With Matty back, we’re finally the closest we’ll be to getting the whole gang back together by next week’s finale. Grace may be gone, but she’s far from forgotten, continuing to haunt the series very effectively.

Mini’s pregnancy is now visually unavoidable, one of the first real indications of the amount of time that’s passed since the crash, and Franky has positioned herself as Mini’s best mate in order to give herself some kind of authority over whatever she can, taking care of Mini while her mum and sort-of stepdad Eric are on an extended holiday.

While, on the surface, it seems to be Mini’s story – coming to terms with her pregnancy and telling her friends and family, as well as unexpectedly expectant father Alo – it becomes increasingly clear that Franky has engineered the situation (and the episode) to be as much about herself as possible, attempting to make herself indispensable in order to hide from her own life.

The truth about what Mini is packing is finally revealed in a pretty funny, farcical scene at the local hospital, staffed very unhelpfully by Tim Key and Dawn Porter, with both Alo and mother Shelley (Clare Grogan, continuing to impress) discovering the truth mid-ultrasound. Shelley, not for the first time seeing her life repeating in her daughter, suggests adoption as it’s too late for a termination.

As an adopted child herself, Franky doesn’t like this idea at all and runs away with Mini to hide (and thankfully spare us) from her astonishingly tedious love triangle with Nick and Matty, as well as talking for the first time about her absent mother in what looks to us for all the world like plot set-up.

Luckily, their escape plan is rubbish and they are almost immediately intercepted by the ever-reliable Eric, giving Franky a chance to see that it’s not down to her to make everything right for someone when they can do it themselves. Come the end of the episode, Mini’s keeping the baby and Mini loves Alo, while Shelley and Alo are happy with this fact. Job done. It just feels like some of it could have been done earlier.

Rich continues to be underused, sadly, but always raises a smile when he’s on screen. On top of that, he’s a character who has a lot of credibility when talking about what aspects of your love-life you might miss or regret not doing when it’s too late.

Not a bad episode, but one that just ties up whatever ends are still flapping around since the first few episodes before we rush headfirst into next week’s finale, just as Mini starts to haemorrhage…

Aired at 10pm on Monday 19th March 2012 on E4.

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> Christopher Jerden-Cooke is co-host of Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour Podcast.