How do we get out of this one? ... Doctor Who
Photograph: BBC
Given the outpouring of love for quality US television drama across these blogs, it seems only fair and right that an old but effortlessly entertaining staple of British telly be honoured once again, as it approaches the end of its third series.
The penultimate episode of Doctor Who's third (revised) series ended on possibly the biggest cliffhanger yet last Saturday night, with the Doctor (David Tennant) aged a hundred years and powerless to stop his old enemy the Master (John Simm) taking over Earth and decimating the population - in the literal sense - with the aid of six billion homicidal Christmas tree baubles and, in another of the series' divisive moments of high camp, the hypnotic effect of dodgy Australian dance-rockers Rogue Traders.
While it takes a certain mixture of nostalgia, belief-suspension and pre-pubescence-at-heart to fully appreciate the new Who experience, the series has already proven itself the jewel in the crown of the vacuous Saturday prime-time deadzone for audiences of all ages. That's particularly good going when you consider the core cast - Tennant and Freema Agyeman - are completely different from the one which launched the new series in 2005, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper.
Despite having to fight off rumours that she's due for the axe soon, the unknown Agyeman has done a capable job in her first season as a replacement for the popular Piper. It's been a pretty good season from a fan's perspective too, veering between the occasionally sublime and the generally entertaining, with the odd stop at bloody ridiculous along the way. Human Daleks and killer pig-men? Really?
The season has really come into its own in the last fortnight, however, with the return of the Master, played first by uber-thesp Derek Jacobi as a kindly old amnesiac gent, and then - after one of telly's greatest reveals in recent memory - John Simm. Fresh from the success of Life On Mars, Simm is wonderful as a psychopathic panto villain, who also happens to be disguised as the prime minister of Britain. Unless the series' producer Russell T Davies is actually in possession of a time machine, the week's news events couldn't have been more fortunately timed to add an air of zeitgeist to the storyline, alien invaders notwithstanding.
So can anyone else just not wait until Saturday? What have been your impressions of the series as a whole, and Tennant, Agyeman and Simm in particular? And, of course, how the hell does the Doctor get out of this one?
