This might be a controversial opinion, but 10 and Rose are my least favourite Doctor/companion pairing of the modern era.

I appreciate that they were a popular pairing that were commonly shipped in the fandom. I personally felt they had a tendency to bring out the worst in each other. This is probably best illustrated by this episode. This is an episode where everyone else is terrified and some are horrifically dying, but the Doctor and Rose are excitedly having a blast and cracking jokes. They come across as glib, callous and completely self-absorbed at points in this story. I get that this is likely a deliberate choice, but it makes our protaganists less likable and achieves little in return, so I consider to be a poor choice.

To be fair to this episode, Queen Victoria does call them out on their behaviour. She even goes as far as banishing them, which is a plot beat I do enjoy. But if the episode is aware enough to call out this behaviour, it was also surely aware of how unseemly they come across at times here. Also for as big as Queen Victoria makes banishment sound, the Doctor and Rose apparently couldn't care less. They're immediately just making jokes about how the royal family are all werewolves. I think the writing of our heroes in this episode not only makes the characters less likable, but from a narrative perspective, it also undermines the tension and stakes of the episode when they're always joking about what's happening.

This is a real shame because it drags down what I consider to be an otherwise good episode. I even don't hate the martial arts monks from the cold open. It's a jarringly weird opening and serves no real purpose, but it's harmless enough and if nothing else it's memorable.

The story revolves around a group of monks in 19th century Scotland who now worship an alien that latches onto a human and transforms them into a wolf whenever there's a full moon. They plan to infect Queen Victoria (who is travelling through Scotland) to take control of the British Empire and use it's industry and power to transform the world in their lycanthropic image.

First things first Pauline Collins makes a very convincing Queen Victoria. She has an effortless authority, shows resilience, intelligence and has a wonderful no nonsense attitude that looks all the better opposite our heroes and their antics.

The CGI on the werewolf obviously looks dated at this point. But honestly, I think it looks pretty good all things considered.

The story involves the monks trapping the Queen (as well as the Doctor and Rose) in the Torchwood Estate, which belongs to Sir Robert MacLeish and then setting the werewolf loose to bite her, and kill anyone else who gets in their way. However it turns out the Queen's dead husband, Prince Albert, and MacLeish's father were old friends. They were aware of the stories involving werewolves and set a trap in the estate involving a poorly designed telescope (which over magnifies what it's looking at, like say moonlight) and the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

I think there's some genuinely tense and thrilling moments in this episode. The werewolf feels like an actual threat that up until the ending appears to be basically unstoppable. The entire sequence in the library is pretty great. It's effectively where we get most of our exposition for the climax. But the dialogue is good, the scenes move at a good pace and Euros Lyn is able to draw some tension throughout.

But despite liking most aspects of this episode, it fails to become the gem of a story it could've been. This is largely due to this episode's insistance on making our protaganists the most annoying they've ever been.