WAS ANYONE ever truly frightened by the monsters in Doctor Who (BBC One)? Even giving them names such as the Giant Spiders of Metebelis III didn’t work when they still looked like something you’d get from the joke shop to scare your little sister. Yet the return of the Doctor’s old foe, the Daleks, on Saturday, was clearly a major television event — it doesn’t get any bigger than having a Radio Times fold-out front cover.

In the end we got only one Dalek, the prize exhibit of a museum under the Utah salt plains in 2012 that housed the alien artefacts collected by a megalomaniac billionaire. Yet it was enough to wipe the goofy grin off the face of Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor for most of the episode.

In the days when the Daleks were young and the Doctor’s assistants wore kilts and woolly jumpers, these trundling fascist pepperpots were unconvincing usurpers of the universe. They avoided planets with uneven surfaces and had weaponry more suited to whipping up an omelette and unblocking a sink. They could also be persuaded easily to blow themselves up while shrieking “My vision is impaired. I cannot see” like some petulant robotic child. Perhaps the doctor they should most fear is the clinical psychologist Tanya Byron from Little Angels, although even she might struggle to “ignore the bad behaviour and praise the good”.

All the Daleks’ dubious design features were gleefully addressed by Robert Shearman’s script for Saturday’s story. So there were references to “space dustbins”, the Dalek’s sink plunger sucked someone to death, and there was no escape in running upstairs because it took to the air. No wonder the body count was alarmingly high.

Shearman also continued to strike the right balance between the respect and renovation displayed by the series which has finally given Doctor Who some proper dialogue: let’s face it, the only memorable line in the entire old series was “Ex-termi-nate! Ex-termi-nate!” Our first view of the tinpot terror was as a shackled torture victim — the trailers should have said: “You’ll believe a Dalek can cry”. Soon, however, some DNA swiped from the Doctor’s assistant, Rose, allowed it to regenerate and become as brightly burnished as a Tony Blair tan.

It was soon back to its old killing-spree ways while challenging the Doctor’s own blind hatred (“You would make a good Dalek!”) before the human DNA kicked in to give it an identity crisis. Inside its metal casing was a soul — well, more of a blancmange with tendrils and an eye.

After earlier episodes that have given us burping wheelie bins and flatulent aliens, I half-expected the Dalek to end up saying: “Ex-foliate! Ex-foliate!” Instead we got a surprisingly poignant story. And Eccleston’s combination of blokiness and otherworldly intensity came into its own here, but I can still see why he’s already decided to leave the show. Just look at the Daleks — you don’t see them in any other line of work.

The other much anticipated arrival this weekend was of Sir Ian McKellen in his favourite programme, Coronation Street (ITV1, Sunday). After Shakespeare, Strindberg, Tolkien and panto, he’s now dropped his RADA vowels and added soap to his CV.

As Mel Hutchwright, the author of a bonkbuster called Hard Grindings, McKellen inveigled his way into the Weatherfield book group. Along with Ken Barlow, we suspect that he’s not what he claims. McKellen had a twinkle in his eye, as if to say “I can’t believe I’m in Roy’s Rolls and the Rovers Return”, but also hinted at Hutchwright’s quiet desperation. That his performance never seemed like a stunt turn was also a testament to Debbie Oates’s fine script.

Coronation Street has had its share of abortions, murder and teenage death, but the lifeblood of any soap is the quality of the writing. EastEnders take note: such shock tactics as gangland violence and Pat Butcher’s lipstick are not the way forward. Get Dame Maggie Smith to have a chinwag with Dot Cotton instead.

Baffled booksellers have already had inquiries about Hard Grindings from Corrie fans who picked up on the fictitious book on the programme’s website. Doctor Who devotees have already been on the web dissecting every aspect of Saturday’s episode. How sad — they obviously spend too much time on the internet and don’t have any friends. If you disagree, I suggest we have a serious online chat about it. I’m free most nights.

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