That first scary scene was weird, wasn't it? Billie Piper is wandering around the storeroom, and you're expecting one of the showroom dummies to pounce on her at any moment, when, out of the ether, comes the not-very-mysterious voice of Graham Norton. Oh god, I thought, someone's left his mic on from the previous programme! Then, just as it's supposed to get really scary, as the dummies start to attack Billie Rose, Norton's unmistakeable voice appears again, jabbering on about where he should be in the studio. Heads will roll for this, I thought. Then I suddenly made sense of the bit that had confused me about a minute earlier. When Rose had walked into the storeroom, there had been a burst of cheering. I thought it was a surprise party for her, but there was no one there. I then thought it was supposed to be the dummies, but now I realised it was just a cock-up; it was the sound of the studio audience from Strictly Dance Fever, Graham's programme which had been on immediately before. Still, it worked quite well, in retrospect, and my sister also thought it was party noise until I showed her my DVD copy today and we realised just what a sonic mess it all was. Even the Doctor's sonic screwdriver couldn't sort that one out. (Why not get one for Christmas?!)

The very start of Doctor Who had been mucked up as well. There was a shot of the tardis with the approaching flame, then the trailer for another show was shown - but in sound only, with a dark screen, and then that was interrupted by the 'tap-dogs' station ident. A complete mess.

Russell T Davies, the Executive Producer of this new Doctor Who series, writer of last night's episode, and all round lovely man, told me when I was journalisting on the set of Queer As Folk (which he devised and wrote, and which Chig 'appears' in as an extra) that he likes to sit at home and watch things he's written going out live, at the same time as everyone else. No matter how many times he'd seen QAF on set, in the editing suite, on video or at preview cinemas, he liked to watch it in context, as an ordinary viewer, complete with ad breaks, to see how it really came across. No ad breaks last night, of course, but I can imagine him sitting watching it. Some writers would have been seething at the technical blunders (which are acknowledged by the BBC at the bottom of this article today). However, part of me thinks Russell was probably laughing his socks off. Russell, if you're reading? (He knows this blog exists, you know...)


Russell just couldn't resist having some buggery in the new series.


Personally, I think it's all a sinister conspiracy by the BBC to overdub Doctor Who with something that has now spoilt it, to make us all buy it when it comes out on DVD. And do you know, I think it might just have worked...

Anyway, who cares? Doctor Who trounced Ant'n'Dec'n'Becks last night, so Auntie must be thrilled.

Oh, the programme itself? I thought it was pacey, exciting, occasionally funny and very contemporary, but possibly tried to cram in the whole Autons story a bit too quickly. As a curtain-raiser though, it worked just fine, and I felt a real sense of occasion watching it. We can see from the episode guide that there is MUCH more excitement to come (including Simon Pegg!), so last night's episode functioned perfectly to whet our appetites for more. I'm hooked.
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