Doctor Who: The Legend Of Ruby Sunday Review - 6 Ups & 4 Downs

This season, I've not been able to shake the feeling that we might be juggling one mystery box too many, and I think this episode highlighted exactly which plotline feels superfluous.

Along with Susan Twist and Ruby's Mother, Mrs Flood makes for the third mysterious woman this series whose identity we've been left pondering, but unlike these other two plotlines, Mrs Flood feels rather tacked on, having briefly turned up only a handful of times, very unsubtly broken the fourth wall each time, and left. At this point, it feels likely that this twist is being held for next season, and if that's the case, it might have been better served being left to one side for this run altogether, or reworked to bear less similarity to existing plotlines.

I mentioned the unsubtlety of this character, which I don't find to be as fun and cheeky as seems to be intended - what is likely an attempt by RTD to be campy instead comes across as lazy. Mrs Flood delivers two lines in this episode, and one of them talks about how good she is at 'hiding herself' - considering she can't go two seconds without practically winking at the camera, it's a wonder that the people around her don't seem to react to how unhinged she must come across - I certainly wouldn't trust her to look after poor Cherry (who once again was robbed of her cup of tea - a heinous crime).

I'm not one to spend too long dragging an actor's performance but, I'm afraid, Anita Dobson's acting is proving to be rather hammy so far - not a fan.