Doctor Who: Planet Of The Ood (Series 4)

Y'know (or maybe you don't) when you are having something that you enjoy heaps and heaps, and then you have one that is good, but not as great as it is usually, and you say: "well that's the worst of what I've had". Like, say you've been shagging...ooohh...Scarlett Johansson, and it's just great all the time. And then you have sex with her, and you don't...y'know. I don't have to spell it out. But, come on...you just shagged Scarlett Johansson! So, it's not the best sex you've ever had, or indeed even as good as what you usually get with Scarlett, but because you're doing it with Scarlett, by definition it is still damn good.

Planet Of The Ood is that non-orgasmic-Scarlett-sex. It's entertaining. It's lots of fun, well acted (how great was Tim McInerny...a criminally underrated actor, that man), looks fantastic - love that alien planet - and has some great action sequences (Graeme Harper, best director of Doctor both classic and new series). And yet, I didn't fangasm. Oh, it was kinda cool to hear the reference to the Sense-Sphere (The Sensorites; 1964; Hartnell) but overall it was just..."yeah, that was cool".

See, I've used the word cool twice in the same sentence...that's how..."cool" it was. But it wasn't "fucking kickarse". In fact it was so "cool" there's pretty much nothing more I can think of to say to review it. Did I mention Tim McInerny? Oh yes...What about Catherine Tate? She was pretty good this week...like last week. Not as good this week, not as indignant.

Actually I may be onto something. This story was actually filmed before the previous two episodes and perhaps the fact that Series 4 is still trying to feel its feet, perhaps that was the big problem. Although another point to note is that I don't actually remember any witty lines from the show, and there lies another difficulty. Keith Temple's script was what people like to describe as "servicable". Yes, it did the job but it didn't hit the clever dialogue heights that Davies injects into his owns scripts.

I'm really trying to think of something great to say, but at the end of the day, there's nothing to say.

"C+"