Tonight’s episode of Dr Who, the season finale, was a joyous confirmation of Russell T Davies’s status as the show’s reinventor. The key is in his regeneration of an old franchise that had gone to seed in the hands of people embarrassed to be charged with running a science fiction show for all the family, and the way it’s now positioned front and centre at the heart of BBC1’s role as a national and international broadcaster.

Make no mistake, in these days of shows tailored to demographics, and a BBC determined to establish a foothold in every conceivable social grouping, Dr Who is a hugely important series. While everyone else is talking narrowcasting, Russell has managed to reaffirm the importance of television as an experience shared across generations and subcultures.

Not only is Dr Who a show with a mission, it’s one with a message. It’s a series about the future of our species, and at a time when we’re bombarded with bulletins about global warming, economic downturn, intolerance and the rest, Dr Who is pointing to a multi-ethnic polysexual future in which difference is accepted and every individual can make a difference. A bit Pollyanna-ish perhaps, but I’d rather the next generation were growing up with that as a vision than whatever they’re gleaning from a diet of Resident Evil and Happy Meals.

OK, so every episode has not been one of unalloyed success, and some of Russell’s scripts have been among the clunkiest since the show has reappeared. But when he does well, he does better than well, and this evening’s barnstormer was an example of why Russell T Davies deserves whatever accolades can be sent his way.

In 65 fabulous minutes, the series finale managed to combine a thwarting of a(nother) Dalek plan to defeat the Doctor and destroy the universe with a whole bunch of subplots relating to the extended family of companions and chums that he has accumulated since coming back to our screens. Everyone got their moment, from swashbuckling bisexual Captain Jack to Bernard Cribbins, in his role as Donna Noble’s grandfather. And Donna got the biggest moment of all, which fully justified her surname: Everywoman became Wonder Woman, if only for a short while, before the cosmic clock was reset and all returned to normal. There’s nothing more noble than a sacrifice like that, and sacrifice is what Dr Who runs on.

Oh, and Rose came back, had to return to her parallel world, and did so in the company of the Doctor, or at least a half-human iteration of The Doctor, who’ll be able to settle down and live and love and die with her as a mortal. What more could you ask for? You can’t accuse Davies of skimping on emotional scenes, and he relished every opportunity to shoehorn them in: anyone who watched the show without a tear coming to their eyes at some point is a Cyberman, for sure.

Juggling those emotional pay-offs with the structural demands of the plot was a hell of a feat, and demonstrated Davies’s abundant skill as a writer at the same time as getting across his underlying belief that quality drama can be life-affirming…too many people mistake misery for seriousness, and if Davies demonstrates anything it’s the power of truly popular drama to touch the lives of its audience.

Where the dynamic of art and society is concerned, I’m very much of the belief that art can have social value. Not that all art should seek to have social merit, but that it can absolutely be a valid part of the debates that society has with itself about issues affecting some or all of its members. Today’s Guardian features two stories where art and politics have intersected with interesting results…

Over in America, Indiana teacher Connie Heermann has been using the book The Freedom Writers Diary, filmed recently with Hilary Swank, to inspire a class of underperforming teenagers. The stories it contains are written by young people from the inner city, whose lives have been turned round partly as a result of their creativity. And, guess what, it contains some swearing. Despite getting the assent of 150 parents to using the book, one of the school’s board members objected to some of the more potty-mouthed content, with the result that Connie has been suspended from her job without pay for 18 months, and the book effectively banned from the school.

I was lucky enough to have had an English teacher with Connie’s vision. We were bored to tears by the first few pages of Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae, and responding to our agonies he went and got us Kes instead. It was a breath of fresh air, and reading something concerning the life of a boy our own age living in what was recognisably our own world was a liberation. I’m pretty sure there was a bit of swearing in there too, but thankfully the school board never intervened. That same teacher was passionate about the work of George Orwell, and it’s maybe because of that baptism in socially engaged prose by a committed and articulate advocate that I became fascinated by the interaction of the world and the writer.

It’s always interesting when an interest group claims to be unfairly represented by a work of fiction, and this week it’s the turn of that underprivileged bunch, barristers. Their bone of contention is the excellent series Criminal Justice, which unfortunately for them is written by one of their number, Peter Moffatt, who could be fairly said to know a thing or two about the horsetrading that goes on in the legal system.

Timothy Dutton, the head of the bar (which itself is an interesting choice of language to describe what is in effect a cartel for bewigged justice dispensers) claims that Criminal Justice in no way, shape or form resembles the way that yer actual barristers conduct yer actual law. And you’d like to think he’s right, what with the tactics used by the show’s barrister to stall, to persuade, and bamboozle its youthful protagonist.

Unfortunately, there’s a wealth of evidence to suggest that this portrait is in fact highly representative of what goes on in Britain’s legal system, and that Dutton is flipping his wig about someone with inside knowledge writing about it in a show that’s attracted respect in part for the authenticity of its detail. Funnily enough, there have been no complaints from jailbirds about the portrayal of the brutal anthropology of incarceration. Sure, as Moffatt acknowledges, he’s writing a piece of television drama that is enthralling and entertaining, but there’s no denying the research that’s gone into it.

Where these two stories are concerned, I’m hoping there’ll be more to come. It’d be lovely to think that public outrage could help Connie Heermann get her job back from the knuckle-draggers who took it from her. And I’m sure further elegantly worded asides will be exchanged between Peter Moffatt and his former lords and masters about Criminal Justice, which continues until the end of the week.

So, I got round to seeing Wanted, with a writer friend who I have occasional ‘man dates’ with where we go and see films together that no self-respecting woman would be seen at. And so far we’ve picked on films that have their origins in comics, what with the pair of us being comics geeks. Only, after Wanted I’m left wondering why studios persist in going for the big whizzbang kind of comics, when the medium has so much more to offer that could bring something fresh to the screen…

I’ve not actually read the series that Wanted is based on, having very mixed feelings about its author, Mark Millar. He did a pretty fine job on The Ultimates for Marvel, reinventing some of the company’s core characters for a new cine-literate generation, but I find his grandstanding hype and mixed-up politics put me off much of his other work. Plus, there’s the feeling that he’s better at the big shocking concept than the actual delivery.

The idea behind Wanted is simple enough: what if you found out you weren’t just an average citizen, but had amazing abilities, and could use your powers to shape the destiny of the world? Classic adolescent powertrip stuff in other words, and that’s pretty much the film in a nutshell. Beyond that, it’s spectacle piled on top of spectacle, connected by some frankly ludicrous ideas. Trains crashing into canyons while people fight on board. Secret mind powers that allow you to bend bullets round corners. A lorryload of rats wired up to explode the baddy’s base. The baddy’s base itself, to all intents and purposes a castle in a previously overlooked medieval quarter of New York. Riffs from Fight Club and The Matrix recycled blandly like the soundtrack’s generic guitar attack. It’s all kind of fun at the most superficial level, but five minutes after it had finished we were discussing something else entirely, since the whole was utterly devoid of content.

All is not lost though. There are some fabulous comics out there coming to the screen sooner or later, and the one I’m particularly keen to see is Y: The Last Man. Brian K Vaughan’s series for Vertigo is now available in full as ten trade paperbacks, and there are more ideas of consequence in there than have troubled Millar for his whole life.

The core concept is that one man and his pet monkey somehow survive an apocalypse which wipes out all other males of every species. It’s a big dumb B-movie conceit, and Vaughan knows how to write action-packed stories with cracking cliffhangers. But he also knows how to populate them with characters you care about, and ideas that drive stories which zig when you think they’re going to zag, and consistently pulse with intelligence regarding issues of gender, politics, and the practicalities of living in a post-apocalyptic world.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against action blockbusters and in particular ones based on comics. I absolutely loved Iron Man, and am really looking forward to Christopher Nolan’s next Batman film. But there’s an awful lot of chaff out there that could be replaced if studios forgot about looking at the big names in comics and searched around some more for quirkier talent.

And maybe that’s starting to happen: Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s stunning animal action escapade We3 is coming to a cinema soon enough, with Morrison himself writing a script that’s received considerable acclaim from those who’ve read it. Andy Diggle and Jock’s excellent political thriller Losers is on the way too, or was when I last heard anything. Let’s hope those films do their source material justice, and maybe even send people from the cinemas to book shops or comics stores to pick up the stories that inspired the films.