“Well, let’s ‘review’ the situation, shall we, Mr Capps?”

“Urrrgggggghhhhhhhhh…”

“Before I left the country for a period, I was assured that URP!’s review of A Good Man Goes To War would be posted in ‘two shakes of a lambkin’s tail’. My words, admittedly, but your sentiments. Instead, on my return from a literal and metaphorical holiday, I find no review, despite the episode reaction thread receiving more comments than any other this year.”

The gripping conclusion to the opening story of Series Six leaves us loyal viewers with far more questions than answers. A stock take is clearly in order, and so we present Unlimited Rice Pudding’s scorecard of the issues that matter. And a few that don’t.

It feels like sacrilege, really. Attempting to review “The Impossible Astronaut” on only one viewing seems somehow inappropriate. On the other hand, however, it’s quite possible that even a dozen viewings would leave one under-equipped to convey the full impact of the next stage in the evolution of Doctor Who as a television programme.

Setting aside the TV movie, the train that leads from “Survival” to “Rose”, via a decade of original, mature-readership novels, is clear. The faster storytelling of the last few seasons of McCoy is built upon, and the increased emotional complexity of the companion character made the linchpin of the series, not a welcome bonus. The key element is the re-use of a chance inclusion, with something very similar to Ace’s Perivale council estate retained to provide a permanent and identifiable backdrop to the Doctor’s more outlandish exploits.

Vampires Of Venice was initially greeted with a shrug of the shoulders on announcement, with most fans regarding it as a late bid to jump onto the Twilight bandwagon. Curiosity has risen, however, as more details of the setting emerged, and the final scene of Flesh & Stone gave us possibly the programme’s most unconventional cliffhanger of all time to further pique the interest. In the end, the second view of unfevered anticipation was justified. The story is a strong one, but with a slightly dated aspect which restrains it from quite standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Steven Moffat-scripted entries in the series.