The great teaser, with the Doctor’s bemused words to camera, leads into the first half of the two-part Doctor who series finale.

Spoofing Big Brother (and Weakest Link for that matter) are a little pass&eacute even when it involves contestants dying (The Year of the Sex Olympics, which deals with a similar issue was broadcast in 1968), but it’s hard not to enjoy the bizarre crossover with Doctor Who. The incessant Big Brother music (if you’ve got the rights, flaunt them…) is a bit over the top but the housemates are fun pastiches, especially the camp Strood who offers crocodile tears – “it should have been me” – when Crosby is evicted. This is, however, followed by Lynda-with-a-y and one of the worst lines of the episode: “She’s been evicted…from life.”

One of Russell Davies’s best episodes, the cliffhanger is great. Who is the Bad Wolf? How did the Daleks survive? Will the Doctor win? And the Doctor’s final line is straight out of Big Brother: “I’m coming to get you!”

Boom Town, the eleventh episode of Doctor Who, was a late addition, apparently: an empty slot allowing it to be influenced by the previous episodes. We’re therefore rewarded with the return of one of the weaker villains of the series. I’m going to be nit-picky. Sorry.

If we take the episode at face value, it has been six months since World War Three. In that time Margaret Slitheen has become Lord Mayor of Cardiff, commissioned a nuclear power station and achieved the necessary go-aheads to build it. Given that the original Margaret Blaine was from MI5, she won’t have been involved in politics before her previous appearance. Are we to assume half the politicians in Cardiff have been bumped off? And a Lord Mayor doesn’t run the council, they chair council meetings and cut ribbons. If Margaret is a directly-elected mayor, her achievement is all the greater. Especially as she seems to have help on despite knocking down in her car one of the people involved in the nuclear project. Credit to Annette Badland, though: she’s much better than in her previous appearance with some notable moments, although stilly hammy at times. She also gets some good scenes: the line about London not caring about Wales and her various attempts to kill the Doctor in the restaurant (plus the mention of venom grubs) are highlights.

Jack is pretty redundant in the episode which is unfortunate as he’s only just been introduced. Meanwhile, characters make great leaps: the Doctor knows immediately that the power station is flawed; Margaret suddenly has great insight into the Doctor’s personality. The brief realisation about Bad Wolf is handled well: spooky and then funny. There are fewer special effects in this episode but the cracks forming in the ground around the TARDIS are great.

Russell T. Davies shows his strengths with his dialogue and the scenes between Rose and Mickey are perfectly pitched. It’s a shame, though, that we never got to see Rose’s first visit to an alien planet. Davies’s characters are let down a little by his plots. In this case the deus ex machina ending, to which he confesses in Doctor Who Confidential, is a disappointment.

But Boom Town casts itself as a morality tale and here it doesn’t succeed. It poses interesting questions about the Doctor’s willingness to kill – although he didn’t seemed bothered about finishing off the last of the human race a few weeks ago – but the opening rift and the Slitheen’s return to traditional monster mode let him off any decision. When Margaret asks the TARDIS crew and Mickey to look her in the eye, no-one dissents so there’s no drama between them.

Some good lines but it feels like filler before the finale.

The Dalek kidnapped last week has been recovered.

A Dalek stolen from a Somerset tourist site has been found on Glastonbury Tor after thieves said it was “too hot”.
[…]
Cave owner Gerry Cottle made appeals for information. In the early hours of Tuesday, staff recieved a phone call telling them where the Dalek was.

Mr Cottle has denied that the theft of the Dalek was a publicity stunt.

Meanwhile, some excellent news from the land of the free:

Rules requiring Irish citizens to carry high-tech passports when visiting the US are to be dropped because the technology behind the scheme is seen as unreliable. The US Department of Homeland Security had previously set an October 2005 deadline for the inclusion of biometric information chips in the passports of European citizens who avail themselves of the Visa Waiver programme. This programme allows people to make short-term visits to the US without a visa. The chips would have included a variety of biological information about the passport holder, such as their fingerprints and retina scans.

But according to a report in the Sunday Times, Ireland has shelved plans to include biometric chips in passports amid expectations that the US is to abandon its biometric passport requirements.

Bang goes another justification from Big Brother.

Erm, a story from BBC News.

“Kidnappers” who stole a Dalek from a Somerset tourist attraction have sent its owners a ransom note – and the robot’s amputated plunger.
[…]
On Thursday, staff found the plunger arm and a ransom note on a doorstep.

The note read: “We are holding the Dalek captive. We demand further instructions from the Doctor.”

The group, signing themselves Guardians of the Planet Earth, added: “For the safety of the human race we have disarmed and removed its destructive mechanism.”
[…]
Former Dr Who actor Colin Baker has been in touch with staff at the attraction, and may be asked to send a message to the kidnappers.