Being the massive cultural phenemenon it is, changes in the actor of the eponymous Doctor of Doctor Who are inevitably burdened with people shaking heads and saying doom. So, when Matt Smith was announced - there was a great deal of clucking about him being a mere 27, the youngest Doctor ever.

Needless to say, the first episode Eleventh Hour has silenced many critics because Matt Smith and new head writer/executive producer Stephen Moffat kicked the living daylights out of everything that fanfic writing loser RTD ever did. He's energetic but not like a child sans ritalin (Tennant) and expressive but not gurning (Eccleston) and while it's just the first episode, there is no sense he's going to spend his whole time moaning about how he killed all the Timelords or how he's "so sorry" about absolutely EVERYTHING.

The episode starts right where The End Of Time left off, with the new Doctor, trying to stop the TARDIS crashing into Big Ben... amazingly, instead of crashing into slum council estate to a Billy Piper wannabe, we get him going into a village. A village that is not London... OR CARDIFF. Admittedly, the series has gradually moved away from the extreme constrictions of the first RTD season but this seems a a good fresh start and the Doctor running through a village is distinctly old school Who...

There's no pointless referencing of pop culture, gratuitous injection of homosexuality and no horrible cheesiness that makes you cringe... not to mention that technobabble and ridiculous fixes for problem are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the Doctor himself observes that he saves the day with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver. Which is a nice touch - a far more innovative solution to the problem presented than the Doctor simply babbling wildly while jumping around like a jack in the box with ADHD.

There's a great deal more subtlety to both the Doctor and his new companion, Amelia Pond. They are much more understate... the show does not feel as if it is going to lapse into slapstick or schmaltz and the second episode had a chance for both. It's the kind of subtlety that you'd never see in an RTD script and generally struggled to emerge under his auspices and the Doctor has yet to be venerated as some incredible and infallible person - one of the primary flaws of RTD's writing of the Doctor was that in all of three seconds, everyone would think he was the best thing since sliced bread... things with Amelia have been a little different as the Doctor kind of dicked her around a bit... and she's apparently running away from her wedding.

So, thinks are looking interesting.