Attack of the Graske

David Tennant looks set, more than any of his predecessors, to immerse himself in the 'trappings' of playing the Time Lord as much as within the role itself. Consider that at the time of writing, we have seen more Ninth Doctor spin-offs than actual adventures. Indeed, this Doctor is unique in been seen in a Children In Need sketch before even exiting the TARDIS for the first time.

"Attack of the Graske" exudes a warm, 1970's glow. If they had had interactive TV back then, this is the sort of thing Jon Pertwee would have done, alongside his Sugar Puff and Road Safety promotional duties. Never mind the fact that Gareth Roberts is clawing his way back, this is a project from which a story can barely break forth anyway (Roberts influence is only recognisable in a few postmodern asides like a postmodern warning against turning over to ITV, and a "don't forget Doctor Who is camp" reference to ABBA). The production values, on the other hand, make you giddy at guessing how much money must be flying around right now. Although it resembles a game of Doom slightly too much at times, the sets and effects outrank at least half of the old series at times. Did they really reconstruct Dickensian London again just for this?

The Graske itself, marred by obviously being Jimmy Vee (the modern day Deep Roy) is a goblin type creation, initially impressive until you realise it's just the Moxx of Balhoon with legs. But the plot is a little more interesting, and goes something like this: Doctor Who is able to alarmingly patch the TARDIS scanner into the TV of a crap welsh family to spy on them. After identifying which of them is really an alien (or something) by watching out for green eyes, you (yes you!) then have to find the Grask amid the set of "The Unquiet Dead" and steer the TARDIS to his lair by solving a number of basic number puzzles en route. Finally the Doctor gives the viewer two choices to finish the adventure, one of which is so obviously the correct way to zap the Graske that we chose the other one thinking it must be a double bluff. In this respect, we are officially less worthy of being the Doctor's assistant than probably most young children.

But never mind that. Leave the kids to have the fun, this is, after all, for them. What we as fans need to work out is how on Earth we capture this flimsy yet vitally important slice of Who for posterity. Since the interactive element won't work when transferring to video tape or DVD, which is the proper 'canonical' course of this adventure? The one where the Doctor freed all the Graske's specimens and saved the day, or the one where we ballsed it up for him by deciding to freeze everything? Nothing less than taping every permutation of the story will do, and I just know that some out there have done.

On a more serious note, what charmed me most about my experiences of flying the TARDIS and freeing Slitheen was not the interaction itself, which felt about as interactive as turning the volume up (for real interaction, surely the time is again ripe for a new Doctor Who computer game?) but the performance of Mr Tennant as the Doctor. Perhaps it was the way he spoke kindly to the children at home as Tom Baker once used to do, but his albeit phoned-in clutch of scenes as the Doctor nevertheless felt a hundred times more reassuring than any that frosty Christopher Eccleston delivered during the last series. Because the Doctor SHOULD be reassuring, not angry, or moody or mentally scarred or closed. The place for that is the books, where nobody will ever go. That we got this jolly boundary-pushing sidestep for Christmas confirmed that Doctor Who is more than just a TV program again, and once more a way of life for kids and kid-like adults alike. And that's got to be the most re-assuring thing of all.