Doctor Who

7.40pm, BBC One

The nine-year-old kid who lives in my head was going absolutely mental during the first episode of the new Doctor Who. And, by the end, the grumbling old cynic who usually makes him go stand in a corner was jumping up and down right alongside him, shouting things like, “That’s the 1960s design! And, look: there’re some 1970s full-on grey Nazi ones!”

This doesn’t happen often. The last time was during the last series when, amid the prevailing weather of huggy, incomprehensible, wink-to-the-fans jobs that maybe you’re supposed to cry into then stick in a microwave before they begin to solidify into something, the consistently great Peter Capaldi was actually given three terrifically entertaining episodes: the excellent inside-a-dalek one; the unexpectedly tense Mummy On The Orient Express romp; and the fast, creepy invasion of the 2D aliens.

In addition to Capaldi being great, all three shared some essential ingredients: an air of stripped-down claustrophobia and time running out; good monsters; and, most importantly, actual stories. Basically, they were like watching Doctor Who.

What’s confusing me about how much I enjoyed this new one, though, is that, in many ways, it isn’t like that at all. This series opener more resembles the kind of thing head Who honcho Steven Moffat usually saves for his finales, those vast puddings into which he throws everything, and every moment has to be The Single Biggest Most Significant Final Epic Thing That Ever Happened Like Ever. But it works wonderfully. It feels big, rather than just overinflated. A clear through-line emerges. Moments that are intended to be dark, grave and dripping with consequences and implications feel just like that – even (especially) before the opening titles. There are daleks, man, and they seem sizzling and horrible once more. And in the middle, sparking like a weird, wired, witty wizard in dapper post-punk black one minute, ravaged, haunted and 50 shades of silent grey the next, is Capaldi: greater than ever, T Baker, J Pertwee, M Tucker and more in one mercurial package. He makes it all work. Handed Moffat’s worst hello-fans stuff, he just flashes through painlessly. When he gets something worthwhile, it’s like strange dancing.

In this respect, he has a great partner here. Not Clara: Jenna Coleman remains as dependable as usual, but she is blasted to the sidelines by the curdled chemistry coursing between Capaldi and the astonishing Michelle Gomez, who somehow returns as the not-dead-after-all Missy, the archenemy we used to know as The Master.

Her appearances last year were rushed, but Gomez gets more space now, and relishes in it; she even makes Moffat’s most egregious fan-baiting line sing, when she speaks of having known The Doctor, “since he was a little girl”. Batty and evil, a violent, violet Mary Poppins, it’s as if Gomez is engaged in a contest with Capaldi over who can be most unpredictable. They’re like a grotesque gothic bickering sci-fi version of Nick and Nora Charles, the married sleuths Dashiell Hammett created in The Thin Man, a couple who never let murder get in the way of cocktails and sharp repartee.

Meanwhile, the entire episode billows out of a line Tom Baker once agonised over, in a way that will thrill fans, rather than just butter them up. Another old face appears, and has his best moments in a long, long time. It ends in screaming cliffhanger, as this programme always should. Where things go from here is difficult to predict; but, for the moment, Doctor Who is back.