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I watched the repeat of the first episode on Sunday night - very impressed. I loved Christopher Eccleston, but I think David Tennant will be fine. He obviously loves playing the role, so that helps enormously. Interesting storyline, amazing new aliens - and the return of an old villain - and I like Billie Piper as Rose. I didn't expect to like her in the first series, for the same reasons as Nuala stated before, but I thought she was very good (I saw her in The Canterbury Tales, in which she also showed previously well-concealed talent xp ). Looking forward to next week's episode!

Second episode spoilers:

Begin:

So... After being back with the former residents of Platform One, we get taken again to Victorian England immediately afterwards, and we're going back to the present again straight after that, too.

Pardon me for potentially over-analysing (after all, what else do you do with a BA in English? wink ), but last series was an unknown quantity. Having something to compare and contrast it with is just too tempting - especially when there's either some potentially very clever or some very formulaic writing going on.

They're definitely playing up the moral ambiguity and things-with-which-man-was-not-meant-to-meddle angles, aren't they?

I just loved that moment when we got to see the Doctor with the almost childlike wonder of the typical, pioneering Victorian explorer: so busy gawping in fascination at whatever new discovery he's just made that he seems to be forgeting to run away - before having to kill it.

And I did like that werewolf. It was a novel explanation for lycanthropy, but since we've already had ghosts explained away as aliens, I suppose that anything goes.

Once you've taken one aspect of the legend and changed it, I suppose that it's easier to fiddle with everything else, including the way that the wolf was despatched in the end - which was novel if nothing else.

The wolf itself was fairly impressive - it seems that Pixar-esque fur effects're now available a bit cheaper.

Less Rose. smile

Granted, it's piling on the paradox by making the Doctor having inadvertantly made life difficult for himself by making the Establishment hate him - although it does put a new twist on The Christmas Invasion (for all we'd seen in the last five minutes of World War Three that Harriet Jones' willingness to sacrifice just about anything or anyone for her idea of the greater good were already there).

The cinematography worked well for me: lots of "less is more", lots of cuts in the right places, with plenty of Hitchcockian switches of POV, quick shots of gnashing teeth and suitably impressive screaming.

But this struck me as an episode that in some ways was more of a vehicle for moving the plot than a standalone adventure, and it showed.

My major concern after seeing that is that if RTD isn't careful, he's going to to overcook the Torchwood concept before the series has even gotten off the ground.

It was subtle in the last series - a couple of throwaway one word references that, once the spin-off was announced, people were having to go back to look for.

We knew in advance that there were going to be references to Torchwood throughout the series; but now we've had an entire cliffhanger based on it, barely before the series itself has got started.

And all of this build-up when the spin-off series itself isn't supposed to be hitting the airwaves until at least late summer - after Who itself's finished.

I'm getting seriously intrigued as to where all of this is going. It seems from the references in the 2005 series that RTD had the idea of a Torchwood spin-off in mind from the get-go; but between The Christmas Invasion and now this, Torchwood seems to be rapidly turning into the new Bad Wolf in the enigma stakes, and the Doctor's been treated like the biggest villain we've met so far.

Unless we're going to have a The Doctor vs. The People finale (and the red herrings seem to be flying thick and fast after even two episodes, but the online commentary says that things from that episode're going to be revisted for the finale), so much build-up just isn't making much sense. Again, the thought of what's being stored up with this level of foreboding fascinates me - I just hope that it won't be a let-down when RTD's willing to do something like that this early.End

Overall, I loved it, more so than the first episode. Great werewolf, [spoilers start here] spectacular dispatch of werewolf using cutting-edge Victorian technology, good old-fashioned Victorian ladies huddling together and screaming their heads off, brave men dying for the cause and redeeming themselves in the process, etc. I rolled my eyes at the "we are not amused" running gag - I certainly wasn't - and the heavy-duty Torchwood promo was overkill. But I like the sense of fun and vitality, and the building relationship between the (new) Doctor and Rose, and the way he assumed the role of a typical Victorian explorer-type, before remembering what he was there for! The special effects so far are as good as the last series - long may it continue. I'm a bit confused at the Doctor getting such a bad press in both the past - Queen Vic - and the future - Harriet - when he's been coming and going to his favourite planet, Earth, on and off for thousands of years... [/spoilers] Looking forward to next week!

Oh boy! Oh boy! I've been reading your spoilers and I can't wait to see Tennant over here in the US!

i'm looking forward to tonight's episode when he's reintroduced to a rather old friend! 3nodding

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Made me cry too!! And I thought Anthony Head did a great job in his role. Elizabeth Sladen has aged gracefully in my opinion. 3nodding