I've had mixed feelings about the recent series of Doctor Who; while I've enjoyed the Doctor's new assistant, Martha, the quality of the episodes has been very variable. The really rather awful Dalek two-parter in the middle didn't help the series much at all, aside from the fact that the Radio Times gave away the plot before it even aired! Grumbles aside, the last few episodes really picked up and have been very enjoyable.
The Human Nature / Family of Blood two-part episode (based on a book by Paul Cornell) was wonderful, then there was the extremely creepy and wonderfully entertaining Blink (with the best 5 minute love story you could ever ask for). And finally, the return of Captain Jack for the final three-part masterpiece (pun intended) that was really rather fun. Yes, I ranted about Five People in a Basement in the past, and aside from one excellent episode (penned by Noel Clarke, aka Mickey from Who), I really didn't much care for the characters or the whole concept. Now, having watched the last three episodes of Doctor Who, my opinion of Jack has softened - he's an entertaining character to watch (just don't give him a gun - no-one can look more camp / less intimidating holding a gun than Jack), and he now has an incredibly interesting destiny to fulfill.
David Tennant is an excellent choice for the Doctor, and I I really enjoyed John Simm's performance. I really don't care about the fact that the final episode was hacked together from many, many sources (Return of the Jedi and Flash Gordon being the two that came to mind), because it was an enjoyable romp with a Big Reset Button and, naturally, A Ticking Clock - you can't have a scifi-by-numbers showdown between two rivals of this magnitude without using the biggest cliché's available! Much as I love Galactica and Heroes with their original approach to science fiction storytelling, there's still a market for this sort of fun stuff, and when it's done right it's very enjoyable. I just hope the next season of Torchwood isn't as much of a let down as the first one was.
By the way, why couldn't the BBC film Doctor Who in HD? The main thing that kept me watching Torchwood is that the BBC's HD content is absolutely glorious to watch, especially when compared to the HD content on Sky One. I'm not sure why this is - perhaps it's a bandwidth thing, but with the Sky HD content I'm less likely to notice the difference between HD and non-HD than with the BBC HD content.
--- UPDATE ---
Looks like Torchwood may yet have an ace up its sleeve for the next season - I do hope this rumour is true!