This review is based on the UK Region 2 DVD release.

This DVD release is timely, given the direction that the show has taken of late. Back in 1972 it possibly seemed daring for a TV series about time travel to broadcast a story focused on, well, time travel, but these days temporal paradoxes are ten-a-penny in Doctor Who. Day of the Daleks did it with seventies' panache, though, and its episode four exposition – as the Doctor realises what's happened, or will happen – still packs a decent punch. But Day's appearance on DVD is timely for a number of other reasons too. It's difficult to hear Jo Grant talking about “September the 13th” – a key date in the story – without hearing strange echoes of our own “September 11th” and its recent anniversary. At the same time, the story's release was surely deliberately scheduled for September 12th in the UK, allowing those who pre-ordered or snapped up a copy quickly to watch Day of the Daleks again on the most appropriate of days. Whether it's historical contingency changing the associations viewers now bring to a Jon Pertwee story, or playful use of 2Entertain's schedule, this release is all about time. It includes a useful “Now and Then” feature (particularly pertinent since new footage for the Special Edition involved returning to Dropmore Park), as well as Part Two of “The UNIT Family”. And the reworked Day of the Daleks gets its own separate making-of on Disc Two. The commentary track includes Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts, with contributions from actors Jimmy Winston and Anna Barry as well as vision mixer Mike Catherwood, who also participates in “A View from the Gallery”. All of this provides a good mix of front-of-camera and behind-the-scenes anecdotes, with features from Blue Peterand Nationwide further contributing to the package, though neither seems to represent the Daleks especially well.

Among all these extras, Disc One's “Blasting the Past” includes some interesting observations from the likes of Terrance Dicks – unimpressed by the Doctor casually shooting an Ogron – and assorted commentators bemoaning the 'three Dalek problem' of the story, with director Paul Bernard coming in for a fair amount of criticism. This lack of Daleks becomes one of the key narratives told about Day, production and fan lore which positions the story as weak in credibility. However, viewed after the events of 2005's Dalek (seemingly referred to by Anna Barry in the commentary) is this really such an issue? Why shouldn't the Daleks send a taskforce of three to sort out the Earth's timeline? It could be argued that rather than making their military mission look under-powered, this reinforces the Daleks' potency. But fandom's favoured interpretation – three Daleks bad – finds itself given succour by this DVD. It's unsurprising, really, because fan interpretations essentially inform all the changes made in Disc Two's main event: the reshaped Special Edition.

Fandom seems agreed on the 'fact' that Day's Dalek voices are a bit rubbish. Early on, they're slow and ve-ry, ve-ry ob-vi-ous-ly syllabic, but that reinforces the Daleks' alien nature. Hearing the original voices again, they don't sound quite as shockingly dreadful to my ears as the DVD Extras and Making-ofs want to assure me is the case. Although Nick Briggs' new vocal performance is as polished and Dalek-y as you could ever wish it to be, I'm still not wholly convinced by the desire to iron out Doctor Who's rough edges or story-by-story inconsistencies. As “Blasting the Past” points out, sometimes you just can't make everything fit together. (And additional Disc Two extra, “The UNIT Dating Conundrum”, makes much the same point). Ben Aaronovitch's sage words on the subject of overall continuity run as follows:

 

Call this the Aaronovitch Limitation Effect, if you like: it basically says that we should just learn to live with Doctor Who's inconsistencies of detail rather than trying to make everything meet up in perfect continuity. But if we can't ever consistently track the Doctor's attitude to drinking, or UNIT dating, then why aim for consistency in Dalek voices so that they 'fit' with other portrayals? Equally, why worry about whether there are three Daleks if it can be argued that just one is enough to cause a right old ruckus? (Sadly Rob Shearman isn't called upon as a talking head in this instance, so I had to imagine my own extra-special edition where he contests the view that three Daleks can't make a convincing attack force).

One Special Edition change directly corrects what members of the production team have bemoaned as a “mistake”. So the gun-toting, Ogron-blasting Doctor criticised by Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts is deftly revised. Now we see the offending Ogron shoot first, with the Doctor acting in self defence. By contrast, other tweaks strike me as more questionable, or as matters of fan taste: why alter the images of past Doctors which in the original are accompanied by elements of the Doctor Who closing title sequence, so that now the new images have a more generic visual backdrop? The title sequence appearing in-story is an interesting detail: seeing visuals which usually frame Doctor Who bleeding into the narrative folds the show strikingly in on itself. Altering this bizarre moment seems tantamount to trying to smooth out and unfold the text; a bit of a shame when the original has a notable, quirky charm.

More understandably, other changes are aimed at beefing up the SF and action-adventure credentials of the story, so that now we see characters disintegrate rather than simply disappear; the Doctor's trike exploits have been visually souped up and the Controller's death sequence is rendered even more dramatic, as are various battle sequences. These additions generally work well, unlike the newly designed 22nd century panorama which looks too much like dropped-in CGI for my tastes, and is markedly out of keeping with the production values and visuals surrounding it.

One of Disc Two's extras “The Cheating Memory” is a discussion of how memory works, but it also amounts to a statement about the story's reconstruction by producer Steve Broster, since it contrasts footage from the two versions of Day of the Daleks, one dubbed 'Memory' and the other 'Reality'. The 'Memory' version is actually the Special Edition: the suggestion is that Broster has finally produced his remembered version of Day – more spectacular than it actually was in 1972. Memory hasn't cheated here, though. Instead, one fan's childhood memories have inspired a re-ordering of reality, i.e. a reworking of the story.

But I don't think memory is the crucial term in all of this. After all, this Special Edition isn't really about one fan's memory – it's a team effort drawing on the skills, the craft, and the artistry of people such as Mark Ayres, Nick Briggs, Toby Chamberlain, John Kelly and others. As such, the two Dalek Days shouldn't be captioned 'Memory' and 'Reality'; they should be thought of as 'Community' versus 'Reality', because it's the fan community and its priorities that are testified to here rather than Broster's own personal recollections. It's effectively the fan community – or at least one generation of fans – which has determined how Day should be fixed and enhanced. It's fandom that's driven this agenda, working against the Aaronovitch Limitation Effect to make Dalek extermination effects more like they 'should be', along with voices, and visions of the 22nd century.

Day of the Daleks: Special Edition is thus almost a sort of anti-Star Wars release. Where that franchise has a creator and rights-owner who keeps on 'fixing' (that is, messing with) details that its fan community feels are sacred, in Doctor Who's case it's the fan community that's able to fix details it has identified, over the years, as being problematic. The Day of the Daleks: Special Edition is quite clearly a labour of fan love, and deserves to be appreciated in that spirit. But I think it should also be remembered that fan communities have a habit of revising their collective views over time: what seem like 'facts' about Day's failings may well be revised again in the future. Rather than simply capturing a childhood memory, then, or representing an objective take on Day, the Special Edition showcases fandom's creativity and professionalism whilst offering a snapshot of communal, generational interpretations of the original story. While there may be no perfect Day to be had, both versions on this DVD are vibrant reminders of how iconic Doctor Who can be of its time: then, and now.

 

 

 

 

 

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

In an era of the show when so much leaks out ahead of broadcast, whether in spoiler tags or the Radio Times, it’s genuinely rare for a major, series-changing event to wallop you between the eyes. But that’s what The God Complex achieves, craftily tucked away in the episode eleven slot. Good old number eleven, it had to be this Doctor’s Room of Fear, of course. But for the eleventh episode in a run of thirteen to write out two lead characters? Own up, who saw that one coming? And in a story written by Toby Whithouse too, rather than one of the showrunner's episodes where you might expect such momentous events to fall. Steven Moffat, you sly devil.

As for those final few minutes, well, the moment has been prepared for. Both last week, with the Doctor’s final regretful glance – filled with remorse at what he’d put Amy through – and this week where it’s Amy’s faith in him which generates life-threatening events. “You’re fired”, the Doctor jokes to Pond upon meeting Rita (it’s a big day for fans of The Apprentice). But this is what he eventually does – Amy gets her marching orders, albeit for her own good. “He’s saving us”, she informs Rory. You wouldn’t think being presented with a house and a car could seem so bittersweet; in almost any other show they’d be the trappings of success, the big prize, the markers you’ve made it. Not here. Here they’re the melancholic second choice, the non-Doctor-ish ordinariness that even Rory’s dream car glee and clutched bottle of champagne can’t quite make good on.

But it’s cleverclogs Rita who says the most important thing in the whole story. It’s she who observes of the Doctor: “that’s quite a god complex you have”. Because the eleventh Doctor doesn’t seem to credit Amy with any agency at all – as far as he’s concerned, she never really had a choice to join him on his travels. And likewise she doesn’t get to decide when she leaves – both events are arranged by the Doctor, busy playing God. If her faith in him is reduced, or weakened for a moment, even that’s his doing too. Amy's choice? She seemingly doesn't have one. It’s all about the Doctor-God. After this it’s difficult to see him welcoming another full-time companion aboard the TARDIS in a hurry, although given his alleged middle name Amy and Rory may be back before too long. Perhaps the Moffat masterplan has been partly inspired by Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity (not a sentence I thought I'd be writing this morning).

The meat-and-potatoes of this story are again well handled by director Nick Hurran: the hotel complex is textbook creepy, and near-subliminal images of “Praise him”, whether presented in clean typeface or ransom-note print, boost what is already a highly kinetic piece of direction. Making the story's spooky catchphrase televisual in this way is an unusual approach, especially when it flickers on-screen immediately prior to the title sequence. It's a little ostentatious, but in a story as surreal as this, it fits right in.

The Minotaur creature is also effectively realised on the whole. Despite the episode name-checking a certain Nimon, David Walliams refrains from doing a Soldeed, instead turning in an almost restrained performance as Gibbis even if Joe the gambler compensates by dialling his menacing mania up to eleven. And on the subject of hotel/prison complex victims, Royston Luke Gold looks uncannily like producer Marcus Wilson. Hopefully no members of the production team were made to confront their greatest fears during the making of this episode.

Whithouse’s script is neatly structured, with its fear-to-faith switcheroo subverting that telefantasy staple where a monster feeds on fear and can be defeated by faith. This time, faith is part of the problem rather than the solution. But religion isn't simply the enemy; The God Complex thoughtfully distinguishes itself by offering up a resourceful, engaging Muslim character in the shape of Rita, briefly acknowledging and challenging prejudice via her line “don't be frightened”. And although Rory's lack of religion and superstition mean that he's repeatedly shown the exit, Whithouse adroitly avoids preaching 'secularism-good, religion-bad' by indicating that the “prison in space” has itself been built by an advanced, secular society. What the Doctor's up against isn't just a God Complex; there's also a Glitch Agenda. Technology's gone wrong again, leaving different fears and phobias in situ. This is an overly familiar trope, and if the devil's in the detail then greater variety in story details sometimes wouldn't hurt.

Certain other elements of The God Complex are also excessively familiar. For example, Howie the conspiracy theory blogger-nerd comes across as a lazy, retrograde stereotype that no amount of stylish retrograde zooms can quite make up for. “What’s loser in k-k-k-Klingon?”, one of the girls in Howie’s room taunts him, and you can’t help but feel that it’s a misjudged moment. Even though we're meant to be seeing Howie's fears, the fact that Rory sarcastically dismisses his theories (and that they're written so as to sound loopy) suggests the character should be viewed as a 'sad' fan-blogger-conspiracy nut. After challenging anti-Muslim feeling, it's a pity that prejudice against sections of fandom/Internet culture seems rather unreconstructed. Why not go the whole hog and just provoke your own online fan audience: “what’s loser in m-m-m-ming mong?” (The answer’s ming mong, obviously).

But it’s the ending that’s really provocative – rarely has the Doctor's god complex been so thoroughly exposed. This isn’t one-off Waters of Mars-style hubris; this is saying that all of Amy’s time with the Doctor – from being offered time and space to being offered a terraced house – was decided by him, and controlled by him every step of the way. “I’m not a hero”, he gently tells her while seeking to undermine her faith, but as the TARDIS interior fades to desolate darkness and ‘NEXT TIME’ slams in, you can’t help but wonder. Perhaps he was right. Is he straightforwardly saving Amy, or has she always been an object of His will? Because the more you ponder some of this episode's implications, the more it begins to test your faith in the Doctor himself. In short, The God Complex is satisfyingly complex storytelling.

What did you think of The God Complex? Now you can rate the episode here.

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

A series finale generally takes two forms: the purpose of the first type is to wrap up the threads that make up the ongoing plot of that series; the second is to set up the cliffhanger of an ongoing series. In both cases, the aim is to reach a climax, with the former consolidating into the resolution, whilst the latter building up to leave you with the big reveal "to be continued" ...

So where does Miracle Day fit? The answer is a little unsatisfactory in both camps.

One storyline's solution was inevitable since day one of course - it was clear the Miracle would be resolved and everybody would return to mortality; however, it wasn't so clear how that resolution would be achieved, even by episode nine, and about all we could be certain of was that Jack would be involved in some way. Ultimately this was indeed the case, the Miracle is reversed and everything is back to as normal as it could be.

However, then we have another few minutes to spare, where we discover that the whole Miracle is a "trial run" and the Family are simply off to run their "Plan B". To me, this simply had the effect of cheapening the ten week run, cheapening the deaths of Vera and Esther, and generally ending up with the feeling that the whole plot was a waste of time.

But hey, this has suddenly moved us into cliffhanger territory, and lo and behold we get it in the form of Rex Matheson joining the immortality club courtesy of him actually having a useful purpose for once in the series, as Jack's blood bank earlier in the episode!

Before I go any further, let me just point out that though I found the resolution of Miracle Day generally disappointing, when watching I was perfectly gripped by the climax build-up, the way it was executed, and the ending truly was a WTF moment, so the episode accomplished its task as televisual entertainment in that respect!

Let's get my biggest gripe out of the way first - just why was Esther killed off? In Children of Earth, Ianto's death was an integral part of the storyline as Jack sees the person closest to him die, with him totally impotent to stop it from happening. But, whilst it is arguably an important part of the plot for Miracle Day to have Vera 'die' (and thus bring to light the true meaning of Category One - not that this mattered by the time we reached last week's episode), with Esther it was simply an arbitrary shooting by a secondary character, had no impact on the conclusion of the Blessing plot at all, and being she did survive after the Miracle ended, there was no actual need to kill her off at all! The funeral scene didn't actually bring anything more to the story, and Rex's discovery of Charlotte's duplicity could have been set anywhere. Instead, it just feels like killing a character off for the sake of it. Some reviewers have commented that this is "the Torchwood way" and that it wouldn't be the show if a main character wasn't killed off ... I don't agree at all - deaths happen, yes, but they should be intrinsic to the plot - there is a difference between someone dying in a noble way and simply being written out lazily like here.

That aside, all of the characters came to life in this episode in a way I wish they'd done so in previous episodes. Rex finally proved why he was in such an important position in the CIA, and the plan concocted by him and Esther to hide Jack's blood within him was inspired (though let's not dwell too much on the actual mechanics of transfusion and why the directors of 28 Days Later abandoned such a plan in that film!). The Family members we saw on screen seemed confident, competent and convinced in their plans, at least until the above revelation ended their grand scheme, and Jilly's mad enthusiasm for their cause and what she sees as salvation was captivating, and after my misgivings over her character in earlier weeks, I am actually happy she did survive the explosion in the end to come back another day.

And then we have Oswald. For a moment there I thought there was going to be a revelation about who/what Susie Cabina really was and why he had to catch and kill her - i.e. a secret that a tortured man had to hide even to his (original) death and had only just found a man from the future that he could confide in. But no, he was exactly how he had been portrayed, a thoroughly despicable child killer with no sense of remorse, and Jack took him down a peg when he said about the universe: "I wish you could see that Oswald ... cause then you'll know how small you've made your life". This later made for a strange juxtaposition between what Oswald might consider 'heroism' in his sacrifice at the end and his seeming wish for redemption through that act, versus his warped sense of purpose in wanted to continue his 'passion' for the hunt of Susie and her ilk echoing on as he is finally engulfed in mortality.

Then the Cooper clan and their loss of Geraint was sensitively handled, with Rhys for once coming across as a sympathetic person and not the "noisy hulk" he normally comes across as. And I was pleased to see Andy Davidson having his role to play, and also that his seemingly prophetic words at the start - "she'll be the death of me" - didn't come to fruition after all - phew!

The "she" of the last sentence was of course Gwen, and once again the interplay between her and Jack as their friendship is put to the limit was portrayed brilliantly by Eve and John; the foreshadowing of this was laid down in Immortal Sins, and seeing Gwen taking the responsibility of what would effectively be the death of her friend was one of the best scenes of the episode, if not the series. And as for that 'death' ... in some ways it would have been a brave move to have actually killed Jack outright, turning this act into a noble sacrifice to save the world (another "Doctor" trait he's picked up over the centuries - could you imagine the young dashing conman from The Empty Child doing such a thing?), but then again I would like to see further adventures with the mysterious time agent (like actually exploring why he has a two-year gap in his memories!) so I'm not so fussed about it!

Reading through the above, you're probably hard-pressed to work out why I wasn't so enamoured of the ending (Esther notwithstanding). Well, it isn't the characterisations that I had a problem with, it's more the actual plot threads and pointlessness of a number of them. Take, for instance, the big fuss in End of the Road as to how the Null Field panels from the Hub seemed to be so important to the resolution of Miracle Day, given their influence in the death of Angelo. Jack taking the alpha plate was seemingly signposted as vital to the resolution - but that's the last we hear of it! I thought the Soulless were to be important in some way (maybe as Oswald's followers) but they were just a one-episode wonder - in fact there are so many of these 'dead-end' signals in the show it could almost have been ten separate episodes with a common thread to lead to the finale (like "Bad Wolf") rather than an integrated progressive storyline leading to the resolution.

And the Blessing itself is still something that almost broke my suspension of disbelief in the series. As a concept it was an interesting idea, but this was basically a re-hash of the Gaia principle (though I suspect the CGI renderers took the idea of "Mother Earth" a little too literally in their representation of the Blessing on screen, ahem!), and the sci-fi trapping of a hole through the diameter of the Earth was written off with a simple "we don't know" when Jilly asks the question we're all wondering at home - where's the lava?!! Jack makes a comment about it being it being "the gap in between" and then off into a load of Doctor Who Silurian/Racnoss pseudo-explanation that Gwen quite rightly says "you don't bloody know, do you?". A clever thing might have been to make this related to the rift in Cardiff and making the end point Campbell Island (that's no worse than Shanghai and Buenos Aires, if a little less glamorous!) and that would have tied in nicely with the Null Field, but alas it was not to be. So we end up with a strange natural phenomenon that was dug up, fed with Jack's immortal blood until it went doo-lally, but fixed with something around just 16 pints of Jack's now mortal blood!

Not wishing to end on a low note, there were other highlights to the episode, like the lovely scene with the shop owner in Shanghai comforting Gwen after she found the Blessing, Oswald calling Gwen magnificent, Gwen and Jilly's fight in the lift, and of course that brilliant moment when Shapiro discovers who the traitor in their midst really is - his singular response is one that almost steals the episode for itself!


All-in-all, this is a series that I haven't actually disliked, but just haven't been able to totally enjoy either. It's had some really good moments, but also some downright boring ones, too (I'll look at the overall series itself in a future post). For The Blood Line itself, though it has some really frustrating plot elements, overall I enjoyed it on viewing and feel this is one of the strongest episodes of the series.

And as the finale, quite right too!


Okay, I confess, I am still frustrated at Esther's wasted opportunity to have further adventures with Jack!!!

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

Red or Black? In the hands of the right production team, 'Red or green?' proves to be an infinitely more dramatic question...

As a kindness, the use of two words has been minimised in what follows. I promise that there will be precious few mentions of 'timey' and 'wimey'. Because, of course, this episode covers richly Moffat-esque ground, as time paradoxes and “wubbly” foldings of the then and the now eventually create a dreadful dilemma for Rory Williams. However, writer Tom MacRae finds his own way to grasp the showrunner's favoured themes, and as a result this rendering of Amy Pond feels more emotionally real than perhaps ever before in her time on the show. Karen Gillan is a fine actress, but Amy-as-written has sometimes seemed like a collection of tics, betrayed by tendencies to go for the funny line or the plot arc rather than character consistency and depth psychology. As a result, it's not always been easy to relate to Amy as if she's a flesh-and-blood, real person (notwithstanding the fact that she hasn't always been a flesh-and-blood, real person in series six). Poor Amelia spent her childhood waiting for the Doctor, challenging everybody around her and holding on to the reality of her raggedy man, but we've rarely seen the psychological results of that struggle in the show. Not really.

But, oh, The Girl Who Waited makes good on the promise of Moffat's set-up for Amy Pond. This time we finally get a sense of how waiting for the Doctor might corrode a person's spirit, with Older Amy having become embittered, hard and unfeeling, donning an emotional carapace as well as a cobbled-together, protective costume. MacRae doesn't pull any punches, and his script is all the more intense and dramatically satisfying as a result, whether it's Future Amy confessing her hatred for the Doctor, seeming not to care if Rory gets himself killed, or mocking the Time Lord's “voice of God”.

Ostensibly a Doctor-lite episode thanks to virulent Chen7, MacRae gets around this in a series of ways. Not just via Rory-cam, but also by transforming Future Amy into a version of the Doctor – she's not quite emotionally wired up, she's in possession of her own lashed-up sonic screwdriver, and she's well up to speed on her environment, having cleverly figured out ways of fooling the Handbots. But Rory is also forced to become Doctor-ish: “You're turning me into you”, he realises too late as the Doctor compels him to choose between his wives. Narrative actions we'd expect the Doctor to perform are thus neatly handed over, in differing ways, to Old Amy and Rory – the Companions Who Can.

This episode is also notably guest-star-lite, which presumably pleased those in charge of the show's purse strings. Amy-heavy instead, it gives Gillan a chance to explore her character's darker side, as well as further fleshing out Amy and Rory's love. There's more 'emotional realism' on show here than has been evident for quite some time in the worlds of Doctor Who; compare this episode's character psychology to River Song's in Let's Kill Hitler, for example. Where River's change of heart – from psychopathic assassin to repentant love in 32 or so minutes – never quite felt convincing, this story rarely puts a foot (or a hand) wrong in its explorations of self-sacrifice, love and hate. Plot mechanics have sometimes all-too-visibly driven character emotions elsewhere, but here characters' feelings are seamlessly integrated into events. Good work, Tom MacRae. Despite promoting a piece of Moffat's previous dialogue into the episode title, this has the feeling of a script that Russell T. Davies would have been more than happy commissioning. It even has monsters with a catchphrase, hooray!

But if MacRae plays a blinder, then so too do the likes of Michael Pickwoad and Nick Hurran, handily reunited as a designer-director pairing after their work on the AMC/ITV remake of The Prisoner. Pickwoad transforms what could have been prosaic sci-fi – all labels and buttons for 'Arrivals' or 'Departures' – into a stark, blank minimalism intensifying the horror of Amy's life spent among such nothingness. (Again, this probably pleased those in charge of budgeting). It's a pity, however, that tension between production design and story logic makes Amy seem rather daft in the pre-credits sequence. From a design point of view, Green Anchor and Red Waterfall needed to be clearly distinct so that the audience would quickly pick up what's going on. But from a story perspective, for Amy to pick one of the two buttons haphazardly really calls for them to be fairly indistinguishable so as to sell this moment, and her mistake. Design triumphs over plot, however, making Amy's choice to press red to get into a room – without so much as querying which of the buttons she ought to select – look more than a touch implausible. This is a rare mishandling, though, as Hurran otherwise makes a series of great choices. Old Amy's final attack on the Handbots, all sparking slo-mo, is itself pretty stunning, but even that's immediately topped by the directorial and editing decision to mix together shots of Future Amy (far left of frame) and Rory (far right). In an episode where two timestreams interact, and where two Amys have been paradoxically brought together, this climactic sequence almost heartbreakingly brings together two different spaces on-screen. Inside and outside the TARDIS are almost made to touch; two impossible spaces folded together at the end of a tale of two temporalities. It's a thematically spot-on choice, and it allows both Gillan and Darvill to shine.

Hurrah for Hurran; bring him back soon, please. Oh, right, he's directing next week's ep. I'm strongly tempted to view this as a budget-saver episode, promoted from over-commission on grounds of fiscal prudence. But whether or not it's Discount Who, it is nonetheless a TV drama treat, as affecting as it is well-designed, sensitively directed, and sharply acted. Beyond 'timey' and 'wimey' gimmicks, hand-on-heart, this is totally and wonderfully Doctor Who.

Matt Hills is the author of Triumph of a Time Lord, and is currently reviewing Torchwood: Miracle Day for the Antenna blog.

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

With just one episode to go one might expect that the various plot strands would coalesce into a coherent direction leading to a grand finale ... but at the end of The Gathering I'm still not entirely sure what it is all about ...

The Blessing: is it a creation constructed by the Three Families from Jack's essence, a naturally occurring part of the planet that has been discovered and harnessed, a living entity that has been manipulated, or something else entirely? It certainly felt like a nod to Douglas Adams and the Total Perspective Vortex! (Not to mention appearing as a euphemism for Mother Earth?!!)

Why do the Families want Jilly to "write history"? There's already been one reference to such an idea - with the Trickster Brigade subplot from Immortal Sins of altering events in the Second World War - so maybe it's attempt number two (though again what has this to do with Jack, unless he's just the catalyst).

Why was Oswald built up by the Families, just to seemingly be dropped right in it at the turn of a hat (well punch) last week? This week he revealed just how manipulative he can be in the way he handled the Cooper household, so is there a further revelation yet to come? He did have that meeting which hasn't been clarified yet in Dead of Night, after all.

Anyway, I imagine this is all going to resolved in The Blood Line ...

As for the episode itself, like last week it was an unfathomably intriguing and engrossing fifty minutes of television in spite of the lack of momentum exhibited, though some scenes again seemed a bit drawn out (and again only a couple of principal settings). There was a genuine level of fear and frustration over the ruthless and strangely unemotional investigation of Finch, but I really hope that Geraint's fate is resolved positively as otherwise that whole liberation and concealment is just another plot cul-de-sac that has been used simply to exploit the audience's emotions.

Character-wise, it must certainly have preyed on Gwen's mind, otherwise why on earth would she have been so stupid as to pull off her face mask during her ram-raid of the pharmacy? Yes, I know this is to demonstrate that it is her there, but I suspect us viewers would be able to work that out easily enough as she spoke to the passerby and she could easily have dumped the mask as she jogged away afterwards.

Rex was in "intelligent" mode again today, though it seemed to me that Charlotte was blatantly behaving suspiciously - I honestly thought the business with the digital version of the short story was a deliberate trap by Rex as he'd compare versions to see if it was tampered with, but I guess I was giving him too much credit there!

Oswald and Esther continue to be the the focal interest in the show for me. Though I fully expected Bill Pullman to feature strongly, I never suspected that Alexa Havins would be the shining light in the series (I would have placed more money on that being Lauren Ambrose in the lead-up). As I've said previously, I really hope that she outlives Miracle Day - though we're used to the minimal survival rate of popular characters in Torchwood. (My hopes of her and Jack partnering up are still simmering away!)

All-in-all, this episode continues the trend of the better episodes for me, so I have high hopes for the finale. But ... a hole running the diameter of the Earth between Shanghai and Buenos Aires, possibly the biggest piece of hokum this series has ever produced?!!!

Preview: The Blood Line

As we reach the end of the ten-episode epic the resolution of the titular central plot-line is probably obvious to everybody, but as one might expect from the twists and turns of previous Torchwood storylines the journey to that resolution and emotional angst encountered along the way is never going to be so simple.

The Gathering saw our main characters arrive in Shanghai and Buenos Aires, the Blessing finally introduced, and the means to find it unveiled. But will all the questions that have been raised along the way finally be answered?

Of course, responding to that question is a spoiler! Suffice it to say, as Russell T Davies mentioned in interviews the story is self-contained so you aren't going to end up on a massive cliffhanger into a series that may or may not be commissioned, but of course the characters we've met along the way don't simply fade away, leaving us with potential future escapades with them to look forward to.

However, here are some snippets to watch out for along the way: a poignant scene with Oswald and Jack as they prepare for action; another expression of Jack and Gwen's love for one another; Jilly erupting from out of her shell, and also giving Gwen a run for her money; Esther and Rex finally demonstrating how great a team they really are together; a reference to the Doctor; Rhys being sensitive rather than abrasive; Sergeant Andy of course; and John De Lancie getting possibly the best line in the series!

A full review will be posted after broadcast.

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

Since its return Doctor Who has gone to great pains to show us the money. Huge, sweeping alien vistas, strange new races and intergalactic space stations, but every so often we're reminded about the ordinary scariness of the everyday.

With Night Terrors Mark Gatiss takes the story of a seemingly ordinary little boy who is afraid of the monsters in his wardrobe and brings his characteristic flair for the macabre to the proceedings. The episode is wonderfully atmospheric, with lingering shots of cracks in doors and long, empty hallways ramping up the tension to almost unbearable levels. The decision to set the episode in what Amy wonderfully calls "Planet Eastenders" was a brilliant one, an air of urban menace pervades the show, the people on the estate live in their own little boxes, deep down as terrified of their own surroundings and the "monsters" as little George is.

As well as the atmospherics of the show, the other stand out must be the guest performance from Daniel Mays, most recently the best thing in the otherwise forgettable "Outcasts" he turns in another excellent showing as a Dad at the end of his tether with his son. He provides an excellent counterpoint to a typically mile-a-minute Doctor who was also on great form. In another nod to Who tradition Amy and Rory are largely separated from the main action, with an nice little acknowledgement to the audience as Rory wonders if hes dead yet again!

This is a very simple tale, I feel a more than a few will find it too simple for them, the story itself is very reminiscent of Who episodes like Blink and Fear Her with the dolls immediately bringing to my mind the Clockwork Droids of The Girl In The Fireplace. The old standard explanation of "the perception filter" is wheeled out for another airing, the formerly clever idea is now getting slightly worn out with over use. While it was nice to get away from the River Song story line for an episode, I found it a little irritating that they felt the need to shoe horn in a shot of the Doctor's death date, as if it would have slipped the viewers mind in the intervening week. That being said I feel that conversely some fans will find the lack of River Song action just as irritating.

Overall I personally found the change of pace refreshing, the direction of the episode really allowed the ideas to breathe and allowed the viewer to reflect on what was happening on screen. After the frenetic pace of Lets Kill Hitler a return to a good old slow burn horror story shows off the versatility and range of Doctor Who. At the end of the day The Doctor came to town, saved a family and was magnificent in doing so and rather brilliantly I think theres going to be more than a few kids refusing to go to bed on Saturday night.

As it should be.