There's definitely a different feeling about these first two episodes of Paradise Towers. I wonder if it's partly because this is really the first story edited by Andrew Cartmel (his name is on Time and the Rani, but by his own admission he didn't actually do much work on it), but it's certainly distinct from anything we've seen in quite some time.
The first thing that's worth noticing is how filthy and dirty everything looks. This is a good thing, as the Towers are meant to be run down and dirty, but they really do a nice job with all the graffiti and caked-on dirt along the edges of corridors. Even the frosted windows look dingy as they let brownish light in. And thankfully, there's a lot of nice moody lighting to help sell the scene even more. When one thinks back to the set of Warriors of the Deep, and the floodlighting everywhere, you start to realize how much of a refreshing change this is.
The second thing worth noting is how distinct and reasonably well-defined all the various inhabitants are. Yes, there are some casting problems (some of the Caretakers seem too young, all of the Kangs seem too old, and Pex isn't nearly as much of a Stallone-esque meathead as the script wants him to be), but the striking thing about this is how easy it is to look past these problems. Stephen Wyatt's script sparkles with enough idiosyncrasies (the Kangs' slang terms, the Caretakers' reliance on their rule book) that the characteristics of these different groups comes through, and it doesn't really matter that the Red Kangs look like they're in their 20s -- you know what the story is getting at, and that works just fine. And it certainly helps that the structure of this story is different enough from other recent Who stories, in both concept and execution, to maintain the audience's interest.
And into this environment the Doctor and Mel are inserted. This is a story where McCoy starts to really put his stamp on the show -- his reactions here feel fresh and unique to this incarnation, and thankfully the malapropisms have disappeared. And while Mel is wandering the Towers more or less separated from the Doctor, she more than manages to hold her own -- her conversations with Tilda and Tabby, the two Rezzies, are enjoyable, and she gets some genuinely good moments with Pex (her chastising of his destructive behavior, her crestfallen reaction to learning that he's a fraud). This feels like a world that existed long before the TARDIS arrived, rather than one with a specific problem for the Doctor to solve (as the recent crop of stories has occasionally felt).
So far Paradise Towers is smart, clever, and genuinely funny at times (such as the "Are you annoying these old ladies?" gag), and while there are some problems that show up here and there, they're generally easy to look past. A rather wonderful breath of fresh air, but can the concluding episodes keep it up?