Re Darkness… SOME POINTS of the easter special were darker than SOME POINTS of GotD. Genocide is, admittedly, a bit dark. But so is Planet turned to dustbowl in a short time… in apparently less time, in fact, than it would take to sit through GotD.

Re Cutscenes… you did warn me, but seriously, you could watch Top Gun… TWICE… in the time it takes to get through them. And I’m only up to level 4.

Also: the Easter Special was darker than Genesis Of The Daleks? The Doctor almost commits sodding GENOCIDE in GotD, for flip’s sake!

Also also: I warned you about those cutscenes. I prefer them to the mission briefings in H.A.W.(ks – Ed), though, which has an insultingly stupid storyline. And no giant flying aircraft-carriers.

DAMN YOU MONKEY HANDS.

They should have just put up a quick note saying “was is bad” and a few cutscenes of arial awesomeness. Like CoD 4 did, actually…

Oh, and did you see that Top Gun is proven even MORE homo-eroctic now: Kelly Mcgillis has come out as a lesbian.

Maybe it’s not the period of the 1970′s you mean, but even before you take into account the special effects (which were, no doubt, amazing at the time…), it really suffered from being about 3 hours too long. It had way too many “WTF” moments – spoiler alert: Davros (half man, half dustbin) somehow manages to convince an entire species that he is their best shot of supremecy, despite looking and sounding absoulutely nuts! He apparently creates the Daleks on the basis that everyone is resigned to the fact that they are going to be mutated and need a way of getting around when the inevitable happens, without anyone saying “hang on, you look really shit in your weird granny-wagon. Why should we be looking to you to for advice on futuristic travel plans?”. It just didn’t make sense.

OK, so it’s one isolated example, but it did jog a few memories – I think a lot of Dr Who in the 1970′s was like that – made no sense, was too long, and had awful expositions. As for “Dark”… well, some points of the easter special were dark, and in fact darker than GotD.

In fact, the easter special suffered from the very opposite to all this – the story as it turned out made as much sense as it could, timewise was pretty sharp on the mark, and exposition was swift and relatively painless, but it was all just a bit bland. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by some fairly nifty Who of late, but this was dull. In summary – Bus breaks down, gets fixed, all home in time for tea (except the poor sap who got killed, in fine Who style, to demonstrate how much peril everyone was in and a couple of fly-men who were just asking to get swatted at some stage). I also disliked the whole “they’ve ripped off Pitch Black” feeling I got from watching it. You could never accuse GotD of ripping off anything other than, say, Naziism (even Herr Gruber from Allo Allo was there in uniform – albeit 10 years too early).

The saving grace wasn’t Michelle Ryan in a catsuit (p.s. Rob, a catsuit does NOT make an attractive, mid 20′s, big busted lass a good actress – although she still outscores Billy Piper on all fronts. Yes those as well…), it was the nice link right at the end into the next twist. The occasional big jaw dropping revelation is part and parcel of Dr Who nowadays, and what makes it fun is seeing how it pans out!

I’m sure Steven Moffat will be able to do a fine job, but Matt Smith is going to have to be nothing short of a revelation to out-Who David Tennant (who is definitely in my top 3 and a firm contender for Best Dr Who Ever).

Mind you… Men In Black 2 vs Men in Black 1.