I'd forgotten just how strong a start Russell T. Davies / Chris Eccleston "Doctor Who" gets off to. having supernatural shenanigans somehow overlap with the life of Charles Dickens (who wrote a short but harrowing ghost story called "The Signal-Man", by the way, recommended reading) is just the sort of semi-historical tall tale that "Doctor Who" loved doing; the Doctor's adventures were always intersecting with great historical personages.
