Flesh and Stone: Season Fnarg episode 5 - watching Doctor Who with the lights down in summer

Keep the curtains closed. Have a subdued light on. Don't blink. With a not so-bright evening it was possible to make the setting more autumnal. Flesh and Stone indeed.

Still, for real scares, whatever happens, don't watch full-length Confidential episodes without a barf bucket.

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Well, I thought that lived up nicely to the first part. I know not everyone out there agrees but I'm sticking to my guns of saying this is working for me: the series feels as if it has found a new groove. And I can hear the dialogue just fine unless I'm fooling myself.

Anyway. This Doctor isn't fanciable (for me: though I do already know some who have been utterly captivated. As the line goes in SKs comments at MediumRob's: Marmite). He's Mr Grumpyface. He's mercurial, but in a very different way to Ten/Tennant. He certainly doesn't consistently feel as if he knows it all - even when he does. He's channeling the second and seventh Doctors lots whilst nevertheless establishing his own approach to things.

Things I liked:

• River commenting "when you're older"
• Spotting the countdown as soon as Amy said 'Nine'
• Eleven losing it when Sacred Bob says the angels are doing it for 'fun'
• Bringing the story-arc forward (cracks, duck-ponds)
• The developing tears in the Doctor's eyes when he has the conversation with Father Octavian
• Moving angels! (just don't think too hard about Amy fooling them)
• Writing ret-con into the narrative (way to go with wiping out some of the awkward continuities of the RTD era - big Victorian steampunk Cyberking [Cyber-King or Cy-berking?] I'm looking at you, and for giving us a 'here and now' dating to Amy's life)
• That Matt Smith clearly has even more of a bonkers dress sense off screen than on-screen. Somehow that makes him seem even more like the Doctor.

But on the topic of the Confidential episodes: urgh. Moff - we get it, you're a genius, we're all grateful, we know you're good. I'm personally delighted "you are da man". But don't 'invite' your fellow writers to praise you in such ingratiating terms. We get it: you're the boss now. They're NOT going to say "he's a bit crap actually, that Moffat bloke: don't know why they put him in charge". It demeans everyone concerned to do this.

Otherwise though, it WAS nice to see so many nice bits from Ten's storyline in the Confidential. Just a shame that those are usually the very bits that get lost in the cut-downs (I haven't watched the cut-down version btw -- has it lost all the Moff-licking as well?)

Still, next week: vampires. Written by Toby Whithouse. Anyone betting on some fan-fic cross-overs? Anyway: a return to vampires in Doctor Who - better than State of Decay?