Doctor Who

[SqueakyG]

Nice little episode with a small budget... but what happened to awesome christmas specials?

[Harsin]

Whut?

There's been precisely one half-decent Christmas Special and that was last year.

[Made of Ghosts]

Christmas Invasion was alright.

[Comrade]

Crap episode. Ears raised when I heard the Androzani Major reference, but the goodwill was spoiled by the constant Androzani this and that.

In that they said the word "Androzani" three whole times?

[Nick R]

How would a pilot's wife know about radar - wasn't it top secret at that time in the war? And would a '40s teenager have gone round saying something as casually blasphemous as "Oh my God!" all the time?

This episode was RUINED RUINED RUINED because of FLAWS like THOSE.

Not really! As unashamedly sentimental as it was, I enjoyed that. Preferred last year's, though.

[Death's Head]

Wibble.

[Jug McKenzie]

On 25/12/2011 at 20:06, Avuncular said:

 

[pranny]

Fucking hell that was crap! I dont even think there was one redeeming thing in the whole episode apart from Bill Bailey`s master chiefish space marine outfit and the funny CG front door .I would have been much happier just watching that amazing christmas tree for 2 hours or however long it was.If only Bill Bailey had a bigger , more central part. I was hoping that the story might be more of a homage to the lion , witch, wardrobe story and maybe have Bailey as a sort of Tumnus character somehow. The mother shouldnt have been even able to go to Narnia or wherever it was because isnt a child or however it worked. Although I suppose they made that ok by casting an actress who was either recently in a bad car accident ( really hope she wasnt) or was playing the part of a mother who had the mind of a 9 year old. Some of her delivery , hell all of it was so bad it wasnt even funny to laugh at being so bad its good. It was just puzzlingly weirdly way off the mark. It really felt like a parody of Doctor who and not the real thing which I usually love. More like a really long red nose day episode.

After last year`s christmas special I suppose there was a lot to live up to . It didnt and it didnt even try to and neither did any of the actors (apartt from maybe the trees and the young girl actress and mayybe bailey if he was given more lines)and matt smith.

A big difference between the writing of this episode was that it was really really obvious what was going to happen next and up to ten minutes later! In a lot of the last few season`s episides there have been so many double bluffs and twists in the plots that it really stood out how plainly and flatly written it was. I know its for kids but give them some credit!

[Death's Head]

I kept seeing and hearing Sophie Aldred whenever she was on screen. Which was weird.

I kept hearing horrible voices in my head. Bad, bad voices.

[Kyouma]

I liked it. I think it's physically impossible for me to dislike anything Matt Smith is in, though.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

I decided not to watch it, and carried on playing my xbox.

From the replies above, looks like the right thing!

I dont know if its the writers,Matt Smiths Interpretation or both.

But i know one thing : I dont like Doctor Who anymore

[pranny]

Dear BBC ,

this christmas can we have the Doctor fall out of a spaceship and land on earth in WWII UK and become a nanny to blitz children like all the other men his age were doing during the war. He gives them a present which they go inside and nearly die lots of times and their mum who cant act follows them inside like in lion the witch and wardrobe when the parents follow them in to Narnia and tell them to come home .she has a gun.Guns are cool? Bill Bailey is in it but rather than have him represent some sort of Mr Tumnus character in a robot backwards fawn legged mech suit , he will be a lumberlack from space dressed as master chief with a space marine helmet on .Which represents nothing.Beavers>Wood>lumberjack bill bailey! The mum is a woman and so is her daughter . This should not be overstated so as to let you guess the ending after about 20 minutes into the show. The mum saves the forest from the lumberjacks with a bit of wibbly wobbly timey wimey plot device and they go inside her head. They fly through the time vortex inside the crystal dome that is made of futuristic trees that can do that , As if she doesnt have enough on her mind already the mum must forget that she has a thousand million tree souls in her head and imagine her dead husband out of his time stream and into the vortex just so that it mirrors a small plot detail mentioned earlier that I havent though of yet that I thought we could finalise just before we shoot.

Yours sincerely , Ian Tenuous , age 9,Seething, near Norwich.

[Jack]

Hey, Doctor Who, why didn't you fix Christmas for the German children that AA battery's character might have bombed? I think the best use of the final 15 minutes would have been a comedy reveal that he was on the way back from Dresden or something.

[bingowings]

Hey, Doctor Who, why didn't you fix Christmas for the German children that AA battery's character might have bombed? I think the best use of the final 15 minutes would have been a comedy reveal that he was on the way back from Dresden or something.

or it was some kind of alternate reality and he was returning from Nagasaki...

[Exidor]

Hey, Doctor Who, why didn't you fix Christmas for the German children that AA battery's character might have bombed?

Because their mums didn't give him a lift from a crater to his Tardis. I quite like the arbitrariness of that - that he only helps people who appear on his radar for whatever reason and the rest can quite literally die in a fire.

[Flub]

and the child actors were remarkably tolerable.

She's 19

[lordcookie]

I didn't get a chance to see it on Christmas Day, and given the overly negative comments in here I very nearly missed it altogether, but I'm glad I watched it this morning as I rather enjoyed it. Sure it was shamelessly sentimental but I don't really mind that for a Christmas story and there was enough little moments of magic and well judged lines of dialogue to make it a rather pleasurable experience. No doubt my low expectations helped but I am surprised it got such a mauling in here considering the usual Doctor Who Christmas specials we have had to endure (last year excluded).

[Jug McKenzie]

.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

I stopped caring about anything that was going on about halfway through.

It wasn't as full-on offensively bad as it's been in previous years, but it just didn't hold my attention at all. A few nice lines/moments sprinkled throughout didn't rescue it for me.

[joeplus]

Although I suppose they made that ok by casting an actress who was either recently in a bad car accident ( really hope she wasnt) or was playing the part of a mother who had the mind of a 9 year old.

This is one of the most unpleasant things I've read on rllmuk. It's fine to dislike someone's acting style, but she's a trained professional and deserves more respect than that.

Anyway, I enjoyed the episode because of the full and tipsy family magic, but I know it was mostly pretty rubbish. The beginning with the decorated rooms and the "I know!" was too smug even for Christmas. The space marines were great though and Smith really sold that "doesn't do wood" joke even though we've had it a few times now. Also good on Moffatt for the women/men strong/weak thing, I chuckled to myself at how much that would piss off misogynist internet nutters.

[pranny]

This is one of the most unpleasant things I've read on rllmuk.

She may well have been in an accident for all you know . Its nice that they let her keep the part afterwards ;p . She wont have been the only one who went for the part either and I think they made a very strange and wonky casting choice. The others who will have gone for the role must be at least slightly about her acting. And I`m sure theyre equally well trained and respected. I hope you dont actually know her and I havent offended anyone. I`ll send you a bowl of fruit if you give me an address.

[El Pibe]

Hey, Doctor Who, why didn't you fix Christmas for the German children that AA battery's character might have bombed? I think the best use of the final 15 minutes would have been a comedy reveal that he was on the way back from Dresden or something.

He wasn't trying to save the Dad was he? Didn't that just happen?

[Space Gibbon]

Matt Smith is always good, but I thought a lot of the stuff this time was overly zany, and the story was a bit loosely tied together and I was generally disappointed. That said, not as bad as some of the more rubbish David Tennant Christmas specials.

[Pekoe]

I enjoyed it, sod the naysayers.

[Lorfarius]

Nice to see the Crystal Maze set in use after all these years.

[Sarlaccfood]

Start the fans please!

[jonamok]

Utter crap on every level - writing, directing, casting, performances, effects.

I know the xmas "specials" are always a mixed bag and not necessarily representative, but that does fill me with a little dread for the next series.

[Red Alignment]

Being a Private Eye reader, I'm very pessimistic that we'll get a full series next year.

[Garwoofoo]

Just watched it - thought it was dire. The lead actress was terrible, where on earth did they find her?

I think I'm going off Moffat-era Who rapidly now.

[zxcvbnm]

It was alright, but from Moffat I'd really like to see a Christmas ghost story - something to really frighten the kids. He could even do a ghost of the Doctor and bring back some dead regenerations of the Doctor. A Tom Baker and Matt Smith episode would make me giggle like a little kids who's had his first drop of gin.