Doctor Who: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster

This starts out as a Doctor-lite story, telling the tale of a Dickensian orphan sent to the workhouse, who keeps encountering the Doctor at various points in his life. From episode two onwards we see more of the Doctor's perspective of what's going on, and the story builds to a more traditional climax with London besieged by mysterious aliens.

The idea of the Doctor and Nyssa making only brief appearances in the first episode works well in setting the scene, and establishing some of the hooks necessary for the resolution later on. There is, perhaps, some overlap with the themes of The Unquiet Dead here, but the plot is satisfyingly different, and the title character interesting as someone who we have sympathy for, but is never quite heroic.

The story also has a number of time travel shenanigans, in the style of some of Stephen Moffat's TV episodes, which it handles admirably and without overdoing the complexity. Unusually, it ends on a cliffhanger, although the events of the story itself are largely resolved by that point. Overall, a well written, atmospheric, piece with some good acting.