Sounds good, I'm not going to miss this one!

Well you can watch the repeat on Sunday night on BBC3 can't you?

It looks amazing, who'll be watching from behind the sofa? LOL

I could but nothing is going to stop watching it tonight!

I'll have cushion!

Great stuff, suitably creepy.

I didn't enjoy this episode as much as last week's but it was still really good :thumbsup:

Lots of funny stuff again, loved Dickens saying "what the Shakespeare??!" :lmao:

I found the Gelph a bit boring after the exotic characters we were treated to last week but the twist was good :D

well what can be said about that.....

apsolutley bloody brillent

Good story (perhaps like the others would have been better as a two parter) well written, well directed, Eccleston is brillent as is Simon Callow as Charles Dickens. The effects are excellent especially when you remember the budget and there are very nice bits of humour involved (the look of disgust on the Doctor's face when he thinks he is going to die in Cardiff etc).

A very very very very good episode (and the next one looks good too...)


and I wonder how many hide behind the sofa with this one ( :fear: )

It seemed far scarier this week , especially the beginning ... :fear:

I think it would have dragged too much over two parts, 1 ep was just right for this story.

Exactly - I felt this story was the first one in this series which fitted the 45 minute timeslot.

However, the one problem I've got with the series so far is that the Doctor seems to always need saving (with Rose saving him in 'Rose', and Dickens saving them in todays episode). Surely he's supposed to be the hero and doing the saving?

However, despite that, this was a very enjoyable story - made all the more better for some great acting performances. Shame about Billie though (and whoever thought of that insipid 'this is the only Christmas Eve 1860' line should be shot on sight :))

And this one desrves a proper rewatch, jsut to see how many other subtle links Gatiss added - for one 'Phantasmagoria' (as uttered by Dickens) was one of his Big Finish stories :)

:D

Scary, with great effects and superb acting and production values. All filmed in Swansea :o :lol:

I'm starting to sound like a scratched record here, but I loved this one too :thumbsup:

Memories came flooding back of the classic scary stories of old. "Talons of Weng Chiang." "Horror of Fang Rock" and all the others came to mind.

The writing was superb, Gatiss deserves high praise for his w**k. The acting, especially Eccleston and Callow, was spot on. The little comments about the Tardis going wrong, sublime.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Ten thumbs up. :D

I liked to episode but I thought it was a little weird, looking forward to next weeks episode! :thumbsup:

Yawn.

Episode 4 looks good though.

Another great ep - really getting into this show now!

the "happy medium" line was classic :)

Good effects and,as goth willow fan said, it was subtley scary. Cant wait for the next one.

(forgot to mention in prev ep review about the mobile phone calling all those years in the past so Rose could speak to her mum!!!!)

Latest ratings news:

Looks like the ratings are stabilising around 8 million viewers, which is as good as you're going to get on a saturday night. It'll be interesting to see the spike in a few weeks though...

LMAO at parents emailing to praise the show for their little Timmy being traumatised and hiding behind the sofa :lmao:

LMAO, yep Lily spent the whole ep cowering on my lap :thumbsup:

So far so good, and the trailer for next week's ep looks great :)

Best episode so far imo. A really good story with a good mix of scares and humour. :thumbsup:

i thought it was a good episode, i especially found it funny when rose called the undertaker a dirty old man, lol, the doctors comments also made me laugh!!1

roll on next weeks episode

What is wrong with this jumper???? :D

I thought that it was really good :)

It had a really great script and very good acting as well - despite the time pressures!

Loved it! My favourite of the three so far. Ecclestone was excellent, and I've seen Simon Callow do Dickens before, so that was no surprise there for me.

The supporting cast were pretty good too. And I really enjoyed Mark Gatiss' writing too. Sure the line about it being the only Christmas Eve 1860 was a tad cheesy, but the rest of it was spot on... a few lines that made me smirk and a few laugh out load moments too. Happy medium... groan, but :lol:

Can't fault the effects either, and in parts, it was genuinely scary.

Well done to Russell T, and all the cast and crew.

Lol at the topicality of next week's episode! Who doesn't enjoy seeing the Palace of Westminster trashed!

Andrew (HM) :upside:

Surely this must be the most scariest Doctor Who season ever :fear: I never understood the hiding behind the sofa bit before but I can certainly understand it now.

All in all a good episode. Simon Callow was good as Dickens (though he's played Dickens so often he could phone the performance through) and mercifully refrained from his usual over the top production.

Probably I'll get things throen at me for this but I'm beginning to wonder about Ecclestone. I mean, the Doctor is supposed to be a bit wacky, a bit off the wall. To me, Eccleston seems to be w**king very hard at that aspect. Also, someone should be told that a strong female lead doesn't have to mean bolshie. It was really good to see Rose slapped down when she started making the decision about whether whatsername should heal the rift or not.

Next week looks good though

Very,very,very good :group:

Really enjoyed it, great effects again. Loved the Doctor's directions to the wardrobe, and his change of jumper :lol:

And Simon Callow added an extra touch of class to it :thumbsup:

Great stuff :)

Just watched this (had to d/l it after Sky+ cock-up) - I thought it was okay but thought it was a bit cliched with the "shock horror - they aren't good aliens after all" and the way The Doctor recognised the girls sacrifice whereas Rose objected.

I'm still not sure about the self contained nature - I mentioned the cheesy cliffhangers before but I also felt 4 or 6 x 25 minutes gave plenty time for a bit of plot. I feel as though the writing is better than it used to be (and the effects are obviously) so it seems a waste not to use that for something a bit more meaty.

Still enjoyable overall though.

After the rather good episode two I was expecting good things for the third episode but unfortunately I have to disagree with most people on this thread. I thought this episode was absolutely dire and I very nearly turned off which I hardly ever do. I could see the episode was spooky but scary? Maybe if I was seven years old but I can't believe an adult or even a teenager could think it was scary... If so I wouldn't recommend watching Alien to them for fear of scaring them to death. The episode was complete rubbish.

Can't really add much to that, apart from the fact that, now I know Eve Myles from Torchwood, it was fairly amusing seeing her here.

I thought the 5.1 soundtrack was a little disappointing. When the Gelth (?) were flying around I expected the sound to be swirling around the room but it didn't really happen :shrug: