Review by Ken Parker
I hesitated in watching this episode as
I had heard so many negative vibes online ahead of time. I did not want
to ruin a great Christmas with another convoluted Moffat mess but I
was curious. I know the 'new' Doctor Who has potential of being very good
and very bad but hearing that this latest one might be toward the
very bad I was nervous for sure. What we ended up with was a bit of
every sort of Moffat produced episode with some very bad and very
good.
Spoilers & nudity - hehehehehehehehehe
What Moffat does all the time that is
incredibly annoying and so wasteful is throw in so many plot lines
and tangents. He will often bring in many characters and create a
cluster of frenzied scenes that 'show off' Matt Smith's ability to
talk fast and crazily. He has done this with the usual “every
alien” making an appearance in this story. Shades of “The
Pandorica Opens”, we have all the Doctor's enemies once again up
against the Time Lord. These appearances are more of a reminder of
all of the best aliens from Matt Smith's era. From the Weeping
Angels to the Silence to the Cybermen and Daleks, we have some
substantial individual scenes with these monsters that helps eat up
precious running time of the episode and does nothing more than
supercharge our brains as we try to process everything.
Individually, some of these scenes are creepy, especially the Angels
coming out of the snow but are just quick guest appearances for
Smith's final story. |
| Yuck yuck yuck......... |
We are then introduced to a new
character who is suggestively the Doctor's lover and again, the
Doctor and nudity go hand and hand in a running gag that lasts a
quarter of the episode. These scenes are very non Doctor Who moments
and do nothing except create some cheap guffhaws and give some other
fans some scenes where they might be able to use their imagination to
see the Doctor and Clara in the nude. Such a tease Moffat.
 |
| Why not? Its funny.......... |
If you can cope the barrage of hurried
alien appearances and complex and forced connections with Christmas,
you can then enjoy some excellent acting by Smith and Coleman that
are some of the only highlights for the episode. Their acting with
other characters is superb, when Smith is serious and perhaps a bit
jokey and Coleman is upset. Together, their chemistry is excellent
as well but is annoyingly interrupted by an appearance of 11's own
version of Rose Tyler, Amy Pond. This appearance cheapens Clara and
reminds us how much more important and popular Amy Pond is in the
minds of some shippers and others who have not warmed up to Clara.
Rose often undercut Martha and other companions for 10 which was so
squeeingly annoying for the fans who wanted to leave Rose in the
past. Amy rears her big bald wigged head to give Smith his final
send off. Thanks Karen.
So many other scenes are horrible
including the goofy bald Doctor and it was bad when they did it in "Asylum of the Daleks" and it is doubly bad again, the Dalek stalks
breaking out of the heads of the humans. Bad.
The Doctor's connection to Christmas is
a bit odd and forced as the story cheats the viewers by giving 11
300+ years on the planet with only some very quick narration telling
us that the Doctor has abandoned his life of travelling to save a few
people who have to tell the truth and live in the snow. The Doctor
refuses to answer the question "Doctor Who?" and not since I found
myself being asked by Russell T. Davies to pray for the Doctor so that he could change from a
shrunken tweety bird like being into good old David Tennant again,
have I been embarrassed hearing the title of the show over and over
again. The original series would once in a while mention Doctor Who
as a knee slapping joke but now it is part of the show.
Again the Doctor is faced with
something he has no other choice but to choose death. He spends decades not finding any
other way out of his upcoming doom, similar when the War Doctor
finally decides there is no other option but to push the big red
button. Clara, once again shows us how stupid the Doctor is by
asking the Crack to help and if you love the Doctor (is she asking
the viewers this?) to help him. The Time Lords believe she asked
politely enough and decide to give the Doctor a new set of
regenerations.
Wait..... the 11th Doctor
was at the end of his regenerations? YES, of course. War Doctor and
10th Hand boy toy for Rose Tyler were the other two.
Moffat decided to take care of the question that every fan has had
since the limit on regenerations was mentioned in “The Deadly
Assassin.” I don't mind him doing this and while it was always a
possibility that the Time Lords would give out a new set of
regenerations, Moffat did seem to give the process a little push and
cheated the viewer out of a few more seasons. The fixing of the
regeneration problem was a cop out and perhaps too easy. Speaking of
which, the regeneration is a bit quicker than previous ones. Tennant
took 20 minutes of screen time to finally regenerate and Smith less than a second seen in this quick GIF below.. The abrupt regeneration did not bother me as
much as many other parts of this story and I am really looking
forward to Capaldi's Doctor. Everything in this points to the right
direction for the show and hopefully Moffat leaves the show in a
better condition for his successor than it is right now. Hints over
the past couple of stories and season seem to suggest that to be
true.
Despite my negative review, I am
surprised by so much negativity online. What do you expect? This
was not any different than anything you have seen in the past few
years. The only thing missing was a winking woman smiling and saying
“Spoilers” and the Victorian team making some shoe-horned
appearance.
I found the moments with Clara and the
final scenes, excising Pond of course, to be touching. I had hoped
to be more attached to Matt Smith but I have less connection with his
Doctor than any of the previous two (that would be Eccelston and
Tennant, not Hurt and boy toy Tennant), despite having some great
eccentric moments that have suffered from some poor stories. I did
think Smith ended strongly and don't have an issue with his Doctor
but I am so looking ahead right now that I am more excited for what
is to come than what I just saw.
There have been worse Christmas
specials but non as convoluted when it didn't need to be. A few
omissions and changes and this could have been an emotional story for
us to remember. My expectations were near bottom on this one so it did not totally live down to that. It had its moments and is not nearly as bad or good as many are stating. How's that for a cop out?
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