CAROLYN claimed in advance that even if I didn’t really like The Eleventh Hour, I would insist that I did, just because Steven Moffat’s a friend.

But the fact is, I absolutely loved it! Genuinely. Matt Smith was a revelation as the Doctor – just perfect. And the plot – and especially the brilliant script – were up there with Steven’s previous efforts for Doctor Who. I just wish every episode could be an hour and five minutes long instead of 45 minutes.

Although quite a low-key adventure, it did the job of introducing the new Doctor and Amy. There were far fewer loose ends and “reversing the polarity of the neutron flow” explanations of previous years, and the nod to our hero’s previous ten incarnations at the end totally worked.

Some minor quibbles: I did not like the new “disco” version of the theme tune, although the new graphics were very good. The “what did I see?” line was a  bit clumsy and jarred a bit; it reminded me of the “what have we learned today?” sequences beloved of certain irritating CBeebies programmes (although the actual mechanism of reviewing what the Doctor had seen was ingenious). And I thought we were going to get an explanation as to why the Tardis is now an exact replica of Peter Cushing’s ship from the 1960s “Dalek” movies. Maybe next week…

I took a look at the fan forum last night, where 80 per cent of contributors had given the episode at least eight out of ten (I gave it nine). Mainstream media reviews also seem to have been very positive.

So, a general election campaign and a new series of Doctor Who: does it get better than this?