One of the dilemmas I've had to face while writing these columns over the past three months has been that of enjoyment over judgement. It was never this way with the "old" columns; the stories were old, been watched a hundred times before, the shaky details and moments when the Doctor plucked a handy big doohickey from the TARDIS to sort everything out with (come in "Pyramids of Mars"!) were there to be judged. They mattered more because everything else was taken for granted.

Now it's different; everything's new. And what's more it's all very lavish, lovely to look at, unpredictable and exciting. So, after 45 minutes of sheer, unadulterated pleasure, can you genuinely come to the conclusion that something isn't very good because it doesn't, inherently, make sense? Such is the quandry with "Parting of the Ways", a tale that like so many others betrayed RTD as a man whose love and devotion and appreciation of what Doctor Who is far outweighs his technical ability to understand what makes a satisfying story. But does it matter when the whole thing is such fun?

First off, we should applaud "Parting" for having something for everyone. This was no mindless action schtick in the "Resurrection of the Daleks" mould, as it so easily could have been with its huge CGI cast of Daleks and big crowd of gun-fodder humans. Characteristically, this Doctor Who never moves anywhere without pausing to contemplate how it's feeling first. Rose's realisation that she couldn't go back to chips and a dreary life of 9-5 really worked and, for a moment, I felt it too. Likewise filling Jackie in on the 'erased' events of "Fathers Day" is the kind of lovely little scene that you would have conjured up in your head after watching that adventure. I wonder if one day she TELLS her what happened? Here, she did. The Death, too, was far more considered although still overly prissy. Call me a sadist, but we really should have seen Lynda with a Y sucked into deep space! And if only they hadn't of bottled out of killing Jack, much as I love him.

It had comedy too, not to mention real drama. It's just a shame the story also felt the need to rely on "Logopolis" style erasing of entire continents of people(effectively) off-screen. This kind of inference strays too far into "hundreds of monsters rampaging just off-camera" territory, and again belies a certain unwiseness on the scripting front. It was better as a threat, and a choice, the Emperor promising to "fillet" the human race if the Doctor didn't wipe them out first! How marvellous! Can you believe all this happened not in an old-fashioned six parter, but in just forty-five minutes?

It finished, deliciously, like "Androzani" - in the TARDIS, an amazing regeneration sequence (watch him sprout hair!), new Doctor, new hair, brimming over with promise to the point where you rue bitterly the aching months til we get to see what happens next. It's happened again - no, not the miracle of bodily renewal but this wonderful, special series of ours hitting the re-boot switch and taking us somewhere new.

It would take a cold heart after all this, to bemoan the fact that everyone should know by now that the TARDIS sorting everything out is a very bad idea, second only to the assistant turning into a super-being and sorting everything out. Maybe these things will matter when we look back in five years and work out what the best episodes were. If it mattered to you on Saturday night, as the Doctor battled hordes of Daleks on BBC1 and, yes, you really did think for a moment that he'd been blown up by that missile, then perhaps you're missing the point. Disposable pop, as someone once said.