The episode had all the strengths and weaknesses of a Russell T. Davis episode and series opener - "cute" gimmicks, a lot of humour, some of it visual, excellent inter-character dialogue, a couple of touching two-actor scenes, and a high concept just straddling the line to campness. But it was damned watchable. And it again demonstrated Davis' tenet that "drama is about going physically upwards and downwards" (c.f. Gridlock, New Earth, the Parting of the Ways, The Voyage of the Damned etc.).

Tate puts in a strong performance as Donna which will allay some fans' concerns about her casting in the role. Convincing Bernard Cribbins to return as her grandfather, to fill the space originally planned for her dad, was another casting coup (the actor playing Donna's dad died before being able to complete his work on the series, so all his scenes were refilmed using Cribbins; the first episode is dedicated to the actor who died).

I'm not surprised that many hardcore fans of the series, meaning those bothered enough to comment about this on the internet, might have criticisms of the story. It wasn't aimed at them. It was aimed at a broad general and casual viewing population, and seems to have hit the target. The BBC use an audience appreciation index to judge the reception their programmes get. 77/100 is baseline for BBC1, and 85 and above is considered excellent. Dr Who tends to score around 86. This episode scored 88, with the highest responses from the 30-55 year old female demographic.

The episode pulled in eight and a half million viewers, a 40% viewer share, almost double the nearest competition and the highest number and proportion of viewers of any Doctor Who series premiere since its return. This was in spite of Davis' publically published criticisms of the poor timeslot the episode received, it being shown at 6.20pm on Saturday rather than the more usual 7.00pm, which he predicited would lose the series up to 1.5m viewers. Davis may be vindicated in his view even so, since the Sunday night digitial/satellite repeat pulled in a record 1.2 million viewers and the BBC website has recorded over a million downloads of the episode.

And there was one genuine surprise moment that was completely unspoiled beforehand. The scene wasn't in any of the preview versions of the episode sent to reviewers or shown at the series debut press event. The broadcast tape was substituted on the day of broadcast to slot in an extra 30 seconds which had been shot in secret - and it was a really unexpected development provoking a little frisson.

So casual viewers will enjoy it, "professional" fans will get plenty to debate. It does its job as an episode - but hopefully better will follow.