Defending 'Love & Monsters'

Ten years ago, James Wynne presented his ten

worst twenty-first century episodes on the Doctor

Who TV website. To my dismay, Love & Monsters

topped the list, with Wynne commenting that the

"Blue Peter contest winner was poor in every way

and felt more like a soap with an alien thrown in

just for comedy purposes. Not Doctor Who."

At the time I responded by admitting that the

adventure was marmite fare, fans either love it
or hate it.

In January 2012, Jonathan Morris' review of

Love & Monsters for issue 443 of DWM countered

comments made by Peter Kay in the Daily Mail

the previous November.

Britain's most successful stand-up comedian made
a guest appearance in the story after praising the programme's reboot in a letter to Russell T

Davies, but said that his episode was "regarded by fans as the worst

ever." Then in June 2016, the Radio Times published Huw Fullerton's

blog, The 13 Most Divisive Doctor Who Episodes, and Love & Monsters

again led the survey.

Originally shown fifteen years ago, this much maligned story is still

one of my favourites, and is actually far superior to the one that

followed it, Fear Her. Written by show-runner Davies and directed by

Dan Zeff (his only outing on the show), it featured a stellar cast in

Kay, Marc Warren, Shirley Henderson, Simon Greenall, Moya Brady,

Kathryn Drysdale, and Camille Coduri. And the music is perfect!

• the working title of Love & Monsters (the only story with an ampersand in the title) was I Love the Doctor, and it's French broadcast was retitled LINDA 
• the episode is notable as the programme's first 'doctor-lite' script, and was produced in the same block as The Satan Pit two-parter
• Elton Pope (Warren) witnesses alien incursions from earlier stories: an Auton attack, and the Slitheen and Sycorax ships over London
• Elton is a fan of Jeff Lynne and his Electric Light Orchestra, and three ELO songs are heard here
• the fan group LINDA (London Investigation 'N' Detective Agency) is later mentioned in Time Crash, but the acronym was first used on BBC1's Why Don't You? (1973-1995)
• Victor Kennedy (Kay) is in fact an 'Abzorbaloff' creature from the Slitheen twin planet of Clom
• uniquely, the episode referenced all four of Davies' series arcs - Bad Wolf [virus], Torchwood [files], [Mr] Saxon, and the lost planets
• the Hoix monster is also seen in Torchwood: Exit Wounds, and The Pandorica Opens
• Bella Emberg (Mrs. Croot) first made (uncredited) appearances in The  Silurians and The Time Warrior
• Elton paraphrases Stephen King: "salvation and damnation are the same thing" (from The Green Mile)
• this is the only Doctor Who adventure ever to allude to oral sex
• the DWM Mighty 200 Poll (September 2009) placed Love & Monsters at 153rd, whilst Fear Her proved to be the most unloved Tennant story and ranked just 192nd
• To date, the serial has been repeated fifteen times on BBC3, and regularly on W (including today)