Well it was every bit as good as we expected it to be: a perfectly crafted piece of traditional Christmas entertainment. Opium, jealousy, cowardice, malice, courage, fortitude, compassion, rage and love all there in good measure in Philip Pulman's ripping yarn, adapted with great aplomb by Adrian Hodges.

While I expected great things from Billie Piper, Robert Glenister and David Harewood, the surprising breakthrough performance for me came from Julie Walters.

You see while I was a huge fan of Walters' Mrs. O from Acorn Antiques, I've never really got any of her straight dramatic work. She's received countless plaudits and awards from all manner of places for her work, the vast majority of which has left me cold. But her realisation of the evil and manipulative Mrs Holland was a class apart from anyone else on the screen. Excellent stuff.

Pulman's second novel in the Sally Lockhart Mysteries series - The Shadow in the North - will be broadcast in 2007.