Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road

 "I've even been trampled by a moose..."

Well, that was enormous fun. I have to say, it's not a bad idea to debut a new Doctor on Christmas Day. Large casual audience, so no continuity to speak of other than "mavity" and the Doctor having recently realised he's an orphan, other than Mrs Flood's mid-credits line, whiuch we'll come to in due course. And, unlike The Christmas Invasion, the new Doctor is up and running in what looks like a great jumping on point. Despite the light continuity, this isn't a reboot as such, but it feels a lot like Rose.

Anyway... Ncuti Gatwa is outstanding. Charismatic, with charm, humour and gravitas. Interesring hints of queerness for this Doctor but, well, what's new? He is absolutely the Doctor. I say that without reservation. He's even overcome my prejudice against moustaches. That's saying a lot. Then there's the immediately relatable Ruby Sunday, whose mysterious past as a foundling, dumped by a mysterious hooded woman, is so a hook for future adventures.

She has a well-rounded family too, especially her adoptive mum, Carla. RTD uses timey-wimeyness to cleverly adddepth to her character by showing us, almost Pyramids of Mars-style, what her life would have been like without Ruby- bitter, unhappy, living without love.

The point of the episode is, of course, new beginnings, new characters. Not that I don't love the pirate goblins in the sky with their pirate ships and bizarre sciences of rope and coincifdence that are definitely not magic, nope, definitely not. The concepts on display here seem effortlessly brilliant. Loving the bad luck stuff… and the reveal of Davina. Then there's the songs. They're so wrong, yet so right. I love them. I am sooo using this episode to indoctrinate Little Miss Llamastrangler (happily in bed!) tomorrow.

But Mrs Flood... hmm. "Never seen a TARDIS before?" Not the Master, I assume. Let's not pretend the Rani is worth bringing back. The Meddling Monk? Not a bad idea, but probably too fannish a thought. Tecteun? Too Chibbers. Nope, someone else. But someone big enough to warrant casting Anita Dobson...

Anyway, that was fun, Which was precisely what it needed to be.

Dead Set: Part 4

 "I mean, don't forget, this place used to be like a church to them."

Things are hotting up. The Big Brother house is under siege by zombies who are quite blatantly lampshaded as cheerfully blatant metaphors for consumers of celebrity culture. This cheerfully winks at us, knowing that it isn't very clever. But so much else here is.

At last Pippa and Patrick get out to the others, and Patrick- surely based on real producers Charlie Brooker may have encountered: he says, after killing zombie Davina, "I hired her. I can do what I want." And his effect on the group is immrediate, profoundly obnoxious, alienating and clearly making no friends, which may not be very clever in the long run. Yet he's ruthless, makes the hard choices, and you can see how he got where he is.

Meanwhile, we have Riq, the decent romantic, and Alex, the hardened cynic who, in the end, sacrifices her life for romance hoped for vicariously. The characterisation, darkly witty humour and encroaching sense of threat are approaching perfection.

Dead Set: Part 1

 "Please do not swear!"

Long before Black Mirror, in 2008, when Charlie Brooker was still giving us his excellent Screen Wipe on BBC4, we had this, what is at first glance a high concept bit of fun about the Big Brother house during the zombie apocapypse. But it's so much more than that and, indeed, so much more fun than that.

I first watched this as it aired. Watching it today reveals starkly how long ago 2008 feels- the "edgy" vibe, the toxic workplaces and bad bosses, the pre-#MeToo mores, Heat magazine, the phones, trashy pop culture on mass market telly as opposed to the online ghettos to which it is now rightly consigned. Reality TV is well made, and there's an art to it, but in the same way that there's an art to Sun journalists managing to present the news in words of one syllable. It's genuine talent, wasted.

And the zombies are the most bleeding obvious of metaphors. They first attack the screaming crowd after a Big Brother eviction. Are the ensuing ravenous zombie hordes really much different from what they replaced? There's a glorious shot of a dead eyed zombie watching the feed from the Big Brother house. It says it all.

The script is wonderful. Charlie Brooker gives us a fun and real-seeming set of housemates and, in Jaime Winstone's Kelly, a star we can identify with: a runner, probably an unpaid, exploited intern, The satire of the TV industry and its working is splendid too, from a writer who knows his stuff. And, of course, zombie Davina McCall. Need I say more?

First class stuff.