Now a bona fide success, the third season of the Whos comeback tour has an air of a swagger. Substituting Billie Piper with the cute if unremarkable Freema Agyeman went well, and David Tennant still bounces around with splendidly demented aplomb. While good on character, Russell T. Davies and teams inventions are becoming increasingly hollow on plot: the opener includes a life-sucking alien
and a trip to the moon, the de rigueur historical one turns Shakespeares witches into yet more ill-defined aliens, while the Daleks crop up in New New York. To defeat such tired props the Doctor waves his sonic screwdriver around.
Presto formula has set in.