Doctor Who's Comedy Vehicle

Easter. It is the shit version of Christmas, isn't it? You don't get showered with gift after pointless, ill-thoughtout, gift. There's not some tinselled tit in a red coat and white beard salaciously beckoning you to come sit on his lap and listen whilst you rattle off page numbers and product codes from the Argos catalogue of the latest tat you simple could not stand to live a moment longer without having close at hand. And you don't normally get a super douper extra special episode of Doctor Who either.

Specialist adverts for laxative requisites.

But as Doctor Who has become firmly planted in the nation's psyche as the 21st century version of that other tele holiday staple, Only Fools and Horses, it was only a matter of time before the show spread its sphere of influence to encompass other religious holidays and spurious public worklessness days (in the days before quantitative easing made it's way out of specialist adverts for laxative requisites and into the general consciousness as a solution for a depression of ledge jumping 1930's proportions we'd have cheerfully called these Bank Holidays).

A special set on a bus. A godless bus.

How long before the Letts School Boy diary ceases to be a handy pocket sized year planner and instead becomes more like a never ending version of the Lofficier's Programme Guide. Each named religious festival and public holiday listed with its very own Doctor Who special. Fourth Wednesday after Quadragesima. The sacred week of Pentecost. The three sevenths of the Dawn of the Age of Aquarius. They'll all have them. Each will have their very own Doctor Who special. Not bad for a programme that's written by an atheist which consistently evokes religious themes and imagery at every turn. So perhaps it's fitting that we should now mark all religious holidays with not only rampant consumerism and over-eating on a truly heroic scale, but also a Doctor Who special. A special set on a bus. A godless bus.

Like being car crash with a celebrity.

And that's the problem. The Radio Times told me it was a special, and I knew it wasn't Christmas because I wasn't becoming increasingly irritated by the timely - some say convenient - publication of celebrity books and greatest hits compilations, so what was I to expect? It didn't feel like a special, nor did it feel like a regular episode. Forever trapped in the some weird TV hinterland - like a daytime tv programme you can only glimpse through a convoluted series of angled mirrors. As a series episode it would probably have worked well enough. Stuck out on its own there it remains something of a curious disappointment. Like being car crash with a celebrity - you imagine you might end up best of friends with them or be courted by several tabloids at once bidding for your story. And just when you've visualised that salute edition of OK Magazine to indefatigable spirit in the face of a shattered brake lights you merely exchange insurance details and part with a perfunctory good-bye.

As hollow and as bitter as a Lebanese chocolate ball.

And that's it. Not even the thought of the one time Bionic Woman's one time Bionic Posterior is enough to swing it. Not even Norman Wisdom's turn as a faux Welshman. You're just left with an Easter Egg with no special gift in the middle. As hollow and as bitter as a Lebanese chocolate ball. And as you feel an increasing sense of remoteness and disconnect from the show, fondness seems to grow in the hearts of the nation at large inversely proportional to your disinterest. Until it reaches such a critical mass even scenes like Lee Evans bit of underplayed business with the glasses supplant the bar scene from Only Fools as the nations favouritest tele moment ever. You know the bit... Where Del Boy's leaning on a bar trying to impress some women. Then the hatch is opened and he falls through the bar. He falls through the bar, Stew. He was upright. Then he wasn't. And he falls through the bar. Stew, he falls through the bar. And then John Lumic made a face.

With apologies to Stewart Lee and anyone else for whom the ability to experience joy at the little things in life hasn't yet been hammered clean out of them.