‘The funny thing is, I fought all those battles for all those years, and now I know what for.’ In some respects, these 60^th Anniversary Specials have replayed a typical RTD series in miniature. There was the light, present-day series opener, complete with a cute monster (see also Partners in Crime), then a very brief celebrity historical with Isaac Newton and a futuristic space adventure before coming back to the present for an apocalyptic finale with a classic series villain. There are some explicit references to Last of the Time Lords (the Archangel Network; the well-manicured hand picking up the Master’s remains) and some less obvious links to Army of Ghosts (the UNIT Tower standing in for the Torchwood Tower) and Journey’s End (a regeneration that creates a duplicate Doctor). We even get the triumphant return of Trinity Wells, reinvented as an anti-zeedexxer.

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‘I’ve had 15 years without you, and I saw everything that’s happened to you since and, oh, my God, it hurt.’ Midnight Part Two, this time with two formless not-things from the outer darkness hell bent on imitating the occupants of an isolated spacecraft for their own unfathomable ends. It’s also a neat flip of the old “Doctor-and-companion-lite” episodes, this time eliminating everyone but the Doctor and Donna, to focus in on their relationship in the eerie emptiness at the edge of the universe. The result is the show’s most effective cosmic horror in years.

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‘Why did this face come back? To say goodbye?’ It’s tea-time in 2008 all over again, as the most Big Finish of Doctor Who series (they even made this one as an audio) hits the screen. Everything about this screams 2008 (albeit with more cash), and by and large that’s a good thing. This is, after all, the first of the 60^th Anniversary Specials and nostalgia is called for. I could probably have done without the pre-credits recap with the Doctor and Donna addressing the audience, but it hasn’t been 15 years since I saw Journey’s End.

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‘Wait a minute, do you mean this is the genesis of the Daleks?’ David Tennant’s return to the role of Doctor Who begins, fittingly, with a Children In Need special, just like 2005. “Just like 2005” (well, “2008”) might be the tag-line for the upcoming 60th Anniversary Specials, a reminder of the peak of the 21st Century show’s public popularity with its most iconic Doctor/companion pairing.

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