[Stuart]

It's worth remembering that the original series could be quite variable. Some stories were good, some bad. This is something that a lot of people seem to forget, and something it has in common with the new series.

Another thing the old series did have in common with the new series is that some people always complained it wasn't as good as it used to be.

One thing I like about this episode is the way Neil Gaiman wrote it. He seems able, on occasion, to write in a style very similar to Douglas Adams (the Books, not the Hitchhikers TV series). There were parts of this story that felt almost as if Douglas Adams had written them (and at least one Douglas Adams reference if you can spot it).