I'm still not sure why this guy is given house room. He makes some good observations, but given the mind-numbing length of the pieces, he's just a bitter stopped clock.

Is he anything other than a very loquacious punter?

He's a bloke who wrote a couple of apparently audacious Doctor Who books back in the 90s when there was no prospect of the series ever coming back and that was the only medium they survived in (others who did the same include RTD, Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell and Steven Moffat (sort of) ).

Since then he's also co-written some quite entertaining reference books. Full of long essays.

Now he's just something of a bitter failure resentful of the fact he never got asked to write for the new series. Then he got involved in a huge and very messy row about Mark Gatiss's story The Unquiet Dead. He said it was a crypto-racist anti-immigration fable. Other people thought he was being silly. He became the official enfant terrible of Doctor Who fandom. Like Simon Lydiard and Gary Levy before him.

Don't get me started on Simon Lydiard.

The other problem with Resetting this regeneration is that it will completely and irrevocably destroy the credibility of future instances. Because the next time it happens and there is a change of lead actor, people will just say "Well, why didn't he..."

I have to say that was one of the most "Brilliant" things I have read in a wee while - thanks for putting that up!

As otehrs have said, there are some shrewd and sometimes funny observations, but nothing to make me think the man is anything other than just a bit of a cunt with an axe to grind.

Anyway, further to earlier discussion, I watched the webcast of Shada on the bbc site (the audio version recorded with McGann and Ward). Excellent script I thought, could have been great.

A couple of weeks ago, that Miles bloke posted up a script he'd written in a couple of days as proof that he could write better than Steven Moffat.

I only got through the first couple of pages, so I don't know whether it approached adequacy after that.

He comes across as a 21st century Ian Levine.

Be fair to the bloke. That script may have been a bit short of thrills & spills, but it was hardly Doctor In Distress.

Lawrence Miles could never write anything as beautiful as "boop boop boop boop boop boop boop boop boop boop K9".

The Daily Telegraph's list of the ten best Dr Who stories:

10. Blink
9. The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve
8. Inferno
7. Human Nature / Family of Blood
6. The Curse of Fenric
5. The City of Death
4. The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
3. Genesis of the Daleks
2. The Caves of Androzani
1. The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Nothing too controversial in teh top five. Curse of Fenric is waaay too high. It's barely the 6th best McCoy story.

I'd probably drop Inferno, too. Peter Purves sounds brilliant in the soundtrack of The Massacre so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on that one, even though they only including it because Paul Cornell says so.

Power of the Daleks and Kinda at 9 and 10 for me with Blink, Massacre & Human Nature shuffled up to make space.

Of course, this will all change tomorrow when I remember about Seeds of Doom, Happiness Patrol, Love & Monsters, The Aztecs.

But, then, what do I know? I think The Mutants is pretty good.

I haven't seen nearly enough to form an opinion, though I have been watching a few of the old ones lately. I'll make Talons of Weng-Chiang next.

Did we ever do a 'worst ten'?

10th worst - Silver Nemesis
9 - The Runaway Bride
8 - Fear Her
7 - Delta & The Bannermen
6 - The Space Museum
5 - Underworld
4 - Battlefield
3 - Time Flight
2 - Timelash

and the absolute pits, completing a grand slam for stories beginning with "Time":

1 - Time & The Rani

Of course.

Be warned that The Horse thought Talons of Weng Chiang was a sack of shit. It's probably best watched once you've already got old-style Doctor Who well and truly under your skin, as it is pretty much a distillation of everything that made old Who what it was. If you already love old Who then Talons will make you weep with joy. If you're equivocal you may well be bored or dismissive or both.

Worst Ten? Great idea:

10 The Masque of Mandragora - I know most people like it, but it just bored me.
9 Timelash - Not as bad as everyone says, but still shit.
8 The Invasion Of Time - Two poor stories wedged together to make a six parter.
7 Time & The Rani - No redeemable good guys, no convincing bad guys.
6 The Shakespeare Code - Shakespeare as Liam Gallagher elevating JK Rowling to genius level.
5 Delta & The Bannermen - A dire story that must have been reduced from four episodes, by removing random scenes.
4 The Movie - Let's completely reinvent the character, make some shit up, and less entertaining than Ian Levene's online pedantry about the name on the DVD release (and that was as entertaining as it sounds).
3 The Twin Dilemma - see Time and The Rani, but with less plot.
2 Fear Her - The only time I've ever thought "Is this shit still on, how long's left" after less than quarter of an hour.
1 Underworld - Having not seen any Doctor Who for 3-4 years, this was the one that happenned to be the first one I saw on UK Gold. "I can't believe I used to like that shit". It put me off until the TV Movie another 3-4 years later.