Doctor Who

It’s taken me a bit of time to write about the new series of Doctor Who, mainly because I’ve kept thinking “There’s something I was going to write, but what was it?”. Ah, if only we had time-travel…

But anyway, yes, in general I thought it was great to have it back. Christopher Ecclestone is grand as the new Doctor – someone who appears to be completely hyper about the end of the world, but with really bad social skills and (in a good sense) some very inappropriate responses. Billie Piper was a revelation – as she was in BBC’s Canterbury Tales last year – in that she’s actually a pretty capable actress.

What was, for me, more impressive was that for all the gloss and hype, it still maintained that “shaky sets” feel of the previous series. Yes, things have changed – but they haven’t changed all that much. The plots still have a major dose of silliness in them, the acting can be (to be charitable) a bit dodgy, but you can see that they’re actually having a laugh while doing the episodes. And it really does help to have a writer who is so obviously a fan of the earlier series – the initial episode seemed to have various threads that could develop over the run of the series, which is always a good thing.

Oh, and thank god that the awful boyfriend should now disappear. I’ve seen park benches that were less wooden.

But yeah, in general it was bloody great to have it back on the screens. Consider it Season Passed.