Personally, I loved it. I loved the setting. I loved the sets. I loved the characters, including Mel. I loved the man-ship full of little people. I especially loved the people on Twitter who seemed upset about the throwaway use of Hitler and the retconned appearance of Mel.

I mean, what?

All of River Song’s history has had to be retconned into the series – she’s a character who knows the less about the Doctor the more he gets to know her. How was she ever going to be anything other than a bit on the retconned side of things? You couldn’t expect someone to have thought about the possibilities and mapped out the character in advance. Get too carried away with that and you would have tainted the series that came before, because they’d be full of inexplicable red herrings that you couldn’t quite account for and wouldn’t appreciate until later on.

Isn’t it enough to feature the first appearance of River’s Diary. And the throwaway comment about Temporal Grace for the fan-boys out there who always need a little bit more attention.

And Hitler? Honestly… in the series that last year included Churchill and the Daleks, do you seriously imagine that Hitler in a cupboard will be an end to this? Hitler did have an angle on mysticism and ancient relics of unimaginable power – and Churchill had a hankering to acquire the Doctor’s TARDIS for the good of Great Britain (and, no doubt, mankind).

So, stop whining and luxuriate in the moment. Mel regenerating into River Song. River coming to terms with her curves. A little nod to David T. in the clattering and muttering about the change in teeth. Crop circles in Leadworth. Classic German motorbikes. The return of that Big Hall in Cardiff that they seem to do everything in from Pompeii to Void Ships to meetings with Silurian elders and more besides. Could you really rattle on and bemoan the fact that you can’t quite account for something or it didn’t seem right when you have no clue quite where Moffat’s current intentions with the story arc lay?

Dear, dear me…

A mere two days until ‘Miracle day’, and I have already resigned to the loss of my Thursdays for the next 10 weeks. Getting up at 5am, returning from work around 5pm, the volunteering until past 8pm – Torchwood, I hope, will be my little reward for a long hard day. No pressure Captain Jack!

I have seen a couple of trailers – one recently, one a while back – and I have high hopes. ‘The Children of Earth’ redefined what Torchwood could be as a series, so doubling the length, adding new characters and presenting the team in a new environment certainly has potential, I hope, for something even better.

I have been wondering about the accents. While Captain Jack should appeal to an American audience, as he effectively comes across as a native speaker, I’m thinking more about the Welsh contingent. Will the Americans require Gwen tone down her accent, or do the StarZ network offer sub-titles for the non-English elements of the script?

I’m all too easily impressed by technology. And when you combine it with Doctor Who. And then add in a collectible element. And cards. And… Well, I have exercised my sanity and promised not to get involved. I purchased the first issue of the Doctor Who Monster Invasion magazine, but certainly don’t intend to go any further than that.

In the end, this amounts to Top Trumps. Yes, it sort of tries a little harder than that and the magazine will provide more ideas and variations on playing the game; but, in the end you’re buying a magazine about Top Trumps AND having to spend £1.50 a booster packet (or something like that) for 9 additional cards. And you’re aiming at 165 (or so) for a complete set. And that probably doesn’t include the 1 in 1000 booster card ‘The Infinite’.

Seriously, I’m not getting into this; but, I can be impressed by the cool of having a 3-D Dalek pop out of my card when I look on my computer via web cam. Oh, and the web site’s sort of cool as well…