Years ago now, DWM ran a comic strip which was basically about a writer (Sean) dreaming of the Doctor Who in his head. It reminded us that, contrary to its massive lifespan and unbeknown to several seasons down the years, Doctor Who's potential still remains massively untapped. We all have the Great Doctor Who Scene in our heads, even if we don't realise it. The one that you might think just HAD to have happened, if you didn't know courtesy of Haining or David "J" Howe and his chums that it simply never did. My favourite is that old staple of the aborted "Doctor Who Meets Scratchmen" movie, Cybermen emerging from the sea. DWM offered up an Auton baby (and vicar!) and said Mondasian's again, this time clambering out of a freshly dug grave. There are many more - the Christmas Special, the one set on board a sinking boat, the Dickensian one - whoops, just had that.

No doubt the iconic, and not unchilling, image of a gas masked child wandering the Blitz-torn streets of wartime London has been in Steven Moffatts head for years. It's such concepts, and set pieces like the ringing TARDIS 'phone and an invisible spaceship tethered to Big Ben, that this new series is founded upon. Although the more the new series worms its way cleverly into the national subconsciousness the more you sneakily anticipate some form of eventual backlash, the fact remains that everyone is talking about it, and "The Empty Child" is why.

The fact that this is, and has been touted as, "the story set during WW2" (lazy acronym intended) is deceiving. It's not really about the war at all; you could recite the shopping list of scene-setters on one hand (the club, some air-raid sirens, the clever scene of the family retreating into their shelter and that's about it). There are few actual soldiers in "The Empty Child" (so far, anyway), Hitler isn't mentioned, and aside from Nancy's brother (who, I suspect, is concerned with something far more extra-terrestrial) it's not "about" mourning those lost in battle. Instead, the war time setting is utilised as a base-under-siege, the quiet, moon-light streets and creepy abandoned home of the rich people in the shelter becoming our unsettling corridors and shadows for hiding sinister monsters (in this case sinister monsters who look like children! Eek!). In addition, the iconography of the gas mask, a symbol of all-too-familiar contemporary death first utilised by "The Deadly Assassin" in 1976, is pilfered for those "Doctor Who" moments we never got (ready?): the gas masked dead sitting up suddenly and marching forwards, the gas masked child calling for its Mummy, and the most surreal and fantastic idea of all, a human face becoming a mask. "The One With The Gas Mask People" has arrived.

The sense of the setting being a clever red herring is further enforced by the presence of Captain Jack, the unlikable new companion figure. The idea of companions as semi-regulars popping along for a couple of stories is so simple and radical we never thought of it before. At least this means the unwelcome sexual element shouldn't last too long - note the dislike the little girl in the BBCi Fear Factor team took to this plot idea. Suddenly Rose goes from being her friend to becoming in awe of something the little girl (and every one watching) doesn't understand (that being sexual desire). It's funny how, after all these years, we STILL don't need sex in Doctor Who.

But sex aside, this is all very clever indeed. An intriguing plot, but that doesn't matter too much. A good Doctor, but he doesn't matter too much either. Creepy kid in gas mask and lots of things to make you jump - now that happens to be very important indeed.