Doctor Who and the West Indians

The first few episodes of Doctor Who this series were okay. Hospitals on the moon. Shakespeare and witches. Father Dougal wearing a cat outfit. Fair enough. Nothing startling. Business as usual if you like.

Then there were the Daleks in New York - with a side plot of an annoying stereotypical showgirl and her pigfaced boyfriend, and the awful humanisation of Dalek Sec which completely missed the point of why Daleks are good. The one with Mark Gatiss turning into a funny spider thing was okay I suppose. After that there was the Cindy Beale in space episode, in which the Doctor got taken over because a star looked at him funny. Rubbish.

But then we've had the last four episodes. Firstly we've got what sounds like a dreadful premise of the Doctor changing into a human, falling in love (with Cheryl from the Royle Family) and getting threatened by scarecrows. These were the best two episodes of Doctor Who since the Peter Davison years (if not the Tom Baker years!). Then there was the one with the funny statues that had funny quantum observation things going on, with the pretty one from Bleak House. It was all internally consistent time paradoxes and that. I really love that sort of thing. Then this Saturday we had what looked to be a pretty run of the mill episode - having avoided spoilers I just thought it was a vehicle for John Barrowman to come back in time for the last two episodes, but it turns out to be the return of clearly the best Doctor Who baddie of all time.

So, I've got nothing bad to say about it. No. Well done, I say. I've doubted Russell T. Davies recently, especially after Torchwood (which was like a series of bad Doctor Who episodes with swearing, and "adult themes" tackled in a really adolescent way. It had better get better this coming series otherwise I may watch it with not much enthusiasm). But these past few episodes have really delivered. In spades, as they say, although I'm not sure what that means.

Seems a bit weak this. And I haven't really watched much telly to talk about in my bulletpointed guide below. Next time I'll think of an advert from the last couple of years that really annoyed me and have a go at that, eh?

My bulletpointed guide to the telly I've watched:

• Heroes - Lordy. I like Heroes. I think there are about three or four episodes to go. But I'm moving in a fortnight, and I'll be without the SciFi channel for a bit. After nineteen episodes I'm going to miss the end. Perhaps Davie will record it for me...?
• I saw a little bit of a BBC Three new comedy sketch show entitled Touch Me, I'm Karen Taylor. After literally two sketches, I knew exactly what the punchline was going to be in every other sketch. This was because there were only two different sketches being shown, the rest were just those two sketches repeated in slighly different situations. And they weren't funny. Honestly. I really did know what was going to happen. I was disgusted.
• Oh, I saw the cricket as well. I went to the test at the Riverside on Friday, but it was rained off. Had really good seats and everything. Very disappointing. Too disappointing even to get angry about. I did get to see the West Indies cricket team and popular bent fingered umpire Billy Bowden though.