Love & Monsters Review (At Last)

From Our British Correspondent (who is almost caught up)

After the huge scale of the previous story comes an episode that's not only small but also different. Very different. Very, very different. Fans have been ragging on it since it aired. And I loved it.

Love & Monsters marks the return of Russell T Davies as writer, his last episode being the uncharacteristic (for him, at least) Tooth & Claw. Here he gives us a story that's not so much about the Doctor as it is about Doctor Who and its fans. In fact the Doctor and Rose only appear briefly, with the bulk of the story given over to a small group of people with a common interest: the Doctor.

One of the joys of this story for me was recognizing bits of myself and DW groups I've been part of down the years in both Elton and L.I.N.D.A. Like Elton, I met the love of my life in a DW club (3 marriages came out of that club, btw). And music played an important part of the group (Duran Duran, not ELO however). Lots of great memories came flooding back thanks to this episode.

True, bits of it were rather silly, but they were supposed to be. Some fans haven't seemed to catch on, but at least the cast knows what's going on and does a splendid job with it. And special mention must be made of the Absorbaloff (from the planet Clum, which apparently does indeed have a North), the winning entry of last year's Blue Peter Design a DW Monster contest. RTD did a brilliant job of building a fan-related story around a fan-created monster. Thank you, Russell. At least this fan loved it.