It’s the end of the series so I’m going to talk about myself a while. I’m not suggesting I’m Amy Pond or anything (although I am ginger, a bit Scottish and have quite good legs). But when I was a little boy I had a fictional friend called The Doctor who lived in my imagination (as well as on my television). I’m only old enough to remember Sylvester McCoy, and as much as we’re supposed to think he sucked, the entire thing felt magical. Also like Amy Pond, when I was 10 years old, he left me, and I set about getting into Nirvana and cider and trouble without the shackles of geek. But he taught the little boy things about imagination and exploration and daftness and pacifism that stayed with me. Obviously, my parents did most of it, but I genuinely believe I turned out a better person for having Doctor Who in my life. It is not and should not be hard sci-fi, but it is, I think, one of the reasons we can be proud to be British.

Like Amy Pond (I’ll stop soon, I promise), the Doctor came back to me in my mid-20s and it took about seven seconds of the episode Rose to get me hooked again. In that sense, I’m at the exact midpoint of Doctor Who fandom; between the old guard who dogmatically remember the old days, and the new generation for whom Nu-Who were their first flourishes of Timelordy goodness.

The point is, Doctor Who is a part of our national collective memory. And so everybody within this hive mind feels an ownership over it – like the NME or the decisions of the England football coach – and has ideas about how it should be. Look how high emotions run on these and other forums – whether it’s love or whether it’s spite, it’s always driven by passion. Versions of Doctor Who fandom are as varied as versions of Doctor Who itself.

With all that in mind, with season finale The Big Bang approaching, now is a good time to consider Doctor Who v11.1.

Given the quality of the earlier Who episodes he’d written, expectations were insanely high for Steven Moffat as showrunner. Those expecting dark, adult versions of Who every week were always going to be disappointed. Moffat’s instinct was to bring Doctor Who back into the realms of fairy tale and the childlike threat of the monster under the bed. His dialogue was less soapy and more spiky than that of the RTD era, unsurprising for one of the grand masters of Britcom, but it’s led some to bemoan a lack of heart. There was also a lot less death than previously, but when someone did die, such as Father Octavian in Flesh and Stone, it ploughed heavy into the heart.

Concerns about Matt Smith’s age and experience were, of course, rashly unfounded. In the event, it took just minutes for nostalgic memories of David Tennant to melt away like so much psychic pollen. It’s his first series, but if this is finding his feet, I shudder with glee to think what is going to come next from the most alien Doctor of them all.

Karen Gillan began the series as a revelation, spiky and soulful and sassy and various other words that begin with ‘S’ that aren’t sappy or spineless or simpering. It’s true that at times Amy’s felt a little one note, with a default setting of SHOUTING or enunciating the ends of her sentences! But I’d put all of that down to guest writers responding to a character brief that probably said little more than “feisty redhead”.

When the new team started making this series they wanted to call it “series one”, to some consternation. But the fact is, it was – this was a fresh team feeling its way just as the previous one was in 2005. So as we get ready to resolve the most impossible of cliffhangers, how do you think “series fnarg” has shaped up?