Well, I did say that Richard E Grant was somewhat underused in the Doctor Who Christmas episode and now we know why...

Doctor Who returned to the screens this weekend with a strong episode that balanced humour, drama and fear and still managed to have introduce the new companion. Again. But this time it looks like we've finally met the real Clara.

This episode functioned very well as a reboot for the series, presumably designed to attract new viewers who have heard about the upcoming 50th anniversary. There were references to the past - I particularly liked the Jammie Dodgers and the fez - but the episode worked very well at introducing a new, slightly changed Doctor and explained exactly who and what you could expect from the two hearted alien this series. [SPOILERS]

Last night, I wept. I wept in relief, in elation, in shock. I wept as I inhaled bourbon biscuits and sloshed red wine all over my dressing gown. I wept to a soundtrack of Madchester and wondered how on earth I’d reached my mid twenties and lived so ignorantly content, having never felt this kind of connection before. When most people recount the moment they fell in love, they speak of eyes meeting across a crowded room. Of lingering stares. All that shit. I’m about to tell you how I fell in love. Because last night, yes I wept. I wept because I’ve met my soul mate. Her name is Rachael Earl. And she lives in my TV.

There are a few things I would never do – I would never bungee jump for instance. Nor would I go on a hike (not for fun anyway. Sickos). I most definitely would not enter a beauty contest. Not just because I am well ensconced in my 20s and therefore 'too old' but when I came of beauty queen age it was the 2000s, unfashionable, my personal politics didn't match up and I had a mild case of The Acne. Colour me a little red and DISQUALIFIED. 

In Monday night's Wonderland I Was Once a Beauty Queen Hannah Berryman interviewed former beauty queens from the days when the BBC still broadcast the pageants. 30 years has passed since such pageants were broadcast with a straight face. Now child beauty pageants are presented as freak shows of pushy moms and lacquered brats. Poise and a lovely laugh can go do one, tantruming toddlers in tiaras is where it's at now in the world of pageantry. 

Well that's the end of Doctor Who for this year (except for the now traditional Doctor Who Christmas special) and what a way to go (both the series and the Ponds)!

After 5 enjoyable (if sometimes flawed and rushed) episodes the series ends with a stand-out classic. Steven Moffat has written another episode that ranks right up there with his best (not as high as Blink though, but then I doubt he'll ever top that).

BBC America (a separate company from our BBC across the pond) providing funding so they could really shoot in Manhattan was a plus. Actually showing the city was one of the myriad reasons why this was so much better than the last episode set in Manhattan – the execrable Daleks of Manhattan (personally I'm hoping that the paradox-forming actions of the Ponds has also erased that episode from history).

The latest episode of Doctor Who was a divisive episode – I know a lot of people disliked it but I thought it was a great episode. However, had it been a 2-parter it would have been a stand out Doctor Who classic.

Chris Chibnall (who also wrote Dinosaurs) is really growing as a writer this series. His work on this episode is a vast improvement from his work on the first series of Torchwood, where he was the co-producer. When I heard he had written 2 of the 5 episodes we were getting this year I must admit my heart sank a bit as I was worried we’d get something on the level of Torchwood’s Cyberwoman or Doctor Who’s 42. However, he’s written a couple of crackers this time round. 

The third episode of the current series is the strongest in many ways, but the weakest in others. It tells a much smaller story than the last two episodes, at a much more leisurely pace. However, it isn't the story that the trailers suggested and is the most adult episode this series.

I was expecting a humorous, over the top, action filled Western featuring aliens and a robotic gun-slinger and while there were moments of humour ('Tea – the strong stuff', Amy's ineptitude with a gun, Susan the trans horse [Although I feel I need to point something out to the Doctor – he says to respect her lifestyle choices and then uses a gender other than the one she's identified as to describe her]) there was also far more ethical debate than we've had in the two slightly pantomime-esque previous episodes.

Well that was a gay old romp, wasn't it?

Very much NuWho in microcosm – a lot of fun, silly, camp, full of strong performances from well known actors and falls apart the second you start thinking about all the plot holes (but you don't care about that as it was so much fun at the time).

As part of the BBC’s Sex Season presenter Cherry Healey tackled the sensitive subject of virginity in the documentary Cherry Healey: Like A Virgin. In the documentary Cherry states that: “Losing your virginity can be a momentous, exciting and nerve-wracking experience all rolled into one”. You could be forgiven for thinking, having watched this documentary, that losing your virginity is also only a heterosexual experience. The questions Cherry wanted to ask were: “how important is it [virginity]? Does age matter and is it fundamentally different for men and women?” In the documentary, with the exception of one gay male, loss of virginity was addressed as heterosexual penis in vagina intercourse. The complicated notions of which sex acts can be partaken in whilst maintaining virginity did not come up.  

It’s something to sit down to watch something confident you’re about to witness an hour of superbly crafted drama with realistic characters and sizzling plot lines – and then find yourself describing it as ‘pompous’ and ‘terrible’.

When I first heard about The Newsroom I couldn’t wait to see it. A US drama set behind the scenes at a popular (fictional) network news show, from the pen of West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin, it felt bound to succeed.

I loved The West Wing but even while I watched it, as Bush Jnr sat in the White House, I could see it was a fantasy of what politics could – should – look like with a Democrat president. Ideologically-driven intelligent politicians and staffers worked tirelessly towards a grand vision of America, and American politics. Partisan differences were (not always, but sometimes) put to one side for the greater good, and while there were a few conniving, backstabbing or corrupt characters they were the exception, not the rule. But despite the fact it was obviously a fantasy designed to sustain Democrats through the long years of a Republican presidency, it worked on every level as a compelling show.

It’s been 372 years since the BBC commissioned a zany comedy series from a pair of ladies so the new 6 part series written by and starring comedy double act Watson and Oliver should be big news.

I got that bit wrong, not ‘comedy double act’ I meant ‘female comedy double act’, who would have thought, in 1987 when French and Saunders were commissioned by the BBC that the term ‘female double act’ would still be required because male is still the default.