ALTHOUGH I try to hide it, I’m a bit of a Doctor Who fan, and tonight was a big date in this year’s calendar for me – the latest in David Tenant’s hour-long specials.

Waters of Mars tried to be – and was largely successful in being – a straightforward Alien-like thriller. It was tense and stylish, though not anywhere near as scary as predicted by the outgoing showrunner, Russell “the T” Davies. On another level, it returned to the occasionally-visited theme of the Doctor being the last of the Timelords and what that actually means (other than his achieving WWF status as an endangered species).

Tenant has explored this terrain before, most notably in his first appearance in the role, when he killed the leader of the Sycorax in 2005’s The Christmas Invasion, warning him: “No second chances.” This was a new facet of the character; more ruthless, less patient. Unfortunately, for most of the rest of Tenant’s reign in the Tardis, he was more like the traditional character: superior, compassionate, willing to offer that second chance to any enemy who needed it.

In Waters of Mars the Doctor finally seemed to succumb to the inevitable arrogance that most people would associate with the title “Timelord”; he actually started inventing his own rules and saying “tough” whenever someone disagreed with him. That would have been a fascinating direction to take his character. but at the very end he seemed to revert to his more familiar and safe “white hat” mode, which was a pity.

A very good episode, though, and miles better than the disappointing Planet of the Dead.

Of course, the trailer for the Christmas special, The End of Time, must have whetted every viewer’s appetite for Tenant’s curtain call in the title role. And John Sim’s back as the Master! I’ll blog, one of these days, about the drunken conversation I had with him a couple of years ago.