The Rani is back and there’s two of her now. In a world that resembles a 1950s suburban hellscape, can Mr and Mrs Smith, along with their baby daughter, avoid their clutches? I have my doubts…

So Mrs Flood was the Rani all along, bi-regenerating mid-credits last week as the general audience at large let out a collective exclamation of “who?” No disrespect to the character or the late great Kate O’Mara but she’s hardly part of the collective consciousness – a couple of not-great stories from the back end of the classic series plus one notorious charity special don’t make her the big reveal Russell T Davies seems to think she is. Would it not have been more interesting to have established Anita Dobson as being the Rani from the off? “How will the Rani track down the Doctor and what does she want with him?” is a more engaging question than “Who is Mrs Flood?”, surely? She’d be right miffed to discover that in the twenty years we’ve been in the Doctor’s company again they’ve mentioned her a grand total of one time (in last year’s Space Babies, which seems to be pertinent). At least the audience have been prepped for the long-awaited return of Susan, last week’s other big surprise.

That’s not to say she’s a bad choice to bring back and she’s rather fun, Archie Punjabi’s new iteration very reminiscent of O’Mara’s original, with Anita Dobson’s variant now a lot meeker and subservient to her. I always rather liked the character; she seemed to have proper motivations compared to the Master, and it was all about the science and the power that brings and damn anyone who got in her way.

Science though has taken a back seat in this era to magic and Gods and it’s rendered the show very weird indeed, even if it often did skew fantasy as much as SF. Here we have a world that’s modelled on the sort of old-fashioned suburban life long ago skewered by David Nobbs’ The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. It’s a lifestyle that certain sections of the political landscape seem to think would be super and smashing to go back to, but I didn’t get where I am today without knowing that house prices alone have rendered this impossible for most. For one particular individual though, it has become a dream fulfilled although it seems that there are little clues to be picked up on that this might not be reality.

It’s very hard to come to any conclusions about this episode without its conclusion. On its own it’s very odd and I found it very silly at times. The opening sequence for instance should have been horrifying, but comes across as just daft. Similarly the Smiths playing at happy families should have been intriguing but I just couldn’t engage and it’s not nearly as entertaining as they seem to think it is. The best parts here were those involving Ruby Sunday, who’s already worked out that the world isn’t the one she used to live in, as she teams up with erstwhile UNIT scientific advisor Shirley Ann Bingham. When we do discover what’s going on it’s sadly mostly via infodump and the age old cliché of the villain explaining themselves shortly before they think the Doctor is going to die.

Will next week’s finale make this make more sense and feel like a coherent piece of storytelling? Or will it do the usual Russell T Davies trick of having everything go more or less back to normal at the end with no real harm done? Who knows, although I know which I’d bet money on.

Verdict: Feeling more like a first half than a proper Part One, will this cohere when concluded? I have my doubts… 5/10

Andy Smith