The new series of...?

Oh come on people; you didn't really think I would come back and NOT mention all the hoopla about the new Doctor Who series did you? But then again Anna has made such a good job of commenting...?

Ah well, here goes.

Given that I spent some very very VERY bad hours travelling on the Long Good Friday and had only gotten back to my house about 2.5 hours before the new series started, I think I did very well to even be conscious for the new series starting (it was more than Cloud managed, although in his defence he did noddingly keep waking up and saying "you are recording this aren't you?" ... further proof, if any were needed, that he really wasn't in the land of the living but a nice chance to say "yes, I will happily re-watch this again with you when jetlag has left the building")

Anyway...

I did watch "New Earth" and I have to say that Anna was totally right to say it felt like a mid-season episode (can I say add that some elements felt as if RTD had been watching "The Doctor Dances" on repeat and had absorbed a good deal of what worked from that and drawn it into his own writing?). So it was good but not fantastic; well, it was obviously considerably more fantastic than most stuff on TV, but like Brooker said in the Guardian (again, Anna got in ahead of me - humph, and here was me making the effort to make CB the first thing I read on the train home to Nottingham) it just wasn't up to what we wanted.

Still, there were several flashes of le Tennant ruffling, there was the whole getting wet thang (was it just me who longed for some shower gel and joining in?) and the Jarvis specs came out again. Sigh. Who am I kidding... I STILL loved it, flaws and all. Welcome back Doctor...