THE trouble with Doctor Who is that it is proving rather slow in building up a familiar gallery of alien creatures to hide from week after week. Instead, apart from the Tardis manned by Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, we're watching a completely different drama each time.
This week's tale took the time machine back to 1869, with Charles Dickens strutting his stuff at a theatre in Cardiff when his reading of A Christmas Carol was wrecked by the presence of the ghost of an old lady in the orchestra stalls.
The Doctor realised that alien Gelphs were taking over the bodies of the dead at an undertaker's, and his new friend Dickens worked out that Gelphs were using the gas supply to float around like airy blue spectres.
Written by Mark Gatiss (of League Of Gentlemen), this episode was played for laughs, with Dickens curious as to why the Doctor should regard himself as a fan — the Doctor explained it meant he was fan-atical about the author's books. And on entering the morgue, our hero drolly exclaimed: 'Talk about Bleak House!' I'd like more regular aliens, please, if our great expectations of this series are to be met.
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