But before we got those answers, we were in pure fan heaven for the first few minutes. We were whisked from Gallifrey, to the First Doctor, Bessie (the Third Doctor’s car) to a precariously dangling Sylvester McCoy while Clara made various appearances in a baffling range of outfits via some brilliantly rubbish CGI.

It’s pretty difficult to insert new actors into old video footage (especially when it’s been colourised), but the effects are so bad it somehow becomes great, and slightly wonky in that adorable way Doctor Who used to be.

Sadly my favourite Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, is seen in his least dignified position: hanging off the edge of a literal cliff-hanger. Although arguably the Second Doctor got it worse, as he looked like he was running through Los Angeles in a thick fur coat. Either that, or he was being attacked by the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

This was followed by the ever-welcome return of reptilian Sherlock Holmes-a-like Madame Vastra, her ‘assistant’ Jenny and their manservant Strax (insert obligatory request for a spin-off series here).

Strax in particular gets his best introduction so far as he comes crashing through a window in Glasgow (a popular Glaswegian hobby, I hear). It seems my concerns about Strax becoming one note in my review of The Crimson Horror were totally unfounded.

Later, Strax even gets to do his version of the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail when he’s attacked by the Whisper Men – a truly scary villain. Their rhymes alone will send children scurrying behind the backs of the sofas (the other obligatory reference that has to be made when reviewing Doctor Who). In fact, one rhyme is definitely worth repeating in full:

This man must fall as all men must.

The fate of all is always dust.

The man who lies will lie no more.

Where this man lies, is Trenzalore.

The girl who died, he tried to save.

She’ll die again inside his grave.

Utterly chilling. I hope they come back soon and bring Richard E. Grant (the only man to play two different doctors!) back with them. The Great Intelligence was just starting to get interesting.

Along with the horror came a large helping of sadness. Only a Cyberman could have remained unmoved when Jenny was murdered during the séance. Along with Vastra’s rage, The Name of the Doctor felt like it had some genuine emotional tension, something we haven’t seen since the Pandorica-and-Big-Bang-filled end of series five. Although Vastra did get the short straw this week, coming across a bit like a lizard shaped plot explaining device rather than the kick ass double-sworded warrior we know her to be.

Talking of characters who have suffered since their first introduction, River Song is back.

Ever since Let’s Kill Hitler, River had lost some of her shine. Maybe it’s because she no longer knows the future, or she kind of killed the Doctor (don’t ask, I need a couple of blackboards, a couple of action figures and some sticky backed plastic to explain that convoluted series six plot properly), but either way, this week she is most certainly back to her old disgraceful self.

This is no doubt due to the fact that she is our original River: the River Song from Silence in the Library, so all that wonderful confidence (and ‘Space Hair’) that we love is back. Also it gives the character the proper farewell she deserved. Her ‘swan Song’ (sorry)- was a greatest hits album of why we love the character, all spoilers and sweeties (and the snog was pretty eyebrow raising too).

But what about the two questions we were promised answers to, namely – why has Clara popped up as different people in earlier episodes and -more importantly- what is the Doctor’s name? Well both get answered, in a way.

Let’s start with the least interesting one. We find out how Clara is impossible. It is fun explanation that also solves every plot hole in the history of Doctor Who ever. Not sure how the Doctor got out of a sticky situation? The new answer is: Clara did it.

The more interesting answer is the Doctor’s name. Rather than telling us that the Doctor’s real name is Bob, Moffat focuses on the nature of the Doctor’s name, which he suggests that the name of Doctor is a promise to do good. More a mission than a name, if you will. With this idea in mind the cliffhanger is simply huge.

The Doctor and Clara stand in a dark cave filled with fleeting, running images of all the past Doctors (run, you clever boy) including a solitary, hunch-shouldered figure we haven’t seen before. When Clara asks who he is, ‘our’ Doctor explains grudgingly that he’s the Doctor who failed to live up to his name.  Then we get five simple brilliant words:

“Introducing John Hurt As The Doctor”

See you on the 23rd of November!

1) A chicken-wire submarine
2) Shoe umbrellas

3) A box on wheels made from the same gunmetal grey plastic as the stairwell in a 90s leisure centre.

If you answered 3), then you’re clearly not qualified to be an Apprentice candidate. You should feel quite ashamed about that, as looking at this year’s contestants, the criteria are:

a) ‘Are you a massive, steaming human turd? Y/N’

b) ‘Can you lurch upright from one failed pitch to another while yapping moronically about how talented you are (despite a glaring lack of hard evidence)? Y/N’

Congratulations! If you answered yes to both questions, you’re qualified. Here are some shoulder pads and a commemorative pen.

It was the girls’ team (Evolve) who came up with the box on wheels – sorry, ‘Tidy Sidey’-  idea during a flat-pack furniture invention task last week, completing a hat trick of failure only rivalled by North Korea’s repeated inability to launch a nuclear missile.

Having said that, the fact they managed to even get their ridiculous grey turkey of a product to pitch stage was astounding achievement, given their impressive ability to fight amongst themselves like a cauldron of frogs that’s just been placed on a hot stove.

They might look like they’ve recently escaped from a Boots ‘Here Come The Girls’ advert, but they’ve got the temper of a herd of anorexic Hulks. Sadly, they also have the brainpower of The Hulk, leading to them taking their ‘multifunctional cube’ idea on a disjointed journey from ‘vaguely sensible concept’ to an embarrassing, mutated cross between a washing basket, a desk and a supermarket trolley.

The boys’ team shouldn’t pat themselves on the back either. They only won because the girls are only ever a hair’s breadth away from stabbing each other through the eyes with the heel of their insanely impractical laminate beige platform stilettos. If they ever swap their nightly gin rations for camomile tea, ditch the agonising footwear and get a good night’s sleep they might actually start to get along. Watch your backs, boys.

Having said that, Alex ‘Meltyface’ Mills’ idea for a foldawayable chair desk- despite looking like something you’d make yourself in a school design and technology session when you were thirteen- wasn’t bad at all. Shame it was too tall to actually fit under most tables, and when folded was an even more impracticably tiny desk than the idiotic side table version the girls had created.

Predictably, the girls lost. Sophie was fired, despite the fact that all she’d done was conduct market research. On the other hand, all she’d done was conduct market research.

“I’m a market researcher. That’s all I can do, I can’t pitch and I can’t invent items”, said Sophie. Not an ideal phrase to use in an extended job interview, really. It’s like me going for a job in Greggs and saying “I can slice bread, but I’m buggered if I know how to put butter on it, add a filling and then exchange it with customers for cash”.

Bye bye then, Sophie. We’ll miss your- er- actually you didn’t say or do anything. Well, I’ll miss the fact you didn’t screech in people’s faces quite as much as the others. You’ll probably do ok in life. Maybe you could reopen MFI selling absolutely nothing, but with a sign outside explaining all the great, perfectly attuned products you would sell if you were able to manufacture or promote them.

Thankfully E4 has found a new mainstay, The Big Bang Theory, a show that (for reasons we can’t quite grasp) has exploded in popularity and now makes up roughly 96% of E4’s schedule.

In the interest of science, we rocketed over to the sofa and frantically scrawled down the top 5 things we learned from Sheldon, Leonard, that Blonde one from 8 Simple Rules and the other 2:

1. Jim Parsons is OOOOLLLDDD

Seriously, the guy’s about 112, why is a man who obviously holds the secret to eternal youth doing in a middle of the road comedy series?

2. It’s okay to make fun of geeks

Geeks are funny aren’t they, with their glasses and their comic books, look at them being all socially awkward in that darkened corner over there. I’ll bet they’ll say something physicsy if you poke them hard enough! It’s not like they have feelings or anything.

3. Feminism was never that important

The Bedchel test is a test designed to detect gender bias in films and television; the basic rules are that a scene has to have 2 or more women, who have a conversation that isn’t about men. Somewhat disappointingly, despite upping the number of female primary cast members, the Big Bang Theory only just limps across the pass line, predominantly because it’s female protagonist, Penny, is frequently portrayed as a blonde floozy.

4. Raj & Howard are no match for Troy and Abed

Raj and Howard make a pretty formidable and somewhat adorable team, much like Troy and Abed from rival show Community, but they have an Achilles heel, Howard’s libido. Howard is easily distracted by the fairer sex, often leading to conflicts with Raj, while Troy and Abed value their friendship above all else. Mates before dates, it’s an important rule.

5. Seriously, just go and watch Community.

You’re welcome.

When a Sontaran is concerned at going ‘Oop North’, you know things are really bad. That bad thing  turns out to be Diana Rigg as Mrs Gillyflower and her factory Sweetville where people go in and do not come out again.

This calls for the greatest mind imaginable to investigate. Sadly Sherlock Holmes was busy and the Doctor has already tried, and kind of failed, so it is up to the investigators of Paternoster Row to take over. Or as I call them:  ’the TV series  about a reptilian detective and her wife that everyone is crying out for but the BBC won’t commission’.

For God’s sake BBC, you were two minutes away from green lighting a spin-off series for Rose Tyler but an interspecies lesbian detective show set in the Victorian times? Oh no!

Luckily, like their previous appearances in Doctor Who, the Paternoster Row gang are still as good as ever, although Strax is becoming worryingly one note. I wish they’d kept him as the bitter nurse who missed battle. While the short sequence with the horse and his personal sat nav Thomas Thomas (a gag I missed on my first watch through) was funny enough, there’s a real risk that the Sontarans are becoming little more than comic relief.

Most of the action is focused on young Jenny who gets a chance to shine and show off her skills in a black catsuit (Emma Peel would be proud). Talking of Miss Peel, this episode belongs to one of Britain’s best and coolest actresses, Diana Rigg, who has great fun being the vilest villain we’ve seen in Doctor Who for many years. She has no saving graces or bad childhood to blame for her actions. Like an Apprentice candidate she knows what she wants and will make sure no one will stand in her way – including her daughter.

In a nice twist of fate (or casting), her onscreen daughter is played by her real daughter Rachel Sterling, though I certainly hope their off-screen relationship is better than their on-screen one. The breakdown in their relationship is beautifully summed up a final conversation that I won’t spoil here, and it is quite heart breaking.

However, what makes The Crimson Horror so good is the excellent mixture of tone. Comedy fainting is mixed with the horror of the ‘crimson process’; cute prehistoric slug-worms sit comfortably beside old-fashioned film techniques.

Indeed the sequence where the Doctor, with full Last of the Summer Wine Yorkshire accent, explains how he and Clara got caught is a joy to watch. Coloured to look like film from the Victorian era with crackly jump cuts and a soundtrack from a Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie, it gives the usual Doctor Who plot dump an artistry we’ve never seen before. After all, when was the last time that the Doctor explained the plot one of the high points of an episode?

Everything about this episode is great, almost as as good as Hide, this series’ previous high point. Indeed the BBC has found its lead writer for the Paternoster Row pilot in Mark Gatiss. So BBC just commission the show, please!

As well as showing us the legendary Eye of Harmony, this episode could have been a fascinating voyage into other features of the TARDIS interior, like a version of Through The Keyhole with a family of space scavengers taking Loyd Grossman’s presenting role. Unfortunately, apart from a brief visit to the Doctor’s huge library and a glimpse of the swimming pool, we didn’t get to see that many chambers.

Instead, the bulk of the episode consisted of watching Clara, the Doctor, three space-faring brothers and three lava monsters chase each other round a series of hexagonal corridors. Even the revelation that the pursuing monsters were their own, burnt, time-shifted future selves didn’t do much to alleviate the feeling that the episode was – quite literally- going around in circles.

The discovery that the supposed android member of the three space-junk merchants was actually a third brother who they’d tricked into believing that he was a machine was downright pointless. It was impossible to care about them as a family as nothing in the plot or characterisation encouraged us to like them- to the extent that I spent the majority of the episode shouting at one of them to put back the glowing orb thing they’d cruelly stolen from the TARDIS’s Dr Seuss style component tree.

The TARDIS was at the centre of the story. But not as a location, as a wounded animal. Wrecked by a tractor beam, frozen in the process of exploding, you couldn’t really blame her for being a bit bad tempered and rearranging corridors willy-nilly.

Incidentally, I also don’t blame the TARDIS for disliking Clara. At the moment, she feels like a paint-by-numbers companion, the sort of young woman you wouldn’t be surprised to find presenting a youth oriented magazine show on Channel 4 in a yappy voice at 11am on a Saturday morning. There’s nothing wrong with her, but she has too much of the Blue Peter presenter about her and not nearly enough unique character traits of her own.

I once complained that Amy Pond grumped her way around the Universe like a spoilt teenager on an extended gap year, but at least her hot-headedness and conflicted relationship with the Doctor (and Rory) made her seem real. Clara just doesn’t stand out in the same way.

That might be why I was far more worried about the TARDIS’s survival that any of the people running about inside her. I certainly breathed a sigh of relief when the Doctor figured out a way to save the old girl from her explosive fate. But that, too, seemed like a cop out. Yes, I know that ‘paradoxes resolve themselves’, but nipping back through a time-tear and leaving what was effectively a message in a bottle for the Doc to push a ‘don’t explode’ button felt a bit anticlimactic.

This monster of the week format seems a world away from the exciting story arc at the heart of series six, which started with the truly memorable The Impossible Astronaut and featured the Silence (scariest baddies since the Weeping Angels), fantastic episodes like A Good Man Goes To War and The Wedding of River Song – all revolving around the mystery of Lake Silencio and the vital question: who kills the Doctor? ‘Who is Clara’ seems a bit less gripping in comparison.

The lack of River in this half of series seven feels like a huge loss, huger even than the loss of Amy and Rory. Clara had three big sets of shoes to fill, and it doesn’t currently feel like the character is weighty enough to balance that particular see saw. Though I certainly hope I’m wrong.

Welcome to The Wright Way, Ben Elton’s much trumpeted return to BBC prime time comedy, if you consider the wrong side of 10.30pm on a Tuesday night prime time, which no one does.

The Wright Way appears to be about a man called Gerald Wright, a Health and Safety officer who works for Baselricky council, played by David Haig, or possibly Gordon Brittas, it’s a bit hard to tell. Gerald has real world problems we can all relate to: he speaks primarily in euphemisms, women are confusing creatures he can’t relate to and he’s also a human being.

See, he’s just like us, apart from the fact that pretty much everything about his life has been copied and pasted from TVTropes.com.

Remember when you were young, and television was populated with such shows as Kenan & Kel, Saved By The Bell, Sister Sister or any other show that was produced by Peter Engel in what appeared to be a media monopoly the likes of which would make Rupert Murdoch salivate? They were all good shows, but they all had the exact same storylines, which meant that by the time we hit 2004 and shows like Drake and Josh began appearing, all the canned laughter in the world couldn’t make up for a stale format with jokes older than the ones your uncle manages to incoherently mumble between glasses of port at Christmas.

Remember yet? Well, the Wright Way is that, but a decade down the line. The characters are older and no longer cute or relatable, the laugh track is deliberately overpowering in a bizarre attempt to convince you the gags are funny and the characters are so hollow that you wonder if it was the offshoot of the theoretical 1000 monkeys working at 1000 typewriters trying to write a line of Shakespeare.

In essence, it’s Saved By the Bell: The College Years, or even Saved By the Bell: Wedding in Vegas.

The BBC’s line about loving this show if you like Mrs. Brown’s Boys probably rings true, it’s a show made for Express readers, only with fewer foreigners, which makes it okay to like. It also shares the same sense of playing things somewhat safe whilst trying to masquerade as pushing the boundaries by making a few un-PC jokes. The only problem is that The Wright Way is a paint by numbers sitcom, rarely straying outside the lines for fear of accidentally creating a Jackson Pollock-like piece of art that has substance, but divides audiences.

Elton has, some would say quite rightly, taken a fair bit of a kicking from all sides for The Wright Way and it’s not hard to see why. The show is lazily written, with gags that don’t quite make sense layered thick and fast with canned laughter that one can only assume is there to actually drown out the original dialogue and allow the viewer to create their own punch line. It’s hard to see how the man who brought us such inventive and genre defining British sitcoms such as Blackadder and The Young Ones could have produced this. The sense of biting cynicism and chaos that was prevalent in Elton’s earlier works has been waylaid by a sense of longing for the safety and comfort of a bunny-themed onesie.

One could argue that what Elton has done is brought the sarcastic, shrieking 80s teenager kicking and screaming into the post office queue to collect its pension. Out of touch and looking forward to seeing in the sunset, Elton’s writing has turned its back on the new generation and stuck to what worked in the good ol’ days. But to give the Wright Way that much credit for being ‘meta’ seems almost as hackneyed as the show itself. Nope, it definitely is just plain bad.

The only possible way I can think of explaining such a travesty is that when Margret Thatcher died Ben Elton lost all his magic comedy powers. Once again proving that, even in death, the Iron Lady is more than capable of ruining just about anything.

But we’ll get to that in a bit.

Banshee’s main protagonist does not have a name that we know of, but he does have an agenda. He has recently been released from prison after serving 15 years for stealing diamonds from a Ukrainian gangster called Mr. Rabbit – who sadly does not turn out to be Dom Joly in a giant bunny costume – but who does want revenge now that our unidentified central character is free.

Anyway, our (anti) hero is in search of his former lover accomplice, Anastasia, who also happens to be Mr. Rabbit’s daughter. She’s now hiding out in the town of Banshee under an assumed name and living with an attorney husband and two children.

Following a car chase and shoot-out through Manhattan with Mr. Rabbit’s henchmen, Mr. Anon ends up in a bar in Banshee whereby he witnesses the brief appearance and gory death of Banshee’s incoming sheriff. Seizing the opportunity to throw his pursuers off the scent, be closer to Anastasia and save me from finding new ways to refer to an unnamed character, the former jailbird takes the identity and badge of the deceased Sheriff, Lucas Hood.

As luck would have it, this is a suitably gritty and pulpy name. Let’s be honest, a name like Sheriff Gary Pratt just wouldn’t quite have the same impact. The new Lucas is able to adopt this identity quite easily thanks to help from another former accomplice named Job, a transvestite hairdresser and computer hacker.

Besides, who doesn’t have a criminal accomplice like that these days?

Speaking of names though, there are some other great ones here. We have Sugar Bates, Lucas’ new barman friend/ex-boxer/ex-convict. There is also Deputy Sheriff Brock Lotus, Anastasia’s husband Gordon Hopewell and Kai Proctor, a former member of Banshee’s large Amish community, who has given up his faith to become a violent crime boss. As you do.

Proctor’s influence is felt throughout the town and he seems none too impressed by the new sheriff’s arrival. The scene is therefore set for Lucas to pursue his own interests from a position of power within the town, as well as carrying out his own brand of justice which, after he takes down four of Proctor’s thugs, clearly does not involve a minor slap on the wrist or much in the way of related paperwork.

This being the pilot episode, we only get a brief glimpse of all the characters but it does appear that everyone has a dark and/or violent past. Even Gordon is a an ex-marine. Whilst early days, the majority of the characterisation appears dangerously close to that of a by-the-numbers crime novel (transvestite computer hackers notwithstanding), and that’s before I mention the obvious Eastern European gangster stereotypes.

Then there is the sex and violence. In true Ball-fashion, there is plenty of rumpy-pumpy, most of it soft porn-style explicit and not strictly necessary for moving the plot along. The scenes of violence, meanwhile, are Tarantino-esque in style and, along with the sex, punctuated this slow burner of a first instalment and gave the impression of a show that was trying too hard to be edgy, tough and controversial.

The mention of style is perhaps something that Banshee will make its own as the series progresses. For instance, there were moments of cinematic-style camera work as well as handheld moments for more claustrophobic and dramatic scenes, as if the makers of the show were also trying to work out what would fit the tone best.

But, describe these grumbles, Banshee does have potential. After all, it is rare that a show, whether comedy or drama, hits the ground running from the start these days and Banshee has enough dark intrigue about it to suggest that it will be worth sticking with once it gets into its stride. Critics and audiences in the US certainly think so, as the show has already been commissioned for a second series, which will air next year.

Those who have enjoyed Ball’s other shows will probably find much to enjoy here, as will those who enjoy slow-burning thrillers and, of course, those who like their dramas to include a lot of writhing, naked flesh and a thumping right hook.

ITV’s historical woes in the comedy department are extremely well documented. The nadir was probably the mid to late 1990’s thanks to some dreadful remakes of American sitcoms (Brighton Belles, Married for Life etc.).

However, just in case anyone thought they couldn’t do home-grown too, there was the mirth-free Holding the Baby (when everything ITV did had to have Nick Hancock in it) and the river police effort Duck Patrol, which is only worth looking up on YouTube now to see an extremely young David Tennant in one of his first major roles.

They always say that the best way to confront a problem is to meet it head-on, and ITV, through Benidorm and the recent Plebs are upping their game.  Vicious is being dealt with elsewhere by the esteemed leader of this parish (it was terrible- ed.), but also new is The Job Lot.

Set in a Midlands job centre (a strangely neglected sitcom setting that hasn’t been seen on TV since Bread in the late 80s), The Job Lot is a standard office-based set up which largely attempts to get its laughs from the usual places – some staff are overly officious and love administration, some are less willing to work than the claimants they have to deal with.  Work sucks for everyone basically, we’ve all been there.

Being a sitcom of course, reality is stretched.  I was unemployed many years ago, and remember having a brief look at the job boards, a quick chat pretending you’d been looking for work, then a fag outside before getting the bus home.  Here, people hang around all day filling in forms in a bureaucratic Hades, the security guard is running his own carpeting firm on the side, and the unemployed ‘characters’ are tolerated by the staff, rather than seen as the kind of nutters who the police are regularly called for.

But there were some laughs – jokes involving push-button phone menus are invariably funny, and the gag with the permanent marker and a whiteboard had me chortling loudly.

This was largely down to the cast.  It was nice to see Sarah Hadland have an actual character to play with, rather than suffer the one-note mediocrity she’s been served up as Stevie (‘What have you done today to make you feel proud?’ ‘Well, not the third series of Miranda, that’s for sure!’).  Here, as Customer Services Manager Trish, she did some actual acting – a lonely personal life and seemingly endured rather than liked and admired in the workplace, she showed glimpses of her miserable life behind her chirpy exterior.

Best of the lot though was Russell Tovey as claimants clerk Karl.  Bored at work and cheering up only when gorgeous temp Chloe turned up, Tovey played the young worker trapped in his place in the career ladder perfectly.  Any fan of ‘Him and Her’ knows he can get away with an endearing, slightly-gormless charm, and he does it beautifully here too.

ITV in decent sitcom shocker?  This first episode bodes well, and hopefully the cast won’t need to sign on themselves any time soon.

Then they’re the killjoy vegans who’ll do what they can to make diners in KFC and Nando’s believe that they’re chomping on a fillet of kangaroo pus and goat skin instead of chicken.

But one company on the high street never seems to receive criticism or attract negative press attention. If anything, Greggs The Bakers even found itself backed by awkward looking Labour politicians when the Coalition government proposed a so called pastie tax on hot snacks. This near law, set out by David Cameron and his cronies will probably see him lose more local council seats and the next general election.

This is the sausage roll generation, not the Eton mess crowd.

Falling into the reality/documentary category, this is another chance for the humble public to witness what goes on those doors marked ‘staff only’ at Greggs. There’s been a trend with these sort of shows recently; Channel 4 in particular pumping out programs such as 999: What’s Your Emergency and  24 Hours In A & E. While they’re both fascinating insights into a world that is alien to most of us, the tone is mostly set for us the viewer to feel more empathy when the human kind turns into a shouting, vomiting and sweary race. Perhaps its time for something more light-hearted?

Known for encouraging its staff to have fun and actually interact with customers, the warm nature of Greggs shines through in this documentary. From the head honchos at the top all the way down to the people who serve us bacon sandwiches at 8am, one of the most refreshing facts to witness was that all the staff appeared to enjoy what they were doing and showed no signs of negativity. One character in particular Claudette (who’ll hopefully feature in later episodes) was a straight talking, nonsense lady based in a London branch of Greggs who told us what she liked and what she didn’t whilst she set about her daily business.

Lazy and frequent comments about people who work in places like Greggs and other industries often call them poisonous names such as ‘underachievers’ and ‘stupid.’ This mindset is a weird one given that most people will be watching complex shows on BBC2 like The Great British Bake Off.

There’s nothing wrong with a simple donut compared to a complex three tiered decorated cake that looks more like a modern art piece for display in the Tate Modern. We all know what’s easier to access and actually craft ourselves. As good as Paul Hollywood is, not everyone can make a wholegrain sunflower triple platted rollover loaf.

This opening episode was centered around retail development manager Alison, who was responsible for modernising a trial selection of Greggs stores to capture a more upmarket feel. It was more than just a redesigned logo and splash of paint- everything associated with the chosen bakeries was being changed. Focussing on new designs for recipes and the introduction of some gigantic cupcakes, the concept of the new shop design was also looked at with designer Phil who had previously worked with another high street food chain, Yo! Sushi.

With Greggs integrating so readily into British culture, we haven’t been force-fed a Wikipedia file of the history of the Newcastle based company. Instead, it’s a fun look and insight into a fun, no-nonsense organisation- and major employer- that many of us have used and will continue to do so. Had the same program been made on Pizza Hut, it wouldn’t have been half as successful.

Hide was one of those experiences. What is even more surprising is that this comes from the keyboard of Neil Cross, writer of this season’s second episode The Rings of Akhaten which was hardly a classic. Unless ‘rubbish’ now means classic.

From the first few minutes Hide looked like a simple ghost story about Professor Alec Palmer (Dougray Scott) and Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine) hunting ghosts in a big scary house – a standard Doctor Who location because they’re a) brilliantly atmospheric and b) very cheap. If you didn’t have goosebumps then you’re clearly no fun.

However, Hide was much more than a cheap haunted house story as it touched upon themes like love and family. It also felt timeless. The only modern day reference was a laboured joke about Ghostbusters (as an aside: why do all Ghostbusters jokes- and there have been a few-  seem so forced in Doctor Who?). In fact the Doctor’s arrival was the only poor part of this episode. The scare was obvious: who else was it going to be?

Once the Doctor arrived, everything was turned up to eleven and we were carted off on a great adventure. All three actors were as good as the script they have been given (a marked departure from last week’s Cold War) while the direction was first class. Sadly, Jenna-Louise Coleman came across as a bit stiff in the first half of the story, though when you realise that this was actually the first ever episode she filmed- a quirk of the schedules- this is hardly a surprise.

How do I know this? The final scenes of the episode are shot with the same background and she is wearing the same clothes, also some of the publicity shots are so similar they could just be stills from the filming. But mainly because I read too many Doctor Who gossip websites.

However Clara also gets the episode’s three best moments: a comic discussion with the TARDIS where it is clear the two don’t get on (is the TARDIS jealous?) a beautifully crafted monologue about time travel and how the Doctor views humans and our mortality. But my favourite is when she questions Palmer about why he brought the house, a great comic set of questions that we all ask ourselves when watching a haunted house story.

Despite this episode being a clear classic, it is still controversial with some. This is all due to the ‘twist’ ending

We discover our monster in the wood, the one that was chasing the Doctor through the wood earlier in the episode, isn’t evil, just love sick. Now I’ve read many comments with people throwing their keyboards into the air complaining ‘why can’t the monsters just be evil?’

Well many are. You wouldn’t take a Dalek to meet your gran would you? They, like politicians, are bastards and always will be. For me, Doctor Who is at its best when the monsters aren’t evil for the sake of being evil, they just happen to be at odds with the Doctor: something that Gatiss attempted to show in last week’s Cold War. I’m hoping Neil Gaiman is going to do a similar thing with the Cybermen in a couple of weeks.

Also it is nice to see ‘ugly’ creatures get a chance at love.  Ugly creatures have feelings too, you know. You can insert your own joke about the writer of this review here (it’ll be far funnier than anything I could come up with).

Over all Hide is a classic Doctor Who ep that will stand the test of time and be talked about for years to come. Or my name isn’t Stephen, which it is.