We love Jeff Lynne too

Love & Monsters was not your run-of-the-mill Who episode by anyone’s stretch of the imagination. The Doctor and Rose were sidelined for much of the episode (intense shooting schedules and double banked production being the cause), which gave Russell T the opportunity to stretch his creative wings. What he dreamt up was a natural extension to the character of Clive (as played by Mark Benton in Rose). Here we find a group of people who have become intrigued by the mysterious Doctor, they meet up on a regular basis, share their mutual interest and finally, this disparate collection of souls become friends. Any resemblence to the concept of Doctor Who fandom at large is purely intentional. At the heart of this collective is Elton Pope, a hugely likeable chap played on right of geekiness by Marc Warren, but it is the arrival of Peter Kay’s character, Victor Kennedy, that sees the story develop.

So far, so odd. Where then did it all go wrong? Well the monster, for that is what Victor turns out to be, looks like it was designed by an 8-year old (in actual fact it was designed by an 8-year old, but shouldn’t we get better from our favourite programme?), there is a decidely left-field ending regarding a living paving slab, and the viewer is probably left somewhat bewildered. It suffers, like James Blunt, from being easy to hate. You can see what it’s trying to achieve, it’s not without merit, but it’s a little… whiny. However, some of us like James Blunt because it’s catchy, easy to absorb (ha!), and requires little in the way of thought. This is the marmite of Doctor Who episodes…. you’ll either love it or hate.

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Tags: BBC1, Billie-Piper, Doctor Who, Love-&-Monsters, Peter-Kay, Rose-Tyler, Russell-T-Davies, The-Doctor