We are hitting the middle episodes of Doctor Who 2005 now, and the production team wisely re-ignited the public interest with those wonderful Daleks – the main reason the show took off in the first place. After just over a month on TV, this would have seemed a great idea – a definite pulling back of viewers after that initial excitement of the first few shows. Fact is though that Doctor Who 2005 has been pulling the viewers in regardless. Admittedly Aliens of London 2-parter had seen a slight drop in viewers – but it was still popular and massively in the public eye.

Dalek presented something extra special in a season that continues to enthral and amaze. Time and again this series has exceeded my expectations – and Dalek was no different – and those expectations were so high too!

Christopher Eccleston was at his best in Dalek, but increasingly it is Billie Piper who is claiming the major accolades for performance amongst some brilliant characters. Her lovely scene with Adam in the workshop was wonderfully flirty. It is Rose who has the confrontation with the creature at the end – the Doctor clearly bricking himself at the possibility of being anywhere near his Number One Foe. It is Rose who increasingly is the Major Star of Doctor Who – even though, I have to stress this, the 9th Doctor is brilliant too.

The episode was beautifully paced, and I think it’s the Director who deserves praise for that. The wonderful opening in the Museum, with all the strange artefacts on show. The inclusion of the Cyberhead was glorious – has anything looked so shiny and worthy of display more? The Dalek was introduced at perfectly the right time, and Christopher Eccleston excelled in his fear.

The supporting characters, from the cold collector Van Statton to the genius wonderkid Adam, were very good too. I rather warmed to Bruno Langley, and it will be interesting to see how Rose and Doctor take to this new travelling companion.

Dalek essentially was about the Dalek though – hence the imaginative and totally appropriate title. And in this regard we have brilliance. Isolating the major Doctor Who enemy this way made me think of Hugh, out Next Generation Borg fame. But then I moved beyond that – this individual of an enemy race was handled much better, and with far more gravitas. This lone Dalek was infinitely more powerful than anything seen in the series thus far. I genuinely believed that this Dalek, on his own, could produce more devastation than anything we had thus far seen. I was totally convinced because of the design and execution of this iconic Monster.

I am warming to Murray Golds music more too – and in Dalek he reached his peak thus far. The dramatic vocal score particularly emphasized the menace presented – and was a perfect counterpoint throughout to the action. Excellent production. Another reassuring aspect of Dalek was this was the first Directorial chore for Joe Ahearne. As he is directing the bulk of the rest of this series, that bodes very well for its quality.

The sets were marvellous, and I loved the totally appropriate use of the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. I have always thought Sports Stadia were very bunkerish. I will be watching for any Daleks the next time I go through any Sports Stadium!

Another interesting aspect of Dalek is the script. I have been a big fan of Rob Shearmans work on Doctor Who since Holy Terror. His scripts are continually superior to most of Big Finishs consistently excellent output – they are that good. Jubilee, the inspiration behind some of this TV script, was one of the best. But yet Dalek went its own way, with only the imprisoned Dalek of the start reminiscent of Jubilee. This story is mostly about a Dalek on the rampage in an underground bunker – there was none of that in Jubilee. All the usual Dalek put downs were present and correct here – but further emphasized how superior this new Dalek was.

In short Rob Shearmans script totally fitted its TV medium, as Jubilee totally fitted its Audio Medium.

I am convinced that Dalek will win the Poll for Best Story of the season – even if the Daleks return later on. I thought it was magnificent – the second brilliant episode of the Series so far (the Unquiet Dead was glorious too, for all kinds of other reasons). Dalek shows again that new Who is brilliant Who.

Aren’t we the lucky ones – we have 7 more stories this year, and another massive season next year. These are truly golden years for anyone who has ever loved Doctor Who. 10/10

Sigh!.....Just what was I watching I asked myself? Is this Doctor Who?

Father's Day is in a word - boring! As some of you may have read, in my review of The Long Game I welcomed Eccleston's Doctor once again appearing to be relevant and active in the story. Sadly, the Doctor has once more been relegated into the background, he doesnt appear to have much to do and once more looks lost - just as I wrote in my review of AOL. One wonders if Eccleston left because the scripts were letting him down? RTD should wake up - here he has a fine actor, capable of performing convincingly (and then some - see DALEK!) and he is being wasted.

I just wonder what the point of the whole thing was! Plot-wise, things were wafer-thin. Im a supporter of the new series devoting considerable time to character development but this was ridiculous - and RTD, who is at the helm and obviously has final say over scripts needs to take a step back and look at what he is pushing for and ultimately approving.

I had worked out (as Im sure the rest of you did) very early on that Rose's father had to die for the time line to be restored - anyone seen the Back to the Future movies? - of course you have... I say no more.

As I write this I really struggle to find anything I like about the episode - I even watched it twice to see if my views would change, but alas this has not been the case. I guess considering his limited role within the episode, Christopher Eccleston delivered an excellent performance, but ultimately the script let him down.

The show is called Doctor Who isnt it...? For a second there, I thought it was called The Rose Tyler Show....

Bring on next week - please!

Dalek was undoubtedly one of the most disturbing, emotional and exciting episodes of Doctor Who I have ever seen. Writer Robert Shearman skilfully gave us an episode that had the requisite amount of thrills and drama, but with an emotional wallop that has surely never been seen in the series before.

With just one Dalek to contend with, the battle for the Doctor against his deadliest enemy was far more personal and totally believable. It was disturbing to see the Doctor first cowering with fear as the Dalek threatened to exterminate him (for the umpteenth time, you’d think he’d be used to it by now!) But then to then see him taunting the Dalek and explode with uncontrollable fury. Then just when you’re reeling at that, he actually tries to kill the Dalek in cold blood…

This was powerful emotional stuff and superbly played by Christopher Eccleston. Never before have we seen a Doctor be so scared; not even Patrick Troughton! The gradual development and exposition of the Time War back story actually had me on the edge of my seat. This episode, perhaps more than any of them so far, really gave Eccleston a chance to excel and show just why the production team chose him in the first place, regardless of him only wanting to do one season.

Nicholas Briggs gave the Dalek voice so much more character than any other Dalek voice actor before. The sixties Dalek voices (apart from the films) always sounded camp, while Roy Skelton in the seventies was scary yet monotonous, mainly due to the script. Here, for the first time, the Dalek ran through a gamut of emotions, even managing to instil some sympathy in us while still maintaining its menace. And when the Dalek spoke about Rose being the "woman [the Doctor] loved!" I was gobsmacked!

And what of that woman? Well, Billie Piper continues to impress due not only to her talent but also due to the writing. The production team are aiming to show true character development and consistency, plus building up a relationship between the Doctor and Rose that is genuine and believable. The scene where she says goodbye after the bulkhead closes was heart-wrenching, I literally was on the edge of my seat!

It wasn’t just the emotional level being hiked up, the Dalek had its image updated too and its scare factor significantly increased. No more sink plunger jokes thank you; although you knew it was coming, the new and improved deadly plunger no doubt had audiences cheering. The exterminating effect was superb but an old Git like me missed the old-style negative effect. Any traditionalist fan however will be pleased that this Dalek story fulfils the usual requirement of a high body count, with not only the electrocution scene being memorable, but also the individual deaths of minor characters like DiMaggio were realistic and shocking.

With the trio of the Doctor, Rose and the Dalek taking up the majority of screen time, the other actors should be praised for making their characters quite memorable. Corey Johnson was suitably menacing as Van Statten, perhaps being more of the story’s villain than the Dalek. Anna-Louise Plowman as Goddard had little to work with but still gave a solid performance. The character of Adam Mitchell threatens to be another Adric, although fortunately he is, at least, well played by Bruno Langley.

The ending was odd, but in a good way. I had imagined that we would actually see the Doctor blasting the Dalek to bits. To see it just give up and self-destruct at first seemed wrong but on reflection, it does seem to be the more appropriate ending. The Dalek mutant was another triumph for the special effects crew.

And the Cyberman cameo at the start was strangely moving, focusing as it did on the "teardrop" design. Despite it being one of the dated designs, it managed to look realistic and not retro or quaint. Maybe I’m getting old too?

Dalek was fantastic as the Doctor would say! The best episode of this series so far, full of wonderful moments and for me it managed to demonstrate in just 45 minutes, all that is wonderful about Doctor Who.

Purely Historical. Purely Sci-Fi. Pseudo-Historical. On May 14th 2005, DOCTOR WHO just created a new genre. The Purely Emotional Story.

Being able to relate to the human element was always one of WHO’s strengths - I’m thinking that first episode between Ian & Barbara, Jon Pertwee bidding Jo Grant adieu before driving off into the sunset... Then The Doctor turned into a brooding alien and it seemed a good excuse to fall into line with STAR TREK and not bother with that side of things. Of course, JNT made big moves to make the companions real people with real families. Who can forget Auntie Vanessa’s demise in LOGOPOLIS? But with no hope of The Doctor staying on Earth for any length of time, due to the wishes of BBC executives and producers, it would take until 2005 for the ties-that-bind element to become a permanent state of affairs again. Now, with an emotional core being a market-driven necessity, it’ll be almost impossible for a future companion not to have a fully-fleshed out family that we dip into and out of periodically.

The isolated Church set-up brought it home to me just how much WHO is set on Earth again, like in the Pertwee years and I for one am chuffed. I think Russell T was bang on the money when he says setting more than 50 of the cent stories elsewhere causes the viewers’ interest to wane. It was always wrong to minimise “on Earth” from the late 70s on, but delighted that it’s back.

The 80s set-up was convincingly brought to life. The make-up, costumes and the posters: one (which again has resonance for 2005) hoping “No Third Term For Thatcher” in vain, being supplanted by the coming of acid-house music. A necessary escape. It’s ironic too that a great original story has been made of a year that saw the original series at it’s worst. When we think of 1987 now, will we think of Iceworld, or Rose’s Dad?

This series is very good at creating memories through visual set-ups. The Doctor and Rose watching The Doctor and Rose watching what we already know: that Rose’s Dad is going to get knocked down by a car. Only this time, he isn’t...

It’s been said The Doctor was naive to let Rose have a second look. But it’s more an indication how she’s got to him on an emotional level than perhaps any other companion. Eccleston was great when he scowled at her in her Dad’s flat.

What a turn-up for the books when The Doctor opened the TARDIS to find a cubby-hole inside!

Cue the Reapers: gargoyle type vultures with red eyes. They were genuinely chilling.

Not for the first time this series, post Time War, The Doctor looked impotent against the worse-case scenario. But he hadn’t reckoned on Rose’s Dad, who kept seeing the car that should have killed him keep appearing and disappearing and decided he would be the hero Rose always thought he was.

Dalek continues the season's downward trend with an episode that promised much but ultimately delivered little of any real quality.

A lot of fans seem dazzled as usual by the high production values, but this was a resolutely uninspired run-around. Take the Dalek climbing the stairs incident - I'm no fan of the McCoy era, but at least the climax to Remembrance part one had pacing. Given that everyone know the bloody thing was going to levitate, what was the point in having it sit there for about two minutes listening to a load of old piffle about being made to surrender? The subsequent death of the trooper was gratuitous and contrived - there was no reason for her to stay and get killed - she already knew her weopen would be useless.

But these are small points compared to the more serious charges that, with each passing episode, can be laid at the feet of Christopher Eccleston's Doctor. People seem to be enjoying his "anti-hero" stance, but this idea that the Doctor is now some sort of intergalactic war veteran with psycologicial scarring and a predilection for bouts of gut-level brutality -well, does any of that do anything to evoke or develop the essential magic of Doctor Who?

The Doctor is supposed to be a HERO folks, he was never meant to be Avon, or Garibaldi from Babylon 5. By all means make other supporting characters messed up and flakey, but for God's sake, give the kids a central hero they can rely on. In the Unquiet Dead he ended up with his back to the wall, having made a monumnetal error of judgement and almost destroyed the world - fortunately Dickens was there to save everyone. In the next story he allowed himself to be cooped up in one room for nearly a whole episode, eventually replying on Rose's mobile phone and a council estate urchin to save the day by proxy. And now we have him standing around getting all emotional while Rose inadvertently defeats the Dalek with a dose of her own humanity.

Come on Russel T. Davies - give us a story in which the Doctor finally DOES something heroic and positvie, where he behaves like the Doctor! Subverting his character is an act of sabotage that will only be appreciated by hard-core fans. A new generation of children need the brave, resourceful centre-stage hero which we were treated to between the years 1963 and 1980. Anything other approach and we end up slipping down distinctly Carmel-esque slopes.

One other thing about this episode that drove me nuts was the heavy handed and over prescriptive incidental music, which became positively unbearable at the climax. Having revealed the Dalek creature in all its one-eyed glory, the story then slipped into slushy melodrama with the kind of string-driven pap that blights american movies. The whole of the final sequence had enough emotional content already - here was a Dalek choosing suicide! Why do we need to be told how to feel by slushy music? Can you imagine that happening at the end of Ark in Space as Noah sacrifices himself? A flurry of strings as Chase gets eaten by his compost machine? Those fine memorable dramatic deaths happened in the complete absence of music!

And finally - it seems we have another Adric on our hands. I've already forgotten the name of the character, along with his face, his voice, and his non-contribution to the story. Just what is it about him that the production team felt would be a good companion? Blandness personified! Rose's boyfriend would have been infinitely better, and that's not saying much.

All in all, this episode (SFX trumped up as potentially the greatest episode ever!) reminded me of a forgettable Doctor-less comic strip from the back pages of Dr Who weekly. A major disappointment.

It's fair to say Father's Day is very different to any (broadcast) Doctor Who story that’s gone before, and probably because of this when I first saw it I took a dislike to it. I thought it was silly, too soapy and had a predictable resolution which broke the golden rule that the Doctor must save the day. Having watched it again I have realised I made a big mistake, and it is an excellent story, well written and well acted.

Indeed what I first thought were its flaws actually help to make it so good. At seems odd that the Doctor would take Rose back to watch her father die, and even odder that he was surprised by her reaction, but this is to judge him as a human. His actions are perfectly in character with the slightly insensitive alien Doctor as played by Tom Baker, who Eccleston is reminding me of more and more each week. On the other hand the Doctor shows he is capable of emotion when he talks about the loss of his planet. Similarly the soapy elements – Rose’s interaction with her parents – gives the series the reality it needs to keep the casual viewer interested. Also the fact that the Doctor fails, shows he is fallible, something that is needed to keep the series interesting, and also gives Pete the chance to redeem himself. Even if it is obvious after about twenty minutes how the situation will be resolved, this only enhances the tragedy of the situation.

On the acting front A+ grades to Shaun Dingwall, whom I hope turns up again in the future, and Billie Piper who gives her best performance to date. Eccleston also comes across well, but is somewhat of a background figure, as he needs to be for the episode to work. Most of the supporting cast is superb too.

Thus all in all this is a very good story, although it is quite heavy and needs a couple of viewings to be appreciated. Its a pity Paul Cornell is not writing for the series next year, but hopefully a third series will entice him back.