Doctor Who: The Time of Angels (1)

Amy: 'She's Mrs Doctor from the future, isn't she? Is she gonna be your wife one day?'

What a difference seven days makes, not to mention a change of writer. Tonight's story was a marked improvement over last week's: there were mysteries galore, dialogue to die for, and the characters actually felt real again. In short, nothing jarred, and all the main leads sparkled. After the blip that was 'Victory of the Daleks', Doctor Who feels well and truly back on track.

Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks

Doctor: 'All right, it's a Jammy Dodger, but I was promised tea.'

Cliché prohibits me from saying 'they're baaaack'—but they are. The Daleks have been mercifully scarce of late: a brief cameo here, some scrap parts turning up there, but no full appearance since 'Journey's End'. So, did you miss them?

*Tumble-weed rolls by*

Doctor Who: The Beast Below

Doctor: 'Right then. This isn't going to be big on dignity.'

Aaron Asadi, writing for SciFiNow, made an interesting comment earlier in the week. He stopped short of saying that Doctor Who had become Americanised, but did proffer the opinion that Russell T. Davies always wrote with one eye firmly on the USA. According to Asadi, this manifested itself in 'a tendency to map Who’s journey about classic American TV tropes: will-they-won’t-they romance; high-octane action; handsome heroes' and 'humourless sacrifice'. Now, whether you agree with him or not (and I sympathise to some degree), since its resurrection, Doctor Who has been a different show. A better show, some would argue—having a broader appeal, almost certainly—but at what cost? Has Doctor Who lost some of its Britishness?

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour

Doctor: 'Who da man? Oh, I'm never saying that again.'

Season premières are unforgiving creatures. There's often too much to convey in too little time, and this episode had a particularly difficult brief as it had the unenviable task of introducing us to not only a new Doctor, but also a new companion, and a brand new, super-sized TARDIS. So well done to the man (or woman) whose idea it was to grant us an extra 20 minutes of air time. It helped the story no end.