The Terrance Dicks of our day, RTD will always be more reliable than inspired; that's what makes Doctor Who great. It's his brain, rather than any kind of outlet of genius, that calculates the best way to make our show the most popular on telly. He isn't, however, immune to knocking out clunkers, and expectation might have been lowered by both last years unsettlingly naff opener "New Earth" and December's nonsensical Christmas Special "The Runaway Bride".

But this is the man that also wrote the brilliant "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday" last year - and happily "Smith and Jones" tumbles down on the 'quality' side of the divide. Oddly, it didn't FEEL like Doctor Who to start with. Upon pondering why, I'm left to wonder if the pace didn't let up a little - true, we rocketed between Martha and an array of her relatives in the opening minutes (the chaotic phone call an excellent device to introduce them all) but it felt more relaxed, sombre even; the Doctor popping up early on only as a ghost to perform a brief cameo that wouldn't be explained until the end of the story.

And thank heavens, Martha isn't terrible! As we all feared she might be after witnessing Freema's 'excited competition winner' real-life persona at various awards shows and press events recently. She isn't shockingly memorable either (yet) but then the whole point about Rose was that she was ordinary; we don't want an EXTRAordinary companion, so Freema was never going to be a massive system shock. She was what you'd hope and expect a new companion to be like in her first story, let's just hope she's allowed to be a bit more womanly than Rose (we need some glamour aboard the TARDIS!) in the future.

The plot, refreshingly dispensed in about half an hour, was a surprisingly hole-free gad about the moon, introducing the Judoon - wonderful both in terms of the design (possibly one of the most convincing alien animatronic masks to date) and that, for once, they had a purpose. Just as the Sontarans were cloned soldiers and the Ice Warriors alien nobility, the Judoon are red-tape officials, not interested in jurisdiction over humans and amusingly marking out 'checked' subjects with a squeakily applied marker pen cross on the hand. They possibly need their potential expanded in future stories (in which I'd suggest they cameo, for example turning up unexpectedly like an unwelcome tax inspector) to become truly great, but for now Doctor Who has just added yet another weird and wonderful 'monster' to its menagerie. Only one plot point remained unresolved, which is a much welcome thing to be able to say after the knotty exposition of "The Runaway Brude", and that was just why the Judoon were good enough to return the hospital to Earth at the end of the story. It's a shame the reason for this wasn't revealed, as it could easily have been (for example by stating that the Judoon followed some kind of martial code that ensured they had to leave the subject of their investigations in a similar state to that in which it was found).

Elsewhere, my biggest gripe was not with the show but with the BBC. It's clear that, in the finest traditions of old, "Smith and Jones" was subject to some strict budgetary limitations. To start with, a second viewing of the episode makes it much more obvious that only one Judoon ever removes his helmet. And whilst Anne Reid teetered on greatness, it's a shame the Plasmavore was never revealed it's true form. Every toyshop bears witness to the fact that the BBC are making STACKS of cash from Doctor Who - yet from the evidence of "Smith and Jones", very little of it is going back into the series, and this episode seemed cheaper than "Rose" two years ago. However, the model work and CGI of the Judoon ships was uniformly excellent, so perhaps this is where the pennies went - my gripe being that at this stage it's a shame we could only have one out of the three.

Every fan review I've read has been positive - and that doesn't happen often (it's never happened with a season opener) which is a fact to cherish. "Smith and Jones" (the title more clever than worthy or appropriate) still fell some way short of greatness - Martha's family, seen fleetingly, felt forgettable rather than intriguing, and we didn't need the silliness with the shoes. And as much as Anne Reid put into her performance, the budget, the brevity of her appearance and the (superb!) death of the character means we are still searching for a great recurring villainess to replace Lady Cassandra - does RTD have Kate O'Mara's number? In all other respects, this episode more than pulled off the trick of stylishly opening the season.