Doctor Who: The horror! The horror!

It's been talked about for a few weeks, the BBC's new credits policy, but no one actually thought they'd do it...

When Doctor Who returned, two years ago, there was a tacit assumption that the end credits wouldn't be squeezed to the side, as those of many programmes were, and that proved to be the case. It was felt that the BBC understood that Doctor Who was... different. People are less bothered by the squeezing of the Holby City or Hustle credits. But not Doctor Who. Yes, the announcer talked over the theme, but, then, you can't have everything.

But mark today, Saturday 9th June, down as a day of television history. More shocking than anything in Steven Moffat's very scary episode was the moment when the closing time tunnel suddenly receded to the bottom right corner of the screen and Graham Norton, for the second time in the programme's recent history, made an unexpected appearance in the episode. Have the BBC prepared themselves for the avalanche of criticism that will follow this? Because it will; I'm as sure of that as I am of John Barrowman appearing onscreen every time I switch on. I wouldn't like to be staffing the switchboard tonight.

And the 'not-we' reading this and thinking that it confirms their view of Doctor Who fans as social illiterates have a point in the wider scheme of things. Of course they do. In many ways, (deep breath) it doesn't matter much; not compared to the suffering that the news will tell us of later on in the evening. But that's a specious argument. In its own, small way, something's been lost tonight: the unspoken contract between broadcaster and viewer that spoke of respect and consideration, that accorded the viewer autonomy to choose their own viewing, and evinced the broadcaster's pride in the programmes they were transmitting. This breathless panic to reel the viewer into the next programme, even while they are watching the preceding one, smacks of desperation and bad faith. Yes, we've known it was coming; yes, we've been subject to it for a while now, like a form of coastal erosion - but tonight, on the most televisual of all its television output, the BBC lost something, and we, the viewers, lost something too.