Moffat wrote the episode and it’s his good bye as well (he’s stepping down and the creator of Broadchurch is taking over). The first Doctor was okay, but they could have almost dropped him from the story completely. Ben and Polly…bleh
BUT
The identity of the officer from the First World War was brilliant! Could have done without the flashback to Clara though, but I get why it was in there
I will be in a sold out audience of fellow Dr. Who geeks… that is the best part.
Then it’s a good thing…
“By all measures, good is not a practical survival strategy.”
Oh fuck off, Moffat.
Yeah, that annoyed me a bit. For individual survival, maybe. For survival over time in groups or civilizations, good tends to get better returns, even if it sometimes loses out.
I’m also getting a bit tired of Christmas specials that harp on the Doctor being the most important being in the universe. Can’t the Doctor just be an important, influential, sometimes magical figure, without being the only thing holding the universe together?
I just got back.
That was fun.
I just a few days ago watched The Power Of The Daleks which was the first Pertwee show or rather an animated reconstruction from some found footage and full audio. Anyway I would have totally missed out on the call back to the first regeneration with the ring falling off The Doctors finger.
A brief making of before hand and afterwards for the movie theater extras to pad out the time.
[rant]That’s been my main complaint about NuWho also. It worked better when the Doctor was just some ordinary schmuck who happened to be there - but also bringing crazy cosmic knowledge and experience under the surface.
Some of the Who novels of the 90s had a theme of a Time War which was a really profound and barely comprehensible concept. Not a war against the Daleks, but a war against an actual new kind of history itself. It was great myth-spinning in the service of some solid literature. But Davies et al mined that extended work for ideas and only IMO took some superficial bits for the sake of cheap drama. Which isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy some contemporary Who, because I do. Hell, season 6 even toyed with the idea that the Doctor had to be “killed off” in the eyes of the universe precisely because he was such an overblown presence. That sounded self-aware at the time, but there was no resolve behind it, and we got basically more of the same.
The 80s business of the Doctor being “Time’s Champion”, and the “Cartmel Masterplan” of the Doctor being the reincarnation of the Other worked despite being potentially hokey, because it was only hinted at, and supported rather than undermined the structure of the series.[/rant]
That said, I enjoyed the special a bit. It was not as light and twee as they usually tend to be. It relied more on theme and character than plot. Was rather meta-theatrical in a way that basically worked. Bradley was OK as the original Doctor, what threw me off was mostly his voice, which lacks that biting edge that Hartnell had. Mark “Professor Nebulous” Gatiss was quite good. Casual viewers may not be aware that he and Toby Whithouse - who played the German soldier - were the two writers who did most of the non-Moffat screenplays. Whithouse was my preferred choice to be the new showrunner. It was great to get the tease of a minute of Whittaker - before it ends on a dumb contrived cliffhanger.
Generally, I have liked Moffat’s view of the show, in that he recognized it as fantasy which was only superficially ever sci-fi, and tried to work with that. And I like that he pushed (especially in his first two seasons) for a more plot-heavy narrative. But his shortcomings were also apparent in this episode, such as pretty much the entire story hinging upon many unlikely coincidences, one after the other. My guess is that when he’s told to ease off on the convoluted and clever, he just gets sloppy. Another example of why the producer, script editor, and writer should ideally be three different people.
The stories IMO have been mostly so-so through Capaldi’s run, with a few amazing gems. But he and Bill rank among my top actors/characterizations in the show’s history. Their dynamic was brilliant and will be difficult to match.
wow, i really have to disagree. i’ve been watching this show since it was in B&W on PBS in the 1970s, and i felt David Bradley really captured the first doctor quite perfectly. he had his sense of speech and stuffy mannerisms down perfectly… granted, it’s been four decades since i’ve watched them, but still… he’s an unforgettable figure.
like all christmas episodes, i found it VERY bittersweet, and i’m thrilled that i called the Lethbridge-Stewart connection from the very first scene. i thought that whole part was very well done.
[quote=“Franko, post:94, topic:729, full:true”]
i felt David Bradley really captured the first doctor quite perfectly. he had his sense of speech and stuffy mannerisms down perfectly
My problem was mainly that they seemed to use the “outdated gender role ideas” thing as a large crutch, with some mild grumpiness tossed in. He just wasn’t the crotchety and clever Doctor, instead seeming a bit out of it and vaguely characterized. They got the look probably about as close as possible without necromancy, and vocally it wasn’t bad… but I just wasn’t convinced by most of the dialogue.
hmm, i see what you are saying, but from what i recall, being mildly grumpy and out of it was exactly how he WAS. this was the late 1960s, after all, and he was paired with the hip and happening youth of London –
Portobello Road and all that.
oh, hey – i was looking for the clip of William Hartnell in some groovy 60s british hipster bar, and i can’t find it (was it posted here??) – anyway, i found this:
look at ~45 seconds in, and you’ll see him mention a “right smacked bottom,” haha
A witty and insightful critical review of the writing of the Christmas Special:
Note: The article’s date is important.
It would make a good crossover.
And so far, it has! 
Suck it, misogynistic fanboys:
