• The week has so far been manic with work, and only a small amount of time at home in front of either the TV or a keyboard. #
• However, irritating thing of the week: hosepipe ban kicks in on Friday, and thus I hope it rains a lot for the health of my lovely grass. #

• Already seen more quality in the first 20 minutes of the men's final at Wimbledon than during the entire women's effort yesterday. #
• So far Berdych vs Nadal is going the same as Murray vs Nadal, which is Berdych and Murray both suddenly blow a service game. #

• Wimbledon ladies final was a tad one sided. You've got to feel short changed with tickets for a ladies match, it's over in no time. #

Today marks the first Saturday in over three months when The Doctor has not been a part of my living room. Yes, Series 31 – or NuWho Series 5 – finished last week. How has it stood up to the previous incarnations?

I’ve watched Doctor Who since the seventies. I’m not a new convert. I’m got form. Davidson was “my” Doctor – I was too young to really remember the Tom Baker era, although I do remember his fall from Jodrell Bank and visiting the Doctor Who exhibition in Blackpool in the same year. As an aside, that was a fantastic exhibition with a fantastic TARDIS – it left an impression on me, but I don’t remember feeling any remorse or crying any tears when Tom finally handed over the baton.

I remember, with almost crystal clear clarity, the wonders of Kinda and Snakedance. I can remember Nyssa, wearing not very much at all – quite a pleasing sight even at that age. I remember the death of Adric, and subsequently Davidson turning into a the pseudo clown of the Colin Baker era. The portrayal was a miscalculation, the quality dipped, but the Trial of a Time Lord was a redeeming story with a depth which would stand with any of the previous series.

Then politics of the BBC, and the Sylvester McCoy era – with the very questionable beginning of Series 24. Make no mistake the start of that season was very, very poor. But Season 24 gave us my all time favourite companion of Ace – I was a teenager – and a wonderful relationship between her and her Professor. Quality improved, with Series 26 standing tall, topped by the The Curse of Fenric. Then Michael Grade got his way and cancelled Doctor Who. But if there was a way to go out, Season 26 was not a bad epitaph. Not bad at all.

Doctor Who subsequently became the butt of cruel jokes. History was re-written. It was repainted as a typically British show, with poor production values. Wobbly sets? Running down corridors? Dodgy monsters? Yep, that funny show, with that bloke out of All Creatures Great and Small. But one man had vision – Russell T. Davies, whom managed to resurrect the series against all popular expectation and wisdom. Many of us were excited, but with some trepidation – how on earth was the show going to be received. It was cancelled once for a reason.

The subsequent Series 27 wasn’t perfect, but it was as good enough. There was a subtle shift to move the companion on almost equal billing as The Doctor, and this was reflected by the relatively star billing of Billy Piper alongside Christopher Ecclestone. Great highs – The Empty Child – and great lows – Aliens of London – followed, and the nation got swept up in Doctor Who again. In retrospect, five years on, it’s easy to see that it was precisely the right time to bring it back, to capture the void in all-ages family programming on a Saturday evening. Also in retrospect, Series 27 wasn’t quite as good as people may remember. On the hit/miss ratio, there were as many misses as hits – which the subsequent series have avoided.

Ecclestone didn’t like hard work, and left after a single series. And so David “Barcelona” Tennant took over as Ten, and the golden era began. Series 28 was better across the board,although we’ll ignore Love & Monsters, and Fear Her which were budget driven episodes. In companion terms, we traded down for Series 29 and lost Billie Piper to Freema Agyeman, the Dalek’s got much, much sillier in Daleks in Manhatten but we received a fine back stretch with the Family of Blood, the incomparable Blink and the return of The Master, played superbly by John Simm for a final three episode finale.

Unfortunately, Tennant’s final specials were disappointing to me. Despite being one of the best Doctors in the history of the programme and Series 30 being of the very best with Catherine Tate supplying a superb companion with a generally excellent selection of stories, the subsequent specials however suffered from a companion of the week and the pages, and pages of necessary exposition to introduce them and the Doctor wallowing in pre-regenerative angst like some teenager suddenly confronted by his own mortality, not a man who was old beyond his years and had been through the process at least nine times previously. This wasn’t Davidson, smiling sadly as he gave Peri the antidote at the expense of his own regeneration.

The specials therefore became one huge, sentimental, indulgent tombstone to the passing of Tennant, and indeed the whole production team. The slightly messy syrup of Series 30′s Journey’s End looked positively restrained by the time we got to The End of Time. On the World is Not Enough DVD, Michael Apted made specific commentary that when you’ve resolved the plot you want to get out of the film as quickly as possible to the credits, not overstay your welcome and tarnish the experience with fluff. Unfortunately, The End of Time then treated us to ten minutes plus of sentimental wanderings as the Doctor put his affairs in order – this could only be described as an conceit. It was sloppy writing and mired the bookend to an otherwise superb overall archive supplied by the Tennant era. Even the wonderful John Simm was utterly wasted as The Master – now suddenly with super-powers after a botched resurrection attempt, which has to go down as one of the worst acted, campiest scenes in NuWho. And considering Aliens of London, that’s quite poor.

The overwhelming feeling was that Doctor Who, although this is probably more true of the producers and Russell T Davies, had run out of steam. It was flabby, sentimental, self-reverential.

Would this carry over to Series 31?

To be concluded in Part 2/2.

• So, Andy "Dropshot" Murray chokes again. #

• Couple of very stressed days when all you can do is swim against the current and hope you are somewhere reasonable at the end of it. #