As might be expected, this story makes for an emotional viewing experience: the finale that never was. But with its concluding montage, and its reassuring message that Sarah Jane's adventures will go on “forever”, episode two – never meant as a last hurrah – is transformed into a fitting ending for the series. The Man Who Never Was already has the feeling of an “event” story given that it properly brings together Luke and Sky for the first time, uniting two eras of the SJA family. An appearance from K9 would have been nice too, but the character is at least referred to, as are UNIT. (And K9 does appear in the final montage, along with the tenth Doctor, and Yasmin Paige as Maria). It's also great to see Sarah Jane's status as a leading journalist reinforced, as well as her earning power being mentioned in order to explain exactly how the attic is financed.

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK preview of the episode.

Watching this story is an odd experience, because it's a re-launch of sorts that can't help but play out in the shadow of Elisabeth Sladen's untimely passing. As a result, there's a sense that although new story possibilities and new character dynamics are set up, we already know that these won't – in fact can't – really be developed or explored beyond the next few episodes. Sky is concerned with establishing a future for the series, but it is one which will never properly come to pass.

The story begins and closes with a voice-over from Sarah – “we're a part of the universe too, and we really aren't alone... life here can be an adventure too” – bringing to mind the structure and sentiments of Invasion of the Bane. Likewise, the eventual reveal of just who introduced baby Sky to Miss Smith also draws on the programme's history, while successfully leaving a greater mystery hanging in the air. Plus we get the added bonus of a return appearance from Floella Benjamin as Professor Celeste Rivers, suggesting that The Sarah Jane Adventures has fully and definitively grown into its own continuity: a Sarahverse intertwined with the Doctor's own Whoniverse.

Phil Ford makes excellent use of Rani's parents as a comic counterpoint to the more dramatic proceedings, though we never do get the punchline to “how many comedy headmasters does it take to change a lightbulb?” Episode one in particular contains many light-hearted moments; Clyde's turn as a children's entertainer is inspired, with his rustle/Russell joke surely being a sly shout-out to creator Russell T. Davies. And Professor Rivers' “wait for me, I'm in wellingtons!” is also a well-judged twist on what could otherwise have been a generic chase sequence. Despite her own scientific knowledge and professional standing, Celeste isn't above pretending to be a Sarah Jane-style adventurer; the glee of her “zap, zap” play-acting shows how inspiring Sarah's adventures can be. It's a tiny detail of Benjamin's performance, but it captures in microcosm the zest for life's adventures that has always been at the heart of this series.

Leaving Sinead Michael's first appearance as Sky until the episode one cliffhanger gives the story a strong kick into its second half, although the child-as-weapon idea seems very similar to A Good Man Goes To War. The parallel suggests that Sarah Jane and Who production teams may have become less cohesively engaged with one another by this point, but nonetheless Michael turns in a creditable performance. Sky is understandably a little limited in character terms, with much of her dialogue involving not understanding things, but presumably the next few stories will build on what is a promising debut.

One missed opportunity is the fact that there's never any doubt over Miss Myers' villainy thanks to her almost cartoonish costuming and depiction. I would have welcomed slightly more ambivalence; the script could have created greater mystery over whether or not Sky was actually being protected from an alien war by her mother. Instead, Miss Myers is little more than a caricatured maniac; the sort of anti-Sarah that we've seen before in the guise of various lady villains. Episode two illustrates how giving Sarah Jane a daughter in Luke's place has the potential to make the show far more directly and obviously female-focused, with Rani realising that she needs to become a source of fashion tips (“Ranipedia!”), whilst the story's resolution involves Sky having to choose between her different 'mothers'.

Prefigured by Professor Rivers' “zap, zap”, it's game-play which becomes crucial to saving the day when Clyde (a tad implausibly) shuts down a nuclear reactor in a sort of “big arcade game.” Playing Mario becomes a rehearsal for the story's heroics, although Clyde's skill has to be augmented by Rani's knowledge of the light spectrum. So it's ROYGBIV to the rescue, as textbook learning and gaming are equally called upon.

“There's always something more amazing to come”, Sarah Jane Smith tells us as the 'next time...' trailer starts up. That makes a good mission statement for a series opener, but as a viewer it's hard not to reflect on the loss and the pain of endings as well as the hope and pleasure of new beginnings. A recent Radio Times interview with Elisabeth Sladen's daughter Sadie Miller called this a “tribute series”, and it is partly that. But as the first new story screened after Lis's death, Sky also becomes something more than the sum of its parts. It's a tale of optimism coloured by fans' and audiences' real world sadness; a struggle between fiction and fact as much as between fleshkind and metalkind.

Reminding audiences of the value of child's play and playfulness, The Sarah Jane Adventures has been, and continues to be, a testament to the BBC's public service remit as well as to the popularity and charm of Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah. Although Doctor Who is sometimes referred to as “the mothership” or “parent” show, perhaps SJA's focus on stories of maternal care make it the true 'mothership' of the franchise. Welcome back, Sarah Jane; you're as sparky and as wonderful as ever.

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK broadcast of the episode.

Including series six's punctuation this is the third finale from Steven Moffat, and strong patterns can be seen to emerge. Firstly, the showrunner revels in misdirection – setting up loyal, fan audiences to interpret details in a particular way, e.g. expecting that the Doctor will tell River his name as part of a Time Lord wedding ceremony, only to find we've been well and truly hoodwinked. Advance rumours and spoilers also indicated that the Daleks would turn up, and they do. Sort of. But rather than the ultimate evil (or even the ultimate wedding party gatecrasher), this Dalek is just a stepping stone to information about the Silence, again misdirecting audiences. Dorium Maldovar's involvement offers yet more sleight of hand; how on earth can a previously beheaded character return? Easily enough, of course, if it's accepted that talking heads can make for fun rather than dull TV.

An undoubted master in misdirection, Moffat also delights in opposing audience expectations. Having set up crucial puzzles and questions he immediately undercuts them. Last year we were all wondering how the Doctor could escape from the perfect prison, only to find he'd managed it before the episode 13 title sequence rolled. This year, we're primed to expect mysteries over how the Doctor can avoid a fixed point in time... and what we get instead looks like the opposite; a tale in which that very fixed point has to be safely restored.

Some fan knowledge is rewarded rather than opposed, though; it's hard not to view all the eyepatches as part of a Nicholas Courtney tribute, with one of Doctor Who's most infamous behind-the-scenes anecdotes finally getting in front of the camera. Such a feeling is reinforced by the Doctor's forlorn phone call to the Brig; even time travellers are sometimes too late. Moffat allows his fandom to shine through, creating a moment of media-pro fan fiction. This is a brand of fan fiction aimed at professionally commemorating the programme's long history, its own fixed points of reference, and its own markers of painful loss. In an episode where time is frozen, its real world passing is most certainly not forgotten.

The ultimate enemy here isn't the Doctor's death, though, or even the Brigadier's heartbreaking absence; it's the end of storytelling itself. Cheating a fixed point means all of time happening at once, stuck in the same day and time, over and over. It's a world which sustains surreal special effects and wonderful juxtapositions, making for some eyecatching, unusual TV drama. But it's also a world in which no more stories can be lived out: cause and effect, sequences of events – what we usually call plots and narratives – no longer seem possible. In part, this is a story-arc finale threatening a finale to all storytelling.

Only the Soothsayer can bring back the pleasures of a tale properly told. Fittingly enough, given that this is the culmination of an arc, The Wedding of River Song is fixated on acts of storytelling and stories. While the Doctor battles against history's cancellation, Steven Moffat plays games with the audience by exploiting our desire to find out all the answers: the Doctor begins to tell Emperor Winston Churchill his tale, while Dorium also promises an account of great import. These yarn-spinners, and their insistent delays and deferrals, deliberately tease the audience. And the false ending before River visits Amy does more of the same, playing a further game with our desire to find out what really happened.

Despite its focus on acts of storytelling, I'd argue that The Wedding of River Song isn't really that interested in answers. It gives some, sure, but almost resentfully, and because it has to. The Teselecta's use is somewhat anticlimactic, if not eminently guessable as soon as it appears. It's not really the point – the point is how we get there, and what new questions can be posed, because as a showrunner Steven Moffat seems far more interested in the transformation of Doctor Who's possibilities. Series five's finale combined the Doctor's opponents in a monster mash; series six part one concluded by combining characters and races in the Doctor's army, and now six part two combines all of Earth's history. Or rather, Earth history largely as depicted in the Moffat era. It's Victory of the Daleks meets Cold Blood meets The Impossible Astronaut; a demented mash-up of episodes previously overseen by this production team, with just a (Dickensian) dash of the old regime. Each of Moffat's finales has sought to mix up and transform usual ways of thinking about Doctor Who – what if all the monsters decided to team up? What if the Doctor brought together a team of fighters? And this time, what if different episodes teamed up? Like a fan remixing Who, Moffat performs transformative work on the show, but by doing so, he transforms his own prior labours as showrunner. This is Doctor Who as a full-on game of self-referencing and self-sampling.

Truth be told, though, The Wedding of River Song is pretty useless as a whodunnit. It's really an anti-whodunnit, a skilled exercise in suspense when we know all along who dies and who the killer is. It's pure storytelling: constant interruptions and colourful incidents that happen to get in the way of an ending for 45 minutes or so. And as with The Big Bang and A Good Man Goes To War, this finale again offers a breakneck blend of misdirection, opposition, fan fiction, and transformation. To coin a playful acronym, these things are a finale's m.o.f.f.a.t. quotient.

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK broadcast of the episode.

Well I never…

This episode was always going to have quite the challenge to resolve all the issues that were raised in this series and to do it in a way that was satisfactory even more so. So lets take the first issue, did it answer all the questions raised?

Well, sort of, no doubts there will be plenty of viewers crying “cop out” at the posing of yet another mystery to be solved but the episode was successful in answering the questions that series 6 threw our way and sorted some stuff from previous years. Eye patches? Check. River Song’s marital status? Check. The Doctor’s fate? Check. The nature of The Silence? Check.

And here lies the issue, the episode was so geared towards tying off loose ends that the episode whizzed by at such a thunderous pace as to leave me feeling somewhat bamboozled and underwhelmed, there were some fun little moments, the appearance of Charles Dickens, the carnivorous skulls left by the Headless Monks, The Doctor’s attempt to get Captain Williams to ask out Amy and River and The Doctor’s shotgun wedding. It was well acted, I loved Karen Gillan’s work in this episode, her coldness in allowing the death of Madame Kervorian was awesome and more than a little terrifying. The visual effects were overall excellent and the fate of The Brigadier brought a tear to my eye.

Despite these bits I found my eyes flicking towards to clock, wondering how on earth they were going to get this to a conclusion and trying to keep everything straight in my mind. More than a few times I found myself thinking of this episode as functional rather than entertaining. You could sometimes see the plot points being hit rather than a fluid move from cause to effect. Problem is how could the show do anything else? By setting this series up to move towards an event that could never really take place without ending the whole show, whether this was a wise decision on Steven Moffat’s part is going to be a debate that keeps fandom going for the rest of time I think.

I think people really weren’t expecting things to be this straight forward, that there would be an immense universe imploding shock to the system that we go with “The Pandorica Opens”/”The Big Bang” but we should know better than that by now, with Steven Moffat things are never really that complicated when you scratch at the surface and I think when push comes to shove that will disappoint more than a few viewers. I wasn’t disappointed by what I saw, it was the logical conclusion of the last two series, in fact I’m looking forward to going back to series 5 and 6 and seeing how it works in retrospect, armed with the knowledge we have now. As I said earlier in this post the episode itself suffered under the weight of the purpose it had to fulfill but it was still a good piece of television. As series finales go it certainly wasn’t the worst we’ve been given, it wasn’t the best either but with me I’ll tolerate stuff from The Doctor that I’d never countenance from anyone else.

I’m sure as I type this the internet is ablaze with “MOFFAT MUST GO” and I think that was going to be the reaction whatever happened in this episode, it was always going to be seen as a cop out and thats a shame because whatever this episodes faults it doesn’t deserve that harsh a verdict. In 20 years time when people are writing clever books about series 6 and youngsters are discovering it for themselves I believe this episode will be held in much higher regard, much like series one’s “Boom Town”, hated by nearly everyone on transmission has now been subject to a great deal of revisionist praise.

So in conclusion I thought it was good albeit flawed, a lot of you who read this will think it sucked and Moffat should be hung from the nearest yardarm… as it always was and as it will always be, and when you think about it isn’t that just a tiny bit marvelous….?

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK preview of the episode.

Doctor Who is often celebrated for its infinitely flexible format. And given that fact, it seems churlish to complain when it produces an episode of sci-fi sitcom infused with the language of our age. Emotional journeys, and giving it 110%: Gareth Roberts has got an app for that. Because this is very, very funny Doctor Who, fizzing with wit and containing some great sight gags. The lift that’s obviously a teleport; the changing room Cyberman adding a whole new meaning to ‘cyber-conversion’ - what's not to love?

And yet it should all have been so dark and desperate, witnessing the Doctor’s last days before Lake Silencio. We know his fate is closing in because we’re given the necessary visual cues: those blue envelopes (lucky that Craig and Sophie opted for TARDIS-blue stationery), receipt of a Stetson, and underwater River, ready and waiting. The iconography is brought into place, with everything wrapped up in a neat gift box ready for next week’s finale. I have one nagging question, mind you: how does the Doctor know for sure his time is up? Why can't he disappear off through time and space, deferring his visit to America and its fatal fixed point?

Setting aside this logic puzzle, Craig Owens makes a superb companion. Again. Personally, I suspect we’ll see him for a third time in 2013 if not before, James Corden’s schedule permitting. Sadly, however, Amy and Rory’s involvement is restricted to an in-joke, in-store promotion: Petrichor, 'For the Girl Who’s Tired of Waiting'. The scent of Moffat-Gaiman-MacRae referencing seems present just to ensure that Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill make the end credits, thus preserving last week’s surprise ending. Moffat knows all the tricks: he knows fans will be scouring cast lists, so the inclusion of Amy’s autograph scene feels calculated to defeat spoilerphiles. And although the moment is a massive coincidence, it's played for laughs as a coincidence. At the same time it has emotional clout built out of our affection for the TARDIS family – a story-beat whose bittersweet sentiment very definitely feels genuine rather than shop-bought. Even if coincidence is "what the universe does for fun”, this 'Doctor Who Coincidental' tugs at the heartstrings.

In an episode which switches companions, Roberts craftily plays with the meaning of ‘companion’. Not only does he riff on it as an old-fashioned term for partner in Val's subplot, he further integrates it into the “Time Lord and a man and a baby” storyline thanks to the Doctor’s comparison between his human companions and “sweet”, disarming babies. It’s cleverly done, with a suitably light touch, making the Doctor’s assistants a subject of humorous banter ("you're my baby!") rather than melodrama. Simultaneously, the Doctor becomes an assistant – “here to help” – and although showing him as a servant of capitalism seems more than a little incongruous, the episode promptly undercuts this meaning. Because the Doctor isn’t a shop assistant; he’s a universal assistant. “I was here to help” he tells three child bystanders, and suddenly we hear their adult voices speaking from the future. It’s a dizzying, glorious moment of time travel across human lives and memories. And occasionally Closing Time likewise jolted me back through time: Shona exploring the eerie emptiness of a Henrik’s-a-like store reminded me of Rose, while the silver rat Cybermat transported me back to watching Tomb of the Cybermen on video. Gareth Roberts can’t resist adding another layer of subversion, though, so we get an implicit acknowledgement that certain Doctor Who monsters might be introduced for their merchandising potential. As such, the Cybermat is a monster mistaken for a toy from the word go. The stock room of Sanderson & Grainger may say “there’s no such item”, but I’d put money on it becoming a real-world plaything before too long.

This isn’t simply well-written comedy, it’s a well-written episode, full-stop. We get an ‘A’ story – the Doctor helping Craig to cope with baby Alfie, or Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All as he prefers to be known. Plus we get a ‘B’ story – a subplot (and it is pretty much a subplot) featuring Cybermen who are busy shoplifting department store assistants to build up their forces. Then there’s a neat dovetailing of plots A and B at the crucial moment of resolution, as Craig blows up the Cybermen “with love” for his son. Looked at from a screenwriting perspective, it all works with machine-tooled precision.

Still, I can’t help the feeling – and it’s a feeling strong enough to reboot emotional subsystems – that the Cybermen are defeated far too easily here, even if they are a low-grade outfit cobbled together out of “old spare parts” rather than being the real deal. Cyber-conversion can be reversed by a parent’s love now? Let's face it, these bargain basement Cybermen were never likely to succeed in taking over Colchester, let alone the world. For me, the conclusion slightly cheapens one of Doctor Who’s iconic monsters, as well as being “grossly sentimental and over simplistic”, as the Doctor himself points out. OK, the dialogue is part of yet another gag, but it’s a fairly high-risk one, going for an off-the-shelf emotional ending while illuminating its ersatz sentimentalism. And despite poking fun at the “emotional journey” associated with Britain’s Got Talent – or Torment – it’s the Doctor’s emotional journey, as much as Craig's, that we follow through this episode. The Cybermen may threaten to remove emotion, but Closing Time generates sentiment at the same time as mocking its formulaic manufacture. In a slightly queer, unstable way, it's never quite sure how it feels about feelings. But never mind that, because I've got an appointment I can't miss. A fixed point in time. Yes, next week is The Wedding of River Song.

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