Kindle Surprise

The other day I was walking into town and bumped into a friend of my sister's, who happens to be an avid reader and she always asks how my writing's going and from there – not least because she always has a book in hand - we usually end up talking about what we've been reading lately. On this occasion I answered that I was reading some Jules Verne (Mysterious Island – seen the film, never read it before) and showed her my shiny new Kindle, on which said work resided along with two or three other e-books that represented my earliest purchases from the Kindle store.

Whereupon this lady, who is really funny in all the best possible ways, backed away and held up her fingers in the sign of a cross and, like a true exorcist, urged me to return to the world of real books.

I laughed, discreetly tucked the offending device away in my pocket and promised I'd still read proper books as well.

The funny thing is, it probably wouldn't have been all that long ago that I might have reacted like her. Call me a literary Luddite, but when it comes to reading there's no real substitute for the feel of a paper book in your hand and anyway, after my experiences of so much proofreading of other people's work on authonomy, I think I'd rather have gouged my eyes out than read another document off a computer screen. Add to that my lifelong dreams of publication and an e-book just doesn't cut it from an author's perspective either.

When I think of the trees that have died to bring us the works of Katie Price and others, well, my material's worth many a rainforest next to that, damn it. But setting those green sentiments aside, nothing beats seeing your books on the shelves and I've always looked forward to the day when I could add volumes of my original works next to my previous Doctor Who output and so on that currently have their own little shelf at home.

So when others recommended I publish one of my own works on Kindle, I stopped short of making the sign of the cross, but was sceptical and resistant to say the least. But after a prolonged period of coming up against similarly resistant publishers and agents – the two worst forms of writers' block – you owe it to yourself to investigate alternatives.

These same agents and publishers were, after all, telling me that my work was “excellent”, “colourful, imaginative, well-written” etc and declaring that as an author I should be encouraged. All the while, in spite of those endorsements, acting as barriers between my books and potential readers. Nervous because of the state of the industry, ridiculously high advances paid to a select few (like the Katie Prices) whose books end up immediately discounted in the windows of WHSmith and the inevitable reservations when met with anything original. (Wot no Teen Vampires?)

Now if I'd had the resources, I might have set up as an independent publisher, but at the end of the day I'm a writer and I was cautioned by an independent publishing friend that basically I'd end up with little or no time left for writing. Not good. On top of which, I doubt I would have been able to produce books at a comparably affordable price to compete with the mass marketed slush pile known as popular fiction.

Time then for me to embrace the 21st Century. (In a purely Platonic way, you understand.)

Me being me, if I was going to publish some work of mine on Kindle, I was going to treat myself to a Kindle gadget.

Now I do like gadgets, it's true. And you might suppose a certain bias on my part, since I have now made one of my books available on the device, but this is not a sales pitch – you don't need a Kindle to enjoy my book, you can download the software free to your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and what have you – no, it's more just a shared revelation, in that I can't quite believe how quickly a staunch paperback traditionalist like me has become a convert to the e-reading experience.

Admittedly, it's still early days and any toy has a degree of novelty value, so maybe my current enthusiasm will wear off. Allowing for that then, I am impressed.

The Kindle is a good deal slimmer and lighter weight than I'd expected and, especially for something grey and rectangular, it's an elegant design. First and foremost though, it's the reading experience that won me over. There's no screen glare, it's as easy on the eye as reading a cleanly printed page and the refresh rate means the delay between pages is no more than you get from physically turning a paper page.

Obviously it scores in the portability department over a paperback and I'm not entirely sure how many books you can store on it, but I'm pretty sure it's more than my entire collection. (And I have too many books for our shelf space at home.) Plus you can 'archive' books that you've read and they're removed from the device but available to re-download at the touch of a button. The downloads, by the way, are very fast and the range of titles available (now including Evil UnLtd folks ;-) ) is , well, what you'd expect from Amazon really. It's tempting to spend more time browsing than reading, almost too easy with its one-touch purchasing, and you could spend a fortune on books without feeling it at all. Luckily I confined myself initially to the 'FREE' list – and even though some titles on the list will cost you £0.49 for example it's been a great way to catch up on some classics without breaking the bank. Meanwhile there are plenty of other titles I already have my eye on and it has genuinely reawakened my reading habit, which can only be a good thing.

In addition, you can email your own documents (Word, PDF) to the device, and make notes on them, so potentially ideal for proofreading. I'm aiming to put that to the test on Evil Vol 2 and a new YA fiction idea I'm developing, I'll let you know how that goes. Supposedly there's also an MP3 player on there, but I've yet to put that through its paces. It's not crucial, and I honestly would be happy with it as a dedicated e-reader.

The downsides? The keyboard is serviceable for the little I've needed it so far, although numerical digits are only accessible via a 'Symbol' key and that can be a minor nuisance. Far more grating, I gave the speaking book feature a whirl and frankly it made a hash of it. It struggles with pace and intonation, 'just a bit'. The words were discernible, but – no offence – unless you relish the prospect of Stephen Hawking reading you your book at bedtime, I wouldn't bother. (Although listening to it read the first page of Evil UnLtd last night did provide some entertainment value.) Maybe technology will allow for a voice of your chosing – Holly Hunter or Emily Procter would get my vote. Or, for Evil, Stephen Fry, Richard E Grant or Benedict Cumberbatch could do a worthy Dexter Snide, I think. Yeah, a voice to suit the work, that'd be the way to go.

Since I don't need that feature, it's not a real gripe. So my only proper grumbles arise from an author's viewpoint. It's not the uploading of your work that's a problem, that's as easy as pie. But, and I appreciate I'm a learner here, while the conversion process from PDF (or Word) to Kindle is a breeze, there are formatting issues and I had to download the resulting HTML and edit that in order to polish my processed MS to presentable standard. (This after the original doc – and hence the PDF – had been polished and smartened to the nth degree.) It wasn't anything major, but I did have to go through and check every line break and scene break etc, and then each time changes were made and I uploaded the altered document, it could take anything up to another 48 hours before the book was 'live' again on the Amazon Kindle site.

So, a bit fiddly in that respect, but that's the process for the author, rather than the device. And as I say, I'm a learner, and I'll know by the time it comes to uploading Evil Vol 2 (this time next year, Evil fans!) to attend to all the relevant formatting changes in one go before re-uploading. Also, once I'd finished smartening up the document, I had some trouble downloading the updated version, since the device still retained the old version in its archive. Happily, the Kindle support people were prompt and helpful and emailed the updated version direct to my Kindle. Sorted.

And I have to say, all bias aside, it looks the business. (Obligatory plug here: take a look – you can download a sample for free. Also available on Amazon.com, for readers across the Atlantic.)

It's true that I still aim to see Evil UnLtd – and other works from yours truly – in paper form, a nice collection of spines all in a row on the bookshelf. Luverly. But in the meantime I'm at least happy that now some of my work is out there and available to readers because, well, that's the whole point, isn't it.

But the biggest turnaround for me – and the biggest surprise – is how readily I've become a convert to the electronic age of reading. I love it. Just don't tell my sister's friend that. She'll likely drive a wooden stake through my heart and chop off my head.

EVIL RE-KINDLED

Some people might think Cheryl Cole was Evil for choosing Katie over Gamu. But that's nothing compared to Evil UnLtd.

They're Evil. Their Evil knows no limits. And they work exclusively for themselves.

And now they're launching their enterprise on the Kindle. The first volume of their exploits - Evil UnLtd: The Root Of All Evil - is now available, from the Kindle store on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.

There's no greater volume of Evil.*

And don't worry, if you don't happen to have a Kindle device (although I treated myself to one recently and I can thoroughly recommend it), the Kindle software is available to download FREE for a variety of platforms: PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. Although Uncle Tom would appreciate it if you asked him nicely before using him as an e-book reader. He's funny like that.

Please Support Evil. Every two minutes and seventeen seconds another villain falls prey to some big dumb action hero. They need your help.

As Dexter Snide himself says,

“All that it takes for evil to succeed, someone once said, is for good men to do nothing... In a word, bollocks. Evil needs nurturing, looking after, hand-raising by those who understand its little ways.”


So please spread the word, tell your friends. And go on, treat yourself to a quick download. All proceeds will go towards Gamu. Okay, not really, but one more random mention might earn us more hits.

*Evil UnLtd were filmed using Evil extensions and enhanced in post-production.

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

Everyone has their bugbears. Reset switches are one of mine. When it comes to writing, I always figured Undo and Delete were for the stuff you don't want ending up in the story. Unfortunately when time travel is involved, there seems to be a temptation to throw bigger and bigger wham-bam dramatic oh-my-god-how-will-they-get-out-of-that events at the screen because whatever happens can simply be undone.

The writers even seem to be labouring under some delusion that it's clever. And yet it's more often than not exactly what it looks like at the cliffhanger stage: a dramatic dead end. They've painted their central characters into such a corner that the only way out is to reverse out of the cul-de-sac. And they seem to convince themselves that the way to improve upon this formula is to raise the stakes. The bigger the catastrophe, the bigger the drama, right? Well, no. The bigger the catastrophe, the Bigger the Undo. Hence, the bigger the catastrophe, the harder it is to care about the outcome.

The Doctor Who TV Movie left me singularly unimpressed for a number of reasons (although I quite liked McGann's performance and loved the TARDIS set design), chief among them was the way in which the end of the world was undone with the TARDIS rolling back time. That and two companions brought back from the dead. Clearly, no series arose from that pilot because the addition of this handy feature to the time capsule's capabilities rendered any subsequent adventures pointless.

If that's how time and space work in your fictional universe, one may as well travel in dreams or virtual reality, since although characters remember the experience, there's precious little difference between events that didn't really happen and events that are just going to unhappen.

Sadly that TV Movie has become the template for season finales, coupled with an obsessive compulsion to go bigger and 'better' each time. Threat: millions of Daleks. Solution: Rose 'Holy Ghost' Tyler and her mass-disintegration and resurrection schtick. Small potatoes. Threat: millions of Daleks and Cybermen. Solution: handy Invasion Reverse lever. Still, for all its convenience there was a cost: poor Rose was cast into a parallel dimension, lost forever. Well, until she came back. Next up, we had the Earth completely subjugated by the Mad Master and his Amazing Levitating Balls. But luckily Doctor Dobby was able to transform into a more helpful floaty Messianic being who could roll back time just like a TV Movie TARDIS. (Ironically, a miracle achieved by the power of storytelling. Ha.) Next, Rusty has the Daleks relocate the Earth to a remote part of the universe. There's plenty of other guff going on, but naturally the Earth has to be returned to its rightful place and in fine TVM tradition this is achieved by adding another absurd capability to an already ridiculously comprehensive and drama-cheapening TARDIS spec. Planet-towing. And they used to worry that K9 made things too easy for the Doctor. Finally – thank God – we had a sort of Being John Simm scenario plus the return and unreturn of Gallifrey, handily rectified by some thoroughly unconvincing gubbins that I couldn't care enough about to remember the specifics. I recall a gun being fired, followed by a nauseating twenty minute pre-regeneration goodbye.

With the bar set so high, how in the name of Rassilon was the Grand Moff ever going to top that lot?

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about his two-part season closer - The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang - is that he tried. Frankly, I would have been a happier bunny if he had diverged from the template altogether. If he had, I could have dispensed with all this comparison, for starters. But context insists on playing its part.




Clearly any two-parter will consist of setup and resolution. Too frequently, it's more a case of setup and upset and the scale of disappointment is usually proportional to the scale of the setup. If a Part One has done its job well, it will have built up the drama, the suspense, the expectations etc, so that it's more full of promise, Eastern or otherwise, than Turkish Delight.

The Pandorica Opens is damn near perfect in that respect and boasts enough key differences to overcome some worrying commonalities it shares with a Rusty finale.

The pre-credits sequence is a joy, treating us to cameos in an inventive and meaningful way that feeds us into the story as well as celebrating some of the season's best characters. (Contrast this with the overblown appendix to End Of Time – the aforementioned nauseating departure sequence, because, let's face it a simple touching farewell – a la Green Death, say - is just not good enough for a guy so central to the universe. There was at least one person I know of who was checking his watch and asking, “Aren't you gone, yet?”) In the opening of The Pandorica Opens, we're treated to a brisker procession through the Moffat character archives and one that amuses and entertains rather than makes me want to throw up.

A clever little temporal line is deftly traced from Van Gogh through to Churchill and Bracewell to River Song and her very own 'Great Escape'. Liz Ten practically had me standing and singing the national anthem. Well, okay, it was more of a simple “Yay!” but she is one of those magical characters where great writing, the right actress and a sparkling performance all combine brilliantly. Moffat, I'd argue, has a gift for writing 'female Doctors' – which is what Liz Ten, River Song and even Amy Pond are, to varying degrees. It's a good job Matt Smith is so charismatic and likeable a Doctor, otherwise he'd have a tough job getting noticed when these other characters are on the screen. Credit where it's due, he and Gillan are a key contributing factor in why I didn't hate this season ender.

They – both their characters and their performances – along with the best ratio of good stories to duds we've seen since Doctor Who's 21st century return earned a lot of goodwill. What's more, despite the clumsily chucked-in prophesy in The Eleventh Hour, the cracks in time, the threat of Silence (it feels like it should be capitalised) Falling and all that have featured sufficiently prominently in a number of stories to develop a genuine sense of intrigue and a worthwhile mystery in a way that scattered references to Bad Wolf in Season One didn't.

Thus, there was more eager interest and anticipation for me, going into this finale, than I'd felt for a loooooong while. And, quite crucially, I cared about the outcome.

And as the first episode drew me in, continuing to impress and surprise (and, by the way, I had to applaud the Hitch-Hikers homage with River's message on the mountainside), I was given no reason to doubt it would deliver on that promise.

On a very basic level, the choice of setting – Roman Britain – lends it a different feel to a Rusty finale from the get-go. Naturally, as soon as we get the Cleopatra name-drop, we know it's going to be River. But I'll be honest, I never thought the shadowy legionary would turn out to be a resurrected Rory.

Interestingly, this rang the first real alarm bell. Since he was killed - and erased from all time - in Cold Blood, I was dreading a Big Undo and here, apparently, it was. Dead major character, brought miraculously back to life. Yawn. Crafty Moffat even plays on that, with Rory having no idea how it happened, no explanations are offered and it's all attributed to, well, a miracle. The truth, when it hits, is a master stroke.

Before that we're treated to a refreshingly measured and suspenseful build-up as our heroes investigate the shadowed vaults under Stonehenge. It's creepy and atmospheric and surprisingly patient in terms of pace. The presence of the Cyberman throws in a perfectly timed and exciting setpiece, with the parts coming to life – particularly the head scuttling about spider-fashion, like a machine re-enactment of The Thing, and the skull inside – making the Cybermen as genuinely scary on screen, for the first time, as they've always been in my imagination. And throughout it all, we're kept on edge by the central question of what is in the box. In Pandora's original, all that remained inside was hopelessness. Five years of Rusty finales had primed me for disappointment. One year of Moffat's who had reintroduced the concept of optimism. What would this deliver? Will it be the 1p or one of the Banker's power five?

Moffat precedes the reveal with a dose of Rusty-ish excess. Correction, he sees Rusty's excess and raises. Cybermen vs. Daleks, pah! The Master conquers the world? The Daleks steal the Earth? The return of Gallifrey? You might think that's big, but that's just peanuts to The Pandorica Opens.

What do you say to death of the TARDIS and River Song, the killing of Amy Pond, the Doctor imprisoned in the trap set for him by an alliance of aliens straight out of a Doctor Who Monster Book and the end of the universe? How'd you like them apples?

There can be no denying the dramatic impact of such a multiple whammy ending. It is, however, a curious double-edged thing.

Like the Monster Alliance itself, it cuts two ways: on the one hand it's big and bold and appeals to the child in every fanboy heart (what kid didn't imagine or even write a story that united a compendium of their favourite monsters against the Doctor?); on the other, it's big and dumb and makes a joke of the Doctor Who universe, the notion that all these races would band together in such an involved and convoluted plan is a bit silly. On the other hand – if I might allow myself a third – the fanboy in me was more disgruntled that they went and mentioned Draconians and Zygons and failed to include them in the monster assembly. No fair.

Alongside the wow or ooo-er factor, whatever you want to call it, there's more of those alarm bells. Surely the only way out of this is a rewind. In an effort to outdo his predecessor, has Moffat upped the ante too far? Amid all the galaxies winking out and the Earth left alone in darkness, the most powerful element of that episode conclusion for me was the emotional battle fought by Auton Rory and the killing shot still sends cold shivers through me. A potent reminder that small is beautiful. And you wonder, could that sound effect be the report of Moffat shooting himself in the foot?

When, in an earlier moment, the Doctor is confronted by a host of alien ships in the sky above, he resorts to the increasingly tired ploy of driving them off with his reputation. And what I really wanted to see at that point was for all the ships to open fire at the end of his grandiose speech and see that plan backfire for the first time. That would have been priceless. However, although we're robbed of the comedy, we are then shown that the alien menaces only withdrew for the purposes of their trap. So in that sense, Moffat once again proves his ability to undercut our expectations.

So I could take some encouragement from that and look forward to the closing episode with some confidence.

Does he disappoint? Well, as with Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone the answer is Yes and No. In other words, in many respects it's perfect, despite its flaws.

The critical flaw is that it is a massive Reset. A far bigger Undo than it is a Bang.

On the plus side, for the most part it's fabulously low-key. In Rusty-eval times, we would have seen the excesses of the previous episode ramped up for the final part. More monsters, greater absurdities and, er, more universes ended - I'm not quite sure, but he would have managed it somehow. Here, Moffat takes it down a notch or several. For actual enemies, the Monster Alliance is gone and there's just the one Stone Dalek. Which, forgetting that it doesn't make any sense – why would races wiped from existence persist as stone relics? – is a great idea in terms of pure imagination.

What it is, is the stuff of fairy tales. And that is the realm in which we find ourselves.

Are we sitting comfortably? Then I'll explain.

It takes us back to the beginning, where Once Upon A Time there was a little girl praying to Santa and a mad, raggedy Doctor crash landed in her garden and changed her life forever. That scene establishes this season's fairy-tale credentials and it's entirely fitting that we find ourselves back in that territory for the ending. Amy's the Cinderella, the Doctor is her Prince, Rory is Buttons and River Song is, um, the Fairy Godmother, I suppose. There are no Ugly Sisters because this is TV and only glamorous people need apply. But tenuous analogies aside, it's the tone that counts. 'Wibbly wobbly timey wimey' has become something of a catchphrase, courtesy of Moffat's accomplished story, Blink, and he evidently regards it as a magical, wonderful thing, something to be waved about playfully like a wand. The idea that, as long as you remember someone, you can bring them back is plainly a nonsense, even when 'supported' by some questionable Doctor Who pseudoscientific mechanics, but it is perfect fairy-tale fare. The emotional aspects of it are handled with that in mind and, for the most part, are pitched beautifully – less drawn-out and less desperately hammered-home than we're used to, and that degree of restraint - and, at times, understatement - is a blessing. Even the Doctor's farewell speech to a sleeping Amelia is fairly gently done and is a further credit to Matt Smith's very likeable Doctor. It persuades me that I will be sorry when he eventually goes, although of course we knew damn well that wasn't going to happen here. A fairy tale – especially a Steven Moffat fairy tale – is going to have a happy ending.

It's only a shame that it's all a bit too Happy Ever After for my liking and could have done with being a bit more Grimm.

Although there's no denying the cleverness of the timey-wimey weaving going on – including discreetly embedded clues, like the jacketed Doctor having a quiet word with Amy in Flesh & Stone, and thematic pointers like Amy's Protest or Forget choice in The Beast Below – it's in some ways too clever for its own good.

It furnishes us with too neat and far too tidy a conclusion for my liking. Not satisfied with zero dramatic cost, Amy ends up ahead with a gain of two parents. The price? She gets to watch the Doctor's embarrassing-dad dancing at her wedding reception. Don't get me wrong, I found that hilarious – this episode was loaded with great comedy. Even the Bill And Ted-ish time-shenanigans offered some amusement, despite being rather hackneyed by now, and it wouldn't be the first time the Doctor extricated himself from a difficult fix with a comic turn. But the main problem I found with it, was that it does kind of make a joke of the ominous cliffhanger in Part One.

As is entirely customary with Doctor Who, in other respects it's not nearly clever enough. While part of me gazes on in wonder, the other part is brimming with questions and niggles. I'm sure there's some wand-wave explanation in there, but to my mind when you put a dead person in stasis it keeps them dead. Also, it takes the gift of River Song's little blue book (“something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”) to jog Amy's memory, so we must assume that, despite all the blank pages, River recalled the Doctor and events with sufficient clarity to remember to present Amy with the book – and yet her memories weren't enough to bring him back. To say nothing of why she kept a blank journal with a distinctive TARDIS-motif cover, or are these things freely available from gift shops and if so where can I get one?

But any further focus on the quibbles would paint a misleading picture of my overall impressions, which were on balance positive. In the midst of it all, there was a lot of terrific stuff – Amy meets Amelia, the Stone Dalek, Rory's vigil (a touching twist on Marvin the Paranoid Android's long service as a Milliway's parking attendant in The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe), River Song, that bedside farewell from the Doctor to Amy. Just, oh, lots and lots.

Time is relative and so are season finales. To say this was the best season ender of 21st century Who would be faint praise, but equally it's no understatement. It's a well-crafted piece of writing within it's inherited framework. It pushes all the right emotional buttons, rather than thumping the console repeatedly in order to get a response. It does everything right... except perhaps the story.

Like the season as a whole, what the Grand Moff Steven delivered wasn't radically different to what we got from his predecessor, but the differences were enough to restore my optimism. For the most part, he knew which parts to keep, which to play around with and what new things to bring to the mix. Among them, a degree of restraint and subtlety. And through the eyes of Amelia Pond and a charming avuncular young Doctor, he breathed fresh life into the show, making it feel magical again.

It's only a shame, as I say, that, out of admiration for the supercalifragilistic something-quite-atrocious finales of previous years, he felt the need to fence himself in with that same kind of framework. He's proven his ability to toy with and undercut audience expectations and some borrowing from the past is both inevitable and often desirable, but as for impossible odds and dramatic back-pedalling or the Big Undo, please, it's time to seal that particular evil in a box and if that minx Pandora comes anywhere near it with a glint of piqued curiosity in her eye, somebody shoot the woman. We can do without having that unleashed on the Doctor Who universe ever again.

By all means, give us more timey-wimey - since Mr Moffat clearly delights in playing his temporal games - but less of the wibbly-wobbly, if it's not too much to ask. What we've seen over the past thirteen episodes – well, ten of them anyway – are some key steps in the right direction and I've thoroughly enjoyed this series as a result. Next, let's see some bolder, braver strides and see where that takes us.

For the first time since we've had Christmas specials, I'm already looking forward to the next one – Orient Express (In Space)? - and please oh please let the “Your Majesty” the Doctor referred to be Liz Ten! Listen to me, I sound like a fan again.

Meanwhile, the sad fanboy in me will be over there remembering Draconians and Zygons on the off-chance that will do the trick of bringing them back.

Doctor In The House

In much the same way that certain things in Doctor Who (Churchill and Daleks, return of the Silurians) fuel anticipation with possibilities and promise, some things just ring alarm bells and put you on your guard. The name Gareth Roberts, for instance, is like a big Beware Of The Dog sign at the gateway to an episode.

In canine terms, I suppose he'd be one of those yappy little ones who'd like to prove he has teeth and go for the jugular, but only manages to annoy with lots of attention-seeking jumping around and nipping at your ankles. He's rated by a bewildering number (where any number above zero can be considered bewildering) of Who fans and as far as I can tell he is convinced of his own pedigree.

As such, when you're met with a story that's as average, unambitious and unpretentious as The Lodger from a writer who's so spectacularly failed to impress in the past it's a refreshing change. It didn't appear to aspire to much beyond being fun. It certainly didn't aim for a decent, well-constructed plot. So as long as you weren't expecting anything of that sort, you were pretty safe from disappointment.

I guess one remedy for a writer too often bound up in his own cleverness is to write a story that's not even trying to be especially clever. What you're left with is a script that clearly delights in its characters and their situation. Arguably, a sitcom.

And like a sitcom, it works to maintain the status quo because, since the comedy arises out of the situation, the last thing you want is for the situation to change too dramatically. Of course, this is Doctor Who, so ultimately it has to change – the evil has to be defeated and so on, so we can move on to the next episode, the next situation.

But that's essentially the level The Lodger is on. Two Pints Of Vraxoin And A Packet Of Jelly Babies – so to speak.

And it's funnier than a lot of sitcoms. In being out of his element, the Doctor is in his element and whether it's playing interfering gooseberry to his landlord's relationship, building fantastic Scrapheap Challenge contraptions in his bedroom or swapping Black Orchid's cricket for a spot of footie, Matt Smith is hilarious. Even James Corden, who I'm not a fan of, is perfectly cast and there's a nice enough rom-com chemistry between him and Daisy Haggard as Sophie.

As a rom-com it's less successful. Many (all?) rom-coms blatantly identify which two characters are destined to kiss in the final reel, but they work (the ones that do anyway) by throwing in more barriers, setbacks and misunderstandings to romance than are in evidence here. It's fair enough, because there's only 45 minutes to play with and also the small matter of a Doctor Who story to tell.

In this case, a mysterious predatory presence living upstairs, luring innocent victims to its lair. Despite a decent stab at atmosphere and the creepy images of shadowy figures on the stairs, it's on this level that the episode is weakest. The identity of the menace – a TARDIS hunting for a pilot - is sufficiently novel, but the resolution is rushed, messy and not immediately clear.

Ship wants pilot in order to leave. This desire is overridden by combined psyches of two inveterate stay-at-homes. So ship self-destructs or simply vanishes - it's unclear: the Doctor says 'implode', the fx say disappear. I freely admit I could have it all wrong there, but explanations were hurriedly shouted under a crescendo of sparks and Murray Gold.

I'm all for throwaway lines, but you're not meant to actually throw them away. Least of all the ones that (perhaps) explain what's going on.

Worse than that, though, is the fact that this is a climax without any proper build-up. It's because of that sitcom need to maintain the status quo, but it means that in terms of the mystery there's no carefully measured peeling away of layer after layer. It's all just the one big reveal at the end when the Doctor and Craig charge up the stairs because Sophie is the latest in a long line of victims. Story progression prior to that is minimal, essentially limited to the spreading stain on the ceiling, which is little more than a flag to tell us that the crisis, whatever it actually is, is worsening.

All of which is incredibly critical of a story that, it must be said, I enjoyed watching.

My main gripe with it at the time of viewing was the manner in which Amy was horribly sidelined. It's fair enough that she needed to be out of the picture in order for the premise to work, but for preference I wouldn't have done that by placing her in a predicament where the character was largely hapless and helpless. The rest of the season has worked well to build her as a resourceful and resilient – and highly spirited – companion and here that's all rather carelessly tossed aside because the writer apparently considers it too unimportant to give the matter any thought.

It's half-arsed and the Bill & Ted-style timey-wimey 'plot twist' with her placing an ad (in red pen) in the local post office just so the Doctor can find the right house etc falls far short of mitigating the laziness.

Oh and the one-storey house at the end looked really odd. To the extent I did wonder if it wouldn't have made more sense to have the offending TARDIS appear as an out-of-place third storey, which is what first attracts the Doctor's attention to the mystery and in the resolution the building goes back to looking like every other house in the row...

Other than that, expectations played their part again, this time to the episode's benefit. I wasn't expecting a decent story from the pen of Gareth Roberts, so could sit back and enjoy the comedy. It's not particularly cutting edge stuff - the Doctor fails to fit in is hardly news – but it does deliver plenty of giggles.

It's a fish-out-of-water situation, and that generally involves a lot of flapping about before expiring feebly at the end. Enough said.

Chicken Little

And now a welcome break from my opinions, as guest blogger, Zoe, airs and shares her views on Richard Curtis-penned Doctor Who episode:



Vincent And The Doctor has a very poignant, very touching message which has very little to do with the invisible bloodthirsty space chicken terrorising both the "mad" artist and Provencal ladies.

For those of us with loved ones in the creative industries, the sad truth is that recognition and popular success often has little to do with either talent or skill, and this is ultimately the story of Vincent Van Gogh, the tragic artist who, during his lifetime sold only one painting, to be "discovered" less than 20 years after his death (by self-inflicted gunshot wound at 37).

Whilst the causes of Vincent's real "madness" are far more complex than portrayed in the episode (his depressive moods were likely the downswings of bipolar disorder which he attempted to correct with nearly lethal doses of absinthe - a side effect of which is the tendency to see more yellowing tones or yellow spots - alternately, this may have been caused by one of his doctors treating his epilepsy with digitalis; visualising halos around objects as seen in The Starry Night would be consistent with lead poisoning from using lead based paints), we see through Amy's eyes how the story should have unfolded: once Vincent was shown that he was indeed a great and beloved painter - in the future - he was meant to cast aside self-doubt and and frustration at the small-mindedness of mid 19C society and happily paint into old age. And although the story did not show Vincent's all too quick spiral from elation at his eventual appreciation to punctual suicide, one cannot imagine it as separate from the crash-landing to the status quo, where drinks must be paid for, and anyone who considers buying a Van Gogh must surely be laughed out of town.

This sobering message aside, I urge anyone slaying their own invisible creative bloodthirsty chickens, or creative demons, take Amy's lesson. Somewhere, someday, someone will appreciate your work. Someone who makes the effort worthwhile. It may be someone you know, but someone who, because they are not a publisher or agent, doesn't have a ... valued opinion. Or it may be most of the world, but in the future. Or it might be most of the world, just in ten years' time.

If there is any lesson we can take from the Doctor, it is that things happen in their own time, not when we want them to. Don't let the invisible chicken win. Keep creating as though you know your work will be valuable one day, whether you will live to see it or not. It is the only way to live. Make Amy proud.

But as for that chicken...

The chicken has it's pluses and minuses. On the plus side, it's an engrossing way to get the Doctor and Amy into Vincent's life, to put him in danger, that just going for a visit with Amy's favourite painter wouldn't have done. The design was imaginative, but ridiculous, so I suppose that's a plus and a minus. And the big minus is in its demise. A little tear-jerker moment when they realise they've just murdered a, well, admittedly a killer alien monster, but a blind, frightened killer alien monster, who was just shredding local girls out of its own terror (which begs the question, then why didn't it respond to the Doctor speaking so kindly to it?). There's a moment of pathos when they all feel guilty, then the moment passes and there are no real consequences of what they obviously feel, in retrospect, was a rash act. And also, I hesitate to point out, no clean up. I mean, surely it is even more important to dispose of the body when the corpse is enormous and invisible. Imagine someone coming into the chapel and running into it?

So, in summary, a beautiful story about a complex and tortured man, stunning visuals, excellent use of Amy, extra 100 points for Bill Nighy's cameo, but no extra credit for the invisible bloodthirsty space chicken.

Z

Flat Earth

I've said it before (quite recently too) and I'll say it again: if you want a decent rule of thumb for what makes a good Doctor Who story, you could do worse than 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue' (where blue is just a handy metaphor for mood/atmosphere). It's that special blend of the familiar and the original that, to my mind, makes for the best stories, the ones that endure and lodge themselves in the imagination for years. If you get the balance right.

Unfortunately, something old, something borrowed, something borrowed, something borrowed and precious little new is not going to do it. If The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood leaves any lasting impression at all, I'll be surprised. Which, given the two-parter's inability – with a single (arc-related) exception - to surprise in any other respect, seems unlikely.

Was it rubbish? Well, it wasn't a complete landfill, but for me it qualifies as the poorest offering of this season so far. As with Victory Of The Daleks, the scale (haha) of disappointment is inevitably measured against expectations and a revisit of Doctor Who And The Silurians territory, one of my all-time favourite DW stories, is saddled with the burden of high promise. Truth to tell, the anticipation was tempered by the knowledge that Chris Chibnall (of Torchwood 'fame') would be scripting the episodes and the trailered glimpses of a new brand of Silurians who looked a lot more ordinary.

With optimism duly kept in check - after a return from a rather lovely holiday - I sat down to watch the two episodes back to back and found a story that fell spectacularly short. Sadly, it was for the most part a bit flat and dull.

It's almost a cybernetic reconstruction of an old story, with all its complex organs removed and replaced with functional mechanical parts, along with an artificial heart. Not content to retread And The Silurians, it stops to riff on Inferno (drilling project reaching to the depths of the Earth), The Green Death (infection of popular alien hue) and The Daemons (energy barrier seals off village from rest of world) along the way.

Within its scenario, it does at least succeed in generating a degree of tension in the first part, with the ground swallowing people up, the impending menace of monsters making their way towards the surface and the flitting of shadowy figures about the graveyard. But it never really conveys any sense of a global threat in the way that And The Silurians does, with its widespread plague. Unlike The Green Death and The Daemons, it doesn't even manage to give us the sense of a community under threat. Probably because the village that's been targeted has a current population of about four.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for small-scale threats focused on a handful of characters in isolated locations – Horror Of Fang Rock is another favourite of mine, for example. But this story doesn't have the predatory suspense and tension necessary to pull that off. It appears to want the best of both worlds, and although it shows us a vast reptilian army in stasis, it never properly evolves to extend its scope of menace beyond the regulars and limited guest cast.

And by 'limited' I only mean in terms of numbers, because to be fair the performances are pretty much all better than the script warrants. But nobody in particular shines. Meera Siyal is good, dependable guest star material but her character feels a bit sketched and generic. It's a nice little bonus to have Stephen Moore in the mix, throwing in a spot of voice-over to accompany a shot of the Earth and adding a dash of Hitch-Hikers nostalgia. But at the same time, it feels odd, thrown in at the start of the second episode – and then not really satisfactorily tail-ended. Wouldn't it have been better to use that device (albeit better-written) to frame the entire thing? Perhaps giving us at least the illusion that there was some point to it all.

Because pointless is what it felt like to me.

As well as the need to be great, it really needed to have something new to offer. All it had in the new department was bio-manipulated soil (fair enough) and a lashing lizard-tongue for the Silurians. Which, okay, was a reasonably interesting accessory, but not remotely as interesting as the third eye which they lost. Indeed, this branch of the Silurian race is as ordinary and dull as I'd feared and instead of the creative vision inherent in the original Silurian (and Sea Devil) masks are reduced to your bulk-standard Star Trek reptilians. I'm not averse to a change in design, I just would have liked to have seen more evidence of inventiveness applied. It's as big a misfire, albeit in different ways, as the re-modelled Daleks in Victory. I gather these Silurians may have owed their humanised appearance to budgetary constraints, but back in the days of old man-in-a-suit Doctor Who monsters I was always led to believe that tight finances were one of the things that inspired the fx experts and creature creators to be more creative. Lady Gaga looked more alien in a green scaly outfit in her Bad Romance video. (It you don't know the outfit I'm referring to, it appears at around the 3:30 mark). These Kermit-coloured Klingons completely fail to convince.

When one of them - Alaya - is captured, the story hands itself an opportunity for a major twist, as she declares she knows one of the humans will kill her and she knows which of them will do the deed. Then blows it, by it turning out to be exactly the same one you thought it would be. It's that level of predictability that compounds the (unforgivable) averageness of it all.

There are, of course, some compensations to be found in the mix, snatches of amusing dialogue here and there, for instance, and even if it lacks the sharpness of a Moffat script, say, Matt Smith continues to prove his credentials as the best Doctor since Davison. His lecturing a desperate mother on morality doesn't sit quite right next to his declaration of love for the Silurian vivisectionist, but that's the script's fault for not letting the Doctor in on the scientist's habit of dissecting living human specimens. But heck, even his subjects appear to forgive a bit of surgical probing a tad too readily for my liking.

Gillan's still great, even if the signs are minimal that Amy values Rory any more since making her Choice in the previous episode and, not for the first time, it seems she only appreciates him when he's gone. Which makes her look like a slow learner. More attentive script editing could have taken care to show better character/relationship development there. Meanwhile, Rory is as entertaining and engaging a character as ever, whether it's the business with the ring, being mistaken for a plainclothes detective or being left in charge of the group on the surface.

His death, when it comes, is the two-parter's only genuine shocker and there's real tragedy in Amy's battle (which she loses) to retain her memories of him. It's the first time in the two episodes my emotions are engaged. Then, of course, there's the follow-up whammy when the Doctor reveals the piece of wreckage he fished from the fissure. Okay, that last revelation wasn't totally unexpected, but it still delivers a pleasant oooer tingle. And the fact is, it's all so much more dramatic than anything that precedes it. (My only concern at this stage is that this, coupled with Rory's demise, points towards a big Undo at the climax of the season... but I guess we can worry about that when the time comes.) It's not all Mr Chibnall's fault then, because clearly this critical arc material needed to be squeezed in and that takes charge of proceedings at story's end. In a better story though, it might not have dominated quite so much and with the materials handed to him, the writer really should have been able to deliver something that was at least equal to those closing events and not so easily overpowered.

As it is, the effect is rather like following a meal with one of those mouthwashes that practically makes your head explode. The taste of what went before is obliterated, but actually in this case it's no great loss, because the meal was mediocre.

Those rumbles? Not the Hungry Earth. That'll be me hankering for something a darn sight better and a good deal more substantial.

Judging Amy

Star Trek: The Next Generation. DS9. Star Trek: Voyager. Stargate SG1. Heck, probably Andromeda for all I know. Name one of my least favourite sci-fi shows ever and they've probably done a scenario similar to Amy's Choice. Whether it's down to a holodeck malfunction, the empathic emissions of some overly amorous space cloud attempting to hump the Enterprise or a Gou'ahoohahould mussing with your head, you can rely on these is-it-real-or-is-it-a-dream situations being largely pointless at best. For one thing it's usually obvious which is which, so you're left waiting for the characters to wake up and snap out of it – assuming you haven't fallen asleep yourself.

In that regard, it's the same here. Amy's living in a quiet English village with a pony-tailed Rory and she's heavily preggers. And I mean not just a bun in the oven, but an entire Mr Kipling delivery truck. This is such a bizarre set of circumstances and such a big jump from last week, while the alternative situation – on board the TARDIS – slots comfortably in as a continuation, that there's never any doubt that the village setup is a dream. The only guessing game left for the viewer to play concerns the identity of the Dream Lord. For fans that means lots of potential for excited speculation: could it be the Master, an impish Omega, the Celestial Toymaker, a more twisted incarnation of Romana than we encountered in The Ancestor Cell, or Adric taking out his abandonment issues on the current TARDIS crew?

For my part, I only considered one of those possibilities seriously. Despite the absence of a chess set or Monopoly board (although I suppose these days most of his recreational entertainments would come in the form of apps on a Celestial iPhone) something about the Dream Lord's apparent nature and the rules of the game suggested the Toymaker to me. The notion seemed a bit of a random out-of-the-blue return, but even a relatively modest experience of Doctor Who will teach you there's no real telling what might strike a given showrunner as a good idea. Regardless, it soon became clear from the little clues (e.g. “There's only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do.” and the focus on Amy) that there was something more personal about this – more personal than any of the possible enemies from the Doctor's past could account for. And I'm glad to say, I twigged to the twist a nice few minutes ahead of the reveal. I don't know about you, but I like it when that happens. That way the viewer gets the satisfaction of a story that kept them guessing and the satisfaction of being right. Always a good combination.

It's brilliantly judged, in fact. Simon Nye's script appears to be consciously playing on all that fan speculation and ultimately delivers an adversary who is 'none of the above' – no matter where our imaginations have run. And yet he gave us the big clue right up front, with the mysterious intruder dressed as the Doctor. If it had turned out to be any of the usual suspects I'd have been disappointed. As it is, it's entirely right for the story and it lends a fascinating insight into a darker and highly self-judgmental side of the Doctor's character. (Without it having to be the Valeyard putting him on trial.)

Next to that, the story's other big twist is, sadly, Star Trek-level poor. One aspect of it not being the Toymaker or whoever is that you need a root cause for the schism. No holodeck malfunctions here. No, in this one it's all down to a hansful of space pollen getting into the multiphasic plot generator. It's so weak that it's very rightly treated as a throwaway – literally, as the Doctor tosses it out the TARDIS doorway – and that saves it really. It's almost as if the script is saying, what does the cause matter when the effect has been this much fun? And I have to say, it makes a good case.

Although I'm not completely letting the episode off the hook for that, there's so much more to the story that leaves an enduring impression.

The comedy is priceless. Like The Vampires Of Venice this is laced with hilarious gags, but for my money it has something greater going for it in the darkness and substance department. The frantic and frequently funny scenes in zombie-pensioner land contrast beautifully with the dying TARDIS drifting in icy silence. More than that, the goings-on in the village are as sinister as you'd expect from Doctor Who, with eyestalks sprouting out of mouths making for seriously gross monster material and kids, no less, being reduced to piles of sand. And it all culminates in a powerfully emotional decision – the eponymous choice – that might be counted among the grimmest moments in the series.

This damaged young woman who grew up with Rory as a friend and has grown too accustomed to having him around, finally wakes up to her true feelings for him and realises, dream or no, she doesn't want to go on living without him. Cripes, that's heavy. If it wasn't couched in the midst of all the scenes of zimmer-frame chases and old grannies being whacked off of rooftops, it'd be too heavy for Saturday teatime viewing. As it is, it strikes a perfect counterpoint to the sinister-seniors slapstick.

Space pollen aside then, there's bold, deft writing here conspiring with some top-notch performances and great direction to breathe plenty of new life into this familiar scenario. (They even manage to get Murray Gold to keep quiet where it counts.) Toby Jones' coldly comic portrayal makes you wish he was a recurring villain. Matt Smith continues to be a delight to watch as the Doctor, from the subtler touches to the out-and-out clowning (on which, highlights have to include his drunken stagger as he tries to stay awake and cupping his hands ready to catch Amy's baby). Likewise, Gillan does it all, giving us a quirky, quippy Amy who's both gutsy and vulnerable, sensitive and fiery-tempered. You can believe the bitterness she aims at the Doctor cuts him deep. Meanwhile Arthur Darvill sells Rory as a genuinely sympathetic likeable character as well as a grade-A buffoon – he's the Roy Castle of New Who.

Arguably, there's one other weak point in the way the Doctor blows up the TARDIS, convinced that too is a dream based on the idea of a cold star being nonsense. The concept is not at all un-Who and one can imagine an alternative ending to Planet Of The Daleks, to name one example, where the scientific improbability of a tropical jungle planet with a core of molten ice prompts the Doctor to end it all for himself and Jo Grant. I'm guessing now the series will have to exercise caution when incorporating some of the more fantastical concepts.

But the tongue is firmly in the cheek at that point. When you enjoy something this much, it's impossible to pick serious holes. I think this fits that old rule of thumb of mine about the recipe for good Doctor Who: old, new, borrowed, blue. Which, I guess, goes double for pre-wedding adventures in time and space.

Pesce Al Dente

Only a week or two ago I was browsing in the local bookshop and was dismayed to see a whole shelf full of vampire novels from different authors, different publishers, all with similarly styled covers. Like clones they were. Spawn of Twilight, we'll call them, although I'm not sure if Twilight was the first so much as the one that just happened to soar higher than the rest. It's a tad depressing for authors who are constantly striving to break into the publishing world with something a little more creative and original. Fair dues to those vampire authors, for all I know, many of them had put a brilliantly fresh and different spin on their bloodsucking creatures of the night, but the fact is I wasn't remotely tempted to pick up any of the books and read because their publishers (a breed of people often known to express concerns that they 'don't know how to make [insert name of original work here] stand out in a competitive market') had made them *all look the same*.

But I'll climb down off my soap box because I'm meant to be here reviewing The Vampires Of Venice and soap and canals just don't mix. Too many bubbles. Curiously enough though, bubbly is exactly what this latest Doctor Who story manages to be. For all that I'd reached the stage where I thought if I saw another vampire I'd scream, this histhorrorical romp was never short of entertaining.

Perhaps in recognition of the perennial surfeit of haemovores, the story works a little too hard at giving them their sci-fi twist. But it deserves points for trying and the creature design (more fish-headed lobster-thing than 'fish from space') is an interesting one, with even the traditional vampiric fangs lent a more piranha-like look. The perception filter is a familiar concept to fans, of course, many of whom have one of their own – and they are apt to malfunction at the slightest knock. Joking aside though, it's a decent enough Doctor Who plot device and works well here up to the point where Rosanna (played superbly by Helen McCrory) removes it and slips into the water while retaining her human form. It's possible she fiddles with it beforehand to ensure that it somehow maintains her appearance remotely – thus facilitating her suicide – but it's not clear.

Similarly on first viewing I had some initial concerns that the effects of daylight on the Venetian vamps were too selective, but second time around I realise it's all a matter of brightness and in that respect the story is reasonably consistent. When they're out parading the streets and piazzas there's generally some cloud cover or they're shaded from direct sunlight by the buildings and/or lacey parasols or veils. That said, timing seems to have been fudged during the attempted rescue of Isabella, as our heroes venture into House Calvieri in the dead of night and don't appear to spend long enough inside for it to be morning when they emerge. Still, if it's for the convenience of the plot it's also for Isabella's inconvenience and the closing of that door in the Doctor's face (never mind the added electrocution) has genuine dramatic punch as well as investing Guido (Lucian Msamati) with convincing motivation for his own ultimate self-sacrifice.

It's one of a handful of moments that keep this from being entirely light and superficial. Which is not to underestimate the appeal of the superficial. The combination of a gorgeous setting and that almost Merchant Ivory sumptuousness you tend to get with BBC period drama is a visual treat. (And if we're permitted to be a little shallower for a moment, so are the vampire belles of the Calvieri school.)

What this story really thrives on is its humour. The Doctor's - and Amy's - sheer delight at the prospect of facing vampires sets the tone (and both Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are clearly revelling in their roles), succeeding in pushing the scare potential firmly into the background. The story does have a reasonable go at generating a dose or two of fear, notably with Amy's experience in the 'green room'. And once again they strike the right balance for a companion, allowing her to be brave enough to get herself in trouble, gutsy and defiant when she's in it but also allowing her to be genuinely frightened when she's helpless, strapped in the chair and at the mercy of Rosella's fangs. (Isabella's death would have been scarier if she hadn't been narrating so much - “I'm Venetian, we can all swim. Something's touched my leg. They're all around me. Glug.” etc.) Laughs are the main order of the day though. It has a lively wit coursing through its veins and the jokes keep coming, from the Doctor bursting out of the cake (saw that coming, but it's not so much that he does it, it's what he says afterwards) to his finding the off switch on the alien weather control device. Even the simple visual gag of having Guido in the stag party sweat shirt is comic genius. Ninety percent of Rory's scenes are hilarious and those that aren't are because he's meant to be serious, levelling some heavy accusations at the Doctor. As misguided as I thought adding a boyfriend to the TARDIS crew was, I think he'll be a welcome addition.

There's just enough real drama to keep it meaningful and the contrast drawn between the Doctor as last of his race and Rosanna trying to save hers underlines it all effectively without over-egging the point. Their face-to-face chat is, unfortunately, one of those largely expositional conversations too common in Who, but it's played well and it calls to mind the similar meeting of two quality actors – David Tennant and Anthony Stewart Head - in Toby Whithouse's previous offering, School Reunion. I would have preferred a greater sense of the alien culture, some better idea of what the universe was losing, before Rosanna throws herself to the fishes and seals her race's fate, but it's just a feature of these 45-minute episodes that there's rarely room to make as much of certain elements as would be ideal.

Along the way there are some nice directorial touches: Rosanna and son describing different orbits around Isabella at the beginning, as though emulating the orrery-like device the Doctor has to disarm at the end; the shot of mummy's-boy Francesco sprawled in his mother's lap after she's done hydrating, evocative of Shakespearian tragedy; and Francesco, again, frozen in mid-dive as the camera cuts away before he strikes the water. A few artistic flourishes that show considerable thought and attention to detail.

They also make up for the slightly dodgy shot of the Doctor climbing the steeple at the end. Maybe the CGI wasn't quite up to it, maybe it's that the framing of the shot that reminds me of Batman and Robin scaling buildings in the old Adam West TV series, but something about it fails to convince. It's a small enough thing and I think there are bigger problems that aren't really to do with this story per se but are an issue of context.

The Doctor telling Rosanna that time can't be changed strikes a distinctly odd note, after making such a big deal of his conclusion, that time can be rewritten, the previous week. (In a musical scale that odd note would go something like, Doh! Ray! Me! Fah! So! La! Te! Huh?) Fair enough that Doctor Who has never really established a firm set of rules for time travel - generally it's 'whatever suits the story at any given time'. But if the stories are right next to each other and you're (apparently) building your arc around one particular principle, then you might expect some effort to have them vaguely agree. I'm sure it can be rationalised away, but for the moment it makes little sense. Which would bring us back to D'oh! I suppose. I've heard Who fans before complaining about magic in Who, but to my mind we may as well have spellcraft - and the purely supernatural - as variable internal logic. But then, I'm completely at a loss as to how the urgent mission to fix Amy - by playing matchmaker to her and Rory - will translate into repairing time and space, restoring Amy's memories of previous Dalek invasions and returning ducks to the village pond. So that's probably my perception filter going wonky. That or I'm a bit thick.

By episode end, it's fair to say that, as much as I am tired of creatures that you would think must have been sucked dry by now, I'm persuaded there was probably a better story that could have been told under the same title. The words The Vampires Of Venice incline me towards a darker tale, for instance, but here they opted for a romp that, minor niggles aside, was a lot of fun. And on that level it delivers very satisfactorily.

Not completely solid then. But firm, with just enough bite to keep it interesting.

Romancing The Stone

My love for any Doctor Who story is rarely unconditional. There's generally something that could have been done better, be it in the writing, the production, the acting, whatever. Of all the 21st-century Who we've seen so far, the Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone two-parter came pretty damned close to winning my unqualified admiration and affection. In fact, taken on its own, the first episode was there. I could have confined my review to something like “I absolutely love this”, those who didn't like it could have said, “Why don't you marry it then” and that would have been that.

But you know how these Doctor Who romances can be. There's the honeymoon period where you can't keep your eyes off the episode. Then you start to notice their annoying little habits and the whole thing falls apart. There's nothing quite like a two-parter to highlight this, since – with few exceptions – the second episode fails to deliver on the promise of the first. And as with two-headed beings and self-marriage, divorce can be messy.

The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone is something of an oddity in that it does reveal some annoying habits and lets the side down in the second part, but somehow still managed to leave me on a high. If I could draw a graph of the highs and lows, the good and bad, then average out the peaks and troughs, I'd end up with a very impressive peak. It's an imperfect gem.

It's the sort of thing a jeweller might appraise, pointing out its serious flaws, and tell me it's only worth fifty quid, but ultimately it doesn't matter because for me it has a great deal of sentimental value.

Did it dazzle me? Definitely. Did it blind me to its faults? Far from it.

That said, we have already established that I loved the first episode unconditionally. I mean, really. The buzz of excitement at end of part one was palpable and as far as I'm aware I hadn't inadvertently electrified my sofa. It was a great mix of sci-fi action-adventure and archaeological mystery/horror laced with creepy atmosphere and suspense. River Song (Alex Kingston) kicks off in fine Jane Bond mode before trading her gown for camo and becoming a sort of thinking man's Lara Croft, Iain Glen blends empathy and authority as Bishop of the Church Of Ghost Recon, a Weeping Angel pays supremely chilling homage to Ringu, and sparkling dialogue keeps flowing in a script that gallops along but isn't afraid to ease up on the accelerator where it counts, allowing us to properly enjoy those suspenseful turns. And it all culminates in a singular, exceptional cliffhanger.

Loved it, loved it, loved it.

The challenge then was to contain myself for a week and the following Saturday, mixed in with the anticipation, was the question: had it set the bar too high for itself?

Are you on the edge of your seat yet? Then we'll begin.

Part Two came out of the gates running, with a great flip side to the cliffhanger. To be fair, at first I wasn't sure about the sudden jump cut but in retrospect it's obvious that any attempt to show the transition from floor to ceiling would have robbed us of what is a terrific reveal of everyone standing upside down on the ship's hull. What follows, with the chase through the interior is a Weeping Angels riff on Aliens. It's so good I would have welcomed a bit more of it: run for it, break through a bulkhead, seal it behind, run, bulkhead, seal it behind. (While Amy continues her mysterious and troubling countdown.) But no matter, because it soon emerges – in another 'blinding' reveal – that the Angels are not the major threat. Ooooooo-er.

Yes, the crack is back.

It's clear we're in crucial arc storyline territory and it's nice to see it playing such a key factor at this stage in the series, rather than just another hint. Something to make us sit up and pay closer attention, not that our attention is in danger of flagging in this story.

Pace does drop off a little here and there, primarily for the conversations between the Doctor and Angel Bob. It's a by-product of Moffat's having created an enemy whose motives are not easily shown to the audience and have to be communicated/explained. I think I would have opted for more deduction as opposed to the sit-down chats, but in its favour it does build in the Angels' need for the bodies – or part thereof – of their victims and their previous MO – that of zapping victims back in time – might not have constituted a sufficient threat for the purposes of this scenario. To say nothing of the fact that it could have led to a more complicated cat's-cradle plot where even the Grand Moff, with all his love of wibbly wobbly timey wimey, might have had trouble keeping track of all the threads.

As it stands, there's enough in this to make you go, 'Hmm...' as you wonder if it all quite works. It's a potent menace, the crack, with its power to erase everyone in its path from existence, but there are instances where it prompts the question of whether the consequences have been properly followed through. If, say, troopers 'Bill' and 'Ted' are wiped from existence, wouldn't the Church Of Ghost Recon have still fielded the same number of men on the mission and so 'replacements' would miraculously appear? Similarly if the guy who handed Amy the spare communicator never existed, how could he have given her the communicator? And if the Angels never existed, then wouldn't all their victims – apart from the ones who also never existed – reappear, although presumably elsewhere because clearly there would have been no need to dispatch the mission in the first place...

But why risk brain meltdown as long as you're enjoying the show, right? Best just to accept that the crack – since it is a fracture in time and space – does a very messy job of erasing. Rubs out the portrait of the individual but still leaves those smudgy pencil marks around it.

None of the timey wimey stuff even registers on my critical radar next to the two (count them) problems relating to the Weeping Angels themselves.

Now, this story gives us everything a returning monster story should: brings everything to the table that made them a great monster in the first place and adds things to the mix, changes things up so that we're not just doing a retread. All well and bloody fantastic.

But Part Two features one change up too many for my tastes. “Whatever you do, don't blink” was pretty much the tag line for Blink and the Doctor gives Amy the same warning in Part One of this story. In the second episode that's revised to “Make them think you can see them.” Which, on top of making no sense, makes a nonsense of that original 'tag line'. Presumably the Angels previously knew when you were blinking, so - if their awareness plays any part - why oh why oh why would they be unable to detect when your eyes were closed for a prolonged period? Also the Angels ought to be aware that Amy's keeping her eyes closed – they're very aware of what's going on with her, to the point of making her speak her countdown (“for fun”) to the moment when the Angel within took over. The Doctor throws in some half-assed explanation that the Angels are confused and scared and not especially interested in Amy, but it's unconvincing at best. Sorry, but this was, to my mind, as weak and feeble a plot contrivance as any employed by Rusty. I rather fear that Moffat was so in love with the fairytale imagery of Amy fumbling through the dark forest, unable to see, surrounded by Angels that he had to come up with a fudge to make it work. Well, it doesn't.

I'm not sure what would. And usually when you hit a stumbling block like that in your plotting, it's better to stop being so precious about a scene and sacrifice it in favour of something that works. In Blink the Angels can't look at each other, so what if Amy's last line of defence was to open her eyes? Some sort of stalemate could be achieved, but at the risk of Amy succumbing to Angelhood. So we see her start to turn to stone... but she's teleported out by River just in time. Or something like that.

Ah. but alas, Amy used up her full countdown, didn't she. And then some. In a useless bit of editing/direction, when she can only open her eyes for a second she stands there staring at the crack for (in TV terms) ages. What the hell was the director thinking? It says a second right there in the script, did he think no-one would notice the disparity? More ham-fisted than a space pig.

The good news is that there I've exhausted my reservoir of criticisms. Well, it's more of a pool really. A puddle. The word count I've spent on them is disproportionate and probably paints a more negative picture than intended. In a bad story such problems might amount to no more than a couple of beans in a hill (of beans). But here, after such a startlingly brilliant beginning it seems incredibly sloppy.

Ultimately though, for all their significance relative to the surrounding quality, they are only glitches and to its credit the story still comes out on top. I could easily spend another page or more rattling on about this shining line or that magical moment. (In fact, I started to cite some favourites, then I realised I was going on too long.) The two episodes are absolutely loaded with them. To the extent that to list them would be tantamount to reproducing the script right here.

It's true that Alex Kingston must take her share of the blame for my enthusiasm, but River's return is handled at least as well as that of the Angels. Same character, with more added to the mix and a few more pieces of the puzzle – of her past/future with the Doctor – are revealed. Those revelations are fed to us in nice bite-sized pieces throughout – from Amy's questions about her being the Doctor's wife, through to the Bishop's asides to River and his parting warning to the Doctor, to River's final admission. Of course, I can't help feeling that 'hints' like “A good man. A hero to many” from the Bishop and “The best man I ever knew” from River are too blatantly meant to make us think 'Doctor' (it's hardly Derren-Brown-level power of suggestion) that there has to be more to it than that. There's plenty of emotion behind the look River gives the Doctor at that point, but it doesn't strike me as quite the confession of a murderess to her victim. If it does turn out to be that she kills the Doctor, that wouldn't be a twist and one thing I am confident of is that Mr Moffat does like his twists. I'm partial to them myself and it adds a further note of fascination to an impressive double helping of Doctor Who.

My only other concerns pertain to the potential impact on future episodes. “Time can be rewritten” comes dangerously close to an attempt to justify some sort of reset switch at season's end. Please, no. There's a clue that there's something clever at work (a surely intentional continuity error involving the Doctor's jacket) and I just hope the Doctor turns out to have something more than a big 'Undo' up his sleeve.

And then there's the romance issue. I was worried this might surface after Amy's talk of “fancying someone you know you shouldn't” in Victory Of The Daleks. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the idea of a Doctor-companion romance in itself; it's just that I feel that goose has been well and truly killed, plucked, cooked and served up too often already. It's tired and old and a platonic, best-pals relationship will feel like a refreshing change.

So, within this story, Amy throwing herself at the Doctor is fine. (And, after all, the girl has been dreaming about this guy for years then when he shows up, in the midst of all that exhilaration of saving the world, she gets to check out his arse.) What it leads to is a cracking, hilarious scene and the Doctor's reaction is priceless. At this stage it appears to suggest an intention to get those urges out of the system and move on past it. Amy's damaged and the Doctor aims to fix her – without a quick servicing. Which works for me, because I really felt that the Doctor and Amy dynamic was developing nicely as it was and with the best will in the world to do things differently I think there are a limited number of spins you can put on the Doctor-companion lurve cycle.

As you can probably tell, I'm enjoying my current romance with Doctor Who and it'd be too ironic if love was the thing that got in the way.

New Model Army

The Second World War. Cabinet War Room. Bombers incoming. Winston Churchill gives the order to roll out the new secret weapon. Someone pushes a little model Dalek into play on the map. Cue vortex and titles.

It's a great opening. But while the Daleks conquered stairs a long while ago, what they really need to tackle next is the troubling tendency for their stories to go downhill.

Ironically, Victory Of The Daleks improves on a rewatch. With expectations removed from the equation, the scale of disappointment is no longer measured against promise and we stand a better chance of assessing it on its own merits. Unfortunately, it's impossible to set aside the story's potential entirely and the basic ingredients should have added up to utter, dazzling blow-you-away brilliance. Indeed, everything in the first ten or fifteen minutes is fine and there's no reason to believe it's not going to live up to that potential.

Ian McNeice turns in a wonderful Winston and it's great to see Bill Paterson (Bracewell). The Ironsides' entrance on the rooftops is a terrific moment considering that we know exactly what it is before it's emerged from behind the sandbags. The Daleks look good too, all khaki-ed up, sporting kit bags and a Union Jack. Smith and Gillan are a pleasure to watch, although I am left with a feeling they're doing their best with a script that's sometimes working too hard at keeping the Doctor-Companion dialogue buzzing. It's lacking much of the natural spark of Moffat's scripts so far this series. That said, there are flashes of brilliance (Amy: “I love a squaddie.”) and I absolutely love the scene where the Doctor is poring over those blueprints, when we get a close-up on Matt Smith as an Ironsides Dalek glides quietly by in the background.

But that is really the height of the menace we're treated to in this story and, similarly, we're shown the beginnings of a connection between Amy and an anxious WAAF officer but nothing comes of it beyond a truly odd “oh dear, she's lost her fella” moment near the end. I'm all for a subtler touch, but this feels like the most token of nods to the fact that, yes, this is all good fun but people also died in the war, don't you know.

Perhaps it will all be revealed as crucial arc material, like the cracks, and then I will look a fool. Right now though it just looks like a crack. Maybe some leftover from a lengthier script that had to be cut down? I do think this story could have benefited from being longer – a two-parter would have given its setting and its ideas more room to breathe. More could have been made of the Daleks' menace and the Doctor's efforts to get at their true purpose.

As things are, those scenes are reduced to some (somewhat repetitious) declarations on the Doctor's part and Smith's hatred for the Daleks is more subdued than Eccleston's when he was faced with his old foe in Dalek. It only really comes alive when he starts to bash the Dalek with a giant spanner, but that is, for me, a magically insane desperate Doctorish thing to do and as he tries to provoke the thing into killing him you know he hasn't thought this through. Even Amy starts to worry at this point that the Daleks might be dangerous.

The Doctor wants to know what the Daleks want. We do too. Careful what you wish for. The revelation that this has all been to secure the Doctor's testimony still strikes me as weak. No two-part expansion would alter that. Fair enough that the Daleks would lay a trap for the Doctor, but I think they ought to have been after something more than a reference.

That's not where the story falls down. Just sort of stumbles and keeps on going. No, what trips it up more effectively than a scarf in the path of a rampaging Kastrian, is that we then have the Doctor racing off to an expository conversation with the Daleks on board their ship. It's almost worth it for the sheer unadulterated joy of the sight of him keeping his enemy at bay with a Jammy Dodger. Like it says in the Mastercard ads, priceless. But at the end of the day, it is just talking and explaining the plot. For a fair proportion of the episode's 45-minute runtime. And biscuity self-destruct device aside, that's not very satisfying.

But wait, it's all building to something. Something BIG.

The door opens. Smoke pours forth and through it something is set to emerge...

Yes, tonight, Matthew, I am going to be a Dalek! Try to ignore the fact that I look like a new model Renault Megane. (As soon as more footage is available, expect YouTube videos to the tune of I See You Baby (Shakin That Ass)) Focus instead on my pals and delight in the news that we're available in a range of exciting colours. There's a certain retro-chunkiness to them that reminds me of the Cushing-movie Daleks, there are also shades of the Apple design school. They're big, but you're more likely to be tempted to take them out for a test drive than consider them a convincing threat. This is what Hate looks like. Would sir like his Hate in Colgate white, Post Office red or canary custard yellow?

Questions arise as to why these new Daleks don't simply gun the Doctor down (once they've seen through his Jammy Dodger ruse), but that kind of basic failure is nothing unusual for a Doctor Who monster and this lot do at least take some pot shots at the Time Lord as he runs for his TARDIS. It's not remotely a factor next to the credibility-stretch that's awaiting us.

Spitfires in space, I have no problem with. It's a great slice of spectacle. I also love the fact that it's Amy who is once again instrumental in the resolution. But I'm left with only one hand to applaud all that, since the other one is needed for scratching my head as I wonder how the hell they got three WWII fighters spaceworthy and kitted out with laser cannons in ten minutes.

All right the time frame is not precisely pinned down. But the enemy bombers' ETA is clearly given as ten minutes, Amy and Churchill race to Bracewell to discuss options, we're given no indication that the Professor has anything more than blueprints at this stage. Let's allow that the weapons are Dalek guns (which we know he has available), that he does in fact have (three?) gravity bubble generator prototypes and that the bombers are reported to be dealing damage to the capital, hence the interval has been perhaps a bit more than ten minutes. But seriously, even then, how long would it take to fit that tech to the three Spitfires, launch them and for the planes to complete their climb into space?

I'm all for switching off my brain and just enjoying some mindless entertainment, but this kind of fudge switches my brain back on and jumps me right out of the action. So by the time we're dealing with the oblivion continuum device, aka the walking talking bomb, I'm unfortunately in a more cynical frame of mind. Despite that, it's not the logic of the disarming process that bothers me - convincing Bracewell of his humanity might make no sense but it is a very Doctor Who-ish way to disarm a bomb. It's the way the scene is realised, with poor Bill Paterson reduced to blubbing feebly on the floor while a game of Simon (no relation of mine) plays out on his chest. Subsequently letting him head off in search of his beloved (invented?) Dorabella, with all those Dalek tech secrets in his head, is weak and just highlights the loose end without properly tying it up.

In the midst of it all there are, on top of the positives already cited, other nice touches – Daleks serving tea, Churchill's “Keep Buggering On”, and use of the call sign “Broadsword to Danny Boy”, from Where Eagles Dare, which serves as a nod to all war movies. It's not all bad and it's by no means the first Doctor Who story to have a big dumb ending.

Casting my mind back to 2005, it was at this point – the third episode in the new series – that I felt that Doctor Who had properly arrived. Impressions of The Unquiet Dead faded somewhat on a rewatch, to be honest, but there were qualities to it that made it feel like a step up from Rose and The End Of The World. As a side note, it troubled me slightly that this series appeared to be subscribing to a pattern – contemporary Earth introductory story, far future spaceship-based adventure, pseudo-historical penned by Mark Gatiss. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' is fine, but falling into formula would be dreadful. But formula is not the problem here.

I'm not anti-Gatiss the way some Who fans seem to be and although his second story for New Who, The Idiot's Lantern, struck me as distinctly average, I was looking forward to this one. And as much as we try to set them aside, expectations do play a part. But on a second viewing, it's a simple case of the whole thing failing to add up to sum of its parts. For all that a lot of Dalek stories aren't very good, the opportunity to write for them is a gift, as far as I'm concerned. Then when you throw in Churchill and, yes, even Spitfires in space, you really do owe it to yourself and your audience to deliver something really special.

At the end of the day, this is shiny but, overall, only okay.

This, I guess, is what disappointment looks like. At least it comes in a range of exciting colours.