Doctor Who: Dreamland

"This is your plan?"

"It's in development!"

So replies the Doctor to his newest alien friend as they hide in a box from a swarm of hungry alien carnivorous flies in the fifth episode of the BBC animation Dreamland. And in doing so, he accidentally seems to reveal how the scripts for the animation were written - it looks as if they were made up as they went along.

In fairness, the dialogue is great, the basic story very much in keeping with the traditions of Doctor Who. In fact, this story felt like a traditional six parter, complete with the requisite padding out of episodes between cliffhangers. Of course, the old six part stories used to consist of 25 minutes episodes rather than (barring the first installment) 7 minute ones. But a bit of padding never hurt anyone. And it only becomes really jarring if you try to watch more than one episode at a time. And it doesn't help that the animation, at times, resembles a computer game.

Still, the story as such acted as filler between editions of the life-action show, so it is perhaps appropriate that is should be so padded out. Yet it is difficult to be too critical of Dreamland. It is light, breezy and entertaining. It neatly sits alongside the parent programme - a fact aided no end by an energetic vocal performance from David Tennant. And whenever I see something like this I can't help but think how lucky the Doctor Who fans of today are. Until 2005, the idea of a spin-off cartoon designed to fill in gaps between the outgoing specials of an amazingly popular Doctor would have been the stuff of pipe-dreams. There is joy to be had in Dreamland itself; and there is joy to be had in that the BBC actually bothered to produce it in the first place.