The Big Bang

When I started out this blog back in January, one of my first postings was my delight that the BBC had chosen to show the Doctor Who regeneration episode on Raymond's eighth birthday. The BBC have done it again by managing to show the series finale on the first day of the school holidays. Admittedly, this does mean that some children will have flown off to far flung reaches already and will not see it until they are back but we aren't going anywhere until Monday so it was a cracking start to the school holidays. The big question is, did it make any sense?

Having thought about it, it does seem to have it's own internal consistency even if I am going to have to watch the episode again to make sure. In fact, I think I'm going to have to watch the whole series again (this is likely to be in about 3 weeks time knowing how short of scheduling BBC THREE gets). Raymond loved it although, given that it is his first day of his summer holidays and he is now allowed to stay up late to watch the football to the bitter end, I think he would have loved anything. Nina found the whole thing rather befuddling but then she was confused by the Star Trek film even though she enjoyed it.

I have noticed with this series that the two-part stories have really been separate episodes with a linking theme rather than one entire story and this one was no exception. We were sent right back to the beginning of the series with little Amelia finding her way to the Pandorica to open it and reveal - well, not what I was expecting for a start. We then have the Doctor jumping across time trying to put everything into place before the big fix at the end - and then that old Sci-Fi favourite - the reboot. I'm not that fussed about that as a plot device - it always feels like a cheat but at least here we had the full consequences of the plot played through and earlier episodes were cleverly tied in so at least I didn't feel like we had been cheated.

The one big thing that had intrigued me with this series is how it would compare to those of previous writer Russell T Davies. In terms of feeling like a satisfying whole it is at least up there with series 2, David Tennant's first, and even then it felt more consistent - only the Dalek episode early on felt a little below par. For me, where Steven Moffat wins is his gauge of the family audience he is meant to be aiming at. I think Russell T Davies is one of the best writers for an adult audience on TV and two of his previous works - Second Coming and Torchwood : Children of Earth would rate with me as amongst the very best Sci Fi dramas of the last 10 years. However, neither of those works are suitable for a younger audience and his work for Doctor Who always struck me as either a bit juvenile or utterly brilliant - but not really something that I'd want the kids to watch with us. Steven Moffat wins with this every time as the stories are fantastically well constructed and intelligent but they never stray into 15-certificate territory. Maybe Raymond is a bit older now but this is the first series that I've felt very confident to let him watch the episodes as they are broadcast rather than doing a little parental censoring before hand.

I've noticed a few negative comments about the current series on various Sci-Fi forums. I tend to put this down to habitual malcontents who would rather write TV drama according to their own warped conspiracy theories. I think this is why the first rule of TV drama should be: Never produce fan-fiction. But for me this series has been what I had always hoped Doctor Who could be - bring on Christmas!