Flesh and Stone. The final word.

This week it belongs to Steve Murphy.

Thought we'd cracked it for a bit there. The Time Of Angels had a lot going for it; tense, taut, edgy, well-paced. Full of lots of the stuff that Doctor Who has always been good at. Still faults, but for a change in this series, for me at least, actually outweighed by the positives.

And then the second part.

Perhaps it was that too much was thrown into it. Perhaps it needed to be 60 instead of 45 minutes. Whatever, I felt it fell apart. The previous cliffhanger, Moffatt-style, was very good, but the way out of it was rushed and unclear - partly, yet again, through gabbled dialogue, but it just made me feel it was not thought through well enough. And as the supporting cast disappeared, the cracks began to appear again, if you'll pardon the pun. I had been told that Matt Smith's Doctor would this week up his game; the "fury" scene would be great, I was told. When we got there, I watched an actor act fury. And can you imagine Tennant or even Eccleston's delivery of the line "I wish I'd known you better"? It would have ripped your heart out. Instead, it was left to Iain Glen to do so with his reply. And the final scene, for me, was badly written, badly acted and heading towards objectionable. Amy's come-on to The Doctor came out of nowhere, but presumably is going somewhere. If not, then it was cheap and nasty.

I feel like The Grinch, writing these comments. Each episode I try to look for positives, and there are some, because Doctor Who is, and will always be, Doctor Who. But at the moment, it's "despite...." instead of "because of...", and that both surprises and worries me greatly.

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