We all sat around, very excited to watch the new Doctor Who last Saturday.  Even my Mother (not a normal Who fan) had come along saying she wanted to see the new Doctor.

The first surprise was the music.  It was a bit  …  different!  And the graphics too.  Although I quite liked the clouds, particularly the gold clouds.  Not so sure about the theme, but I expect it will grow on me.

The episode however had quite a different feel to the old RTD programs.  I loved Amabel, the garden, and the kitchen scene with fish custard was wonderful.  One for the kids obviously but I bet all the grown ups loved it too.

Grown up Amy was good too.  There was a nice community feel to the whole place, with most of the characters having known each other for years.  For example the bloke whose car trapped the Doctors tie obviously knew her well and was more than a bit intimidated, going off meekly to have his coffee. The old lady too, what a lovely performance she gave!  The casting in the Doctor is always superb!

The episode also was about many children’s dream – the dream of having the TARDIS land in your back garden, and the Doctor climb out.  Quite mad of course, but very understanding and kind.  He latched on to Amabel immediately – she wasn’t bothered by box falling out of sky sky and man falling out of box, so that crack in her wall must be really serious.

The episode had a lot to do.  Introduce the new Doctor as a person, introduce Amy and her friends and family (although where *were* her family?), explain the new TARDIS and sonic screwdriver, introduce the series arc theme (crack in the universe), AND have an adventure.  Blimey!  But it did it.  Brilliantly!

The family liked it too.  My son thought it and Matt were great (and may be defecting to Amy from Mylene).  My partner thought it was excellent.  My Mother said she thought that Matt was better than David Tenant (shock, horror!) and had a greater range.

But what did I think of it?  Well I wasn’t too sure at first.  But since then I have watched it three times and I am coming to the view that it is brilliant.  I have enjoyed previous series openers more (my personal favourite is Partners in Crime) but they (apart from Rose) had less to do.  And Matt is marvelous.

In fact things are looking very good.  David Tenant? What David Tenant?  Matt Smith *is* the Doctor!