If everything goes according to plan, the Doctor should be just about to sort another problem out… but things don’t always go according to plan.

Nicholas Briggs’ opening script for the return of Christopher Eccleston to the role of the Time Lord that he’s not played for sixteen or so years feels as if it’s taking its cue for the characterisation of the 9th Doctor from Steven Moffat’s mid-season two-part tale. You can hear clearly this is the same person who delights in everybody living – and who can be on a very short fuse with those who don’t keep up with his whirlwind brain. It’s not focusing on the PTSD elements post-Time War, and that’s no bad thing – this series doesn’t want to take anyway anything of the growth of the character during Series 1, and it’s an opportunity to let Eccleston demonstrate different sides to the man who feels more because he’s got two hearts.

There’s a Moffat feel as well to the narrative structure, with flashbacks, time folding on itself, and incongruities that are obviously being set up for future instalments. Not everything is totally clear on first listening, but I’m reserving judgment till hearing all three parts.

We hear the Doctor most with two very different characters – Camilla Beeput’s Nova and Jayne McKenna’s Audrey – and his interactions with the military, in the shape of Jamie Parker’s Captain Halloran and Ben Lee’s Lieutenant Faraday, as well as Dan Starkey’s Marcus Aurelius, are subtly different from other incarnations. I doubt I’m the only person who thought back to the end of Aliens of London during some of those scenes.

Eccleston sounds as if he’s never been away although it seems some people were expecting this to be a grand reintroduction of this incarnation. What it feels as if Briggs and co. have done here is slot these stories in almost as a Series 0 that simply comes somewhere between the end of The Day of the Doctor and Rose – and I’m looking forward to hearing how that journey plays out.

Verdict: It’s teatime in March 2004 (a year before he meets Rose) – and an enjoyable start for the 9th Doctor’s new adventures. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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