The Doctor being helpless to intervene as history obliterates a nascent colony makes for a great character study, but left you wondering whether this was to be a real story or just a sequence of events observed, and in this respect “The Waters of Mars” could be said to partially revisit the Schrödinger Cat analogy used in the Steven Moffat episode “Blink”.

Tenuous thematic connections aside, Davies and Ford’s script for “The Waters of Mars” seemed to owe other debts to Moffat, most obviously taking an everyday phenomenon and turning it into a source of terror.  We’ve had light (or lack thereof) and now water – can we expect air and time to be the next microscopic predators to come after the Doctor?

But this is not a criticism, the extrapolation of H20 as a foe was expertly done, in particular the Doctor’s line about water being able to fell a mountain was chilling.  Indeed much of the dialogue in this episode crackled, in particular those exchanges between Tennant and the always brilliant Lindsay Duncan.  The moment in which she refuses to allow the Doctor to escape until he has fully appraised her of her imminent death was perhaps the most mature and complex scene Doctor Who has given us.  While the moments after when the Doctor is able to hear the colonists’ desperate screams was Who at its all time grimmest.

It was also the point, when the Doctor’s personal future, appears to have pivoted and set off towards this incarnation’s demise.  We can’t be sure, but it does appear that the Doctor’s reckless actions on Mars, have triggered everything that will now follow, as the Time Lord comes to learn that no one is bigger than time itself.

In the cold light of day, one might question why it would be this small band of space explorers that has finally pushed the Doctor over the edge, rather than – say – Pompeii, or the countless other events he has witnessed, and although the production worked hard to sell us the atrocity of these events, the Doctor’s motivation to act in this way and at this time still felt a little unclear.

But that aside, “The Waters of Mars” was brilliant television, a fantastic fillip to much of current weekend TV, willing to be bold and dark, as well as stupid and fun.  Adelaide’s brush with a Dalek was poetic and affecting, the Doctor’s descent into a kind of madness, thrilling and scary, and the battle with the waters of Mars a visceral, cinematic tour de force.

We’ve seen such work from Davies’ Doctor Who before, but here it was all the better for not feeling in the least bit grandiose or operatic, this was hardcore, something we haven’t experienced before.  And by the end of the story the Doctor had become a figure that we would no longer run to, but run from – now that’s definitely something new.

It’s called Let’s Change The World With Music, and was originally knocked on the head by thick-eared suits at Sony after just one listen to Paddy McAloon’s meticulously performed demo tape, thereafter consigned both to a cardboard box in the songwriter’s back room and wistful whispers within fanzines, message boards and forums.

Now McAloon’s efforts have finally made it into the real world. They have lost the mystique of being that most alluring of sonic creations, the Unreleased Recording.

But they have gained the exposure for which they were conceived, and like light falling on long-hidden mementos tucked away for expediency, their merit ought only to climb still further. They are songs of sad beauty and uplifting wisdom, marching under a banner of a pointedly nostalgic aspiration – one that seems to gain in stature by virtue of being from another age.

There’s a vaguely naïve, 1960s ring to it. Let’s not change the world with ideas, McAloon vows, not with less bureaucracy or more intervention, or deregulation or more regulation, but with…songs. With notes and tunes and harmony and… well, with sound itself.

It’s a calculated doff of the hat to a tradition fostered by another group; one that, along with almost every other precedent in popular music, established, fed and watered the mystique of the Unreleased Recording from the off.

What the Beatles didn’t release on disc, what remained in the Abbey Road archives in the shape of alternative takes, studio chatter and wholesale abandoned songs, used to be a puzzle trail winding all the way back to February 1965 with tracks like If You’ve Got Trouble and That Means A Lot, and then even earlier to versions of their very first single, Love Me Do, with and without Ringo on drums.

The Anthology series of albums and TV programmes in the mid-1990s ventured some way along that trail, partly satiating the world’s desire for ‘new’ Beatles material while tantalising fans with the implication there was far more hiding in the vaults.

At the time we overlooked the pointless instrumental versions and the crap bits because, hey, it was The Beatles. Audio glimpses of the Fabs at work in Abbey Road, even mere seconds in length, were seized on as vindication of the belief in the spell of the Unreleased Recording. An alternative take of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer? Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive!

The spell remained unbroken. Yet since then, Apple, still the most hapless music business in the world, has done its best to not capitalise on any periodic returns of Beatlemania. It has seemingly gone out of its way to not release digitally remastered version of the group’s albums, nor sort out a deal with iTunes, nor get the film of Let It Be released on DVD, nor really do anything to acknowledge the arrival of the 21st century.

Maddeningly, the only ‘new’ Beatles endeavour since the Anthology project was the bizarre Love album: a look-at-how-clever-we-are hodge-podge medley of one chorus stuck to the verse of another.

Until now. The Beatles: on Record aired on BBC2 the same week as the launch of the Beatles Rock Band computer game, plus the release of those long pined-for reissues (supposedly done and dusted four years ago!). It has been a rare burst of coordination from McCartney’s people, Starr’s people, the thousands of others representing Mrs John Lennon and Mrs George Harrison, plus George Martin and son.

Given the wait, it was a joy to see this particular publicity bauble do everything right. Its greatest triumph was having the sense to avoid what wasn’t needed. An hour-long documentary about the music of the Beatles should not leave any director struggling for content. Rather it should invite consideration of just what, as well as who, needs to be included.

Attention had been paid to such concerns. We had no contributions from anybody bar the group themselves and George Martin; no extraneous establishing footage, not even any extraneous sound or music; and best of all no narration. That meant no shots of girls screaming as the Beatles arrived at the Shea Stadium followed by a wallpaper voice saying “girls screamed as the Beatles arrived at the Shea Stadium”. Just sound and pictures of and by five people who changed the world with music. Perfection.

In the same way they were the first group to treat the studio as a playground-cum-laboratory, the Beatles were the first group to not bother about all their man-hours behind the microphone being a means to an end. This casual attitude continues to lend every single piece of their rare off-mike gossip and pre-song banter a weight of significance out of all proportion to its superficial, contemporary concerns.

The Beatles: on Record aired dozens of such enchanting moments. There are thousands more yet to be heard. Yet even if they were all suddenly launched into the public domain, the infectious cult of the Unreleased Recording would implore you to believe there are further gems down the back of a Studio 2 filing cabinet or in plastic bags in cupboards from St John’s Wood to the Mull of Kintyre.

And what’s wrong with that? The Beatles were, are and always will be the greatest band in history because of this ability to storm the commanding heights of your emotions time after time after time. They will make you go on believing there is more to be heard of their body of work long after their last member has passed away.

Wanting to believe in the power of music you know exists: it’s why Paddy McAloon’s voice from 17 years ago sounds all the more enchanting. And it’s why hearing the opening bars of an early, incomplete version of Yesterday makes you fall in love with the song all over again.

Phillip Schofield’s summation, there, of ITV1′s umpteenth Saturday night, tension-ratcheting game show, which debuted last week. It’s a trope returned to constantly throughout the 60-minute run-time, either by Phil, or over-wrought ‘Voice of the Cube’ Colin MacFarlane (“How many times have you thrown a ball, Nicky? But in the Cube, and for £20,000, have you got what it takes?”).

And, clearly this is an issue. The production team build a perspex cube, tell Schofield to demonise the thing, the camera pervs all over it like its high-tech porn… and then, once inside its environs, people play games with red ping pong balls.

Tonight, it’s geezer-ish personal trainer Nicky Sanford who’s first up for the challenge. He’s a game show producer’s dream: ebullient, chatty, happy to vocalise every passing thought. And he’s a proper bloke too. We know this, because, when he bounds on to set, Phillip greets him as “mate”. In fact, throughout, our host seems positively smitten with Nicky, as though he’s happy to be hanging with the tough kids. Even when the South London boy talks over his “This is one of the pivotal moments of your life” speech, Phil can’t help but roar with laughter.

Phil manages to catch the sweeping camera's eye

Nice graphics, Phil!

“Well it looks simple, dunnit?” opines Nicky, sizing up ‘Drift’. “Just blow the ball in the bucket. You’ve got to get the amount of blow right”. There’s certainly a lot of blow billowing around this show. The cameras crank into slo-mo at pivotal points – watch Nicky smash a pain of glass with a ball – while post-production graphics of great portent descend into the playing area to update everyone on cash won and challenges to meet. I’d love to know what Phillip and his contestants are really looking at during these points. In fact, this whole layer of movie-style pep distracts. Every time ‘The Body’ materialises inside the Cube, you’re left thinking, “I wonder what was really going on in the studio at that point”.

For the 10 years this website has been online (and, let’s face it, a long time before then), TV has always been looking for soap opera in other formats. Granted, not so much sport, anymore, but reality and game shows still try and seed this element into their narrative. “So, what would £10,000 do to your life, then?” asks Phillip, cuing in a spot of dull, dewy-eyed getting-to-know-you chat with Nicky.

Blow hard

The Body... matters

But, in The Cube‘s favour, it doesn’t dwell long here, and instead obsesses – quite pleasingly – over stats. “It takes,” counsels Phillip, “on average 3,8 lives to do this”. This is the sort of stuff we want. The game-playing elements. The big decisions: “You have £20,000. The minute you say you’re going for it, then that’s it. £50,000 or nothing”.

Plus, you can’t deny it – Phillip Schofield knows television. A throwaway remark from Nicky that it might be easier to tackle ‘Barrier’ sans his jeans prompts Phil to declare: “I’m going to say something Nicky that I cannot believe… it’s for £50,000, if you want, you may remove your trousers”. You can imagine how Justin Lee Collins (who hosted a pilot version of this, rejected by C4) would have crucified that moment.

Tonight’s episode, of course, is all about the, now debagged, fitness instructor. When he swaggers off with his winnings, support manager Fay enters at around two-thirds of the way through the show. “I’m going to take the ice out of the Cube and get the viewers watching the tube,” she raps hopelessly. Not for long, though, Fay. With the show all but over, it’s clear you’re never going to ascend far up the cash ladder. Like last week’s second contestant, she predictably leaves with comparatively little.

So what to make of The Cube? Things look different in there, certainly. But not different enough for some basic throwing, catching or balancing games to merit the weight of the full Who Wants to be a Millionaire? production values.

“Every time someone goes in it’s a different story!” squeaks Phillip. “What would your story be?”

This is bad news for panel shows that attempt to occupy a different, more mainstream and less challenging space in the schedules – for those shows failure looks imminent.  This then, is the likely fate of As Seen on TV, which after just one week has already been shifted from its prime spot on a Friday night.  Its mandate appears to be to try and appeal to a wider audience, and that means knocking the hard edges off the humour and swapping out seasoned comedians for well-loved, but not necessarily very funny TV personalities.

Any panel show that features the panel pretending to actually care about their team’s score is on to a loser, and so it is here that team captain Fern Britton volubly celebrates every time she inches in front of the competition.  By contrast, Jason Manford – the other team captain – doesn’t really seem to give a toss about anything.  In fact he is curiously quiet on this series, acting like the proverbial fish out of water; which is all the more strange when you consider that out of all those appearing, he is the only one with any real panel show experience.

Host Steve Jones is new to the game, and very much an acquired taste.  If you disliked him on T4, then his towering self-confidence at the helm of this show isn’t going to make you change your mind.  It doesn’t help that his scripted material isn’t great, but even if he was knocking out comedic gems sculptured and shaped by Groucho Marx himself, as a viewer you’re natural inclination would still be to resist a titter.

With Channel 4′s You Have Been Watching proving itself earlier in the week to be the panel show about TV that actually isn’t that interested in TV, As Seen on TV has unfortunately shown itself to be equally disinterested in the medium it purports to be about.  Whereas you can believe that guests on Have I Got News For You pored over that week’s red tops before taking their rather intimidating seats next to Messrs Hislop and Merton, on this show you sense the panellists have barely bothered to extract information out of an EPG, let alone read the “Tonight’s Picks” columns in their TV listings magazines.

This impression of ignorance is underlined in one round in which our panellists are challenged to recognise one of television’s less well known faces.  Admittedly, Sylvia from Hi-de-Hi isn’t the type of actor to get stopped while doing her shopping in Waitrose, but surely Eggheads‘ Chris Hughes is recognisable enough not to be cast into the category of television unknowns – after all he was on telly just two days before As Seen on TV transmitted.

Of course, wishing for a panel show about telly, to actually be about telly is a folly, and also beside the point.  As with Never Mind the Buzzcocks, the medium of television is just the conduit round which some supposedly entertaining pop culture-focused chat can take place.  Mind you Buzzcocks does have the advantage that you can believe its host and team captains know the difference between the White Stripes and Black Flag; with As Seen on TV you have to wonder if anyone of the panellist would recognise a Python if he slapped them on a face with a fish.

While many of the series’ perennial problems with characterisation and performance remained (after three series Jack Harkness still works better as a supporting character in Doctor Who than a lead in his own show), here was at last an alien invasion plotline that felt appropriately epic and significant.  Perhaps it helped that this storyline didn’t require any unconvincing FX shots of aliens storming the Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal, instead the invasion was neatly kept at the conceptual level.

Having dealt with the business of dismantling Torchwood – and indeed Torchwood - as we know it, the remaining four episodes in this mini series were free to delve deep (perhaps deeper than we have ever previously seen in the Doctor Who universe) into the difficult politics of “greater goods” and impossible decision-making, revelling in protocol and pseudo-authentic sounding bureaucratic speak.  Perhaps the highlight of the whole week was the protracted sequence in which the cabinet sat around discussing the most appropriate selection criteria by which they could choose their sacrificial 10% of the world’s youth population.  This was utterly gripping, not just because of the impossibility of the task, but for the amount of screen time the debate was allowed to eat up – for a moment there Torchwood came to resemble a superior stage play in which a great moralistic issues is scrupulously weighed and examined, each protagonist adopting a different intellectual position and locking horns with one another.

The portrayal of the “456″ was equally well measured and balanced.  As a viewer we instinctively knew their effect would be all the more menacing if they remained enigmatic.  Strange tentacles aside, it was to the production’s credit that we never actually got a proper look at them.  Nor did we ever get a handle on where they came from, or their wider motivation, beyond looking for their next hit.  Being denied any understanding of the 456′s psychology kept us all on our toes.

Let’s be clear, so good was this series that for once it didn’t seem to matter that Captain Jack’s initial plan to vanquish the 456 consisted of nothing more than telling them to sling their hook, nor did we really care that any organisation sufficiently advanced to create spy camera contact lenses would surely be able to come up with a sufficiently undetectable microphone.  Set against a properly serious and ambitious story that put its characters into genuinely difficult physical and moral situations, any objections to Peter Capaldi’s somehow unrealistic looking attire couldn’t help but melt away.

While Doctor Who has shown there is a way to do science fiction on telly that will appeal to a mass audience, Torchwood: Children of Earth showed us that with the right storyline and the right schedule, you can lead a mass audience into an appreciation of the kind of serious television sci-fi that many thought lost since the heyday of Nigel Kneale.  Now that’s a shock ending.

We pan across a Cardiff street where Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) is standing in front of a cash machine.  A mundane tableau, except that Gwen looks just like a character out of a TV drama.  Is it her immaculately styled hair? Or perhaps the way she seems to be wearing a costume rather than clothes?  The best science fiction succeeds in making the incredible feel credible, but that’s something that from the evidence of this opening episode is still beyond Torchwood‘s grasp.

It’s not obvious whether this level of stylisation is deliberate, or whether the production team are earnestly trying to make the world of Torchwood appear authentic.  If it’s the latter, it’s just not working.  In this episode we’re presented with Peter Capaldi (playing Permanent Secretary to the Home Office, John Frobisher), who is clearly a character that is meant to be steeped in sophisticated politicking.  However, this is all rather undermined by the fact he is dressed to look like a cross between the Demon Headmaster and an all too archetypal civil servant.

Then there’s the government computer system.  If a common-or-garden university network can track which accounts are active on which computers, you’d think the government’s PCs could at least do something similar.  Here, armed only with someone else’s log in details, junior PA Lois Habiba (Cush Jumbo) is able to access all sorts of confidential information – it just doesn’t feel believable.

We’re not asking here for authenticity – merely credibility.  It is said that when writing State of Play Paul Abbott didn’t research how investigative journalism actually works, he just made it up.  Whilst he might have got things wrong, there was always an air of plausibility to his newsroom.  Conversely the government machinations in Torchwood never feel authentic.

Mind you, in other aspects Torchwood: Children of Earth was really quite good.  Doctor Rupesh Patanjali (Rik Makarem) looked for all the world as if he was destined to become a Torchwood operative but – in a neat twist on our expectations – he was revealed in the episode’s last act as something more sinister.

Paul Copley’s performance as Clem MacDonald was also well worth watching, but then Copley is the type of actor that Torchwood needs – able to live up to the over-inflated realism of the lead characters, while still grounding his performance in authenticity.

And it all moved along at quite a pace too – this speediness in part thanks to the fact that the central storyline of (what seems to be) an oncoming alien invasion is one that most viewers will be very familiar with, meaning we could quickly fill in the gaps in the plotline as they came and went.

From here it’s going to whip along, such that by the end of the week it’ll all be done – and that perhaps is the most commendable thing about this third series – it’s probably going to be great fun. You’ve seen the (flawed) series, now enjoy the (equally flawed) rollercoaster ride – just don’t look too closely at the joins.

Perhaps Richard’s scholastic pursuits stretch also to the history of his own berth on British television, for he chooses to close this last-ever edition of Richard and Judy with precisely the same valedictory address he wielded almost exactly eight years ago on This Morning: “As they say, we’ll see you around”.

Then, it was true. Then, enough people were bothered to want to see such vapourish vows materialise into something tangible. Now, evaporation beckons. Richard and Judy’s journey beyond terrestrial television has been the most inconsequential celebrity-hued pilgrimage since Simon Bates tried to voyage around the world the wrong way in 67 days.

“Everything’s going to be digital in a few months time,” vowed Richard in September 2008, and he knew this because he said it. “That’s how everyone’s going to be watching television.” But it wasn’t and we aren’t. Richard and Judy’s New Position, a name that sounded like it had been brainstormed by Richard Curtis, attracted 100,000 viewers on its debut in October. This was a twentieth of those who enjoyed their show on tired, unwatched and unloved terrestrial Channel 4. The new position the pair found themselves in turned out to be burgeoning professional failure.

A patsy was needed. Richard came up with one: every single programme on every other channel on television. “Viewers have been telling us they are torn between watching us and their favourite soap,” he blustered when the show got moved to another new position of 6pm in January 2009. Except this was rather too close to their old slot on Channel 4 to be called a new position, so rather than acknowledge they were assuming any kind of position, the show became simply Richard and Judy – precisely the same title as their old slot on Channel 4.

Then came another new position when the show moved to 4pm in April. This was a tautological assault course of diminishing returns, both for the English language and Richard and Judy’s preferred taxi firm. With the programme pared back to a humiliating once-weekly outing, the pair had only marginally greater cause to find their way to and from their place of work as viewers had to the show’s home on their digital TV menu.

Ratings touched, or rather pitched camp, at 8,000 in April 2009. A month later, marching orders were served.

Exhibiting not only a remarkably elastic interpretation of destiny but also prophetical timing to rival that of the soothsayer in Carry on Cleo, Richard insists this very review you are now reading is “being written about a disastrous moment in our careers when it’s not. It’s just a project that hasn’t worked.”

The word ‘project’ implies a degree of order and determinism the show’s nine-month lifespan has singularly failed to display. A project is something that has pre-conceived aspirations and a methodology, and which seeks to get from a to b, thereby proving c.

In addition, Richard is blinding himself with a potently self-delusional brand of science. He speaks as if he and his wife are somehow personally independent of ‘the project’, when ‘the project’ has their names in the title.

The couple won their £2m contract with Watch on the basis of who they were – two of the most popular presenters of mainstream television – and not on what they would be doing when they got there. They took the money; they have now taken the hit. The last time this writer switched on his TV, Watch was still on air. Richard and Judy were not.

“Welcome to the last of our weekly shows,” whispers Judy at the start of this final communion. There is a Sispyhean air to proceedings. The pair are trapped in a cycle of greeting and fleeting. They labour in the foothills to establish a rapport with a guest, edge upwards towards a plateau of conviviality, only for conversation to be terminated after a few minutes, sometimes mid-sentence, for a sting or commercial break. When our hosts return, a new guest has arrived and they are back at the foot of the mountain to begin all over again.

They are never allowed to reach the summit. They are never permitted to poke their heads inside the clouds of rarefied chat that knit themselves around the peak of a well-planned, sympathetically-timed TV feature. This is a shame, for there is two decades’ of evidence that the pair can prosecute fruitful small screen conversation, but only when they are given enough time to do so.

They need a format that can breathe, and for Richard and Judy this has always meant live television. This is not what they were given on Watch, yet it’s worth pointing out it is not what they asked for either (more evidence, need it be given, of their responsibility for the ‘project’ and its downfall).

If the sort of stunts Richard enjoyed pulling on Channel 4 – waving his fist at the camera while berating the mugger who had just “jacked” his daughter – were now no longer possible, he cannot say he was innocent of collusion. He and Judy are architects of this edifice, one they tried to build from the top down.

With no foundations, there are no floorplans. Not only can you not get from a to b, it’s scarcely possible to get beyond a.

Instead guests are shuttled on and off like trains being signalled ineptly though sidings. For one segment an unidentified man sits on the guest sofa. He is never addressed, he never speaks. Yet he remains on camera for five minutes.

Dialogues are rushed, fractured. Nothing is allowed to be interesting, because this would take time. Jimmy Carr says “the expenses thing…quite a boring story.” “It is actually,” begins Judy. She never finishes. Questionable assumptions go unquestioned. “Everybody’s larynx is pretty much the same,” asserts Jan Ravens. There are few female impressionists because of “the same old boring thing”, i.e. sexual discrimination and gender inequality. Twitter is “banal” says Carr. A book is reviewed. A few bits were “rather good”, especially, for historian Richard, “the war bits”. Quentin Letts compares it to “supermarket chicken: slips down very easily, not necessarily a strong flavour”.

You can tolerate a programme that is lazy, so long as you feel the same. But you can’t tolerate a programme that tries to pass off boredom as entertainment, no matter how bored you are.

At one point Judy waves her white flag. “TV is the main source of our conversation these days,” she sighs. Unlike her husband, she doesn’t know this because she says it. She knows it because it is true.

Madeley and Finnigan do not need a format that has Roland Rivron ripping off Play Your Cards Right or a champagne bar boasting a dozen audience members made to look like fiftysomething housewives let out for the first time in 30 years. They do, however, need enough self-awareness to concede they need enough of the right kind of format to build an empire upon, rather than merely take themselves into exile and assume the masses will follow.

Their show’s production company, Cactus, shares its name with something that can flourish in the harshest of conditions, deprived of all the staples most other varieties depend upon to survive. After trashing the laws of chemistry, Richard has now junked the principles of botany. He and his wife may still be welcomed back to terrestrial television, but only once they learn to adopt one last new position: supplication.

Scary titles

Jelly not so Jolly

And then a sudden pull-back and we find we’re in a suburban post office in the present day. It’s the first– and best – gag in this opening episode of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s seven-part comedy thriller. While evoking the spookiest corners of Victoriana, it then turns the lights on and we can see everything’s actually a little bit silly.

So could it be that this half of The League of Gentlemen have outgrown their love for the macabre? Actually, no, because Psychoville is dripping with it. This early feint aside, it doesn’t feel like much has changed since 2002 when we said our goodbyes to Royston Vasey on TV.

Indeed, when we return to the action after the titles, we find Reece Shearsmith still got up as a spooky clown. Granted, “Dave” may not be “in” (rather than Papa Lazarou, Mr Jelly talks like Shearsmith’s permanently apoplectic factory worker Geoff Tibbs) but it’s brave to invite early comparisons with one of the League’s most iconic characters.

Although the comedy is set across different towns in the UK, everywhere, it seems is filthy. This is a dark world, of scurrying people and mounting terror. Joby Talbot’s musical score is ever-present, with urgent strings, and fingers scraping up the violin neck. Nothing of the modern world is really allowed in anywhere – midwife Joy (Dawn French) speaks of video tapes and “DBB”, while Maureen Sowerbutts (Shearsmith again) amuses herself on a Bontempi.

Psychoville feels like a pastiche of everything Pemberton and Shearsmith thrilled at when they were kids. For some reason, I had assumed they’d be done exploring their formative influences by now. But no. Thing is, I’m not sure I’ve got the stomach for this stuff anymore, and certainly not the fascination. Daubing “Fuck pig” on a wall in faeces, and spraying a kitchen with semen is actually, weirdly, a bit boring.

This reservation aside, some moments still shine through. It was always between the punchlines the League scored big, and so it is here. Mr Jelly arrives for a children’s party, insouciantly throwing his fag onto the lawn. After purloining a cup cake with his hooked hand, he asks “Where am I going?” as he ambles off down the hall, looking for the kids’ party. Meanwhile, blind Mr Lomax (Steve Pemberton) mumbles something about: “That blackie cleaner, she tries to trick me”, and the ringleaders at the murder mystery dinner cheerfully instruct their roomful of amateur detectives “Don’t forget your clue packs!” as they trot off to inspect a faux cadaver. It’s these tiny strokes that truly delineate the scene. They’re dabs of light on a murky picture.

So what next? Do we care what the blackmailer will do? Well, actually, I think, yes. Despite the unwelcome stench of familiarity hanging over the project, Psychoville does at least deliver us an intriguing premise and some strong cliff-hangers. David Sowerbutts (Pemberton) has “done another bad murder”, for one. But, if they don’t open the curtains – and leave them open – somewhere early in episode two, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll stick around.

Tonight’s Ashes to Ashes reminds me just how cheaply I can be bought off by TV drama.

It is thanks to probably less than three minutes of screen time that I’ll be tuning in again next week. Whatever else they might have got wrong, the programme’s makers still know how to develop a story arc, and despite my expectation that this was to be the year the show went one twist too far, Alex Drake’s predicament remains gripping.

Yet many of the faults that undermined Ashes to Ashes last year remain, so ensuring it can never be a wholly satisfying piece of telly. Chiefly, the show’s odd habit of jumping around locations and moods with scant regard to continuity is still there. This results in a dissatisfying viewing experience, as the investigation isn’t able to build up a head of a steam before it’s diverted into the sidings by a superfluous bit of light-hearted business with Ray, or an attempt to glimpse the inner life of Gene Hunt. These latter moments are especially ineffective as Gene is clearly an empty vessel and no matter how many hints are made that he has some kind of hidden depths, he is never going to come close to being a rounded character.

In truth, Gene is as insubstantial as the detective story at the heart of each episode. This has perhaps always been the least impressive element of both Ashes to Ashes, and its predecessor Life on Mars. The investigations are pedestrian, patching together a vague approximation of a whodunit, while attempting to deliver a satisfying conclusion by uncovering the motivation driving the miscreant of the week. Not that this happened in tonight’s episode. In fact, when our cop killer was uncovered and brought to book, we never found out why he’d done it in the first place. It all hints at darker and more substantial things to come, but for now it makes for an unsatisfying conclusion to this week’s episode.

But there are still things to be enjoyed in Ashes. Alex Drake has been toned down a bit, and her relationship with Gene stabilised so they don’t just keep flicking between flirting and fighting. The corruption subplot and its potential to drive a rift between Hunt and Drake looks like it might make for an interesting storyline, particularly if we are made at some point to seriously question Hunt’s previously unassailable position of being someone we implicitly trust.

Best of all though are the story arc developments I hinted at above. Although Alex’s kidnapping is curiously swept aside by those existing in her 1982 reality, the shadowy figure and his allusions to future events is impressive – are we to take it, this is the patient from out of whose eyes we began watching this new series?

As much as the BBC would like it to be, Ashes to Ashes isn’t in the premier league of TV drama, and probably never will be. It allows its premise to deliver us thinly realised characters and lots of moments that refuse to comply with the laws of cause and effect. Nonetheless there is an attribute about the series that is genuinely impressive and assured, and that’s the way the show dangles its mystery in front of us. If it keeps doing that right, and there’s nothing better on the other side, I’ll keep tuning in.

CHAIRMAN: Can I begin by welcoming you all to this question-and-answer session, and to thank the members of the panel for agreeing to join us so bright and early. I trust that, if we’re not all quite awake at the moment, we certainly will be by the end!

[polite laughter from the audience]

CHAIR: Sitting on my left is Richard Pugh, who was an assistant commissioning editor in the BBC Drama department when Planet of the Dead was made.

RICHARD PUGH: Good morning.

CHAIR: And on my right is Michelle Ryan, who played Lady Christina in the episode, and who can currently, if I’ve got this correct, be seen in the cinema in Pirates of the Caribbean: Warriors of the Deep.

[knowing chuckles from the audience]

MICHELLE RYAN: Hello.

CHAIR: I’d like to begin by asking Richard to explain the background to the episode, specifically the thinking behind a one-off episode at Easter, a strategy that had not previously been tried with Doctor Who and was never attempted again.

RP: Well, I…

CHAIR: I’m sorry, I do believe we already have a question from the floor.

QUESTIONER 1: It’s not a question. Doctor Who had been on at Easter before.

RP: Yes, but surely as part of an ongoing series?

QUESTIONER 1: Er…

CHAIR: Richard, the background?

RP: To what?

CHAIR: Planet of the Dead.

RP: Well, I’m not sure there’s much to say. It was agreed that there would be a number of one-off episodes of Doctor Who during 2009, and that one would be at Easter.

CHAIR: Agreed by whom?

RP: I’m sorry?

CHAIR: Who decided to schedule a one-off episode for the Easter weekend?

RP: I can’t quite remember. The BBC is a big place!

CHAIR: You were working in the Drama department at the time, so presumably you were involved in the decision?

RP: I don’t think so.

CHAIR: Who was?

RP: In the BBC?

CHAIR: They made the programme!

RP: You know I really don’t recall.

CHAIR: Are you sure?

RP: Er…

CHAIR: You see, I’m just trying to establish responsibility.

RP: Of course.

CHAIR: Were you responsible?

RP: No.

CHAIR: Who was?

RP: You know I really don’t recall.

CHAIR: I see. In that case, perhaps you can tell us a little about the process involved in commissioning and producing the episode.

RP: Well, it was all pretty standard stuff, really.

CHAIR: Go on…

RP: Signing contracts, checking the budget, that sort of thing. I’m sure you don’t want to hear a lot of boring stuff about the BBC accounts!

CHAIR: No, true, I’d rather hear about the production of this episode.

RP: Everything came in on time and on budget. It was all very painless.

CHAIR: I see…

RP: And it was a joy to be involved in Doctor Who. It really was. I’d always watched it when I was growing up!

CHAIR: What you’re saying is actually quite interesting. You’re implying you didn’t really have any involvement in the actual creation, the production, of the episode at all. And yet you were at the BBC Drama department.

RP: That’s correct.

CHAIR: Who commissioned and produced Doctor Who.

RP: Well, it was made by BBC Wales.

CHAIR: But commissioned by your department.

RP: Ex-department.

CHAIR: Don’t you think, in retrospect, the BBC Drama department should have been having more direct input into Doctor Who? At this stage in the programme’s history?

RP: I’m not sure what you mean.

CHAIR: I mean, actually supervising its production, to the extent of signing off scripts, vetting ideas, offering notes during filming and editing…

RP: Well, all of that is…

CHAIR: Is standard procedure in commissioning departments.

RP: But not on Doctor Who.

CHAIR: Exactly.

RP: Er…

CHAIR: Oh, a question from the floor.

QUESTIONER 2: I’d like to ask Michelle, why do you think the Doctor, who is a character driven above all else by morals, should, in this episode, become best friends with a thief and then arrange for her to escape punishment?

MR: I’m sorry, I…

QUESTIONER 2: I just don’t see how it sets a good example to viewers, that’s all. Especially families. A credible example, rather.

CHAIR: Maybe Richard can elaborate?

RP: I wasn’t party to decisions about storylines…

CHAIR: Of course, I forgot.

RP: But I’m sure the Doctor always does what he believes to be right. He’s one of the good guys, after all!

QUESTIONER 2: But I don’t think this episode showed that he is. After watching it again the other day, I wasn’t sure what he was: good, bad, anything.

CHAIR: Richard, to what extent was the BBC concerned by aspects such as characterisation at this point in Doctor Who‘s history?

RP: Well, Doctor Who was one of the BBC’s flagship programmes. We all took great interest in its success.

CHAIR: I’m sure you did. But at this particular point in its history?

RP: So?

CHAIR: A critical moment.

RP: In what way?

CHAIR: Well, the next actor to play Doctor Who had been announced. I would have thought everybody at the BBC would be concerned that those remaining episodes starring David Tennant were not overshadowed by this news, and the expectation of things to come. That they were just as fresh and exciting as previous ones. That everyone involved was still at the peak of their game.

RP: We never had that much of a hands-on role in the programme.

CHAIR: But you had done. Not you personally, but…

RP: No, I think you’ll find…

CHAIR: I think you’ll find that to begin with, Mal Young, head of BBC Drama, was an executive producer on Doctor Who.

RP: Yes, but he left.

CHAIR: And wasn’t replaced. Or rather, his role on Doctor Who was not filled with a replacement.

RP: Look, I really don’t see what…

CHAIR: With the greatest respect, what I’m trying to establish is the exact degree to which supervision of Doctor Who had passed out of the BBC’s control and was, at that point in its history, being left entirely to the own devices of writers and producers working exclusively on the programme. With, in the case of this episode in particular, certain…consequences.

RP: Just what do you mean?

CHAIR: Another question from the audience.

QUESTIONER 3: Hello. I’d like to ask Richard, why was so much of this episode a rehash of a previous one? Characters from mixed backgrounds stuck on a bus facing an unknown alien enemy. That was the plot of an episode from the previous series.

QUESTIONER 4: And someone speaking in tongues, saying stuff like “They are coming”. That had all been done before.

CHAIR: One question at a time please.

QUESTIONER 3: I remember watching the episode with my two young children, and even they noticed how much of it was the same.

RP: I don’t think there should be a law against repeating a good idea…

QUESTIONER 3: But that’s the point. It wasn’t a good idea this time round, because it was a rehash of something that’d been on 12 months before. It was like they couldn’t be bloody bothered.

CHAIR: Was that something that concerned you at the time, Richard?

RP: I’m sure any worries we might have had about repetition would have been passed on to the production team.

QUESTIONER 4: I have a question for Michelle. Why was the bus that was damaged when it landed on the alien planet suddenly seem to be completely good as new when it was flying in the air at the end of the episode?

MR: I’m sorry, I…

CHAIR: If I may, I’d like to return to the matter of David Tennant’s characterisation of the Doctor at this point in the programme’s history. It didn’t worry you that he might become a bit demob happy? Not commit himself fully? Not, to be frank, to be very bothered?

[a still is displayed from the episode]

RP: Er, well what you’ve got there is David showing just one side of the Doctor’s personality.

CHAIR: Precisely. Just the one side. And no other. For much of this episode!

RP: I didn’t realise this was going to be quite so much of an interrogation…

CHAIR: Not an interrogation, Richard, just a question and answer session. We ask the questions and you…

RP: I’m giving you all the answers I can. It’s just a shame they don’t seem to be the ones you want to hear.

[murmurs from audience]

CHAIR: On the contrary; we’d be overjoyed to hear any answers you have to give us. They’ve been in short supply so far…

RP: Look, I…

CHAIR: I see there’s another question from the floor.

QUESTIONER 5: I have a question for Michelle.

CHAIR: Good.

QUESTIONER 5: Michelle, did you choose to play your character as somebody with all the charisma of a tent-peg, or is that merely your default acting style?

MR: I’m sorry, I…

CHAIR: No abusive questions, please.

QUESTIONER 5: I’m just saying what I felt.

CHAIR: Well, you certainly didn’t get many good lines.

QUESTIONER 4: Nobody got many good lines. Who has conversations about “chops and gravy” in real life?!

[audience applauds]

RP: But Doctor Who isn’t about real life.

CHAIR: Isn’t it? I thought the very core of this episode was about real characters from real life. If not, what were all those clunking references to the recession doing there? Icelandic banks, somebody losing their job?

[silence]

QUESTIONER 6: I have a question. What was the deal with the break-in at the start? Was it a homage to The Return of the Pink Panther?

[more audience laughter]

RP: You tell me. You seem to know more about the episode than I.

CHAIR: Which is a shame, seeing as you were in the BBC Drama department at the time of its production.

RP: Look, I’ve already told you…

QUESTIONER 6: And the music: whose idea was it to try and ape Raiders Of The Lost Ark?

CHAIR: I thought it was more like One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, to be honest.

QUESTIONER 4: And what about the flying pancakes with metal teeth?

RP: What about them?

QUESTIONER 4: If, as claimed in the episode, they generate their worm-holes by flying faster and faster round a planet, how do they ever work up enough speed to create a massive hole, as surely they’ll all pass through it the moment it starts to appear?

RP: I’m stumped.

QUESTIONER 5: And if things like London buses can pass through the hole in the other direction, why didn’t other things from Earth end up disappearing and landing on the alien planet?

CHAIR: Richard?

RP: I really have no idea.

CHAIR: These things didn’t occur to you at the time?

RP: As I’ve already explained, we didn’t have anything to do with the storyline…

CHAIR: Do you regret that you didn’t?

RP: In what way?

CHAIR: I’m asking if you’ll apologise for…

RP: For what?

QUESTIONER 2: I have another question for Michelle. Why were the policeman in the episode portrayed in such a lazy, clichéd fashion, as being hopeless, clumsy oafs?

MR: I’m sorry, I…

CHAIR: At least somebody is.

[long pause]

CHAIR: Perhaps it’s best that we take a short break…

RP: I really don’t see what the point would be in my returning.

[he starts to leave]

CHAIR: Michelle, I wonder if you would…

RP: I don’t see the point in either of us returning, to be honest.

CHAIR: Oh.

RP: Goodbye.

CHAIR: In which case, er, in which case I should thank both our guests for their participation in this session…

RP: Don’t bother.

[they both leave; the audience begins to disperse]

CHAIR: And I’ve, er, and I’ve been asked to remind you all that the next panel, titled ‘We’ll Have A Gay Old Time: Sexuality and Gender in The Flintstones‘, has been postponed until this afternoon, due to the speaker being locked out of his house…by a giant pet dinosaur.

[Note: Following her role in Doctor Who in 2009, Michelle Ryan was cast as the lead in the TV biopic Jade: Catch A Falling Star. After a few years spent "taking a break from the business", she returned to the screen in 2017 appearing opposite Michael Sheen in No 10: Cameron's Den. Doctor Who was cancelled by the BBC in 2012 due to falling ratings.]