There are several things I ought to write about here, not least the visit to Rome at the start of October. Instead, here are some thoughts on the small matter of the Dr Who 50th anniversary.

According to my mum I watched the first episode (I had just turned 4 at the time) but I can’t honestly say I remember it. I do have vague early memories of dalek toys and making “exterminate” voices in the playground when I started school but the memories are generic rather than specific. The first episode I clearly remember watching was was when Patrick Troughton emerged from a cave in the Himalayas to meet the yeti. I have watched pretty much continuously since then, with a few breaks in the early eighties when I was at University. Everyone of a certain age has “their” Doctor and mine was Troughton and to a certain degree Jon Pertwee.

I also have a deep and abiding regard for the original version of the theme tune and its co-creator Delia Derbyshire whom I wrote about here in 2002. (nb some of the links on that page are old and I haven’t tested them).

I have watched every episode since its return, mostly with pleasure. There have been a few duff episodes and I almost gave up in the latter part of the Russell T Davis/David Tennant era but I’ve stuck with it.

The Beeb have been making a big deal about the 50th anniversary and quite right too. Despite its ups and downs and occasional longueurs the Doctor has been a fixture for almost all of my life. If the celebrations have threatened to go way over the top, for the most part they haven’t and have instead produced Mark Gatiss’ wonderful “An Adventure in Space and Time” and, last night, the 50th anniversary episode: “The Day of the Doctor”. We should draw a quiet veil over the execrable “After Party” on BBC 3 of which about a minute and a half was sufficient to confirm its awfulness.

What follows is based on having now watched The Day of the Doctor three times. The first time through I enjoyed it but thought the pacing was a bit off in the first half; the second time through I changed my mind about that, the third time it was simply great.

I had an immediate fanboy moment when they started with the original music and titles, (compounded when, for the first time in 50 years, Delia got her credit in the closing credits).  What followed was a clever story that was coherent in itself, mostly, paid its dues to the past and set up the future in interesting ways.

With one exception the story was internally consistent and, as Steven Moffat had promised, was a story about the Doctor rather than one featuring the Doctor. It addressed at least some issues from his recent past and healed the Doctor’s timeline. Taken together with the Paul McGann short “The Night of the Doctor”, there is apparent continuity now of The Doctor as distinct from the entity that calls itself The Doctor. It made sense that the story would feature the Doctor from the Time War and his successors, with the regrettable exception of Christopher Eccleston. The main blip in the internal consistency was the involvement of all 13 incarnations in the final denouement – but given the occasion that was understandable.

The final appearance of Tom Baker was a delightful touch but also a master-stroke. On first watching I wasn’t paying sufficient attention to what he actually said but actually it repays attention. Firstly he is the Curator of the Under-gallery and that is a role to which the Doctor was personally appointed by Elizabeth (18 minutes into the episode). Secondly it is deliberately not clear whether he is a future or past generation of the Doctor (who might, he says, choose to revisit some of his former faces at some point in his future) or something else. Thirdly, it seemed to me that it introduced an element of weirdness about the Doctor’s identity that we haven’t really had since the latter days of Sylvester McCoy and the so-called “Cartmel Masterplan”.

Billie Piper was excellent as the AI of The Moment – a Doomsday Weapon – which adopted the form of the Bad Wolf. Jenna Coleman played a blinder and, true to “The Name of the Doctor”,  it was she who was exactly what the Doctor needed at the right time even as the events of that episode have not yet been settled.

John Hurt was outstanding and brought a gravitas and maturity to the character that we have not seen in a long time.

And it was great to see David Tennant and Matt Smith together, something which reaffirmed why I have preferred Smith’s tenure – underneath the madcap persona there is a nuanced characterisation that shone through.

My only real doubt was about Joanna Page as Queen Elizabeth. This isn’t because of Ms Page’s undoubted talents but because, just as Patrick Troughton was “my” Doctor, so Glenda Jackson will forever be “my” Elizabeth.

And so we have the end of a chapter, or perhaps the end of volume one of the Doctor. He has run away from his heritage and has now saved it, in the process healing himself. Now we have to see how he goes forward with his new knowledge and how the weirdness, the “otherness” represented by the Curator, plays out.

Here’s to Chapter 2

ps – one final ambiguity: we saw John Hurt start his regeneration but we didn’t see him complete it. I know what we’re supposed to think but…

The Moment!