Firstly, the plot. The story here was of a miracle fat loss pill, that ultimately spawned the Adipose, small, cute-ish creatures made of fat with one eye firmly on the merchandising market. They were quite good little critters in a tidy, if unspectacular story that had some parallel with last year’s Gridlock in that it took a modern day tabloid football and projected it. Still, there was some other healthy stuff going on in the episode, and surprisingly, Catherine Tate topped the bill. Like many, I was in two minds about her introduction, but her sparring with the Doctor was far more controlled than I was expecting, and certainly makes a better character dynamic than another female assistant fawning over the Time Lord. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes, but so far Tate’s sidestepped the majority of fears. Good to see Bernard Cribbins in Who again too, as her Grandfather. Most interesting though are the seeds that you wonder are being sowed for the weeks ahead. A shortage of bees presumably ties into the episode later in the season where a huge bee turns up (I worked that out by myself), while the appearance of Rose at the end was a lovely little moment, left completely unexplained for now and rightly so. In all, for me it was a promising start. Partners In Crime was no classic episode, and relied a little too much on a few Who conventions to get by, but it’s a solid foundation for what looks like a lot of fun to come. And that volcano eruption next week looks great… See our other review of Partners In Crime here…
