Doctor Who: The Almost People (2)

Doctor: 'Would you like a Jelly Baby?'

Matthew Graham has definitely gone up in my estimations. I liked this episode a lot. Admittedly, it had a few problems—the dialogue was occasionally clunky, the CGI predictably rubbish, and there was far too much telling rather than showing. ('Who are the real monsters?')—but these are minor gripes in what was, an otherwise, event laden episode. And now that we know who died back in episode one, the question must surely be: what has happened to Amy?

Doctor Who: The Rebel Flesh (1)

Doctor: 'Human lives are amazing. Are you surprised they walked off with them?'

Matthew Graham's first effort at a Doctor Who script ('Fear Her') was an anomaly in that, despite Graham's impeccable writing pedigree, it was absolute tosh. No writer, no matter how talented, can pull off a scribble monster. True, the minuscule (some may say non-existent) visual effects budget didn't help matters—but it was still pretty bad. Thankfully, tonight's episode went a long way toward making amends. It wasn't perfect, but I didn't herniate myself from weeping at it either—which is always a bonus.

Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife

Idris: 'Oh, my beautiful idiot. You've got what you've always had. You've got me.'

It's virtually impossible for me to criticise tonight's episode, as I loved every last minute of it. Let's face it, expectations over this episode were impossibly high. Once word got out that Neil Gaiman was on the writing team, fans have talked about little else. Recipient of numerous prestigious writing awards (Hugo, Bram Stoker and Nebula, to name but a few), Gaiman's a doyen of the fantasy fiction genre. Add Moffat to the mix, and it's a Marvel Team-Up made in heaven. I didn't think anything could eclipse 'The Girl in the Fireplace', 'Blink' or 'Vincent and the Doctor', but I was wrong. Tonight's episode pipped them all.

Doctor Who: The Curse of the Black Spot

Doctor: 'Ignore all my previous theories.'

Tonight's episode was a serviceable, if lightweight, yarn which saw the Doctor, Amy and Rory take to the high seas, swash some buckles, and wade through just about every pirate cliché in the book. There was a mutiny, a stowaway, a storm, mad pirate laughter, some booty (of the non-arse variety), and more pirate lingo than you could shake a stick at. The only thing missing was a parrot. Add to the mix a spaceship, a sick bay, and a virtual doctor, and you've pretty much got your plot. It's just a shame tonight's episode followed on from last week's mind-bending WTF-a-rama. Comparatively, it felt a little ordinary.

Doctor Who: Day of the Moon (2)

The Doctor: 'You're building me the perfect prison. And it still won't be enough.'

Calling this a two-parter is perhaps something of a misnomer. We've had two parts, granted, but was anything truly concluded? Virtually all of our questions were left unanswered. Sure, they managed to defeat the Silence (although I'm pretty sure that's not the last we'll see of them), but what exactly is going on? And then the little girl started to regenerate and, suddenly, I found myself grinning from ear to ear. What a turn up for the books. What a cliff hanger. Actually... just, WHAT?!