Who's better, Who's best!

When Dan was very small, he liked the Teletubbies. He had a little set that he took with him everywhere and, occasionally, one would go missing and we'd turn the house upside down trying to find it before he noticed. Later he was into Bob the Builder, loving every episode, learning the characters' names.

The first series that he really got into on his own was Ben 10. He would talk about it endlessly, always earnest and serious, always keen to ensure that I knew who was strongest (Humungosaur, I think), fastest (XLR8, obvs) and so on. He found a Ben 10 wiki and would spend hours learning every detail of every alien, plant and adventure.

There was a brief dalliance with DC comics (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman et al) and then he settled on Marvel and for a (long) while all our talk was of Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, the various Marvel realities, what was and wasn't canonical and the best possible way it was like my own childhood had been a rehearsal for this time in my life.

And then Doctor Who came along. I'd watched the first of the rebooted series (the one with Christopher Ecclestone) and thought the writing was excellent, and I liked the next series with David Tennant even more, although, given that I'm not a big TV watcher, after a while that tailed off and I don't think I ever watched an episode with Matt Smith.

About a year ago, Dan fell heavily for Doctor Who. My knowledge of the shows from the sixties, seventies and eighties was sketchy so I had to point Dan in the direction of my brother, who was a huge fan.

But Dan is a persuasive little fellow and for the last few months, we've been watching all of the rebooted series, and so far we've watched all of the Eccleston and Tennant episodes. And, frankly, hidden behind the kitsch is some amazing writing and talented acting. So, I found myself beginning to look forward to the 50th anniversary adventure, featuring Tennant, Smith and John Hurt (as 'The War Doctor').

Then my brother told us it would be on at the cinema and that sounded great until I looked at the actual date: I had friends coming for dinner. Disaster. I was in a complete quandary; I didn't want to let my friends down but how could I disappoint Dan? And then, mercifully, it turned out he was going on a sleepover.

PHEW!

So, instead we went to see it at the Vue in Lancaster, today, and, my God, it was absolutely excellent. Everyone was impressive, including Matt Smith, so now I'm looking forward to watching his series with Dan.