[Ronnie Rowlands]

My review from tv forum...

"Well I thought that that episode was as poor and ill thought out as the last three.

I thought that Michelle Ryan was cringeworthy, almost everything she said grated on me. "Extreme? That's how I like it." Mmmmmmm...

Apart from the gaping plot holes that I'll come to in a minute, the plot itself was as under developed and badly executed as anything Russell T Davies has produced in the last year. It surprises me that a man who is capable of such brilliant stories as Midnight, Turn Left, Utopia and The Sound of Drums can also produce such grating dialogue and stomach churning sentimentalism- "Oi love yew!", "Whether you like it or not I'm going to salute you". The amount of arse licking the humans subject us to these days makes me want to find the nearest human and cut off his/her tongue so that they can no longer push it down the back of the Doctor's trousers. And that's the worst of it, but the whole "I'm gonna get you home to your special families" was totally cliched and uninspiring. Just thrown in for the sake of it to make it 'thought provoking'. It wasn't that. It wasn't scary and it wasn't thought provoking, although the nod to the Italian job, "do I give up the gold to save our asses whilst trapped on this bus", made me smile. It was fun to see Lee Evans being Lee Evans but I just couldn't take him seriously. Again, there was the **** science that was lazily written. Lee Evans being able to fix the worm hole being the main example.

I find it a bit odd that these stingrays are supposed to be able to move at frighteningly fast speeds, and yet, for the full few minutes that they were in close range with the worm hole, a grand total of three managed to get through. The psychic woman just seemed totally pointless to me. Were her 'predictions' necessary? Did she serve anything to the plot and solve anything that the Doctor couldn't? I don't think so. Not that there was much of a plot, not an interesting one at least. I was actually looking forward to this episode. The whole being trapped scenario appealed to me in the same way that 'Midnight' did, but the way they solved it was boring and simple. All in all it really was just...random! And nice to see the totally secretive time lord getting out his gadgets on a bus in front of loads of people.

In summary, I thought it was dull and forgettable, the plot, the acting, the elements, the music, everything. The next episode looks extremely good, but my hopes aren't up since I thought I would enjoy this. It's stories like this that show Russell Davies in a really bad light. He throws in lazy concepts for the sake of it and as a result they don't work. Roll on Matt Smith and Moffatt! I hope they can turn it all around. Luckily, Red Dwarf is being brilliant so this episode isn't worth mulling over.

That's my two cents. Would love to have everyone else's."