I, too, got rather bored during series 3 as Martha was little more than a Rose clone, RTD stuck ‘religiously’ to his new formula & we had a bad Dalek story. But my interest was recaptured by 3 fantastic episodes back-to-back - ‘Blink’ & the Doctor becoming human & almost shacking up with she who will forever be known as ‘her out of Spaced’.

I feel series 4 has so far been ok but nothing special - the doctors’ daughter is a cool new character but her slo-mo bullet-diving was utterly cliched (didn’t she also shout ‘no’ at the same time?) & while the Sontarans storyline kept me guessing, they were ultimately too rubbish to ever take seriously. I don’t like Catherine Tate, although I enjoy the way her characters’ down-to-earthiness gives them more scope to emphasise the Doctors’ alienness. But it seems there’s a Steven Moffat (Blink, Girl In The Fireplace) 2-parter to come. It’s being postponed due to Eurovision of all things but as he’s written my favourite episodes of the new run so far, it should be worth the wait.

I spent series 2 sulking because I wanted Eccles back: mean and just a bit dangerous works so much better for me than DT’s toothy good looks… Actually I just figured it out; it’s childhood trauma watching Tom Baker turn into Tristan Farnon!!! Sorry, but I like my Doctors a bit ugly.

I loathed series 3 to the point where I thought I might have to stop watching. Yes, we are all very sick of that simpering companion thing.

But series 4… brilliant. I get cross (as you know) about certain aspects of it, the Doctor’s belief that “what you should do” is a simple mathematical equation, for example. I’d like the issue, just once, to be the life of a single individual, rather than the survival of the planet.

There’s a Dorothy L Sayers short story about a man who has to choose between saving from fire a brilliant medial research paper which would save the lives of thousands, and an actual baby, and he saves the baby and the baby grows up to be hanged for murdering little girls. That’s the kind of dilemma you could do wonders with on Dr Who.

(Apologies for length and wittering.)