An Exercise in Awesome: Doctor Who - 'A Good Man Goes to War' Review

First, let me do this: OH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT I WAS SO RIGHT NO-ONE HAS EVER BEEN MORE RIGHT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD THAN I WAS ABOUT DOCTOR WHO. Einstein? Bite me.

I don't know whether to dance for joy or weep at the preposterousness of my rightness. After all, this means that the Lulzy Mega Theory that I came up with to jokingly tie together every strand of the plot was...well, it was right. Like, actual bona fide canon plot. Steven Moffat you crazy man, I am no person to be filching storylines from their subconscious. LOL WUT.

Initial astonishment done with (it is quite lucky that I am so taken with the fact that I totally called this one because otherwise it could have been very disappointing), I genuinely loved this episode. Haters to the left, 'cos this is going to get raw like sushi. Honestly, I get why people might be disappointed. It's not like I've loved every minute of this series, it's been distinctly uneven in quality and I have serious doubts about the wisdom of a mid-series break in the first place. It obviously works for American shows that have a gazillion episodes per season and can take a convenient break around Christmas but for Doctor Who's thirteen episodes it just feels arbitrary and another ploy for the American market. Plus, it's just bad storytelling. Moffat is clearly invested in his overarching storyline and splitting the series in two means he gets to spend more time on it: three out of four episodes are justifiably siphoned off into Series Arc territory. But it does a disservice to the individual episodes - it makes us feel like we're just waiting to get back to the Important Stuff, especially when individual episodes turn out to really be about the series arc all along (Rebel Flesh/Almost People), especially especially when they have devastating cliffhangers tacked on the end (Almost People). And it's a shame because episodes like Neil Gaiman's are proof that the individual episode has as much to offer as the serialised one. So yeah, I'm not with you on this one, Steven: either do a four-part serial like Who of Yore or stick to the thirteen-episode series. No halfway house.

Plus the timelines are totally fucked now. I actually paused iPlayer to try and work out how River could know what happened at Demon's Run when Law of Inverse Timelines states she shouldn't know - I mean, it's her own future, right? It hasn't happened to her yet. I guess the Doctor told her or something? Yeah, Moffat has really screwed himself into a corner on this one. Personally, I hope they just abandon the prospect of trying to make the Inverse Timelines thing work because a) it doesn't and b) it's stupid. Plus it occasions unprecedented levels of angsting in my favourite badass and makes me all "Hey, Moffat, you got some 10th Doctor in my River". And please god, finally, I hope it means we just get to see them having crazy adventures together. Please. That would be awesome. Andtotallyhot.

And yeah, there wasn't really a story per se, just a load of build up and then...not much, and yeah, it really doesn't qualify as "the Doctor being raised higher than ever and falling harder than ever", like AT ALL, and yeah, for the 'Battle of Demon's Run' or even the titular War, it wasn't much of either but I honestly don't care. It was one of those ones where Moffat's real talent shines through: being awesome. If I'm totally honest, he's sort of gone mad with power and completely overreached himself this series, what with River's timelines and too much overarching plot but boy, can he make me forget his shortcomings quickly. There was some comment on the Guardian blog to tune that if this episode had been produced by Russel T Davies we'd all be baying for his blood and maybe so, but I think that just goes to show how much of the payoff is in the delivery: under RTD, this could have been a mess of mawkishness, goofiness and David Tennant's face collapsing under the strain of gurning. Under Moffat it was dry, tongue-in-cheek and Just. Plain. Cool.

I love that the show was finally confronting its own mythology - specifically NuWho mythology, that is. When they took the decision to rid the Whoniverse of Gallifrey and those pesky Timelords with a convenient genocide back in 2005, they might have done a service to the storylines but they lumbered the main character with a metric fuckton of angst and a dark side bigger than the freaking moon's. And yet they were always at pains to point that It's Totally The Same Doctor and He Never Really Changes. So, in my humble opinion, River's little speech where she called him out on what he'd become/was becoming was timely and effective, thank you. And again, will hopefully pave the way for glorious silliness come the second half of the series.

So there. I've dealt with all your petty complaints. Now can my joy be unconfined?

Because I flailed. Literally. And I do not use that word mistakenly, ever. I flailed with glee, I flailed with joy, I flailed with sorrow and I flailed with Matt Smithness. My limbs were all over the place with the wanton abandon of my flailing.

A long, long overdue Badass Upgrade for Rory there. I mean just that pre-credits sequence alone was great, with the callback to the Amy-talking-about-the-Doctor-but-really-talking-about-Rory trick (and yes, I admit, Moffat, you got me a second time) and that blank rage of the delivery of "Would you like me to repeat the question?" In fact, pretty much all the Rorytime of that episode seemed to be underscored by a little voice going, "Oh, you thought you didn't fancy Rory, did you? WELL WE'LL SHOW YOU." Seriously. Rory with cool explosions behind him. Rory in a centurion's outfit. Rory with a sword. Rory with a baby. Rory taking charge. Rory calling Amy "Mrs Williams". Rory Rory Rory, I salute you. Snaps for Arthur Darvill. (In fact, I think Moffat's having a wee giggle at the expense of the female fans there - after many episodes playing up excitingDoctor v homebodyRory, he suddenly gives us Rory in armour holding a baby in one hand and a sword in the other. He's practically the Old Spice man.) Plus, while I didn't totally buy Karen Gillan as a mum (no-one looks that good after childbirth), Arthur Darvill nailed it as a dad. (Or maybe find a female companion who can actually, y'know, act. It's just getting awkward.)

Some cracking classic Moffat one-liners in there as well. Stevie Wonder under the bridge in 1814 (we must never tell him), Jack the Ripper was stringy but tasty, all of Nurse Sontaran's Health Tips ("Don't slump, it's bad for your spine"). And I'm so glad River has the same thoughts as I do (Two Doctors? "That was a whole different birthday"). In fact, the whole episode had a distinctly Coupling-esque vein of British naughtiness running through it, as is only right for a story pivoting around the exact logistics of where and when Amy and Rory did ther nasty (presumably while roleplaying as a policewoman and a centurion - perhaps that's why the Doctor got Rory to dress up). I think my personal favourite (besides the Two Doctors gag, of course) was Cockney Strumpet pouting over her Silurian Lady Friend's roving eye, answered by "I don't know why you put up with me". Cue incredibly long, flexible tongue and some smouldering eye contact. Oh Steven, you are naughty.

I also love Moffat's PC vision of the ethnicity and gender diverse future (and the past) with the female president (speaking of which, it seems you really can't have a vision of the future without a bit of steampunk), the female pope, the thin fat gay married Anglican marines, the lesbian cross-species sword-wielding couple. Who are you, Russel T Davies? Seriously though, it was fun. And I know people say Moffat can't write character but honestly I shed a little tear over Lorna Bucket's death (what's the betting we get to see her encounter with the Doctor as a child in the second half of the series?), which is the second time I've cried over a character Moffat has introduced and killed off in the space of 45 minutes (thank you, Father Octavian). In fact, poor old Lorna Bucket. Let's take a minute to salute her. Yet another example of my favourite of the Doctor's qualities and its sharp edge: the ability to inspire people to be the best version of themselves, even if sometimes that just means dying. Anyway. Badass Silurian and her Sidekick of the Ridiculously Exaggerated Cockerney Accent were great. Blue Man Group Reject was amusing. Nurse Sontaran was Moffat at his most fun - he doesn't pull his punches on the show's more ridiculous aspects, does he?

But really, the star of all this was, of course, the Doctor. As I said, it was an episode that probed what the reboot had done to the character but celebrated it as well. It was a bold move not to have the main character in evidence for almost twenty minutes but for me it paid off; I was practically hopping with excitement by the time that ever-so-classy reveal of Matt Smith under the hood came around. And this, really, was why I loved this episode: it spoke to every adrenalin-junkie, explosions-and-one-liner-loving, lip-biting nerve of my inner seven-year-old. I bounced with excitement from start from finish; I didn't even mind the return of those goddamn Spitfires in Space. The whole thing was a feast of Woah Cybermen, Woah Explosions, Woah Cool Swords, etc etc. Steven Moffat is great at adrenalin. There's no other writer on television that manages to sustain quite that sense of snarky glee that I get from watching his stuff, and that's not just Doctor Who, that's Sherlock and Jekyll and countless others as well. And by the looks of it, it's not just me, I'm pretty sure that's the most fun Matt Smith's ever had, he seemed like he loved every minute of it.

Matt Smith who was, for the fourth week in a row, stellar. By the way. Not that I don't always think he's good, it's just that he hasn't been given much to do of late and I felt like the magic was lacking a little somewhere around the middle there. But what with Idris/Tardis and the Two Doctors and now this, he's fully cemented himself as My Doctor. I am seriously apprehensive about Doctor Twelve. I think Smith is at his best when he exploits that young-old appearance he's been gifted with, and this was a prime example - all that high energy glee when his plan went right, all that blushing prudery (somehow childish and old mannish at the same time) over the specifics of the conception. I also thought this was a tremendously endearing performance; I defy anyone watching not to feel at least a little affection for that space lunatic. Special mention to the Doctor imitating the Spitfires overhead, I was seconds away from doing the same myself. And the carousel of facial expressions as he realised that the first time Amy and Rory had been on the TARDIS together was their, ahem, wedding night. I am trying to be delicate.

And (because I've managed to avoid talking about The Reveal in detail so far) how great was that bit between the Doctor and River as he realised he was shortly to be hopping on the good foot and doing the bad thing with the daughter of his two best friends? It's a funny thing, that twist. I came up with my Mega Theory precisely because it would be preposterous for it to happen and now it has, it kind of is, but I've accepted it remarkably easily. So River Song is Melody Pond is the Regenerating Girl is Amy's Daughter. Yeah, I can get on board with that. Do we get to see her regenerate again? Will she join the TARDIS gang full time now? Will we have some Hilarious Shenanigans where Amy pauses mid-adventure to try and wipe her face? For the last, undoubtedly. For the others, we shall see. I hardly dare try and match my current Theory Predicting Success but the dots we're clearly supposed to join are that River kills Flesh Doctor and is sent to prison for it. I'm not sure though. With recent developments, perhaps she ends up killing Rory? 'Greatest man she ever knew'? It would be a neat way to end the They Keep Killing Rory arc and would continue Amy's trick of conflating descriptions of her two favourite men. Guess we'll find out. As to whether we'll find out this year, the jury's still out on that one; Death of the Doctor could be Moffat's way of linking this series to the next, just like the Silence linked us to the last. Anyway, so long as none of this affects River Being Awesome, I'm cool with it. (Also, remember when River said "he's not my Doctor yet"? I have a sneaking suspicion that now the Doctor's going to start being 'her Doctor'.) Plus, this sort of confirms something else I suggested a while back: River is completely justified in being a badass who tells everyone else what to do - she's a part timelord who's been specifically trained to be a badass. I can't even drive. I feel better about myself now.

Overall, a corking episode: wildly exciting, snarky-funny, tear-jerking, and with a reveal that most 9-year-olds probably saw coming a mile off because they have no concept that it just might be ridiculous. Not five star Doctor Who, but entertaining enough to be damn close.

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So. What's the verdict on Series 6 Part 1? Um. Not sure. First off, it's a story only half told, there's still lots to come that may well determine what we think of the whole. Secondly, I don't feel like there's been enough of it to judge. But I do know that I preferred Series 5. Why? Well, it was just more unified. I've been thinking a bit about 'themes' in Doctor Who and whether they have a place there or should remain the preserve of more 'adult' drama (by which I mean, specifically written for adults, thank you).

Russel T Davies, he didn't really have themes. He had character arcs and, for the most part, he did them well: Rose, Martha and Donna all learned the value of themselves in one way or another and in turn, they were the show's links to the audience, our representatives. Moffat's characters don't really do that; they're more ciphers that represent certain things. I still don't really know who Amy is, beyond the fact that she's Scottish and 'feisty', and I certainly don't feel like she's my representative. (In fact, I sort of feel like Rory is my representative as the only one who ever suggests running away from the Scary Thing instead of towards it, but he's objectively a much better written character than Amy - but then, I don't think Moffat can really write women very well at all, although there are notable exceptions.)

But Moffat does do themes. Oh boy, can he do themes. Series 5 was dominated visually by the fairytale motif but there was also a strong Peter Pan-esque 'don't grow up' element as well as a 'real life v. adventure' aspect and, of course, the ever-present timey-wimey stuff. Most of all though, it was a discussion of storytelling and the way that the stories we tell end up shaping the tellers as much as the tellers shape the tale. I love that. That ticks every single one of my boxes. And it held together the series, elevating even the more formulaic episodes so that they became part of one long chain of adventure, Amy's Reward for Waiting. Ironically, Moffat stated somewhere that he doesn't 'do' themes consciously, he just writes his ideas and sees what happens. This seems to work well for him and I'd advise him to give it another go: Series 5's fairytale/storytelling preoccupation seems something organic, something even the Doctor didn't notice until it was important. Series 6, on the other hand, has suffered from too many decision by committee: we keep being told it's 'darker', 'scarier', 'more mature', elements which have clearly been shoe-horned in even where they don't fit. The Curse of the Black Spot should have been a romp - a proper one.

The current success of the show (and the Davies v. Moffat debate) really comes down to what you think Doctor Who should be. With Davies, it was a representation of our universe, in which there happened to exist this clever guy who talked too much and had a time machine and accordingly the Doctors were more humanised and the companions more woman-on-the-street. With Moffat, we hardly ever see our own earth; instead we're taken to mystical places with exotic names where fantastical events play out and consequently, the Doctor is extraordinarily alien and the companions are story archetypes. In a way, Moffat's era is just fleshing out all the planets Davies' Doctors name-dropped in Series 1-4: Davies showed us the familiar side of the universe with chips and council estates and daleks, now Moffat is showing us the unfamiliar side, where all it takes to bring back the Doctor is to remember him. I don't think either approach is necessarily better than the other but I prefer Moffat because a) my tastes run in that direction (beautiful escapism over hyper-realism every time) and b) I think he writes his approach better.

Series 6 has been a mixed bag. Jewels of episodes like The Doctor's Wife made up for clunkers like The Curse of the Black Spot. The scope and ambition has been impressive and the production values remain high, producing one very good-looking show. The series arc has been intriguing but overbearing and there are definite signs of Moffat overreaching himself. I prescribe cutting back on the timey-wimey, investing in a little more character development and continuing with the great line in wisecracks, scary monsters and awe-inspiring coolness. I may not be a Doctor, but I watch enough TV to know what's good for it.

My Dog's Got No Nose: Doctor Who - 'The Rebel Flesh' and 'The Almost People' DOUBLE REVIEW Part 2

RIGHT. Lightning fast Part 2, just in time for tonight's mid-season finale (and yes, I am very excited).

So. 'The Almost People'. It was good. A solid 4* two-parter, in my opinion. It was a little unsubtle compared to last week (that "Who are the real monsters?" line, for example - yes, I think we got that that was the moral dilemma of this episode, thanks) but more information needed to be conveyed quicker so it was forgivable. And of course, the problem with Big Reveals coming at the end of episodes is that they tend to overshadow the rest of it and I'll admit, fannish speculation is pretty much the only thing I concentrate on right now, especially after THAT ENDING. So let's deal with this as quickly as possible, yeah? Yeah.

Another excellent performance from Matt Smith - in fact, I think that was the best thing about the episode. Loved gangerDoctor's past regenerations burning through, that was a very nice touch, although I thought that the "we've moved on" comment after the 10th Doctor's voice resurfaced walked a fine line between funny and bitchy (although not unwarranted). On a side note, when gangerDoctor firmed up a bit and we essentially had two Matt Smiths, my reaction was basically that of Captain Jack Harkness's when faced with that ridiculous Doctor 2.0 cloning storyline with the two David Tennants which, as I recall, went something along the lines of "You don't even want to know what I'm thinking right now." The phone call with the little boy was great as well: simultaneously very touching and incredibly manipulative, which is sort of how the Doctor operates. Similarly, The Doctor telling Cleaves (who was much better written in this part) and gangerDixon (was that his name?) to go and speak well at the end was also lovely; I think the show is at its most inspiring (in a cornball kind of way) when the Doctor turns people into the best versions of themselves. Well that's when I tear up anyway, you can keep your Doctor/Rose goodbyes.

Once again Matt Smith also managed to pull off the trick of putting in two subtly differences performances of the same character. The obvious comparison here is with David Tennant's CloneDoctor in the Series 4 finale in more ways than Captain Jack and I needing to yank our minds firmly out of the gutter. Now, I'll admit I'm biased towards Smith because Eleven is My Doctor but I'll just say this: the difference between Clone10 and Regular10 had to be written into the script. Ganger11 and Regular11 were supposed to be completely the same person and Smith still managed to make them different. But not so different that the plot fell apart. Yeah, I pretty much want Matt Smith to be on Doctor Who forever.

I felt like Amy and Rory got a little shunted to the side, although this could be to prepare for the obvious centre stage roles they'll likely have in the mid-season finale. Rory is a massive dork, bless him ("I'll break out the big guns") and the writers really need to let him step up every now and then, I disliked how his (very Doctorlike actually) Righteous Anger about the Flesh was just swept aside and then turned into a big con anyway. Amy...I don't know what to say about this week, except that re-watching the episode knowing it was gangerAmy resenting gangerDoctor for being a ganger was nicely ironic and mindbendy.

In fact the episode was so layered with double meanings that there's a lot that actually doesn't make sense. For example, the Doctor pitching a spaz at Amy about the Real Human Pain of the Flesh after she tells him about seeing his death. Makes perfect sense if he was actually the gangerDoctor but as realDoctor, not so much. Maybe it was just to cover up his real reactions to that particular piece of information? That's assuming that that was gangerDoctor and they didn't switch after that point. And logically both Doctors must be tuned into the Flesh, not just gangerDoctor: if gangerDoctor and realDoctor switched then it was realDoctor saying all the stuff about how he could sense their plans and things – was he making it up? Did gangerDoctor tell him earlier so he could relay it back to everyone else? Doesn't really hold together but the premise that he was actually collecting data was cool. There was just a bit too much going on as it was; I would have cut Cleave's clot (I'm not sure that it added anything beyond letting Raquel Cassidy deliver that "them's the breaks" line) and Jen morphing into a standard CGI monster. Come on Doctor Who, when will you learn? Putting a human head on the body of a monster JUST. LOOKS. SILLY. Say it with me now: SILLY.

What's funny though is the amount of stuff I've unwittingly got right over the past few weeks" my observations about the Doctor feeling a bit enigmatic and cipher-y of late actually turn out to have some bearing on the plot (he's sorting the problem of the Disappearing Amy) and bolsters my hope that we'll get 'Real Doctor' back in the second half of the series. of course, the question we're all asking is whether gangerDoctor means a possible solution to his 'death' at the start of series. I'm pretty split on this one: Moffat doesn't tend to do left-field solutions, he's more a 'drop in hints so subtly no-one realises they're hints even after stuff happens' kind of guy and gangerDoctor as a solution feels both too obvious and plausible at the same time. Even if they don't use him as a get out, the door is still open for him to come back at some point with all the 'way back from being vapourised' stuff, just like the door was left open for Jenny the Doctor's Daughter and then mercifully slammed closed because she was a shit character.

So Amy-pregnancy questions of why and how and when and who by are being answered literally at this minute (and I do mean literally) so let's not dwell on them. I'll just say this: River Song. Amy's daughter. Regenerating little girl. Same person. If it doesn't turn out to be true then...I'll be quite happy because that would frankly be an appalling plot twist.

See you on the other side.

My Dog's Got No Nose: Doctor Who - 'The Rebel Flesh' and 'The Almost People' DOUBLE REVIEW

So after a two week finals-induced hiatus, the weekly Doctor Who reviews are back (although not for long as this Saturday sees the last one before the mid-season break). Plenty of other pop culture tidbits and nibbles to come over the next few weeks for your edification and delectation. Om nom nom.

A/N: Part 1 was written some weeks ago (on Rapture Day, in fact), Part 2 today. Enjoy.
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Part 1 - The Rebel Flesh

I'm not actually going to apologise for this review title because it comes from my mum's favourite joke ever in the world, which I reproduce now in full for your benefit:

-Doctor, doctor, my dog's got no nose!

-How does it smell?

-Terrible!

Never trust a joke with more than one exclamation mark in it.

Anyway, having resoundingly failed to get raptured up to heaven today (still have to take finals, damn) I settled down to watch Doctor Who with mixed expectations. On the one hand, two-parters are a tricky business, as the series' opener attested: always a danger of too much set-up and not enough pay-off. Plus, anything after last week was going to have a tough job. On the other hand, the premise looked pretty good and it was written by Matthew Graham, creator of Life on Mars, everyone's favourite time-travelling, coma-victim-starring 70s cop show (and featuring Marshall Lancaster, who will always, always, be LoM's Chris to me).

And I really enjoyed it. It wasn't scary per se, but definitely creepy, with the Gangers solidly hitting the middle of Uncanny Valley. Uncanny Valley, by the way, is a concept originated by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, basically stating that the more something looks like a human, the more we empathise with it, up to a point where the resemblance grows too strong and it's just really fucking creepy, like zombies or ventriloquists' dummies or pod people. Or Gangers. Anyway, there's a graph or something that goes steadily up, along the axes of 'Resemblance to Humans' and 'Acceptance by Humans', and then drops drastically. The drop is known as Uncanny Valley.

Back to the episode. It was basically very entertaining. A good premise, some recognisable stock characters, it showed off the talents of our regular cast nicely and, yeah, it was a little goofy in places but Doctor Who's supposed to be goofy. Just not really, really patronising, Stephen Thompson (yeah, I'm never going to let it go). A return to formula but if the formula works, you can't fault it. Also very impressive considering that Graham's last contribution to Doctor Who was the Series 2 clunker "Fear Her'. About the 2012 Olympics? The monster was a little girl with some crayons? Nope, me neither. I probably couldn't hear the plot over the sound of David Tennant's gurning anyway. (Sorry, David, finals are making me extra bitchy today.) In terms of two-parters, I'd rank it above the Dalek Episodes of Which We Do Not Speak and last year's slightly disappointing Silurian jaunt, somewhere on a par with the Series 2 Satan Pit/Impossible Planet, probably slightly above. (Nowhere near as good as The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances or Human Nature/Family of Blood, of course, but that goes without saying. I wouldn't want you to think I'm patronising you.)

I found it oddly comforting the number of boxes it ticked, actually. It fulfilled the Industrial People in Jumpsuits episode, the Man is Our Greatest Threat episode and the Near Future episode, all while riffing off that classic sci-fi theme of cloning. (And was anyone else getting Old School Who vibes off those acid suits? Very Zygon.) It always bemuses me when people watch sci-fi or fantasy or any genre really and complain about plots being unoriginal or 'borrowed', as though we haven't been recycling the same few story archetypes since the beginning of time. Especially when it comes to science fiction - episodes like this one go all the way back to Frankenstein so it seems short-sighted, to say the least, to complain about Bladerunner rip-offs. Anyway, the point is, some of the best episodes of Doctor Who are the ones that take familiar stories or villains and dust them off a bit, shake them down and say "Look, here's how we do this story in 2011".

For the most part, I think this one did it well. Nice choice of location (betting it saved a few quid on the budget as well, Wales being conveniently full of abandoned monasteries and assorted ruins) and used to good effect (it's not Doctor Who if there isn't a bit of running down corridors). Really liked Rory and Amy this week - it's weird how drastically they can change from week to week - especially Rory's interactions with "Jen". Something of the auton!Rory side coming through to empathise with the plight of the plastic folk? A round of applause here for Sarah Smart as well who is a greatly underrated actress and pops up on my TV screen every couple of years to generally outshine everyone else in whatever Agatha Christie she's in. Loved her "red welly boots" monologue, but I guess I'm just a sucker for a girl with a timey-wimey backstory (hi River). Rory's reactions to being hit on by a piece of sentient goop were pretty wonderful too, the right mix of oddly flattered and completely weirded out. And I'm so so so glad they didn't go down the 'jealousy' route for Amy, apart from a natural side-eye or two, because really, he waited for her for 2000 years, it would be pretty silly to start feeling insecure now. Some lovely couple-y moments too: liked her kissing his thumb better and her blank-faced "Yeah, well, what are you gonna do" as she stomped off to go and find her husband. In a dark, twisty monastery. Full of murderous doppelgangers. Flooding with acid.

Someone needs to start realising that Rory dies a little too often though. The Doctor almost seemed to forget he existed at all at one point, although he seems to be trying to shift Amy and Rory out of the TARDIS altogether - timey-wimey pregnancy? Actually, the Doctor seems to be keeping a lot of cards close to his chest at the moment: the landing-by-accident moment (a throwback to last week or something more?), aforementioned pregnancy, what exactly this Flesh stuff is anyway ("early technology"? What now?) . I'm not entirely sure I like it. There's a line between having the Doctor as a complex, mysterious being with a Dark Past and having him as a complete cipher. I think that's why I enjoyed last week so much, we actually got to see Our Eponymous Hero up close and personal. Anyway.

I though Matt Smith was actually particularly good this week - for a series of scripts that aren't giving him much to play with aside from some quirky references to bow ties and Dusty Springfield (great line actually - seriously, who doesn't like Dusty?), there's a palpable sense of weariness and concern underpinning his performances that suggests maybe his elusiveness is deliberate and temporary. I keep coming back to Amy's pregnancy but, of course, he also knows that the rest of the gang are withholding something pretty important from him. It's also always interesting to see the Doctor pitted against the human race, given how much time he spends trying to save them. I always enjoy the moments where the Doctor turns on them and we're reminded how different he really is and, for my money, Smith excels at these. He has that particularly alien oddness that makes it work. Like getting told off by a teacher who you were larking around with and you step over the line and suddenly it's all "Intelligence can only get you so far, Rafaella, it's no license to be rude, now stop being so attention-seeking and do some work". May have stumbled across an issue or two there. Sorry.

Sadly, the one thing that didn't work for me was Raquel Cassidy's character, the token Skeptical Moneymaker, Foreman Cleaves. A shame because Raquel Cassidy is great, putting in sterling work in, amongst other things, Teachers and Party Animals starring (drumroll) a young Matt Smith. Well, a younger Matt Smith. Foreman Cleaves was one of those characters who acts as the plot demands it - all vulnerable and "I left my team" after the storm so we can begin to empathise, then a snarling psychopath because something needs to push the Gangers into open rebellion. Nice stuff going on with her Ganger being the sardonic, laid-back one though and, noticeably, the most hesitant to kill the 'originals'. I hope this is plot-related, that the Gangers are the opposite personalities (or just other side of the existing personalities) of their original bodies and not just lazy writing. Gruff Northerner With Son (didn't catch his name) seemed pretty identical in both incarnations but Sarah Smart's timid Jen turned into a war machine, so we'll see I guess.

So all in all, a pretty good episode: good story, good acting, good execution. I'll just say one thing though: Plastic Doctor? Come on BBC. There's no way I want to tap that.

Part 2 to come!