FORTY years.

Forty years ago to this very day, my five-year-old self sat in our livingroom in Beith and watched my very first full episode of Doctor Who.

And yes, it was scary! No hiding behind the sofa for me, oh no, no, no. As a featureless, silent dummy with a gun hidden in its plastic wrist pursued its victim through the woods, I exited the livingroom altogether, using the presence of a box of Gypsy Creams as an excuse to venture into the kitchen, re-emerging only after the action on screen had reverted to a less nightmare-inducing scene.

Not only was this the very first Doctor Who adventure broadcast in colour, it was also the first starring Jon Pertwee. And he was my Doctor. Always has been, always will be.

That’s not to say that I have no affection or admiration for other actors who have taken up the part; Tom Baker was probably the best Doctor ever. It’s just that he came along when I was too old to be scared by the programme. And I loved to be scared. Still do.

Which brings me to the departure two days ago of David Tennant’s tenth Doctor. He was an inspired choice to play the part, wasn’t he? I vividly recall hearing the news, after just one episode of the rebooted Who had been broadcast in 2005, that Christopher Eccleston was packing it in at the end of the season. The news provoked hysterical sobbing in middle aged men throughout the length and breadth of my house, and a consequent sneering contempt for them displayed by their wives. Or wife…

Anyhoo, the same news bullietin held out a grain of hope that the future was not as grim as first feared: speculation was rife that the star of Russell T. Davies’s previous BBC drama, Casanova, would take over from Eccleston. This was confirmed a few short weeks later and, on 18 June 2005, the ninth Doctor “died”, to be replaced by the gurning countenance of the young Scottish actor.

For four years he’s played the part – longer than the average tenure of other actors playing the role. Only Tom Baker and Pertwee lasted longer (if we don’t count Sylvester McCoy’s disastrous reign as lasting from 1987, when he took over, right up until Paul McGann’s appearance in the 1996 TV movie; the series was cancelled in 1989).

So before I offer some critical remarks about part 2 of The End of Time, let me offer a balance to some of the criticism that Davies has endured during his time as DW‘s showrunner. Yes, his writing wasn’t always consistent. He too often relied on incomprehensible McGuffins to get the Doctor out of situations he himself had created. He wrote some real stinkers: Fear Her in season two springs readily to mind, as does the finale of season three, when the Master is defeated in an entirely unsatisfactory way.

Yet one of the reasons for the criticisms was that he himself raised the bar so high when the series was relaunched in 2005. RTD is a fan, and he understands what made DW such a success in the first place. More to the point, he understood why it was eventually cancelled. The ridiculous scripts, lamentable acting, and plots that tried to be more clever than scary and ended up as neither. The producer who presided over the death of the “classic” Doctor Who was Jon Nathan-Turner, a man who simply didn’t understand what the show was supposed to be. When it was cancelled it deserved to be; it deserved to be put out of its misery.

RTD was the anti-Nathan-Turner, reversing the damage done by his predecessor and breathing new life into a beloved show. Sometimes the critics overlook how successful he was. How quickly we forget how grateful we were that he was appointed to resurrect the show in the first place. Because he is one of the best TV writers in the country and he produced, even at its weakest points, something that was high quality and wonderfully entertaining.

But let’s talk about Friday’s episode which saw the introduction, in its last few seconds of Matt Smith’s Doctor.

It had all the hallmarks of a typical RTD story: an epic notion (the return, not just of the Time Lords, but the planet Gallifrey itself in Earth’s orbit), improbable solutions and more mysticism and prophecies than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at.

How could a single bullet fired into a computer panel foil the Time Lords’ plans to take over Earth? How could a diamond thrown by Rassilon (for it was he) at a hologram of Earth actually find its way into the Master’s back yard? How could the isolation chamber in the mansion be made of Vinvocci unbreakable glass? Why had Donna’s mother and fiancé, having turned into the Master the day before, not moved from the kitchen by the time the process was reversed by the Time Lords? What was the “defence mechanism” used by Donna to escape the pack of ravenous Masters in the alleyway?

Nevertheless, it was wonderful to watch, and it had some golden moments: the realisation that the Master’s own warped personality was a deliberate construct of the Time Lords themselves, the Doctor and the Master each choosing to fight the Time Lords rather than each other; Wilf doing a Millennium Falcon on the pursuing missiles.

And of course, there was David Tennant, whose performance was breathtaking. His angry bitterness at Wilf for getting himself trapped in the isolation chamber was just amazing. His plaintive cry of “I don’t want to go!” as his regeneration drew near was positively heartbreaking.

So, on the whole, a brilliant but deeply flawed episode, and one well worth watching again.

Davies and Tennant will be deeply missed and they have both contributed massively to the success of the popular myth that is Doctor Who. I’m prepared to be proved wrong, but I expect that Steven Moffat and Matt Smith will pick up the baton and take the series to new heights.