The moment has been prepared for – my first Guardian Doctor Who episode-by-episode recap

It’s a new year, and a big day for me personally. I’ve got the job in the worst way possible because we lost my friend and colleague Dan Martin earlier this year, but I’m taking over the Guardian Doctor Who episode-by-episode recap series, and today we published my write-up of the New Year’s Day special.

I wrote about losing both Dan and also Seb Patrick in short succession in August last year. December is an awful month for grief as now it also carries the anniversaries of losing my dear colleagues Piers Jones and Simon Ricketts.

It’s truly the strangest of feelings to be doing something I obviously am going to love doing, but feeling sad about it.

The episode-by-episode recaps are a chatty review of every Doctor Who episode as it transmits, and then hanging around in the comments to tell everybody that obviously, they are wrong and I am right, but with kindness. It’s my perfect gig. I feel so proud to add it to my career

But I also feel such sadness about it. Reading Dan’s opinions on an episode straight after it had been broadcast and diving into the comment thread had become a ritual of watching Doctor Who, and I’m never going to write it without realising how much I miss that, or how much I owe him to keeping it to that standard.

Oh, and it is also incredibly nerve-wracking filing something days ahead without knowing what anybody else’s reaction to the episode is going to be…

My thoughts are with you, Dan, wherever you are. I will do my best to do you and Doctor Who proud.