Last season, with his Hugo-nominated 2-parter "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances", Coupling creator Steven Moffat thrilled, creeped out, and altogether made me go "Wow." A story that took parts from WWII drama, pulp action SF, and New Wave Japanese Horror, melded together and was essentially the best story of the season. So can Moffat repeat?

Yes. Oh, God, yes.

Following right on from "School Reunion," in which we saw Rose learn of the Doctor's prior lov...er, companion, and realize "Hey, I ain't necessarily the only one," we have the Doctor involved in a time-crossed, and star-crossed, romance with Rienette (sp), the Madame du Pomapdour.

Going back and forth between 18th-century Versailles and a 51st-Century deep-space vessel on the blink that happens to be "punching a hole in the universe," Moffat brings us the creepiest (again!) robot monsters seen on the series ever. Faceless, clockwork automatons, repairing their ship with the materials they have on hand -- namely, the crew. Eyes for cameras, hearts for engines. YICK! Their voices are eloquent and soulless, much like the eponymous "Robots of Death" from the Tom Baker years, but at least THAT time you had faces to look at. The repair droids, with their strange desperate logic in seeking out Rienette, must wear masks to accomodate even that. And makes them all the more creepier, and basically, the Cybermen are lucky they have a 2-part to even come close to sort of calculated, yet misguided, menace the clockworks provided.

I liked the time windows, and the way they worked just made the ending all the more heartbreaking. Mere moments pass for the Doctor + company, yet weeks, months, years pass in Versailles. Rienette lives a lifetime of waiting and hoping for the Doctor. A lifetime of being in love with him... it seems kinda strange, but given how long Sarah Jane waited for him...

I LOVED THE HORSE! I WANTED THE HORSE ON THE TARDIS! "I let you keep Mickey!" HAH! Oh, yes, and Mickey. Nice touches. He still processed it as being like a movie, or simulation -- "It's so realistic!" Not much on the Rose/Mickey ship front tho... funny she seemed rather miffed at the end of last week. Come to think of it, Rose didn't seem to catch onto the whole tragic romance thing going on, did she? Mickey did... Hell, he's waited around for Rose long enough.

And what of the Doctor? Well, let's face it, this was an Eccleston episode through and through. "The Lonely Angel" was a tag that certainly applied to him moreso than Tennant's Doctor thus far. "School Reunion" hinted at it, but half the time I saw the crew cut and leather jacket on the Doctor in this one. And once again with the Doctor dancing, and extolling the virtues of bananas. Are these gonna be Moffat signatures or what? But yes, the Doctor dances once more, and in the end, his hearts are broken. Rienette as more of a Cameca than Sarah, I guess. All the same, this was Tennant's best performance so far, and I'm now finally starting to feel him as the Doctor. Now he really wears the part of What The Monsters Are Afraid Of. But DAMN I about got emo on that ending.

Ah... this is definitely the best one of the season so far. Moffat is 2-for-2, and well on his way to becoming the new series' Ben Aaronovitch.

Now let's see the Cybermen top that next week.

I am trying to enjoy this series, I really am. I'd love to recapture the excitement I felt during the majority of last season's run; the scariness, the pathos, the humour, the sheer imagination rooted in deep soul...

But I'm sorry to say that when the Doctor reincarnated he seemed to lose his soul. Poor soul. To be fair, I don't think that this is Tennant's fault, he is a very good actor, and has the capacity to be a great Doctor, if only the scripts, and the stories allowed.

Okay, this started well. The ship, the fireplace, the girl; all very atmospheric and mysterious, this appeared to have the markings of a classic. And it ran well until we realised that the plot didn't really hang together that well, and because the plot didn't hang together that well, the supposedly "scary" bits failed to either shock or provide the necessary goose bumps. The premise that Madame de Pompadour's life was being observerd until she was "ready" was very scary, and I liked the way time was allowed to progress at a rapid pace from the Doctor's perspective but not from hers, it really gave the piece a sense of the ethereal. It was a fairytale in which a child has to face monsters under the bed , combined with Alice's adventures in wonderland. A truly lovely idea, which could have been truly moving, scary and sureal. However, the Monsters turned out to be pretty typical androids lost in space; only "carrying out orders, sir!" Okay, the clockwork mechanism was a nice touch, but it could have been used far more spookily, if only the writers hadn't gone down the predictable Sci fi path of providing easy answers.More of which later.

Humour! I love humour, I relished the way the last series used humour to great effect, particularly during it's darkest episodes. But for some reason this season appears to have turned into a Blackadder / Hitchhikers hybrid, both of which I love, but I don't think this approach really works for the Doctor, at least not in an episode not written by Douglas Adams (R.I.P, I love ya!)

The ship was apparently called the "SS Madame de Pompadour" Well, it's a bit Douglas Adams, but without the style or the wit. This was an easy answer to a promising question, and a lazy plot.

I really hope the Cybermen deliver.

This was a clever story. The interesting point for me is that I (aged 38) loved it. The kids (9 and 11) got restless, a bit bored. All that love stuff. Yuk! And even the 11 year old asked where the horse came from? Why was it on the spaceship? (I've said we'll have to watch it again and see if we can find out). This demonstrates to me how bloody difficult it is to tow the thin line between writing for adults and children. I feel that Russell T Davies tries to do this and often brings down the kind of criticism we see in these review pages. Sometimes he succeeds, as with Tooth and Claw.

Generally, the same problems dogged this story as the first three in the run. Too ambitious. For all the personnel sitting around the table discussing the script in Confidental, they seem to have forgotten to hire an editor. Others have commented that the length of the show could be upped to an hour, but the flip side to this is decent editing and a quantum of self-discipline. Say what you like about American TV, the editing and tightness of their TV shows beats the majority of Brit TV into the ground, (I'm not American by the way).

Having said this, I'm still fasinated by how the second series is developing. It's got a very different feel from the first. You can really see there's a guiding mind behind it's development. That's where Russel T Davies comes into his own. The guy knows TV. The Doctor has changed. He's no longer the needy Chris Ecclestone model. Rose has been sidelined. It was sort of shocking when he rode through the mirror (so that's what the horse was for! - thrilling denoument - very sloppy) leaving Rose and Micky to die (?) in the spaceship. I enjoy this kind of character development; it's something the classic series just didn't have.

The look was perfect. Sorry guys, the horse through the mirror was okay - but very "effecty". You should have left it out probably. Direction was excellent.

Now, let's upset some people. I don't think David Tennant is quite as good as the Doctor as everybody seems to say he is. I've waited a couple of episodes to let him settle down into the role, but he seems somehow...lightweight to me. He's okay, he just about carries the story and all that, but he just hasn't got the presence and the weight that Christopher Ecclestone had. He isn't a center of gravity. I've a theory about this: Mr Ecclestone pissed a lot of fans off by leaving after the first series, but if you look back at his performance as the Doctor, it was superb in a way that David Tennant doesn't seem able to match. Well, not yet, anyway. Consequently, Chris E isn't given quite as much credit for his portrayal as the Doctor as he should. David Tennant seems, even in this episode - in which he is given an opportunity to shine (series two's version of Dalek I'd say) - to be all over the place. His delivery of some of the lines is so fast that you can hardly make out what he's saying. and that voice...at one point, when he first saw the clockwork droid, he really did sound like a slightly butcher version of Kenneth Williams. Perhaps they should have allowed him to speak in his native accent. To my mind, with the scripting in the majority of the episodes since "Rose" being somewhat undisciplined, Chris Ecclestone provided an all-important 'earthing' of the show. From about episode 3 of the first run onwards, he knew exactly what he was doing as an actor. Well, that's what i feel at the moment anyway. I hope that Mr Tennant finds some way of being more solid as the run goes on.

All in all, I'm enjoying this run as much as the first.

Steven Moffat's 'The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances' two-parter is widely regarded by many as the best last season had to offer. For me, 'Dalek' and 'Father's Day' perhaps shaded it a little, but story. High expectations, then, for his season two offering.

The premise of 'Girl' is possibly the most boldly sci-fi the new series of Doctor Who has attempted so far and it's a doozy. Future spaceship inexplicably tied to 18th century France gives us the opportunity to to visit two very different and beautifully-realised locales. It is also an immensely clever way for Moffat to write a piece that seems epic but actually makes use of very few sets, one pretty visit outdoors notwithstanding.

'Girl' has a rather odd tone - the first third or so has a distinctly camp feel to it, peaking in the cringe-worthy moment when the Doctor staggers around the imperilled Mickey and Rose sporting a quite hideous combination of tie-bandana and shades which make him look like he has stepped out of The Young Ones. Unfortunately, the normally-reliable David Tennant plays the scene in exactly this manner. This was the one single moment I have wished Chris Ecclestone was still around to play a scene. It is to a deep sigh of relief, then, that it is revealed the Doctor is merely playing drunk and from hereonin the episode picks up immensely.

Reviews of the previous episodes of season two have often stated that the 45-minute format has constrained the stories too far. Up until now I have not really felt this to be the case, but 'Girl' positively screams for more time to develop. Extra time to witness the the burgeoning relationship between the Doctor and Pompadour would have elicited a much more natural empathy from the audience, where the single-episode format here speeds events along at rather too brisk a pace.

Still, come the end, the Doctor's sense of loss is still very palpable - made all the more important in Rose's growing realisation that she is far from the only girl in the universe for him. Her arc this season is developing in a surprisingly dark manner, adding welcome levels to the Tenth Doctor who would otherwise be a little too jolly all the time.

Enjoyable, clever but lacking the tightness of Moffat's orevious tale (the Doctor's mind-reading is a bit contrived, the fireplace parting at the end feels a little forced and the name of the ship only kind of explains why everything has been happening), 'Girl' is yet another change of pace for a season which is demonstrating remarkable variety thus far.

Cybermen to come, hopefully accompanied by some real scares next week.

Like many, if not most, of the Doctor Who fans I am livid at this episode. The new series has always hinted at the Doctor having a physical relatinship with various females but has until now left this open to the discretion of the viewer. Sadly the series has decided that this is a part of the Doctor's life whether the fan likes it or not.

In previous episodes, such as the Empty Child, The Doctor Dances and School Reunion the story was written in such a way that there could or could not be a physical relationship between characters, thus appeasing the loyal fan base that believe the Doctor does not engage in sexual activity with those he meets. With such intelligent script writing all quarters were satisfied, fans both old and new had a Doctor they could identify with.

Now that's it. Officially the Doctor is a being that has intimate physical relationships with people that he meets, and let's not forget he never met his French filly for more than a few minutes at a time. All of a sudden the character we have spent so much time with is no different to the average 'Eastender'. Frankly, Mr Moffat and RTD should be ashamed of themselves for bringing our ALIEN hero down to such levels.

The story itself may have been a good one, I do not know, it was so frustrating to watch a character I have grown up with butchered so. Tennant's great performances in the last two episodes gave me great hope for the future, sadly tonight's episode wasn't the Doctor I know. It saddens me that a fan of the series as Tennant is would accept this new trend of the Doctors. Were I the fan playing the part I would not have allowed this.

The only bright spots were with Rose and Mickey who kept us in check with the story line. In all honesty the storyline wasn't terribly good anyway. There was great potential but it was wasted on the Doctor having a 'romance'.

However the most insulting element came in Doctor Who confidential. The writer, RTD, and the various other elements actually took the piss out of the Doctor Who fans that prefer their hero to be non-sexual. Does RTD's arrogance extend so far that he forgets the very people that kept the series alive throughout the 90's?

The alternative universe Cybermen appear next week. I can only hope that Doctor Who gets back on track after tonight's travesty of an episode.

Well now- I know IВ’ve been saying that weВ’ve been seeing the restoration of the Doctor as the central figure this season and the consequent downgrading of the significance of the Rose character but the hitherto asexual Doctor becoming so infatuated with an (admittedly attractive) French aristocrat so as to potentially abandon Rose,and Mickey,Sapphire and Steel like,in space forever?Hmm.So there you go,broad-minded and generally supportive as I have tried to be about the new era perhaps I am just an old fart after all and becoming,according to my friend,more like the hardcore every day-I think I know what he means by this.

However,the fact that I struggled with this,and some other aspects,such as the graphic snog,which made the New Earth kiss positively boring by comparison(poor old Rose has even got upstaged on that by Madame Pompadou),and the DoctorВ’s silly pissed routine(mind you it was for a reason and sometimes Doctors do silly things for a reason,like PertweeВ’s disguise in the Green Death,say)cannot detract from some superb elements which comprised what was essentially an adult fairy tale likely to be of limited appeal to younger viewers.Visually the episode was stunning,and some children will be genuinely frightened by the clockwork robots(nods to the Mind Robber there) which were superbly realised,though the voices were rather bland.Clocks ticking,old fireplaces,time portals,horses on spaceships(if we can have sailing ships in space in Enlightenment,thereВ’s no reason why we canВ’t have horses): all good stuff,and the idea of the Doctor appearing at various stages of PompadouВ’s life,not growing old as she does,is a poignant continuation of the Doctor/Sarah discussion in School Reunion.

ThereВ’s no doubting Steven MoffatВ’s brilliance as a writer but boy does he seem preoccupied by sex!References to it permeate the Empty Child/the Doctor Dances where dancingВ’s just a metaphor for sex and here references and hints are abandoned altogether in favour of full-on lust.Still,this season is proving itself capable of great variety if nothing else.

Despite my struggles with some aspects,this was an intelligent,visually flawless story proving that new Who isnВ’t some sort of juvenile CBBC pantomime not worthy of comparision to the classic era as some I assume still believe.On the contrary,it seems a little too adult at times.Probably a notch down though from the brilliant Empty Child/Doctor Dances due to time constraints.