Two hearts needed for Doctor Who as one will break

The stuff of nightmares has always been at the heart of Steven Moffat's stories in Doctor Who,

.

Saturday's opening part to the first season finale under his control must have had the kids crying and their parents at their wits end, unable to reassure them that the bow-tie clad hero was going to be all right.

I'm assuming by the way that you've already seen The Pandorica Opens. If not then I suggest you go and watch it and then come back and either agree with me or accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about.

The Doctor's future wife has been apparently blown up in his TARDIS. His companion has been killed by a living plastic version of the fiancé we believed had been erased from history. The Doctor himself is incarcerated in an inescapable prison built to contain the worst thing in the universe – him - while outside every evil creature he has ever defeated stands guard.

Millions of hearts broke as he was manhandled by fake Romans in slow motion into his cell, sad music playing as everything from Cybermen to Daleks and Sontarans watched. I was all right because I've got two. Hearts that is.

It reminded me of the soul destroying moment in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when the God-like Aslan is dragged onto the stone table and his mane shaved. "Are they still afraid of him, even now?", one of the girls asked as the elves prepared to murder the thing they feared most.

And so it was with Doctor Who. Pleading and crying with his enemies it was still clear that they were so terrified they had to put aside all their differences and join forces. Yet to what end? Why not simply exterminate The Doctor on sight and keep firing until there's no chance that he can possibly regenerate? They have something planned for him but who knows what?

It pains me to say I shall simply have to wait for Saturday's second part, The Big Bang.

And so ends a series which divided opinion for over a year before it even aired. Many, myself included, were convinced Matt Smith was simply not up to it. We were wrong.

I have not enjoyed every moment but I'm prepared to forgive all the little slips in story and dialogue thanks to the overall brilliance of the cast and acting. The Bafta moment is probably the aftermath of Rory's death as The Doctor tries in vain to prevent Amy forgetting him. It was never that good when Adric crashed a space ship into the dinosaurs and moaned "now I'll never know if I was right".

The two-parter has been a mainstay of the end of each series since Christopher Eccleston sacrificed himself to save Rose from the Time Vortex.

But for me the most important part is always the first. I care little for episode 13 because its end is predictable. The Doctor saves the day, always, unless he snuffs it, keels over then starts trying on new coats which only happens every few years.

We haven't seen a cliff hanger this good or heart-stopping since Eccleston stared at the Daleks, admitted he had no weapons, defences or plan and grinned "doesn't that scare you to death?" But even that required us to first sit through 43 minutes of dodgy cultural references to the Weakest Link and Big Brother before the plot actually got underway.

Now that Moffat is in charge we have multiple layers in our stories. Characters are not what they seem – police women turn out to be kissograms, Roman centurions are murderous shop window dummies – and the simplest things of your childhood can become intergalactic threats – shadows in a library, statues you thought had moved and fairground machines with hideous smiles.

And so to next Saturday. The Earth is being erased from time and the universe is exploding in a million supernovas.

Simply reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, zapping a couple of wires with a sonic screwdriver and handing out the jelly babies is not getting us out of this. The answer lies with a little girl whose imaginary friend broke her heart when he didn't come back.

These are the nightmares of a Time Lord and we can do nothing but sit, watch and wonder.

Who needs the World Cup, eh?