And so it begins...

At last! Andrew summed all that sentiment up perfectly, so I won't add to that, except to say that I am glad its back, if a little nervous.

I have several gripes with Catherine Tate. Not least the idea that The Guardian put out there on the same day as episode 1 was broadcast that she's "Britain's best-loved woman comic"... I don't particularly find her sketch show all that funny and there are characters on that which make me want to put my foot through the telly.

But in 2006, whether I liked it or not, she encroached on my ground... She was in Doctor Who. And she was, well, alright. It wasn't a great story, and the character was pretty unlikeable. But it was alright. It was watchable - but having David Tennant in the cast does that to a programme...

So what on earth was this going to be like with the grating Donna by DT's side, combatting what looked to be the least-threatening menace since the half-painted Myrka stumbled into the Sea Station in Warriors of the Deep? Its so much harder to get away with crap monsters these days. It was much easier when it was very clear to all that this hideous alien/creature was obviously a man in a half-painted suit - because Doctor Who fans didn't care - its about getting lost in the fantasy of it all, letting your brain compute this as real for 20 minutes a week. Now, though, CGI has added it's double-edged twopenneth in. On the one hand, they're able to create the most stunning things I've seen on UK telly. On the other hand, there isn't anything to be left to the imagination. So how were they going to pull this off?

[Read the rest here...]