight feeling of trepadation as Graham Norton closed "Strictly Come Dancing." My fears were in vain.

Once again the BBC manage to pull of humour tinged with horror in tonights "Doctor Who." Christopher Eccleston regained his darker side after last weeks TOO jokey Doctor. His pained expression whilst on the phone with Rose's mother I hope claimed much ground amongst more sceptical fans. Despite my dislike for the aliens in the story, I was much happier this episode than I was, because there was less farting!!

Perhaps the alien portion of the story ended too quickly in other peoples views. In my opinion, this worked well to the shows advantage, allowing the characters to gain some much needed "quiet time," giving fans a deeper insight to their lives. This especially true to Mickey and Rose's mother. 

Overall, another powerful installment from the Beeb. 

As for the trailer, my heart was pounding and leaped into my throat when we heard the familiar voice... "EX-TER-MIN-ATE... EX-TER-MIN-AAAAAAAATE!!"

WOW!!!!!!! Absolutely Brilliant! I would like to leave it there but the terms of reviewing this episode insist I expand.

Previously on Doctor Who (hee hee, say it out loud) I reviewed Aliens of London less than favourably, but did say I would reserve final judgemnent until this episode.World War III completely overturns everything that I found negative about the first part.

The Aliens were "Fantastic" realised so well in this episode especially in CGI. They were quite lumbersome initially but soon appeared quite deadly and athletic and complete with some surreal camera angles instilled a degree of menace. They were especially more threatening in their group scenes (and none were cardboard cut-out standees).

The Doctor so improved this week with his lift speech, the "narrow it down" interation and his telephone call to Rose at the end. Still smiles a bit too much but nice little touches like his apology to the secretary in no. 10 makes up for that.

Billie Piper as Rose just coasts through the episode, anothe excellent performance and I love her little laugh to the Doctor when she says he is stuck with her. Her interaction with her mother and Mickey brings good drama to this episode and the series. These two actors especially Noel Clarke improve their performances so much since "Rose.

Now to Penelope Wilton. I felt she was quite underused in the first episode and did wonder why she had signed up witth not much to do. Upon seeing this episode I see that so much of the previous story was setting up and I think she makes the episode hers from her embarrassment at the word FART (which I blush at too) to her uplifting speach at the end. She handled the humour and danger with aplome.

All the "Alien" actors played out their "Alien" characteristics well so, apart from being of larger build and flatulent, you could tell they were not of this planet. - "I need to be naked" could end up being a catchphrase !!

The special effects as usual were (how many words say brilliant????) The missile, the CGI aliens and best of all, the destruction of no. 10. The door being left intact was genius (found a word!).

I Still don't like farts but that's just personal. Yet everything else made up for my reservations on Aliens of London and as a pair they are quite simply impressive.

And the next week's trailer - yup had me giggling like a girl (no offence to girls) and brilliantly edited to leave the big reveal until the last shot!!!!!!!

So, In order of entertainment : The Unquiet Dead, World War III, Rose, The End of the World, Aliens of London and as a pair, Aliens moves to join second. I am just wondering how complicated this rating system gets at the end of 13 weeks.

World War Three was a classic romp with great effects, wonderful one liners and a level of political satire rarely seen on television. As a piece of entertainment it surpassed my hopes and expectations.

None of these factors made it a great piece of television.

What did make the show outshine anything else on television right now was the performance of Camille Coduri as Jackie Piper. The character could have easily become a joke, a piece of fluffy entertainment to lighten the mood between perils. However, Coduri has played the role straight and her scenes with Billie Piper were as beautifully written, acted and poignant as anything I have seen for a long time. This is a character realising that her daughter has grown up, who is terrified about the perils that she faces but equally scared of losing her by not being supportive. For the new generation of viewers I would imagine that she represents the nagging mum but to those of us who may be a little too old to still be watching she represents us.

I never thought that the words ten seconds would bring tears to my eyes.

An inspired second part to the Aliens of London saga, with the action less important than the action suggested in the first episode. The Doctor, via mobile phone, worked out which planet the Slitheen originated from, permitting Micky and Rose's mum to escape from the creature imprisoning them in their kitchen.

However, it quickly became apparent that the Slitheen, rather than being a species bent on interplanetary conquest, were a family of aliens intending to destroy the earth for financial gain. The PM therefore submitted a bogus request to the UN to release the access codes to Britain's nuclear missiles, in the hope of starting an intercontinental war and destroying life on Earth. The Doctor, despite being imprisoned together with Rose in 10 Downing Street, suceeded in directiny Micky to the UNIT website, thereby firing a missile from a nuclear submarine which destroyed 10 Downing Street, and the Slitheen invaders as a result.

All in all, an inspired conclusion to the two parter, with Ecclestone showing both comic ability and genuine emotional depth in the part of the Doctor. The new series has taken a while to find its pace and footing, but after the uncertainty of Aliens of London, World War III provided a barn-storming conclusion, with the Doctor triumphant but with a wholly believable human reaction from Rose to her mother and Mickey as well. Hats off to the BBC for another classic episode, and the teasers for the Dalek episode were superb. i can't wait!