Did we really ever have it quite so bad? One-off drama Legacy, the latest addition to the BBC’s Cold War season, took us back to 1974, civil unrest, power-cuts and the three-day-week. And in Spyland, that nether world of lost certainties and perennial jadedness, the weather’s rarely great anyway. So the lack of sun in Paula Milne’s tight and nuanced adaptation of the Alan Judd novel was no surprise: the clouds of le Carré were lowering.

Well, wasn't that fantastic? Three Doctors; guest appearances from just about every fan favourite you could think of and enough in-jokes to satisfy even the most committed Whovian. Plus, anybody whose interests incorporate the musical career of one John Barrowman certainly wouldn’t have been disappointed.

I’m talking, of course, about The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, a half-hour Red Button special written and directed by fifth Doctor Peter Davison. This little treat, intended to reward those of us with the dedication to sit through the truly terrible Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty on BBC Three, featured Davison and his successors Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy trying to right the injustice that resulted in them being left out of the 50th anniversary special episode. With so many laughs, whether they succeeded or not is irrelevant.

Allowing the current Doctor to come to terms with adulthood again paves the way for Peter Capaldi’s entry as the 13thBesides, it’s hard to imagine that showrunner Steven Moffat could have crammed much more into The Day of the Doctor, a near-perfect opus that will likely be remembered as some of his finest work when the time comes for him to hand over the reins of Doctor Who. (Incidentally, although I have always come down firmly on the side of avoidance when it comes to spoilers, I have come to the conclusion that it is nigh-on impossible to do in this case. So, for those of you who were waiting for the verdict of theartsdesk before picking up the episode on iPlayer - let those five stars down the right-hand side be your guide, and we will speak again in 75 minutes.)

The special incorporated the last two doctors, Matt Smith and David Tennant, the latter slipping effortlessly into the quirks and tropes that defined his tenure as if he had never been away. Casting screen legend John Hurt as the forgotten "War Doctor" was also an inspired choice, even if it was hard to escape the nagging feeling that most of his lines would have worked just as well - and, perhaps, were originally written - in the Northern tones of one Christopher Eccleston.

That said, if Moffat had pulled off the ultimate coup and tempted back the Whoniverse’s original conscientious objector I daresay we wouldn’t have received such a convincing explanation for the recent trend towards the Doctor’s ever-more youthful appearance with each regeneration. Transported from the middle of the last day of the Time War, in the style of A Christmas Carol, to be shown the man he will become by a weapon so terrible it has developed its own consciousness - which it has chosen to manifest in the shape of Billie Piper - Hurt’s Doctor meets his future selves for the first time in a wood in Elizabethan England. Here, he rips into the whimsy - sandshoes, “dicky bows” and ridiculous catchphrases - which have come to define the Doctor since the 2005 reboot. It becomes obvious that “the man who regrets and the man who forgets” have thrown themselves so completely into the character of the mad man with the blue box because to do otherwise would mean embracing an adulthood in which genocide of their own people was the only choice.

The Gallifrey that we see in The Day of the Doctor - a chaotic, war-stricken hell; full of suffering, screaming children and close to rubble - is at odds with the portrayal of the power-hungry Time Lords led by Timothy Dalton’s Rassilon in David Tennant’s final episodes. On that occasion Tennant’s Doctor reaffirms that he had no choice but to push the button. By the end of The Day of the Doctor, it’s a choice that all three versions of the man have embraced - before, in the style that has come to define Moffat’s tenure, Smith’s version finds a way around it.

In the end, the Elizabethan England thread of the story was a plot device only necessary to show the effectiveness of a plan 400 years in the making - the be-suckered Zygons waiting for Earth to be "worthy" of invasion versus the centuries that the Doctor has had to mull over another way to resolve the Time War - as well as to give Tennant another pretty lady to kiss, in the form of Joanna Page’s Elizabeth I (pictured with Tennant). Stored inside paintings in the National Gallery, the shape-shifting beasties emerge into present-day London and promptly take the forms of UNIT staff, including Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave). Deep underground in the Black Vault, the Doctors force humans and Zygons to negotiate by wiping enough of their memories so that they can no longer tell which is which - preventing the humans from detonating a nuclear warhead under London to destroy the Zygons, or killing millions to save billions in a mirror of the Doctor’s own choice four hundred years ago.

Seeing the men that he will become gives Hurt’s Doctor the impetus he needs to go through with the destruction of Gallifrey, while getting to know their former self allows Tennant and Smith’s versions to accept, and collude in, that choice. Until Clara (Jenna Coleman) steps in and insists that there has to be another way - a way which involves all of the Doctor’s past selves, plus his future self (because who could resist?) doing something with their TARDISes which may or may not have made Gallifrey disappear, to be kept safe - possibly - inside a painting.

Whether or not the humourless Time Lords, whose demise was perhaps the wisest choice Russell T Davies made when originally rebooting the series, have actually survived - and what the consequences of that could be - now remains to be seen as the show moves forward. It’s a clever trick which, as the previous Doctors will not remember it - and Smith’s has only discovered it now - does not negate or rewrite anything that has gone before but gives the show a fresh new direction. And allowing the current Doctor to come to terms with adulthood again paves the way for Peter Capaldi’s entry as the 13th, and possibly - but surely not - final Doctor at Christmas. If the rest of his tenure is as exciting as those five seconds of his eyebrows there’s plenty to look forward to.

All this, plus all the in-jokes and winks you’d expect from an anniversary episode including the original title sequence; the opening scene at Coal Hill School; Tennant’s final words as the Doctor - again - and a Tom Baker cameo. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch it again…

Overleaf: watch The Day of the Doctor trailer

Of all the ways in which the BBC has chosen to mark the 50th anniversary of one of its most celebrated exports, surely this (other than the obvious) was the most anticipated: a feature-length retelling of the origin story of Doctor Who, written and executive produced by some of the same names behind the show’s current run.

No one seemed quite sure whether it’s a journey of 60 miles or 40 from Harrogate to Halifax, but we’re going to be seeing a lot of the M62 in this second series of Last Tango in Halifax. It’s a journey in more senses than one, leading from the genteel prosperity of the former, where you’re expecting arrivals from an Ayckbourn or a Bennett play any moment, to a rural farm outside the latter, where the grim atmosphere rather resembles The Village (okay, pushing that a bit).

We’re in a Tokyo bar. As the first of two fixed cameras dominating the opening quarter of an hour gives a selective picture, a girl’s voice is heard offscreen remonstrating on her mobile with a pathologically jealous fiancé. The situation comes slowly into focus: the girl, Akiko (Rin Takanashi), is being compelled as a top-end call-girl to visit a client. Though some of the trajectory is what we think, or fear, it might be, many of the outcomes are far from expected.

‏The best moment in this production of Pinter's The Dumb Waiter comes when one of the protagonists snatches up a piece of paper and bellows "Scampi!" at his bewildered partner in crime. The line is delivered with face‪-‬reddening passion and absolute seriousness‪,‬ perfectly encapsulating this play's fascinating absurdity.

This is a strange one. Precious little happens and, in some ways, little is said in David Storey's muted chamber play from 1970. Two men named Harry and Jack – getting on in years, but keeping up appearances in jackets and ties – linger on a patio that's skirted by grass and strewn with autumn leaves. The sun is shining softly. Low-level birdsong is just audible in Amelia Sears's strongly cast production, staged in-the-round in the Arcola's intimate studio space.

Cornelia is 60 and increasingly frustrated with her 34-year-old son, Barbu. He doesn’t communicate with her, she doesn’t approve of his girlfriend and the way he leads his life. Convinced she has to take command of her immature son, she’s suddenly presented with an opportunity to exert control. The release of the Romanian film Child’s Pose in the same week as Gloria – the Chilean story of a 58-year-old woman making the most of life – is uncanny, as each offers a wildly different take on similar raw materials.

Proof that the BBC’s love of gritty realism is not solely the province of Luther and similar modern-day urban crime dramas comes just minutes into the second series of Ripper Street, before the credits even roll. In the East End of London a police officer is thrown from a window, only missing a little boy playing recorder for the amusement of the street below when his leg is gruesomely impaled on a railing.

Directed by a Frenchmen, Foxfire adapts an American book to create a film with an archetypical stance and setting which could rank it alongside The Outsiders, Stand by Me or even Rebel Without a Cause. The problem is that despite depicting a passionate, wayward and issue-fuelled gang, Foxfire is not animated enough. It unfolds in deliberate steps, like a stage play. The young women may be on fire, but the measured approach of the overlong film tempers their spirit.