Doctor Who: The Wedding of River Song

Churchill: 'All of history is happening at once.'

You have to admire the ambition of tonight's episode—for fifteen minutes I just stared at the screen, both amazed and befuddled. The visuals were at times breathtaking: from the car carrying balloons, to steam trains exiting the Gherkin, to the vaguely impressive pterodactyls. (Less impressive after Terra Nova's, sadly.) I even liked the weird meld of the Tudor/Roman/post-war eras. True, we ended up with more questions than we got answers to, but this was a remarkable ending to what's been a wholly remarkable season.

Doctor Who: Closing Time

Doctor: 'It's a papoose.'

Tonight's episode reminded me a little of 2005's 'Bad Wolf'. It likewise started off relatively lightweight, before revealing some unexpectedly devious depths. Despite enjoying 'The Lodger' (Gareth Roberts' last effort and prequel to 'Closing Time'), it didn't exactly set my world alight. Tonight's offering was a slight improvement. It's rare we get to see the Doctor in a bromance story—it's even rarer we get to see him almost copping off with another character. Steady on, Matt. You're not in Christopher and His Kind now.

Doctor Who: The God Complex

Doctor: 'I'm not a hero. I really am just a madman in a box.'

I struggled with tonight's episode, and it was only after listening to Toby Whithouse's commentary on Doctor Who Confidential that I understood half of what went on. Second time through, it made a lot more sense, but watching DWC shouldn't be a prerequisite for understanding an episode. Maybe I'm a bit of a dunce, but it all felt unnecessarily convoluted. I did enjoy the last ten minute, however, I just didn't want to believe them. I still don't.

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited

Amy: 'I'm going to pull time apart for you.'

After the sub par 'Age of Steel/Rise of the Cybermen' this was a real step up in quality from Tom MacRae. This is the kind of episode that Doctor Who excels at: a girl lost in time, waiting for the Doctor. ('The Girl in the Fireplace', 'School Reunion', 'The Big Bang'.) If the highlight of the first half of the season was 'The Doctor's Wife', then this must surely be the zenith of the back six. If there's better still to come, I'll eat my fez.

Doctor Who: Night Terrors

Rory: 'We're dead... again!'

I had the strangest feeling during 'Night Terrors' that I was watching a Russell T. Davies produced episode, written by Steven Moffat. The script felt like a retread of 'Fear Her', yet the subject matter felt distinctly Moffatian. How odd that it was actually a Moffat produced episode, written by Mark Gatiss. For a moment, I though the Doctor had used his TARDIS to take us back in time to the Russell T. Davies era. Now there's a chilling thought.

Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler (2)

Mels: 'You've got a time machine. I've got a gun. What the hell. Let's kill Hitler.'

Bonkers! Absolutely bonkers. I don't think I've ever seen anything so mad. 'Let's Kill Hitler' had just about everything: answers, puzzles galore, humour, cleavage, conflict... Rory punching Hitler and then locking him in a cupboard. What more could anyone ask for? (Bearing in mind that this is a family show, not HBO).

Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes to War (1)

River: 'This is the day he finds out who I am.'

Tonight's episode was a mid-season finale, which is something of a first for us here in the UK, as our seasons are seldom long enough to cut in two. As such, despite answering some of our questions, it left most of the main plot threads hanging. We now know who River Song is, but the central mystery remains tantalisingly incoherent. Emotionally, tonight's episode had some effective set pieces, but I'm going to start off with what I didn't like. There weren't many things, so bear with me.

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?!

Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut (1)

Doctor: 'I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool.'

It must be hard for any show to live up to the pre-season hype. They're always promising bigger, better, weirder, more satisfying story lines. Of course, it's usually just talk. Maybe they're too close to the project to be truly objective, or more likely, they feel obligated to big-up the show to the size they hope it will be. So what are we to make of Steven Moffat's 'it's the Doctor's darkest hour' and 'it's going to be a real game changer' pre-season spiel? Should we write it off as mere rhetoric designed to get our fantasy/scifi juices flowing, or will there actually be some substance to the Moff's grandiose promises?

Doctor Who: Space and Time (Comic Relief Special)

Amy: “Okay kids, this is where it gets complicated.”

Sound familiar? It should do. It was the same line Amy used in last year's season finale. This year, instead of a Children in Need special, we got a Comic Relief special. Same idea, same station, roughly the same length, just a different charity. Same wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey goodness, though. And two Amy Ponds! Be still my beating heart.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

Doctor: 'Tonight, I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past.'

You've got to hand it to Steven Moffat—his first Christmas episode was an absolute blinder. It was exactly how a Christmas episode should be: it was different enough from a regular episode to justify its special status; it had regular companions (even if they were criminally underused); there was a strong Christmas theme; it had great celebrity guests; and there was an emotionally engaging narrative which both warmed and broke our hearts. In short, it was both Christmassy and special.