The Doctor Who Christmas Special
27/12/2009 Comments (12)
So it’s heading up to New Years, and that means Doctor Who special time!
Last year we had a giant steam powered Cyberman stomping around Victorian London… This year we had the John Simm with a serious case of the munchies.
For those of you that don’t know, this two-part special will be Russel T Davis’ last time writing for the series, and David Tennant’s last time acting as our favourite Time Lord. So as with all end of the series extravaganzas, it has to be balls to the wall awesome! Christopher Eccleston’s last moments involved a full scale galactic slaughter with the newly resurrected Daleks on a space ship threatening to destroy Earth as well as everyone on board, Billie Piper looked into the heart of the TARDIS and got a severe case of the Deus Ex Machina, Effectively turning her into God. This forced Eccleston to put a stop to all that before she solved all the series problems for him and ended up killing himself in the process.
Of course, back then the Daleks had been given a whole veneer of novelty by the fact the series hadn’t been running for sixteen years by that point and they were genuinely terrifying… Unfortunately that doesn’t apply any more, so thankfully, this new special episode didn’t even bother with the Daleks so as not to cheapen them any further, and decided to cheapen the Master instead!
It’s almost a clever idea, bring back someone from before the series became shit from the presence of Catherine Tate, John Simm had been a brilliantly charismatic and utterly batshit crazy villain with a wonderful anarchic glee at the evil he performed. Imagine the spine tingling horror you felt at watching Heath Ledger’s Joker at work and you’ll be about half way there.
Last time we saw him, he stole the TARDIS and made himself Prime Minister of England for a whole year before the series had even started. Hypnotising the whole world, killing the president on live television, stealing a flying aircraft carrier and sending earth into a dystopian horror… all with a smile on his face.
This time, he’s been brought back with a plot point we weren’t told about before, and he wants to eat stuff… and he won’t stop bloody talking about it. It’s supposed to be scary, but when he morphed into a blue skeleton I couldn’t stop laughing! And then he jumps away into the sky, propelled by lightning and the power of wasted TV licence money!
David Tennant himself is as great as ever, and it will be a real pity to see him go. You never realise how good an actor he is until you see him go all out to salvage something as awful as this. You can see that the only thing that’s been keeping this last series together has been Tennant’s acting and Steven Moffat’s occasional forays into writing for the series. Fighting against the corrosive influence of Catherine Tate.
So of course, Tate’s back for this episode as well after being given an utterly stupid sendoff that sounded more like a terrible fanfiction than something written by actual writers who actually get paid to write stuff where she turned out to be half Time Lord but had to have her memory wiped because then she would die because she’s too awesome for this world… Thankfully she spends the whole episode on the phone not understanding what’s going on. Instead, the episode focuses on her granddad, Wilf. The ‘Wacky’ comic relief that runs around in the Doctor’s wake like a sick puppy looking for more screentime.
Wilf’s ultimate moment comes in interrupting the Doctor on his hunt for the carnivorous Master with a gaggle of perverted pensioners who grope him, make gay jokes and demand a photo while Simm’s off eating people… I don’t know who I’m more angry at, the Doctor for not saying ‘I’m sorry, but people are dying and you’ve got your hand on my arse’ or Russel for being too stupid to write that line in for him to say!
Ultimately, the master manages to sabotage a machine to make everyone in the world including Barrack Obama shake their heads so fast they turn into copies of John Simm, and the screen pulls out to reveal Timothy Dalton telling people the Time Lords are coming back…
This series has been scraping the bottom of the barrel so hard I’m pretty sure it’s sprung a leak.
There is hope though. Though we lose Tennant, we also lose Russel T. Davis, who after re-invigorating the franchise in 2005 seems to have peaked a full series ago, to be replaced by Steven Moffat, the mastermind behind the more brilliant episodes like ‘Blink’ and ‘Silence in the Library’. And who knows, maybe the new kid will do a good job at being the Doctor, so what if he’s young, so was Tennant in comparison to the others.
It’s an end of an Era. Even if it goes out with not a bang or a whimper, but a soft farting sound it’ll be worth watching as it can only get better from here!
Unless they bring Catherine Tate back for the new series, then it can really die in a fire!
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12 Responses to “The Doctor Who Christmas Special
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When Jack's not running the site, he's writing articles and reviews for your enjoyment. He studied English and Creative Writing at Portsmouth University. 
I had a really good comment. Then WordPress ate it.
I bet it was better than this episode!
Actually, it was commenting on how everyone’s ragging on it, and I actually liked it!
I couldn’t agree with you more about this episode. The thing that I was most pissed about was that it wasn’t funny like the other episodes. People watch this show because it is fun, it doesn’t take itself very seriously, but every once in a while it has something to say and mixed in with the humor, great acting it was a great show.
They lost something in the Tate series, that wasn’t completely her fault. The helper being in love with the doctor is a key part of the show without that, it doesn’t gel as well. I was hoping that in the 4th season, they were going to have more than one helper, maybe human man.
Don’t get me started on the 5 day crap pile that was the end of torchwood, how to ruin a show in 5 hours they should have called that.
They really need to get back to what made the show great, a mix of fun, cheap laughs, energy, bad effects and great stories. Stop trying to make sci fi into eastenders, like Stargate Universe and the end of torchwood did, people dont like it!
This episode wasn’t bad because it wasn’t funny, it was bad because it was just shit. And it’s all because of the writing. Every single problem with this show right now is Russel’s fault.
These are all complete rookie errors, and it’s fucking frustrating seeing this kind of shite being put out on telly when I still can’t get a job.
haha, totally agree with the bit about the ‘master race’ pun, god-awful!
the second instalment wasn’t all that much better was it?
lots of talking about all the bad things that were going to happen (we get it, four knocks and your dead), without much actually happening.
a little self indulgent.
lots of monologue.
In all honesty, I was pleasantly surprised by the second part. I would have written a much more positive review on it, but the chance came and went.
Nothing in it really made me go ‘Now that’s just silly’ like the first one, and David Tennant’s acting was as brilliant as ever.
Oh, apart from the new guy sounding like the Sperm Whale from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but he was badass in the new trailer so I’ll let that slide.
i was half expecting him to have an intense conversation with a skull though…
If you wanted that, then it’s the next review along, with Tennant doing Hamlet… Not in that way.
Although I’m sure that would have made the fangirls very happy.
Doctor Who is a family show. It is light entertainment, it shows at 6/7pm on a Saturday. That is not the place for a dark show. There are lots of dark sci-fi films/tv shows out there, why mess up a perfectly entertaining family show like this by making it dark. That was the whole point of torchwood, to be the dark side of doctor who.
The whole point of Doctor who, is it a fast paced, energy packed and funny sci-fi show on a Saturday night. It is ment to be fun. You can see that in most of the episodes, such as Tooth and Claw, in season 2, that was serious for the most part, but had the jokes in it too.
As for the master in this episode, it has got the point where I don’t understand him. Why does he want to rule the world, the reason the doctor gives is “that bitch crazy”, which for me is not enough. The way he was bought back was laughable, where did that come from, he takes the souls of some random people, what? Now he eats people and glows from the inside. None of that seems very time lordy to me.
As for the time lords coming back, only bit of the episode that interested me, as I like time lord stories.
As for the old man, he needed a link to current earth to make him relatable. As he had killed off/got rid everyone we knew in this world, the ONLY one he could think of was a gimpy old man? I think they missed a tick to introducing the new help here, might be interesting for the helper to meet him at this doctor then, change straight away.
I agree, the first part was utter tripe.
I’m not a fan of RTD writing but I’ve come to accept he caters for both adults and children. With this episode it was purely child like, nothing of substance. The only thing for the adult was the end bit with the Time Lords. RTD can be creative with his monsters, I’ll give him that! Although saying that, those green things in the episode wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Command and Conquer cut scence…..
Before the other series always had little bits for the die hard fans, then it had a long story over the series such as bad wolf and references to Touchwood, then the kids had monsters and lots of running.
But this was all out poor. Looking forward to Moffat being in charge, we’ll probably get more sensible plots that we can follow and ask questions rather then froth at the mouth of RTD stuff.
As for Touchwood, well second(I think) series wasn’t bad, but I was rather anoyed with all the sexual acts going on with the show. Although Jacks history is interesting, the present is a lot of tosh!!!
Ok well….
I think there are a lot of really baffled 8 year olds in the world at the moment. I doubt any of the kids that this was aimed at will have any clue what they were supposed to take from it.
I think the Master is great. I’ve always liked him, and Simm is nailing that.
I spent the first part of the ep going ‘he’s going to die… he’s going to die…’
and the middle bit sort of staring blankly trying to figure out what the dickens was going on.
It was pretty random.
I think my biggest problem was the ritual with the Books of Saxon or whatever, that was so lacking in explaination it felt forced and weird.
I can appreciate bringing the master back, that’s all cool. But they rushed it and it could have been a lot more of a story.
What I want from ep 2
(other than Timothy-Fuckin-Dalton)
is to have the reunion style thing they had last time…
I want to have Jack and Martha and everyone back together fighting the good fight and all there to say goodbye to David as he dies! I’m going to cry, it’s a sure thing.
But I still don’t understand time travel or how the Timelords are back. I’m holding out for a nice bit of exposition to fill the blanks.