Gridlock

I thought Gridlock was visually impressive from the off. A shame all the cars had to be the same (especially after such a variety of designs in New Earth) but the CGI sequences were great I thought. And the lovely grimey feel of the 'undercity' was your classic dystopian future - marvellous stuff.

If you hold your magnifying glass up to the plot you're going to notice the odd flaw, definitely but as far as Saturday night entertainment goes Gridlock was it. Martha is an absolute pleasure, and a breath of fresh air after Pouty Pants Tyler. The dynamic between Rose & Martha is so much more interesting than;

Rose: I love travelling with you.
Doctor: Yeah, we're bloody great aren't we.
Audience: Bleuuurgh! Oh look I've sicked up on my egg and chips.

DT is consistently spot on in all his scenes now. Witness the shouty softly shouty approach to reasoning with Martha's kidnappers. The sad smiles as he tells Marttha about Gallifrey like it's still spinning away in the constellation of Kasterberous. And the lovely ending - but back to that in a second.

Father Brannigan was great fun, I really wasn't looking forward to him being in it (it's his fault for doind that superhero dross for the BBC) so that was a pleasant surprise.The sequence where the Doctor descends through the traffic to get to the Fast Lane was just great. It looked great on screen, it showed the Doctor as your proper dynamic action hero and it let the Who design team recreate great bits of 200AD history, (just a shame Max Normal didn't have his authentic speech pattern!).

The Macra! How cool is that? 'Why?' Scream a thousand crabby Macra fans on Outpost Gallifrey (who knew there were Macra fans?), Why not? Says I. Then I sing to them; 'Whats-a Macra you, eh? Why you look-a so sad?'

The end of that big old Boat Race. Do I get a prize for guessing his message. Yes I do, but not for another few weeks. A bit touched by the passing of the Face, and the idea of Hame stuck there with him for all those years keeping the surviving population alive.

Anyway, it all comes down to two plastic chairs in an alley. There's the pay off. The middle thirty five minutes is quite possibly a bit of candy floss and very enjoyable too. But the episode is bookended with lovely Doctor/Martha scenes that show more depth of character in the old Time Lord than forty years of the old show. The look on his face when Martha asks if the Face meant her; just lovely. Maybe I enjoyed it in spite of it's flaws but I loved this episode.

Series three is raising the bar as far as I can see. I just hope they sustain this level of quality.Some bad ju-ju next week methinks. 'They always survive while I lose everything.' Dalek Sec and his bretheren back again. I hope he manages another emergency temporal shift at the end. I like Dalek Sec.

The best thing about keeping pretty spoiler free is that the series can surprise me this year, and it's doing so. Despite what we know, or think we know, I wonder if there's more to this last of his kind/you are not alone stuff.Here's to another ten weeks.