I must confess, I did The God Complex something of a disservice a year ago, awarding it a score of 8/10 after a single viewing; a second watch revealed the episode to be a stonewall classic and if I could have changed my score, I would have done. Now the author of that story is back, and this year I made sure and watched A Town Called Mercy twice before sitting down to write this. Much as with Whithouse’s previous episode, that second viewing helped dispel any misplaced expectations and allowed the episode to reveal its value free of the anticipation that it might be something it was never going to be.

As the mid-point in Doctor Who’s “Pond Farewell” mini-series, A Town Called Mercy is easily the best-looking episode we’ve seen in many a long while. Given Steven Moffat’s brief for larger-scale “movies” on a television budget, the trip to Spain (to shoot the episode in Clint Eastwood’s old spaghetti western sets) was worth every penny, and director Saul Metzstein has produced 45 minutes of TV that, just like his Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, wouldn’t look remotely out of place in a Cineplex. Murray Gold’s score is playful and sublime.

It’s the balance of the drama that sets this episode apart, however. The anticipation, after Daleks and dinosaurs, might have been for a cliché-busting cowboy story, dripping with wry humour and even wrier genre observation, but Whithouse’s story eschews many of these expectations and – for the larger part – does something entirely different. That first viewing was a very odd experience (and you can find out just how odd by listening to the latest Blue Box Podcast, recorded immediately after first seeing the episode).

Coming on like Universal Soldier meets Boom Town against a backdrop of A Fistful of Dollars, A Town Called Mercy is, tonally speaking, a strange kettle of fish indeed. Steven Moffat must have known, when he gave this commission to Toby Whithouse, that the author of School Reunion and creator of Being Human was unlikely to write anything as two-dimensional as the simple pitch “alien gunslinger in the Old West” might have suggested.

Toby Whithouse strikes me as the kind of writer who likes to play with convention (not to mention episode titles; after any number of combinations of Gunslinger and Mercy, in the end it’s a pity that The Two Doctors was already taken), and while his previous episodes have occasionally shown that his science fiction isn’t quite up to his character drama, for once, that doesn’t matter. There’s a point less than halfway into A Town Called Mercy when Whithouse turns the episode on its head and confounds everything you might have been led to expect from the story. And that’s when the real Toby Whithouse kicks in, and the genre conventions are largely sidelined in favour of something much closer to the author’s “comfort zone”.

The opening of the episode is something else, though. The pre-titles sequence is the most traditional we’ve seen this year, even down to the what-can-that-mean reference to “the Doctor”. It’s the scene that follows the titles that really sets the tone. No faffing around with the hows, whys and wherefores, Matt Smith has brought Amy and Rory to the Wild West, and the words Keep Out aren’t going to stop his investigating. The three characters’ arrival in Mercy is delightfully written and played. Having already been introduced to the Gunslinger, the mystery that they are trying to uncover is one that we the audience are already partly a party to – but after a brief (and very funny) jaunt through the conventions of the genre (Luke Skywalker’s best friend, as the Undertaker, is almost as amusing at Smith’s toothpick antics), we are introduced in short order to Kahler Jex, and while the bulk of the episode might not, from this point onwards, be difficult to predict, it’s the way it plays out that is ultimately so satisfactory. This is when Whithouse hits us with some Big Ideas (School Reunion showed that he’s no shrinking violet when it comes to including a Big Idea as nothing more than a sub-plot), and turns the episode into a character-led drama that nevertheless never shies away from the conventions of the genre that he’s been chosen to write.

It’s a very awkward, but somehow quite affecting, cocktail of Man With No Name cliché and authentic-feeling and very human interaction. You wouldn’t expect the grey-shaded story of the past and future Kahler Jex to sit quite so comfortably with that of the cyborg gunslinger stalking the township, but nevertheless a neat balancing act is achieved. It’s an odd experience, is A Town Called Mercy, but a rewarding one. The Doctor’s dilemma is expertly drawn, and although Smith’s initial reaction is difficult to accept (even after Solomon’s fate a week ago), at least it gives Amy something useful to do (sadly the one downside of this episode is that she and Rory are rather sidelined). But where the two companions suffer, the guest characters come into their own.

Ben Browder as Isaac pitches his laconic but idealistic performance with just the right lack of pretension, and along with Byrd Wilkins as the preacher gives the townsfolk just the authenticity that the Kahler Jex story needs to maintain its verisimilitude. Adrian Scarborough, as the alien doctor himself, is revelatory. It’s an almost impossible role, an alien wizard who is likeable and heroic, yet also a war criminal and mass-murderer in disguise. That Scarborough, the man we all remember as the hen-pecked husband giving never quite as good as he gets in Gavin & Stacey, can convince in both of Jex’s guises and even more so make the character’s final act seem believable, is astonishing. The act hits just the right shade of grey for the resolution never to seem obvious. Andrew Brooke makes for an imposingly “human” cyborg.

But the real meat of the story is the Doctor’s, and the philosophy and psychology of death and killing. There’s a beautiful moment when a young and potential new gunslinger asks of Jex, “Is he really worth the risk?” and Matt Smith’s reply, “Don’t know. But you are,” is simple and effective enough to take your breath away. There’s a lot of clowning around from Smith in this episode (not least of which with Susan the horse), but he proves here as he does time and again elsewhere that when it comes to the serious stuff, he can nail that too. Whithouse also brings up the subject of religion quite effectively, counterbalancing the superstitions of Jex with those of the residents of Mercy, and not undermining either. “You don’t get to decide when and how your debt is paid,” Jex tells the Doctor at one point, but when Jex finally decides that he can, it seems appropriate and the only way for the story to end.

The tonal shifts during the latter half of the episode are occasionally rather unsettling, and the episode as a whole has a schizophrenic nature that is difficult to come to terms with, in spite of the fluidity of Whithouse’s writing and Metzstein’s direction. It’s beautiful and thought provoking and silly in the way that only Doctor Who knows how to be, but I genuinely find it hard to know what I think of it. A Town Called Mercy sits uneasily between Chris Chibnall’s two rather more straightforward episodes, and although I doubt it’s going to be anybody’s favourite of the series, I suspect that it will leave as many viewers having enjoyed it as much as I did, while as unsure of its value as I am. The brilliant thing about Doctor Who is that it dares to be different, and that it dares to throw the occasional googly, and in spite of Steven Moffat’s promise that this run of five stories would be big and easy on the eye, Toby Whithouse’s story is certainly not as easy on the mind.

It’s an achievement that is not to be unapplauded.

As a child whose twin obsessions were dinosaurs and Doctor Who, it always rather rankled that the most disappointing elements of the otherwise excellent Invasion of the Dinosaurs were the eponymous monsters. And it’s something that I’d been praying would one day be addressed, ever since the series returned in 2005. Doctor Who meets dinosaurs; what more could a perennially 8-year-old reviewer wish for?

The lack of giant reptiles in The Hungry Earth did make me wonder if my prayers would ever be answered, however. The Silurian story seemed to be the perfect opportunity for a little “terrible lizard” action, but it proved not to be. Fortunately, thanks to that story’s author and his also-perennially-8-years-old executive producer, my wish has now come true.

And then some.

Any disappointment that might have greeted Stephen Thompson’s The Curse of the Black Spot last year was largely due to the shortage of rumbustious pirate action (an unrealistic expectation, I might add, and one that didn’t dent my own enjoyment of the episode), but the first surprise that will greet viewers of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship will be the sheer amount of dino-action included. I was fully prepared for the greater number of dinosaur scenes to be comprised of mostly harmless cutaways, reaction shots of the cast gaping in awe at the dinosaurs we couldn’t quite see at home. Instead, it was my own jaw that was gaping open as sequence after sequence paid off on the promise of the title. For a series that is apparently tightening its belt, it’s fair to say that they’ve managed to put every penny up on the screen – and more besides. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship would not be embarrassed to be a Hollywood movie.

This is no running-and-hiding Doctor Who episode either. With dinosaurs on the loose (on a spaceship!), Chris Chibnall could have been forgiven for writing a tight, cool story involving the Doctor and chums getting themselves into a bit of a scrape and then quietly and stealthily having to extricate themselves from it. No such fear. Moffat wanted big, Moffat wanted Chibnall to make good on the preposterous premise that the title promised, and Chibnall delivers. The Doctor and chums very boldly go where only reptile men have gone before, blustering into the mysterious (and beautifully realised) spaceship and trusting in their own abilities to find out what’s going on and how to stop it. It’s bold, it’s brash, and it’s pretty darned brilliant.

If there is one fault you could pick with the episode, it’s that the 45-minute running time means that a number of character points are unavoidably glossed over – Brian Williams’ surprise at his first trip in the TARDIS, for example, or the reason the Doctor thought it necessary to bring Queen Nefertiti along in the first place (although the character’s fate can be explained by Nefertiti’s disappearance from historical records sometime around 1330 BC). However, such qualms would only involve nit-picking and would be to miss the point of the exercise completely – it’s the Scooby Gang versus the dinosaurs, and the team the Doctor assembles is nicely balanced and expertly written and performed, with plenty for each of the actors to get their teeth into, and an awful lot of comedy mined from their disparities.

Riaan Steele makes for a steely Nefertiti (if you’ll pardon the pun) when called upon to do so, but also plays the earlier, flirtier version of the character with just as much enthusiasm. And Rupert Graves is a delight as John Riddell, the big game hunter the Doctor picks up seemingly on a whim. It’s a gift of a role, one that Graves underplays with precision, selflessly allowing the comedy to come out of the situations rather than trying to hog the screen with what could have been a caricature of a performance. I’m hoping the Doctor stops by again, and gives these two a second outing – I could happily sit and watch their further adventures for an entire series.

Oh, and as for the two robots… Well, casting David Mitchell and Robert Webb was a stroke of total genius. It probably won’t be a decision that the more hardcore fans will appreciate, but the bickering ‘bots certainly brought a smile to my face, and will entertain the vast majority of the episode’s audience no end. An absolutely fantastic choice.

Beyond fantastic though are David Bradley as the space bounty hunter Solomon, and Mark Williams as Rory’s dad, Brian “Pond”. We all know Bradley is capable of real menace, but the sudden turn the episode takes into pathos once the full extent of Solomon’s scheme becomes apparent is fully sold in the conviction and authenticity Bradley and Matt Smith bring to the scene. Smith is never better as the Doctor than when the tomfoolery stops and his quiet, angry side comes out, and as entertaining as the first half-hour of this story undoubtedly was, the switch towards the sombre is wonderfully handled and expertly sold. The fate of the Silurians (whose appearance was an unexpected and yet entirely logical – and very welcome – development) is genuinely upsetting, and the ensuing death of the triceratops is adroitly handled by the silent Smith, whose subsequent slow-hand-clapping of Solomon leads to what might have been, in another story, a surprising and horrifying decision to condemn a character to a rather cold-blooded fate. Here, it just feels right. Perfectly judged, and the only way that the episode can end.

But the real star turn comes from Mark Williams. Chris Chibnall writes the more mature, and slightly more cynical (but also more capable) Amy and Rory almost as expertly as their creator Steven Moffat does (making him the perfect choice to write the Pond Life sketches that preceeded this series’ transmission), but it’s the addition of Rory’s father to the team that allows for much of the humour, and helps to sell the episode’s more serious moments by grounding them in authenticity. Williams is brilliant, truly convincing as Rory’s dad (onscreen families are so often so obviously not, yet here you’ll begin to wonder if the two actors really are related), hilarious when called upon to be so, reluctantly heroic and heroically daft, and never anything less than completely genuine – and his final scene in the TARDIS is extraordinary, life affirming and beautiful. He’s the new Bernard Cribbins, and it makes it a real pity that the Ponds’ TARDIS travelling is about to come to an end, as we could have done with seeing so much more of this character. Fortunately Chris Chibnall has one more episode to spoil us with before they go.

Oh, and if sales of trowels don’t increase significantly in the week that follows this episode, then I’ll eat my hat.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship could easily have been extended to twice its length and exhibited at the cinema, and popcorn-munching movie audiences would have lapped it up. To find it a disappointment would be to miss its point; it’s intelligent dumb fun, a joyous and thrilling ride on the Doctor Who rollercoaster, but one that punctures its pleasures with moments of pure pathos, a balancing act almost impossible to achieve but effortlessly accomplished here. I don’t think I’ve ever reached the end of an episode with as big a grin on my face. My inner-8-year-old could not be happier.

There’s a moment in Asylum of the Daleks where the Doctor tells Amy and Rory just exactly how much trouble they’re in. “On a scale of one to ten,” he says, and then pauses. And continues to pause. And really milks the pause. And then, rather than say anything unexpected or clever or funny, tells them, “Eleven.” Which kind of sums up everything that’s good and bad about Asylum of the Daleks in a nutshell; all that waiting, all that expectation (this has been, after all, the longest wait between episodes of Doctor Who since the series returned in 2005 – even taking in the Specials year) – and at the end of it, the episode we get isn’t quite as unexpected, as clever or as funny as it maybe thinks it is.

Steven Moffat’s never written “proper” Doctor Who before, you see. Doctor Who, that is, in which the Doctor comes up against a villain or monster with which he has to engage both physically and intellectually. We’ve had the statues that move and the shadows that eat you, the monsters you forget and the clockwork droids that hide under your bed, the cracks in the wall and the giant space whale. But Moffat has never previously tackled anything like a Dalek story, a story in which the Doctor and his companions aren’t at the centre of the plot, the total focus of the storytelling, and around whom everything else is in orbit – and of considerably less importance. Steven Moffat has never previously tackled an episode in which the villains get an equal amount of screen time, an equal amount of dialogue, and an equal amount of significance.

And of course, he still hasn’t now.

Which is, of course, is exactly what we should have expected.

The one genuine surprise in the entire episode (which was, nevertheless, filled with some gloriously Moffaty moments) was one which only worked because we’ve already heard so much about the Doctor’s next companion so far in advance of the current ones’ imminent departure. In any other television series, in a series for which the fans and the press aren’t gagging for information about the characters’ future quite so eagerly as they do with Doctor Who, the inclusion of Jenna-Louise Coleman as Oswin would have been something quite ordinary here and something quite surprising later on, upon her return. It’s our impatience to know what’s forthcoming that turns her appearance in Asylum of the Daleks into such a revelation. Talk about timey-wimey.

Coleman looks good, though. Aside from the fact that the character seems set to become yet another sassy sidekick, out-quipping the Doctor in exactly the same Steven Moffaty manner as both River Song and Amy Pond before her, Jenna-Louise looks relaxed in the role and comfortable with Moffat’s trademarked dialogue (a few early wobbles aside – doubtlessly caused by Coleman probably having to record her entire part entirely separately from the rest of the production, and presumably to somebody like Marcus Wilson reading in the Doctor’s lines, too), and crucially, considerably less brusque than Karen Gillan was during her first series. She’s going to be a delight to have around during the anniversary year. The revelation that Coleman’s character is in fact a Dalek (a surprise that it wasn’t hard to see coming, even if our foreknowledge of her later return served as a red herring against our working this out – and much the same surprise ending that Moffat sprung in Forest of the Dead, in fact) was neat, although perhaps it would have played even better if her character had been nothing more than a regular Dalek hallucinating that it was human, rather than a human who had become a Dalek without realising it. That really would have necessitated the other Daleks in the asylum locking her up and throwing away the key, for in Dalek terms, you probably couldn’t get any more insane than that.

On the other hand, for all the pre-transmission talk of just how insane the Daleks who even the other Daleks consider too insane to remain free must be, there’s very little evidence of this once we get to the asylum. They’re all a bit sleepy and covered in cobwebs, and they’ve lost their balls. And that’s about it. (Russell T Davies probably did it better with Dalek Caan in Journey’s End, if truth be told.) There’s a brilliant comic moment with Rory as one of them wakes up (much better than the considerably less brilliant “Eggs, stir, minute” joke that not only requires the audience not to recognise that “Eggs” is also the first syllable of the most famously uttered phrase in all of Doctor Who, but also convolutes itself incredibly to pay off in the scene in which the real Oswin gets unveiled), but apart from that they really don’t come across as all that mad – or all that dangerous either.

And as for the “old” Daleks… If we hadn’t seen the camera glide briefly past the Special Weapons Dalek (in long-shot!) and a quick spin from the Emperor’s Guard Dalek (circa 1967 – obviously chosen for this sequence because it was Matt Smith’s favourite model), the classic series Daleks may as well not have been there. How nice it would have been if the “Reverse!” sequence could have involved a Genesis model rather than yet another New Series Dalek instead. The line of dialogue invoking Exxilon and Spiridon and Kemble might have been an old school Doctor Who fan’s most disappointing moment since the series returned, with the camera staying glued to a bunch of modern Daleks throughout. It’s small consolation that the New Dalek Paradigm (with the sole exception of the white Supreme) are relegated to extras in the Dalek Parliament sequence, although it’s this extended scene (and its very brief bookender at the story’s conclusion) that points up just how little plot Asylum has; when it boils down to it, the Daleks send the Doctor on a mission to turn the electricity off. That’s really all there is.

Not that Asylum of the Daleks is in any way a bad episode of Doctor Who. There are plenty of innovations to the lore (the Dalek agents with eye-stalks popping out of their heads and gun-sticks in their hands seem guaranteed to give the junior members of the audience plenty to play-act in the playground once school is back) and, although the characters are somewhat sidelined by their successor’s early appearance, Steven Moffat gives the Ponds a significant character development. There’s a certain logic to a relationship that was essentially born and bred in time and space fighting monsters and putting worlds to rights, somehow not being able to cope with the mundanity of everyday life, and the divorce scenario as pre-empted by Chris Chibnall’s delightful Pond Life mini-episodes seems a natural enough place to begin proceedings. And the scene in which Amy’s reasons for kicking Rory out, and the strength of the two characters’ feelings for one another becomes apparent is beautifully written and performed. It’s a pity the Ponds couldn’t have addressed this at slightly more length, as the inevitable result felt slightly too easy to arrive at, but that’s the 45-minute episode format for you, and it’s hard to argue with that. The fact the all three regulars are less sparky than usual during this episode is therefore entirely logical and forgivable, even though it’s a rather odd choice for the showrunner to make, muting his main characters in the curtain-raising spectacular.

And spectacular is the right word. The early scenes shot in Spain (a last-minute addition to the filming schedules) are gorgeous, and the sets for the asylum planet are suitably spooky and grand, but neither of these can compete with the sheer spectacle of the Dalek Parliament – and the sheer oddness of the Daleks pleading “Save us!” at the Doctor. Asylum of the Daleks feels like nothing so much as the Aliens to Robert Shearman’s Dalek’s Alien, its setting this underground facility teaming with monsters – but it might have worked so much better if there had been a team of grunts for the Daleks to pick off one by one. Because essentially, at the episode’s end, “everybody lives” once again, and that’s not really what you want from a Dalek story. Steven Moffat loves to send his regulars on a mission, but from time to time forgets that unless you give them some sidekicks who won’t make it to the end credits, then the threat can be very hard to qualify. The Dalek zombies did work really well though, and that scene in particular will give kids nightmares over the next few nights. Rather like the “haunted room” segment of The Eleventh Hour, you do wish Moffat had made considerably more of it; it’s like a great idea has been rather thrown away.

Then there’s the denouement. Just like Victory of the Daleks, it feels once you get to the end of the episode that the entire story has been a preamble to the introduction of a new phase for the Daleks; in this case, the wiping from their memories of all knowledge of the Doctor. It’s a repeat of the last scenes of The Wedding of River Song (even down to the episode closing with one of the characters repeating the phrase “Doctor… Who?” as some kind of a mantra), and yet another Moffat-patented reset. But I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. Surely the Daleks ought to have been in the same place as everyone else at the end of Series Six, believing the Doctor to be dead, and that makes Asylum of the Daleks feel even more like an exercise in treading water. And dramatically speaking, the Doctor forgetting who the Daleks are would have made for a much more interesting future relationship between the two, than what we get here; the Daleks never do defeat the Doctor anyway, and now he has even more of an upper hand.

On the whole, and in spite of some fantastic acting, some great ideas and some memorable sequences, Asylum of the Daleks isn’t quite the romp we might have hoped for to launch Series Seven. It will in all likelihood turn out to be more of a slow-burning delight, but just for now, my reaction is to be slightly less than whelmed. The most disappointing thing is that after the lunatic antics of Let’s Killer Hitler and The Wedding of River Song, Steven Moffat promised us something even more insane, and presented us with something that was considerably less mad.

If the events of this season finale are anything to go by, Shane and Dale should be grateful that they checked out when they did. As gunshots explode within the quiet night sky, walkers converge upon the farm en masse. It’s every man for himself as all Hell breaks loose.

The opening is reminiscent of George A. Romero’s Day Of The Dead, depicting a cityscape entirely free of breathing human life. No alligators though, alas. Considering how slow the hordes move, they reach Hershel’s farm awfully fast. Rick and Carl don’t even get time to make it across the fields before the shambling ghouls have converged upon the house. This gives the writers opportunity to rid themselves of a few more excess characters (two more of Hershel’s unfortunate family) and show how useless the survivors are in a crisis.

It’s not long before Andrea is lost in the woods, Carol is in need of rescuing and T-Dog is running a mile in the opposite direction. But on the bright side, at least T-Dog is doing something. He’s even allowed a few lines of dialogue in this episode. Admittedly, he’s using that dialogue to express his own cowardice, but it’s a start, eh?

Faring much better, as ever, is Daryl Dixon. I’m aware that these recaps read like a love letter to Norman Reedus’s cuddly Hillbilly, but he’s emerged as The Walking Dead’s best character by far. His motorcycle rescue of Carol is just the sweetest thing, as is his casual defence of Rick later in the episode. The situation rapidly goes from bad to worse, culminating in Hershel’s farmhouse burning to the ground. The group panics and sets off running in different directions. As Rick, Carl and Hershel reconvene at the very intersection where this season began, they’re unsure as to whether they’ll ever see their family and friends again. When the others finally do arrive, it’s in a saccharine manner worthy of a LOST beach reunion.

The action beats over with, Beside The Dying Fire turns to the thing that The Walking Dead does best – big revelations and Rick making a speech. In this case, it’s a call-back to Season One’s finale, regarding the answer to a question I don’t even remember being asked in the first place – what did the drunk scientist whisper to Rick just before he blew the place to smithereens? Why, only the very nature of the zombie apocalypse, of course. It’s little wonder that Rick’s fellow survivors are pissed off at him for keeping this bit of potentially game-changing information from them. Lori is even more shocked when she learns what transpired between Shane and her husband. Can Rick’s leadership recover after his one-two punch of questionable ethics? On the defensive, he turns and shouts at everyone until they see things his way. Well, after the things he’s been through since awakening from that coma, Sheriff Grimes can be forgiven a tantrum or two.

In the woods, Andrea is lost, alone and rapidly running out of ammunition. She’s a resourceful, strong woman, but still no match for a horde of hungry roamers. Maybe her comic book counterpart would have fared a little better (to be fair, that version of Andrea is much further into her stride now) but she soon finds herself cornered and helpless. Cue the arrival of one of The Walking Dead’s best characters: Michonne.

Beside The Dying Fire is all about the tantalising imagery, promising beautiful things for Series Three. No sooner is Michonne (complete with the swords and zombie entourage) glimpsed than the episode cuts away to something else. It ends with the biggest teaser of all – the appearance of a location that those familiar with the comic books will find very exciting.

As it ends, Series Two finds the survivors physically in much the same position as which they began: searching for salvation and stranded in the middle of nowhere. As characters however, they have come on leaps and bounds (except for you, T-Dog). The horror and action has felt bigger, better and more ambitious. There have been duff episodes and subplots (anything with Sophia) but the big stuff has been very well done. Despite budget cuts and the loss of Frank Darabont, this second series has been much better than the promising but ultimately disappointing first. I wait for baited breath for its return, and long may it live. Here’s hoping it goes on to realise its full potential, for at least as long as the comic books have. Well, maybe not quite that long. At the series’ rate of decompression, the zombies will all have decomposed by then, and so will we.

In the very cruellest of strokes, Channel 5’s continuity announcer closes the season with the fateful words, “The Walking Dead will return next year.” In a world without The Walking Dead (okay, for a year) we will be finally forced to start living.

Their moaning moral compass now suffering from an utter case of dead (the kind you don’t come back from), it doesn’t take long before the group begins to fall apart. Flying in the face of Rick’s promise to show Dale that they can all make nice, Shane finally goes a step too far. The events of Better Angels, then, are all Shane’s fault. You’ll be glad to be rid of him by the time it’s all over.

The events of Better Angel are mildly predictable, even if you’ve never read the comic books. After Rick decides to free Randall from the group’s procrastinating hands (will they kill him? Won’t they kill him? Just put the kid out of his misery, already!) Shane kidnaps the hostage and walks him deep into the woods. At first pretending that he wants to join Randall’s group, Shane puts the poor youngster at relative ease before unceremoniously breaking his neck behind a tree. To cover up his crime, Shane then smacks his own face into the same tree. The old “he broke loose and knocked me out” routine is priceless. Is it going to fool anyone?

No. Never mind the fact that Randall is (was) tiny and Shane could easily headline an action movie on his own – Rick immediately sees through Shane’s ruse. Maybe he recognised it from when Michael did the same thing on LOST. They walk into the woods together, for only one to walk out again. Also out looking for the ‘escapee’ are Daryl and Glenn. Detective Daryl deduces that Shane has led Rick in the wrong direction (thanks to some tracking skills that would have put LOST’s Locke or Kate to shame) and finds what the maniac cop really did to poor Randall. The revelation is made more shocking when Randall’s now-zombified corpse attacks Daryl and Glenn. This time Glenn saves the day (earning Daryl’s approval) with a machete to the head.

Meanwhile, Shane gives up any pretense of civility, and pulls a gun on Rick. His suggestion that Rick is a crap husband and father doesn’t seem far off the mark, but is severely lacking in tact. This has been on the cards since their physical confrontation in 18 Miles Out, but Rick still seems surprised. He at first tries to talk his old friend out of it, but Shane is in no mood for listening. The outcome is inevitable, but the show pulls it off in a very surprising manner. Who brings a knife to a gunfight? Rick Grimes. 

So soon after the exit of one series regular, another follows. Little Carl arrives just in time to see his Daddy stab Shane to death. He then pulls off the sort of move reserved for action movies and Stephen in Dawn Of The Dead: shooting a zombie that’s standing just over another character’s shoulder. In this case, the zombie is a re-animated Shane. Carl’s impressive shooting aside, the reveal is interesting in that neither Shane nor Randall were bitten by zombies. It casually reveals that a corpse doesn’t have to be bitten or otherwise infected in order to return.

All this in the same episode as Rick gives Carl the age-old “everyone dies” talk (like the birds and the bees, except more depressing). To be fair, it’s not as though he could just nip to Waterstones and pick up a copy of Gentle Willow: A Story For Children About Dying. This episode gives the kid yet another death to deal with. Unfortunately, Carl’s dad-saving gunshot might not have been the best idea in the world, as it looks to have been heard by every zombie for miles around. Oops.

The penultimate episode of the second series, Better Angels is an odd send-off to Shane. By far this series’ most important character, it almost doesn’t feel worthy at times. His death is an emotional moment – but somehow not emotional enough. It hits the same notes as the book’s treatment of his death, but does so differently enough so as to offer some surprises along the way. This way it manages to (mildly) surprise both newbies and fans of the comic at once.

Next week, the season finale.

If newcomer Randall thought he had it bad last week, well, hungry zombies prove to be a cakewalk next to an interrogation from Daryl Dixon. While he might not be as professional as Jack Bauer or well-spoken as Sayid from LOST, Daryl sure knows how to make a man talk. And he doesn’t like what he hears.

Perhaps foreshadowing the coming of a certain Governor, it emerges that Randall is part of a much bigger group – one with no compunction against raping and pillaging. It seems an execution is imminent. As ever, Dale disapproves. With the rest of the group largely in favour (or at least indifferent to) a lynching, he sets about attempting to convince them to spare the boy’s life. His pleas fall on deaf ears though, as most seem to share the cops’ belief that executing Randall might be for the best. Even Hershell is content to leave the decisions to Rick and Shane. The future isn’t looking too bright for poor Randall. Bless Glenn though, who admits to hanging on to his every word. Another father figure doesn’t look far off though, as Hershell finally gives the kid his seal of approval regarding Maggie.

Meanwhile, young Carl is acting up, sneaking into the barn to talk to Randall and answering back to poor, grieving Carol. This earns him a telling off from Rick, which sends him running off in a sulk into the woods. Here he encounters a member of the titular walking dead, which he deals with remarkably well. Looks like getting shot isn’t the only trait that runs through the male Grimes. Still, his misbehaviour and mouthiness is an irritant – we’re beginning to see the emergence of the obnoxious little brat from the comics. The end of the world will do that to a child. His behaviour here is reminiscent of that of Jack Marston in Red Dead Redemption. Just substitute nearly getting killed by a bear for nearly getting killed by a zombie. His growing attitude prompts Rick’s final decision as to what the group should do with Randall, and also proves Dale’s dissent to be right.

Judge, Jury and Executioner is a very Dale heavy episode, and therefore full of heavy-handed moralising and potty hats. While it is impossible to take a man’s pontificating seriously with a monstrosity like that on their head, it’s inevitable that the survivors of a zombie apocalypse will all dress that way: after all, survivalists love stupid headwear. It’s a much slower episode than we’ve had in recent weeks, but not a bad one, dealing with the inevitable questions that the show would always have to ask. And then there’s the ending, which is a complete shocker. It’s apt that there’s no music played over the end credits – I was rendered speechless too (this review not withstanding).

It’s quite tragic really – Dale’s primary function in the group is to look out for zombies; as soon as he decides to take an evening off, he gets bitten by a zombie. And how. His is the worst case of bitten-by-a-zombie since Andrea’s sister went out the same way in Series One. Sulkily examining a cow, Dale is attacked from behind and ravaged in the worst possible way. It’s up to Daryl to put the old fella out of his misery – but with Dale as the camp’s sole voice of reason, where does this leave the group? Will they set about lynching people willy-nilly now? Nevertheless, that’s the end of Dale. I can’t say I’m not disappointed – after all, I was hoping to see him on a peg-leg, noshed to death by cannibals, not going out like a chump in a field. Still, much as I have complained about Dale (a lot) he will be missed. He’s one of the original crew, after all, and one of the comics’ most memorable faces.

Here’s a moment of silence for Dale, gone to the great RV in the sky.

Their friendship (and somebody’s sanity) teetering on the brink of no return, Rick and Shane embark on a road trip to clear the air and set a few things straight. Turns out neither man has much in the way of negotiation skills – soon enough they’re punching one another in the head while zombies threaten to have them both for lunch.

This impromptu road trip is taken ostensibly so as they can be rid of the latest addition to their gang – an injured captive taken during last week’s gunfight. With the kid bound, gagged and blindfolded in the trunk, Rick and Shane drive 18 Miles Out to drop him off in the middle of nowhere. Rick takes this opportunity to warn Shane off Lori, Carl and the baby, giving the big guy a good talking to. The first of the big visual metaphors occurs as Rick gives his speech to Shane literally standing at a crossroads. Get it?

The air seemingly cleared, the pair find what seems like the ideal place to drop captive Randall off. But while bargaining to be allowed to stay with Grimes and friends, Randall reveals that he once went to school with Maggie. Realising that the kid must therefore know where Hershel’s farm is, the cops also know that their plan has suddenly been made redundant. Shane decides to solve the problem by plastering Randall’s brains all over the pavement. Which is his solution to everything. This is where Rick and Shane finally come to blows.

Rick wrestles the gun from Shane’s hands before attempting to sock his one-time friend in the face. Shane’s rebuttal; well, a headbutt. A vicious fight ensues – Rick repeatedly smacks Shane in the face before having a motorbike dropped on him for his trouble. It’s a no holds barred grudge match as the two macho men settle things the old fashioned way. Rick is certainly wearing the right boots for the occasion (something about cowboy boots is perfect for a muddy fistfight). It’s brutal and violent, and sure to have audiences alternately cheering and hissing from the sidelines. It brings to mind two things – the fight between Rick and Tyrese in the comic books, and the showdown between Jack and Sawyer during Season 5 of LOST. It’s too early for audiences to care about Rick or Shane as they did Jack and Sawyer, but it’s nice to see Rick finally stand up to Shane’s bullying. The fight culminates with Shane almost killing Rick by attempting to chuck a wrench at his head.

The fighting finally stops as a horde of zombies threatens to kill all three of them. Shane hides in a nearby school bus, Rick struggles to fend them off and poor Randall simultaneously attempts to survive and cut himself free from his bonds. The show continues to impress with some well co-ordinated action and horror scenes. Not content to rest on its laurels with one-on-one zombie attacks and dull CGI head explosions, the zombies come thick and fast – the kills inventive and messy. Most memorable is Rick’s fighting off three at a time.

Back at the farm, the womenfolk have trouble within their own ranks. Now conscious and coherent, Beth is determined to kill herself. While Maggie and Lori try to talk her out of it, Andrea is an advocate of letting her make up her own mind. It’s little wonder she got turned down for that job answering telephones for The Samaritans. With tensions so high, what better time to bring up that pile of laundry that needs doing? Lori and Andrea have at it in the kitchen – apparently women’s liberation went out with the rest of civilisation, since Lori is in little doubt that a woman’s place is in the home, not atop Dale’s RV. It’s hard not to sympathise with Andrea here. Her handling of Beth’s death wish is ill-advised, but few would argue against her being better suited to guarding the camp than just washing the men’s grundies and cooking their dinners. The encounter leaves Beth with stitches on her wrists and Andrea the latest member of the Grimes party unwelcome in Hershel’s home.

The decision to focus on only seven characters (not even Hershel or stalwart Dale make an appearance) makes 18 Miles Out feel focused, taut and important. Rick and Shane’s road trip give it a scale often missing from the series, and the opening gambit is a beautiful tease. I particularly enjoyed the iffy camerawork and use of the song Driver’s Seat (Sniff n’ the Tears) during Randall’s captivity.

Shane looks pensive (and bruised) as he and Rick make the long drive back to Hershel’s farm. On the face of it, things seem to have come to a head. But actually, the episode just leaves us with more tantalising questions. Is Shane going to take Rick’s warning and behave? What are they going to do about Randall? Who’s going to do Andrea’s share of the laundry? And what does Dale have to say about all this?

It’s said that one should never swerve dramatically to avoid oncoming wildlife on a slow country road. So with that in mind, poor Lori might have been better served by just splattering that walker all over the bonnet of her car. Instead, she winds up injured and upside down in a ditch. To make matters worse, no one even knows she’s missing.

At the bar, Rick, Glenn and Hershel reap what they have sewed as a gang of fellow survivors come looking for Tony and Dave. Upon hearing that Rick shot them both dead in the previous episode, they open fire on the bar. Not content with George A. Romero’s zombie oeuvre alone, Triggerfinger is an Assault On Precinct 13 inspired episode – although the angry breathers of this episode are considerably less competent than Carpenter’s hoods or the remake’s gangsters. As Glenn cowers behind a dumpster, Hershel proves himself a mean shot. Attracted by the gunfire, the surrounding area is soon overrun by walkers. The rest of the surviving antagonists turn tail and run, leaving Rick and friends with one of their seriously injured friends to deal with. Jumping off a roof, the lad impales his leg on a railing spike. Glenn is suitably horrified as Rick and Hershel discuss lopping off this poor kid’s leg. The one thing The Walking Dead television series has been missing so far is traumatic amateur amputation.

In her ditch, Lori finds herself beset by hungry roamers. She manages to escape the car and even fends them off herself before being rescued by Shane. Already stressed, Triggerfinger gives the tortured cop plenty of opportunity to rub his own shaven head. There’s a great drinking game to be played with this series of The Walking Dead: every time Shane rubs his head, have a shot. Pour yourself a double if Daryl shouts “Suff-fia!” Rubbing his head is to Shane as taking his sunglasses off is to CSI: Miami’s Horatio Caine.

Eventually both parties reconvene at the farm. Shane manages to once again make everyone angry, with Hershel going so far as to tell him to shut his mouth. He more or less admits to Lori that he murdered Otis and has yet another tense confrontation with Dale. He finds an ally in Andrea, who suggests that his storming around everywhere, shouting at everyone might not be the best course of action. He responds to this by rubbing his head some more. Andrea raises a good point though, suggesting that Shane has done more for the group than Rick ever has. It’s a shame his interpersonal skills suck: Shane is a very good leader, in spite of everything.

Which is not to discredit Rick’s rather impressive talent: staying so cool and chilled in the face of such relentless misery. Where comic book Rick responds to most questioning of his authority with melodramatic shouting (“we are the walking dead!”), Andrew Lincoln seems to take everything in his stride. It’s difficult to sound too angry with a Southern drawl like that.

More than any other episode so far, Triggerfinger feels like real, visceral zombie horror. Their attack on Lori as she lies helpless in the car is gruesome and very tense, with a ghoul literally crawling over broken glass to get to the terrified pregnant mum. The action is gory and fast-paced, both in the bar gunfight and the various zombie attacks which occur throughout. Quite how Lori and Shane didn’t hear the gunshots from this nearby gunfight (or vice versa) is unclear, but such plot holes have become par for the course by now (how did T-Dog and Andrea not collapse with the vomits while disposing of the rotted zombie corpses last week?). And with everyone else pulling their dramatic weight, T-Dog remains a burden. Even Dale the disapproving serves more of a purpose. 

The balance between scares and emotion was better in Pretty Much Dead Already, but this episode deals with the fallout better than last week’s episode did. Daryl’s grieving for Sophia is subtly put, while his interactions with Carol are genuinely very touching.

While there’s still a lingering feeling that The Walking Dead is resting on its laurels for the time being, Triggerfinger is a fun, scary and thrilling episode, quite nicely picking up the pace after one of the series’ slower instalments.

Following the explosive events of Pretty Much Dead Already, fallout is the name of this week’s game. Some members of the group bicker and fight. Others withdraw completely. Shane is unrepentant, as always. Hershel, meanwhile, is a man desperately in need of a drink.

And who can blame him? His beliefs rocked to the core, he retreats to the nearest bar. Trauma from last week’s barn massacre overflows into Nebraska’s pre-credits sequence, in which Hershel’s undead wife attempts to attack their daughter. She is swiftly dispatched by Andrea and a scythe, leaving the Greene family even more traumatised than before. He demands Rick’s group leave his farm (sadly without the words “get off’a my land” in a West country accent) before storming off to the pub.

As has become status quo with their relationship by now, Rick and Shane argue loudly. Mind, everyone argues with Shane these days. First he accuses Hershel of knowing that Sophia was in the barn all along, then has another run-in with disapproving Dale. Elsewhere, Carol refuses to attend her own daughter’s funeral, much to Daryl’s chagrin. Daryl’s obvious grief is touching, although his downcast attitude means that he doesn’t have a lot to do in this episode.

Meanwhile, despite Shane’s drastic unravelling, his tender side is revealed in a rather sweet moment shared with poor Carol. It’s moments like this which make Shane a difficult character to hate. Unless you’re Dale of course, who shares with Lori his (correct) theory about Shane murdering Otis. It may be a while before Lori gets to share this information though, since she promptly heads out on the road to look for her husband and ends up crashing the car in a ditch, upside down.

With Hershel missing, Rick and Glenn follow him to the bar to hold an intervention. Rick at last manages to talk the man out of the bottle and his crisis of faith, just as two men enter the bar. They are cordial and polite at first, but given that one of them is Michael Raymond-James (serial killer Rene Lenier) from True Blood, it’s a foregone conclusion that they’re a bad sort. Rick and Hershel obviously agree, refusing to divulge the location of Hershel’s farm. The pair get awfully testy at this news, whereupon Rick shoots them both dead on the spot.

This, presumably, is in preparation for the arrival of The Governor; suggesting that not all survivors are as friendly as the Grimes crew. There’s also the revelation that Fort Benning is completely overrun, leaving the survivors’ plans effectively dead in the water. Before being blasted away, the two men then mention being part of a larger group – what implications will Rick’s actions have for the rest of the season? Still, it’s probably for the best – Hershel has enough to cope with as it is, so it’s a good idea not to invite anyone else back to the farm for the time being. Especially not creepy serial killers from True Blood.

Nebraska is a logical follow-up to the previous week’s shocking events, but nothing more than that. The conversation between Rick and Hershel mimics many we’ve heard over the course of the show, with one character expressing a lack of hope for survival, and another contradicting that sentiment. It’s not explained how Sophia came to be a zombie either – a tiny little portion like that, surely she would have been whittled down to the bone, rather than escaping with just one dainty little bite? It’s a plot hole that plagues not just The Walking Dead but zombie cinema as a whole: why aren’t the streets strewn with meat-stripped skeletons by now? Surely a big city like Atlanta would have been covered with them? And why didn’t T-Dog and Shane seem to smell the enormous pile of corpses they were seen handling in the episode’s final moments? A stink like that, they should have been able to smell Hershel’s barn from miles away.

How much longer the group can stay where they are is unclear. It’s starting to hurt the dynamic of the show now, this decompression. Like Shane, the viewer is getting itchy feet. Time to move on, perhaps?

Since arriving at Hershel’s farm, Series Two of The Walking Dead has tended to feel slightly sluggish and drawn out. The last two episodes, particularly, whilst good from a characterisation standpoint, served only to emphasise by how much the search for Sophia is slowing the series down. But as any fan of the comic books knows, The Walking Dead is famed for its moments of calm before the storm.

Not only has the storm arrived with Pretty Much Dead Already, but it also serves to be the best episode of The Walking Dead so far. It’s an episode full of confrontation, arguments and topped off with an emotional gut punch worthy of the comics themselves. Finally, the show has caught up with Kirkman and Adlard to deliver forty five minutes of television worthy of the title. With Pretty Much Dead Already, I finally looked at Andrew Lincoln and saw Rick Grimes glaring back at me.

Following the emotional revelations in the aptly named Secrets, the episode kicks off with yet another: Glenn marches into the middle of the camp and lets Hershel’s dirty little secret right out of the bag. Way to put folks off their breakfast, Glenn. But never mind all that. On top of everything else it does (and it does a lot) Pretty Much Dead Already delivers the biggest shock of the series. Dale finally takes off the stupid potty hat.

But if The Walking Dead has taught us anything, it’s that some things just won’t stay down. The hat looks no less ridiculous on Glenn’s head than it did the old man’s. It’s an episode full of stupid hats though; little Carl gets in on the act, wearing daddy’s cop hat to swear at Shane and demand they find Sophia. Dale is still out of sorts following his confrontation with Shane, and heads into the nearby swamp to hide the group’s guns. Shane is hot on his tail, and a truly tense showdown occurs. His fuse burnt within an inch of explosion, Shane provides a catalyst for most of the action within Pretty Much Dead Already. He leads the group in marching up to the barn and suggesting they either flee or kill every last zombie within. As he spends almost the entirety of the episode ranting and raving, there’s a feeling that this episode could be a game changer.

It’s certainly a change of pace, seeing heated argument after argument precede a bloody shootout in the last ten minutes. Hershel demands that the zombies be corralled and kept locked away in his barn, telling Rick that the group may only stay on the condition that they abide by this rule. Reasonable Rick is on board, and even helps the old man collect a couple of lost walkers from the swamp. But as they make their way towards the barn (leading the zombies like the captive dead in Day of the Dead) Shane decides to make his move.

It’s like the massacre at the OK Corral but with zombies and an old man crying on his knees. Hershel is powerless to stop his guests, and looks on in horrified silence. No doubt he’ll have something to say about this in the next episode (most likely a variation on “get off’a my land”). But his stunned, shellshocked silence is likely to echo that of the viewer’s as the episode’s big twist emerges from the barn. It hardly comes as a surprise (many will have seen it coming) but that makes it no less emotionally devastating.

Pretty Much Dead Already is a superb episode of an already consistent television show. There are still little niggles and visible flaws, but they’re eclipsed by the sheer bravado elsewhere. It takes guts to be as depressing as this on Channel 5 on a Monday night.

Grim as Pretty Much Dead Already gets, something tells me that the aftermath is going to be even worse.