"Deep Breath"

When speaking of ways of instantly grabbing the viewer, there are probably few more effective than an episode immediately starting with a Godzilla-sized T. rex thundering along the bank of the Thames in Victorian London and then spitting out the TARDIS. It is from here that a reasonably straightforward plot about robots harvesting human organs is taken into weird and wonderful territory in a story that has to deal with the most radical reformatting of the title role since the Ninth Doctor nine years ago. Although a bit frayed around the edges, Moffat’s script is as scary, intriguing and funny as ever, the story feels different - slower, with longer scenes and a lot of sitting down and talking. All this is done in a script that is still full to the brim with great lines and gags.

I was initially a bit apprehensive about both David Tennant and Matt Smith – they were pretty much unknown to me before their announcement, although they won me round pretty quickly. The same cannot be said of Peter Capaldi. As I said when he appeared in "The Fires of Pompeii", the man’s range is formidable and he has charisma oozing out of every pore. My expectations were high and he had no problem in exceeding them, whether squeaking ‘You’ve got a dinosaur too!’, or mumbling the creature’s thoughts in his sleep, whether calmly asking his adversary to join him in a Scotch or baring his teeth in fury when giving his adversary in ultimatum, this new face with old features and attack eyebrows is, without doubt, the face of our favourite Time Lord. The Doctor’s associates carry more of the story than ever before – if you ever wondered what a Paternoster Gang spin-off series would be like, this episode would give you a pretty good idea and our favourite multi-species Victorian gang is on fine form as support. However, it is Clara who helps us truly love this new Doctor. Clara here is portrayed, for the first time, in terms of her life and reactions as a normal human being, rather than as a plot device and Jenna Coleman shines in showing Clara coming to terms with an unfamiliar face on her best friend.

We have a very familiar group of monsters for the story, and the viewer needs no prompting to recall "The Girl in the Fireplace" but with clear differences. The clockwork droids from the SS Marie Antoinette have been trying to repair their ship for tens of millions of years longer than those from SS Madame de Pompadour and they have developed some odd beliefs – perhaps the fact that Marie Antionette’s head became readily available was not the panacea that they were hoping for. The lead droid, the ‘half-face man’ is menacingly portrayed by Peter Ferdinando, who also brings out the desperation and sadness in the character.

The story is directed by Ben Wheatley, one of the most promising new British film directors – I can highly recommend the genuinely unsettling Kill List, in particular (if you have the stomach for it!) Wheatley gets very nuanced performers from all the actors and makes the slower scenes contemplative or tense or menacing as required. However, he is out of his comfort zone when it comes to the fight between the Paternoster gang and the droids, which is a disappointment after the wonderful scenes of Clara holding her breath trying to escape. The whole production is very assured, with a real Talons of Weng-Chiang feel to it (although there is a whopping continuity issue when the Doctor drops out of a tree onto a horse – that is in a courtyard with no trees in sight!) The effects are great throughout, with the outsize T. rex an obvious highlight and it has the depth of a feature film and would work well in a cinema.

Although it is my least favourite debut for a Doctor this century, Peter Capaldi makes the role his own with little effort – whilst it was wonderful to see Matt Smith again, there was no need for him to validate a new Doctor that needed no help to gain our attention. We are left, therefore, with the unexpected revelation that the half-face man found his Promised Land –the maitrêsse d’ of which, ‘Missy’ (sparkily portrayed by the inimitable Michelle Gomez) is a bit too familiar with the Doctor for comfort...

NEXT: "Inside the Dalek"

"The Name of the Doctor"

There is sometimes a great danger in teasing the audience too much. The revelations promised usually turn out to be disappointing. However, as this episode shows early on, the words in a question can have more than one meaning, which means that the actual answer could be something completely unexpected. No episode of Doctor Who has left me slack-jawed more often than "The Name of the Doctor", an episode that arguably does more to intelligently redefine our view of the Doctor than any other story produced in colour.

In a very bold move for the 50th anniversary year, the main action takes place on Trenzalore, a world revealed to be the last resting place of the Doctor. Death is a major theme in this episode - of the regulars and semi-regulars, it is only Madam Vastra who has not died and been resurrected. Indeed, the River Song we see is the Data Ghost from the library. Moffat is confident enough to allude to the Doctor’s travels finally coming to an end and, as usual, his inventiveness suffuses the entire script, from the conference call on the astral plane, to the true nature of what is within a Time Lord’s grave. Instead of the body, we have a swirling vortex of light that is a gateway to every moment of the Doctor's life. There have been intimations of the Doctor erasing himself from history and, it turns out, this is for a good reason – if one has the information, one can find the path the Doctor takes from birth to death and, as we find out, the Great Intelligence is information. Richard E Grant is back in fine fettle as an enemy thwarted, but determined to utterly destroy his enemy in death, for the Doctor will now die at every point in his existence – unless someone can save him. The true nature of the Impossible Girl has finally been unveiled and, as many suspected, Clara has been Scarothed throughout the Doctor’s existence. Although I still believe that the season could have been improved considerably by fleshing out Clara’s character a bit more, Jenna-Louise Coleman has been a delight throughout and it is testament to her skill that her sacrifice is as poignant as it is – however it would have worked far better had the audience been as emotionally invested in her as they had with Rose or Amy.

Saul Metzstein again puts in great work behind the camera and there is inspired work from the production team, from the Great Intelligence tearing off Dr Simeon's face to the sepulchral vistas of Trenzalore. Perhaps the Whisper Men could have been a bit more different to the Trickster from The Sarah Jane Adventures, but this is a small nitpick. Metzstein makes sure that the story is full of scenes and images that will stick in our minds and this is key to the success of the story.

The title of the story suggests that we are going to get to know something huge about the Doctor's past and, indeed, the story begins with the first ever scene in Doctor Who set before "An Unearthly Child", followed by re-jigged footage of the first seven Doctors interacting with Clara. As for the current incarnation, our leading man has never been better – in tears as he girds his loins to go to Trenzalore, being hoodwinked into playing blind-man's buff by Angie and Artie whilst they sneak off to the cinema and showing the deep love he has for River, a love which is perhaps not best expressed when the other party is a mental projection that only he can see. The title of the story is one that makes the audience think they want a sound or a collection of letters or symbols. However, this would ultimately be as inconsequential as the words Giovanni Battista Fidanza or Phillip Pirrip – we would still call them Nostromo and Pip and that is what they would always be. The Doctor may not be the name he was born with, but it is who he is and it is what he does – except once. There have been eleven Doctors, but the body which the Eleventh Doctor inhabits is his twelfth. Once, the Doctor did something so horrific that his subsequent avatars denied that incarnation the right to call himself 'Doctor' - and this is what the Doctor and Clara find at the centre of the path of the Doctor's life. Even before he turns around, one of the most recognisable voices in the world indicates that one of the finest actors in the world will play a character that redefines what we know about our hero. We will find out more in November, but what we are left with is an almost unbearably heady, yet utterly intoxicating brew that will be talked about for years.

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"The Crimson Horror"

Many of the recent writers on Doctor Who grew up as fans of the programme and this is reflected in the work they do, paying tribute to the show that they loved as a child and, if there has ever been an attempt to do a 21st century version of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, "The Crimson Horror" is it. The story sets out almost immediately to be a grotesque Victorian pastiche, an ideal which is fully realised by the time we reach Sweetville, a vision of what Bournville would have been like had the Cadburys been evil. The plot is a simple one of cleansing the world’s population using a Mesozoic plague, so that the privileged few can inherit the Earth, but it is the details that give the story its shine – the vivid period dialogue, the tent-show evangelism of Mrs Gillyflower’s recruitment drive, the almost relentless Yorkshire-ness, the optograms, the intimations of the rotten extremities of late-Victorian society. However, this is no mere rehashing of past glories. The structure is unusual, with the Doctor only appearing a third of the way through, seemingly already defeated, with his initial involvement told in flashback. As one might expect from the pen of Mark Gatiss, there are jokes aplenty, although whether the fainting man and the name of the helpful urchin are a bit too over the top is a matter of opinion.

However, beneath the shine, there has to be substance and this is certainly provided by the wonderful characters in the story. There is the always welcome return of the Paternoster Gang, although Madame Vastra surrenders her spotlight somewhat to her assistants, with Strax providing some excellent comic relief and Jenny kicking ass in leather (a bit like another TV heroine I could mention). Gatiss enjoys his ripe supporting characters – the coroner could have come straight out of The Talons of Weng-Chiang. However, it is the key characters of Mrs Gillyflower and her daughter Ada that are the true gems and the casting of the legendary Diana Rigg and her talented daughter Rachael Stirling is a true gift. Mrs Gillyflower is a gleefully sadistic super-villain and bluff Yorkshire matriarch in one and Ada, despite being a victim all her life, is allowed real reserves of strength – refusing to forgive her mother and summarily dealing with Mr Sweet. Despite his apparent defeat, the Doctor is soon up and running with Matt in fine fettle – his Yorkshire accent is hilarious. Clara (at least until the final scene) is somewhat in the background, however.

Saul Metzstein concocts an intoxicating brew from Gatiss’s recipe with increasing confidence in getting memorable shots, from little things like the scrape of Ada’s stick on the ground to the presentation of the flashback, where you can almost hear the projector whirring. As expected, the production is top notch, with the period detail impeccable. A special mention must be made of Mr Sweet, without doubt the vilest monster to appear in the series this century – in fact his demise is very nasty, and the closest a family show can get to an early Sam Raimi/Peter Jackson splatter scene.

Gatiss has really returned to form this year and this hugely enjoyable story is a welcome addition to the Who canon.

NEXT: "Nightmare in Silver"

"The Snowmen"

Those expecting a Steven Moffat take on It's a Wonderful Life or The Box of Delights were to be disappointed, as Doctor Who’s 2012 Christmas special is not a reinterpretation of a well-known Christmas story but, instead, weaves a tale set in that most Christmassy of Yuletides, the Victorian Christmas. This is probably because, for the first time, Moffat has more to do than to tell a tale of seasonal peril. He has to introduce the replacement for the longest running companion since the programme returned.

If there is a theme to the story, it is that of elective loneliness. The Doctor is in shock after losing Amy and Rory, so he has retired to his castle on a cloud. Captain Latimer loves his children, but cannot connect with them. And, of course, the entire crisis begins with a small boy who refuses to make friends. When the title of the episode was announced, as well as possibly paying homage to Channel 4's most beloved Christmas tradition, long-time fans of the programme spotted a similarity with a previous story which, as it turned out is no coincidence- amongst its other aims, this story could also be called "Genesis of the Great Intelligence". The development of the menace itself is, perhaps, the weakest aspect of the script Although the progression of the crisis does make sense, it is somewhat workmanlike (in that respect, very much like the Yeti stories!) and, it has to be said, that Dr Simeon is not given as much richness in the script as he should do and it is testament to the considerable skills of the would-be/sort-of-was Ninth Doctor, Richard E Grant that he makes as much of an impression as he does.

However, as with The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear, there is so much more to enjoy in the story. The dialogue is as tart as ever- the ‘answers of one word’ sequence has one expecting a standard writing exercise and becomes so much more and, of course, the comedy sequence are as funny as ever We also have the welcome return of Madame Vastra and Jenny, with the much-appreciated resurrection of Strax the Sontaran. Tom Ward gives a very convincing performance as Captain Latimer, and we have none other than Sir Ian McKellen lending his inimitable baritone as the voice of the Great Intelligence. However, the heart of the story is the Doctor meeting his new companion for, as it turns out, the second time. Jenna-Louise Colman continues to captivate and has no problem in filling Karen Gillan’s shoes. The Doctor’s reluctance to help and to reach out, with his joy in finding a new friend is effortlessly conveyed by Matt Smith.

Saul Metzstein directs a sumptuous production, which, whilst it doesn't match the extravagant visuals of the past two Christmases, is seasonally cinematic, nonetheless, with such breathtaking images such as the stairway to the clouds ('taller on the inside'). The Snowmen are genuinely memorable creations which will no doubt influence winter playtimes for years to come. A minor flaw in the production is that the masks for Madame Vastra and Strax could do with refurbishment and a fresh light test, but it hardly matters.

"The Snowmen" ends with the mystery of who Clara Oswin Oswald really is- did she go the way of Scaroth in the Time Vortex? Perhaps the fact that the Great Intelligence only ‘rings a bell’ with the Doctor is relevant- is it just one thousand years of memories, or have memories been stolen? Again, Easter can’t come too quickly...

NEXT: "The Bells of Saint John"

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"A Good Man Goes to War"

This series of Doctor Who has decided to do something different so, for the first time, we have a mid-series cliffhanger. As we have come to expect from Steven Moffat, the story starts with a dizzying sequence of scenes where the Doctor destroys a cyber-fleet just to make a point. We also have vignettes that range in location from Victorian London to the planet Zarathustra in what looks like a 41st century version of War and Peace. The Doctor is calling in some of his debts and all hell will break loose...

The quest of the Family Pond is a staggeringly exciting one, and contains the usual funny and moving dialogue we have come to expect. However, although heart of "A Good Man Goes to War" is the hunt for Amy and her daughter, the mind of the story is somewhat different. In all the far-flung and exotic locations that we see throughout the episode, we do not see the Doctor himself for the first twenty minutes of the episode. But we hear about him and we see what he leaves behind him so when he finally appears, nearly half-way through the episode, we know why an army has been raised against him, not to attack, but to defend. If "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" was about the Doctor as story, then "A Good Man Goes to War" is about the Doctor as a legend and how legends change. Angels become demons and demons, angels and the word Doctor has come to mean 'great warrior' in some parts of the universe. Of course, the Doctor has been many things, from determined idealist to detached manipulator. He is the Lonely God and a madman with a box. However, Moffat has a very clear idea of what the Doctor should not be and the Doctor has been heading that way for some time. He has trailed devastation in his wake and it is not only the evil that see that as a threat. The entire realisation of the army is excellent- in their spare time, the clerics train themselves to recognise the psychic paper, a random sign at the start has a picture of the sonic screwdriver with the warning ‘1. It’s not sonic 2. It’s not a screwdriver’.

The fact that all of this is told in a hugely entertaining adventure proves how masterful Moffat is. Lest we forget, the story also contains contains two of the most endearingly bonkers, yet irresistibly ingenious characters the programme has ever had- a Sontaran nurse (gene spliced to cope with...er...every nursing need) and a Victorian Sapphic Samurai Silurian swordswoman (played with smouldering saurian sexiness by Neve McIntosh) fighting crime with her trusty maidservant. We also have the Headless Monks, serving the Papal Mainframe herself, chanting attack prayers armed with lightsabres from Hell.

Matt Smith is astonishing yet again. The Doctor's rage almost seems to embarrass him, yet its effect is potent. Arthur Darvill is masterful as an ordinary man who has reluctantly become a legend himself and Karen Gillan's portrayal of a defiant mother is utterly convincing. Frances Barber relishes her role as the chief villain in the story and there is great support from the entire cast, including Danny Sapani as Colonel ‘Runaway’ Manton and Christina Chong as Lorna Bucket, who joined the Church/Army just to meet the Doctor again.

Peter Hoar has a hell of a lot to visualise and a large cast to manage, but he copes with the challenge magnificently constructing scene after memorable scene. The whole production is fantastic, from Demon's Run, with its Death Star like bays to Zarathustra’s utterly convincing battle field, realised for less than two minutes. Everyone behind the scenes deserves a big hand.

It ends with, seemingly, everything lost. But Melody has returned grown up- for that is who River Song is. I am slightly disappointed that I guessed this (although I did think that Jackson Lake and Adelaide Brooke were involved!) but not very much so. Questions remain, of course- is she part Time Lord, and was the little girl in "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon" her? If so, did Madame Kovarian succeed in creating the ultimate weapon? It's going to be a long summer...

NEXT: "Let's Kill Hitler"