I do believe with every pixel of my being that the sole way to become a better writer is to bleedin’ well write. I’ve had advice and of course I’ve been inspired to the point of rage, but it’s backside on the chair, one word after another, that’s what gets it done.

And one measure, for me, of how I have genuinely progressed as a writer is that something no longer happens. Follow. I can’t count, I can’t even really imagine, how many books I’ve read or shows I’ve seen and heard and read that have been beyond what I will ever be capable of writing.

But there was a really key, formative patch for me where I would watch a 45-minute Doctor Who episode and for about 44 minutes I would entirely in the show, totally at its mercy and relishing the ride.

Then on minute 45 I would truly crash through the floor with depression that this was writing I couldn’t begin to match. Let me stress that even in the very deepest depressions about it, I was bloodyminded enough to know that nothing would or will stop me trying.

But we progress, we mature, and since those now long-ago days, I can look back at it all and appreciate how I have not had that same crashing depression from Doctor Who. Not even close.

Until I watched last week’s episode, “73 Yards” by Russell T Davies.

Buggersticks.

If you’ve not seen it, don’t let me sound as if it’s spectacular or earth-shaking. And apparently some people disliked it, but you can’t help them. And as much as I’ve been quite merrily enjoying recent episodes, with this one it was back to being totally owned by the story for however many minutes it was. Completely in it, utterly removed from reality, and then dropped back into my living room with the sense of the show knowing it had done a good job.

There was an important difference, though.

This time I wasn’t depressed, at least not so I’d admit it out loud, I was exultant. I believe that the one-hour television drama is the perfect storytelling form — okay, yesterday I read the script to the film “The Banshees Of Inisherin” by Martin McDonagh and that was exceptionally absorbing too. But, truly, no, one-hour TV, it is as precious and special to me as the three-minute pop song is to so many.

I keep thinking that, I keep saying it, and when you get something that — to me — proves it, it’s fantastic.

Funny thing, though. The finale to this season of Doctor Who is being shown in cinemas and I wasn’t fussed. Fine. Great. But this one episode takes me by the heart and ten minutes after it, I was booking a ticket.

Sometimes it just takes one thing, one piece of writing, to make drama that is alive and on its feet.

I’d best go write one then, hadn’t I?