Caves and Twins: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
It's Christmas, it's BBC1, it's that time between the afternoon snooze and the turkey sandwich. It can only be another Doctor Who special.
Not one of the Christmas specials has been much good by my reckoning, the first one and the one with Gambon in were OK; most have been utterly awful.
I did not really look forward to the Doctor Who Christmas special this year; mainly because I never think they're up to much but partly because I found myself tiring of Who over the year. All of a sudden fatigue set in and I wasn't really bothered any more. But, because it's Doctor Who and I'll never truly dislike it, I tuned it.
So did I find a succulent turkey - or was it overcooked sprouts all the way.
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It was nice to see Matt Smith again
The reproducing, sentient trees were a nice idea.
The sets and all the period detail were impeccable.
Like most fans I appreciate the nods to the past – something that seems increasingly nice when faced with the possibility of a reboot film series.
Nice to see Amy and Rory again.
Like the tree monsters.
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I know it's Christmas and I know expectations are low and I know these specials are kind of duty bound to be stupidly Christmassy, but for fuck's sake.
I just didn't care and I didn't believe it and I didn't like it. About half an hour before it actually happened I'd guessed, no, feared, that the Power of Motherhood was going to save the day. Just like a kiss saved the day and love saved day and hope saved the day again and again and again over the last couple of years.
RTD shrugged, made Tennant cry and just fell back on some MacGuffin when he'd written himself into a corner; Moffat just relies on schmaltz. It's usually done in a clever way – and in a way that's possible to overlook for a while.
But it happens so frequently that it's impossible to ignore - and deeply tiresome. And predictable. And rather cheap and cynical.
Because at Christmas Moffat gets a bit of a bye. Perhaps he should be allowed his indulgence once a year, like we are when we stuff our face for a day. God knows the man is busy enough, what with his 15 series that he showruns.
But what I'm left with is a story that almost feels like a waste of my time. I'm sure lots of people enjoy it and would shout humbug at me. But judging these Xmas specials on the same basis we judge the usual episodes show them up badly.
Something else that creeps into these recent Xmas episodes is a Moffat-patented wackiness; last year a shark-drawn sleigh, this year a forest-possesed Edwardian mother piloting a golf ball through the time vortex.
What can we expect next year, I wonder? A TARDIS disguised as a polar bear running trough Albert Square? A Timelord that's regenerated into a reindeer with a nose made of strange matter? A flying penguin powered by faith and ridden by John Masefield?
I suppose I should mention Bill Bailey and Claire Skinner and Alexander Armstrong and Arabella Weir. I didn't care. Neither did I care for the emotional manipulation that struck a rather dubious tone, in my opinion. Once again, death has no sting. What does this say to kids about their nature of life and death? Either way it's damn lazy and cynical.
It's incredible how quickly Moffat's take on Doctor Who seems staid, overfamiliar and out of ideas. And I don't take ay pleasure from saying it. Just as I don't take any pleasure from watching it, much as it pains me to admit.
Caves and Twins: The Wedding of River Song
The sixth season finally limps across the finishing line with a few years' worth of back story to bring to a conclusion and a massive escape act required from Moffat for the whole thing not to feel like a massive cheat.
So was it as bad as every season finisher?
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Texting and scones - A funny line that kind of defines the eleventh Doctor and Smith portrayal
Time Crash - Nice conceit, fairly well pulled off.
The Brig - Lovely tribute to Nick Courtney that worked really well in the story
Live chess - I just like these throwaway quirks that make the Doctor Who universe feel just that; something beyond a South London estate and the odd trip to Europe.
Dorium - A character I like.
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Cheat - I had a lengthy whinge about the 'not dying' thing the new series has done to, er, death before Season Six started - and complained that they were building up the Doctor's death before the start of it when it was patently clear that this was going to be another cheat. Which it was.
What's more the second they showed the Teselecta in the recap - in the first few seconds - it was horribly clear how the cheat was going to be perpetrated. I've lost count of the 'didn't die' swerves in this series - there've been so many there are numerous theories floating around the web as to how Rory and Amy don't really exist, so often have they been killed off.
The Eleventh Doctor has, by my reckoning, died four times already. It's lazy; it's manipulative; it's cynical; it's deeply tiresome. Stop it, now.
Love saves the day - Or a kiss. Once again we have a 'kiss/love saves the day' conclusion to a story. Boring.
Amy machine-gunning the Silence/Silents - That just seemed wrong
River Song - I assume River's story has come to an end now. I do hope so, anyway.
Arc - I did not enjoy this story arc. Perhaps I will if I ever buy the box-set and watch eight episodes a nigh, which seems to be how people watch TV series these days. But less than half way through I found it boring and distracting. The Silence, the Flesh, the Eyepatches. They bored me.
I don't know what to make of this series, beyond the fact that it didn't do it for me. Moffat's writing seemed to be tied up in knots throughout; shedding casual viewers here and there and even alienating the fanbase to some degree.
A giant story arc should never be attempted again; splitting the season should never be attempted again; teasing lead characters' deaths and then not delivering should never have been done in the first place. River needs to be gone once and for all. The Doctor should not be a God or a lonely emo or a mighty warrior or River's Love of Life.
Please let Doctor Who be small, offbeat, funny, scary and unique again. It's surely no coincidence that the best episodes this season - The Doctor's Wife and The Girl WHo Waited spring to mind were exactly that.
If I wanted the FBI, Roswell aliens, conspiracy theories, interminable arcs and heaps of portentous bullshit I'd watch The X-Files, Lost or half a dozen other US sci-fi imports. And there's nothing wrong with any of them (well, most of them), but they're not Doctor Who.
Which is, when you think about it, the point.
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Caves and Twins: Let’s Kill Hitler
Doctor Who's back! With the second part of Series Six, which has been split in two for reasons that's absolutely aren't anything to do with money or ructions among the production team or Moffatt's schedule.
Four episodes into the Silence/River story arc and there's at least some manner of closure. But was Let's Kill Hitler The World at War or was it Allo Allo?
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The regulars - I have doubts about Alex Kingston as River Song sometimes, mainly because the lines are occasionally terrible and the character is a bit annoying, but the main trio are excellent and have great chemistry
River Song - I quite liked the set-up of who River becomes, with the diary and archaeology.
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Everything - That sounds a bit glib and unfair but I think the biggest problem with this is that it's just a massive ball of confusion, with story arcs going back several years in some cases.
Somehow, it's still not clear how, the Silence are involved as is the eyepatch lady and in the midst of everything our heroes are in Hitler's office - for no other apparent reason other than it's clearly supposed to be a kerrayzee thing to do - while miniaturised war criminal hunters are stalking around in a shapeshifting robot with the aim of torturing the Fuhrer.
No doubt a breathless review in DWM will laud it all for that very reason - bonkers! - but coherent storytelling that doesn't require an episode of Confidential to explain it all seems to be in short supply at the moment. The Silence, the killing of the Doctor, the reason for River being in prison - it's still all ongoing and I'm bored of it; it feels like Doctor Who is in danger of collapsing under the weight of its own mythos and how pleased it is with itself.
I don't think these stories are actually poor but they aren't easy to follow and require an increasing effort to keep up with that. The 'story arc' episodes in this series have left me cold - and I'm a Doctor Who fan.
Mels - Like Ace but worse. And a swerve that was pretty flippin obvious.
Funny regeneration - Firstly, River seems to experience regeneration as orgasmic, which is a rather tedious little touch if totally in keeping with Moffatt's tics, then we get the trademark 'whacky regeneration' acting and music. Bleh.
Another non death - Tiresome; decreasing returns; and feels lazy
Hitler - I'm prepared to go along with it but really? Doctor Who meets Hitler? Dangerous territory.
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Caves and Twins: A Christmas Carol
Moffat's first Christmas offering didn't break traditional, in that it couldn't have been more Christmassy is Smith had wished all the viewers at home a merry Christmas at the end of it.
I always half expected Tennant to do that at the climax of one of RTD's interminable Christmas assaults on the nation's gag reflexes, but the announcement of the latest episode's title as A Christmas Carol put paid to any ideas that the focus may simply be on the story, rather than a festive element.
Did it work? I'm not sure, but I didn't dislike it the way I did all of RTD's. So, was it The Runaway Bride or was it the Chimes of Midnight?
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Nice to see the regulars back, and the story really suited Smith's Doctor.
Visuals - Lovely, imaginative set design and visual FX of the kind that have really moved the feel of the series of since the end of Tennant and RTD
Gambon - Always good, but I wondered if Patrick Stewart may have been even better.
Dialogue - It really pays to listen carefully to the Eleventh Doctor's lines, which always jump off the page. Moffat's dialogue in Smith's mouth makes for a winning combination.
Christmas Carol - As a framing device it paid off, if a little awkwardly.
The trailer - Moffat could really have sat back and followed the RTD pattern established over the previous few years, but he seems determined to do something very different with the series. The trailer seemed to confirm that, and it looked thrilling.
Psychic paper - Shorted out by the Doctor's claim to be a responsible, mature adult.
Marrying Marilyn - A bit throwaway, but it was nice to see the Doctor at a 50s California pool party. The series rarely does justice to the anywhere, anytime' potential and it's always nice to see it employed.
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Shark-drawn sleigh - It's Christmas, Doctor Who is whacky. We get it.
Kathryn Jenkins - She was fine, but the singing grated and it seemed really crowbarred into the story to me
Christmas indulgence - A hell of a lot seemed to happen in this episode, and I couldn't really be bothered to figure out that singing, weather, fish stuff. It felt a tad over-egged, and tough to digest in one sitting as a result.
Altogether the most intriguing and rewarding Christmas episode – albeit not one I'd care to rewatch very often – but I hope Moffat has the balls to write a Christmas episode that's not absolutely drenched in Yuletide cliches next year.
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Up the arse corner
No idea where this hails from (the bit where Rory dies in that shit Silurian episode?), I just noticed it on a message board but it made me laugh for about ten minutes.
Ref. Viz.
'...where photographs are submitted of people whose pose, and/or facial expression, could be misconstrued as being in the midst of an act of buggery.'
Caves and Twins: Series Fnarg
So that was Series Five. Or Series 31. Or Series One. Or Series Chin, whatever you want to call it.
The stakes were high, with news that filming was overrunning horribly, Matt Smith was crap and kept forgetting his lines, Karen Gillan was 'wooden' and Phil Collinson had been called back in to sort the whole mess out.
We won't reveal our sources, although it seems entirely likely that pretty much everyone in fandom knows where they came from, but let's just say there was an element of fear going into Series Fnarg.
And how wrong we all were eh? Chief among this wrongness were the rumours that Smith was crap. In fact, it's hard to imagine this being any further off the mark.
Matt Smith is wonderful, and his gentler, more alien, Doctor is perfect for Moffatt's 'fairytale' Doctor Who. The whole tone of this series feels a more comfortable place for Doctor Who, and the Doctor, to be than Russell T Davies' iteration - which was a series of ever-decreasing circles by the time the excellent David Tennant went, though his Doctor was not highly-liked in these parts.
It seemed almost unthinkable that the series, and Smith, could carry on where RTD and Tennant left off, but a fairly hefty shift in tone and pace and lead character has made it all look rather effortless.
For the first time in quite a while, the series felt much more Who than it had in a long time. Smith may just be the best Doctor... ever.
But while all the big things got sorted out, the parts that made up the whole didn't always feel right. Murray Gold's presence dragged the series back to a RTD vibe, and his syrupy/BOMBASTIC! style took away a lot of the nuances of the new series.
More bizarre still were some of the author/story choices. Toby Whithouse and Chris Chibnall delivered exactly what their previous stories suggested they'd deliver - utterly underwhelming stories that felt like a throwback to a couple of years ago.
Against rather lovely oddities like Amy's Choice, Vincent and the Doctor and The Lodger, they felt jarring in their straight-forward simplicity.
Mark Gatiss' Victory of the Daleks was, by all accounts, rather hacked to death in the editing suites and the end result was, frankly, a mess.
And stepping up to show-runner certainly sapped Moffatt's brilliance, with the slapdash The Beast Below and breakneck incoherence of The Big Bang.
There were no new, interesting monsters. In fact, the closest thing we got were the rubbish new Daleks. We had to put up with CGI thing hiding inside humans on at least three occasions, and the limits of the budget were evident in The Pandorica Opens when it turned out the Fucking Sycorax and the Fucking Weevils were in on the intergalactic plan to put the Doc away for good.
Still, Moffat handled the Autons and the Cybermen ten times better than RTD ever did - another subtle difference to the approach the two brought to the series.
And yet, funnily enough, it didn't really matter to me. The series felt fresh and fun. The Doctor seemed like, well, The Doctor. And Amy was breath of fresh air; a believable, volatile girl who didn't love her favourite Time Lord.
She may have had a slightly less healthy obsession with him, but inter-personal angst was banished from the TARDIS forever - 'I'm not that clingy!' seemed like a great riposte to the years of Marf and Wose.
Arthur Darvill's Rory eventually eclipsed the 'emasculated male' cipher that's been the default setting for most recurring male characters in the new series to become a rounded companion in his own right.
And, always at the centre of it, was Matt Smith. It's interesting to note that most new Doctors come into the role praising Patrick Troughton, and Smith took it a step further.
Watch him running - it's a straight lift from the Second Doctor. And he's always doing something with his hands - First Doctor? There's a bit of Four, Five and Eight in there too by our reckoning.
Not that The Eleventh Doctor is a pastiche; Smith has brought something new to the role again, and emphatically made it his own. He's a perfect choice.
So, series thingummy. A hearty slap on the back from us, and the best TARDIS crew in ages. No doubt tweaks will be made for next season.
Probic Vent demands Zygons and Yeti and the Dream Lord and a past Doctor and The Brigadier. And a remake of The Horror of Fang Rock. Simple enough eh? Oh yeah, and STOP RUINING OLD MONSTERS!
• Here's an end-of-season C&T for the series.
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The Eleventh Hour - Fresh, fun and firmly established Smith as something new and interesting
Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone - A home run from Moffat, with plenty of twists and turns and great monstering
Amy's Choice - Offbeat and enjoyable - an episode that seems unthinkable under RTD.
Vincent and the Doctor - Intriguing, if cloying
The Lodger - Would have been horrible with Tennant. Good with Smith.
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang - Absolute gibberish, but wins points for not having thousands of cloned Sontarans invading the Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower. Magic Light and Power of Love notwithstanding.
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The Beast Below - Too many elements that didn't seem to add up.
Victory of the Daleks - A horrible mess, and shit new Daleks. Almost saved by performances, but not quite.
Vampires of Venice - Dull filler
Hungry Earth/Cold Blood - Dull Chibnall filler that fluffed one of the most interesting premises in Who mythology.
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Caves and Twins – The Lodger
Gareth Roberts' latest attempt to write a decent Doctor Who episode after several disappointments was a genuinely off-beat effort. So was this budget-saver a Midnight or a Fear her?
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Matt Smith - Pulls off another great performance, despite characterisation that seemed a little off.
Corden Bleu - James Corden was fairly understated and sympathetic - a well-judged performance from a frequently-annoying character.
Silent Not Golden - Murray Gold seemed either on holiday or extremely understated. I never noticed any intrusive sub-Harry Potter tripe this week, which was nice.
Day-to-day Doctor - The Doctor struggling to come to terms with everyday living was amusing, if a little overstated
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Diminished Doctor- Subverting the Doctor's character in an everyday setting was generally well done, but a little overdone and tiresome in places.
The Power of RTD - The plot was secondary, so it seems churlish to complain about it, but fixing the spaceship via the power of love was rather twee. Reeked of bad Tennant-era Who.
Empty Pond - Amy got rather lost in the mix, both insofar as the plot left her alone in the TARDIS, but poor old Pond seemed returned to a generic companion-in-distress cipher.
Overall it was an enjoyable little episode, and it was good to see Gareth Roberts finally locating his mojo, after previous episodes that ranged from underwhelming to bloody awful.
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Caves and Twins: Vincent and the Doctor
Richard Curtis' kinda long-awaited Doctor Who episode features Tony Curran as VIncent Van Gogh, in the latest 'You're brilliant you are, absolutely brilliant!' historical character ep.
So, was it totally Blackadder or s steaming pile of pretty much everything else Curtis has done?
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Set-up - The monster in the painting' thing was a nice set-up
Tony Curran - Pretty convincing, didn't ham it up and generally hit the right notes
Location - Looked nice, and gave the episode a very different look to previous series
Central performances - Curtis made Smith look foolish on occasion, but the three lead characters all did well, and made the emotional pay-off work.
Couple of funny one-liners
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Stupid Doctor - Curtis made the Eleventh Doctor into his posh idiot cypher, and Matt Smith suffered as a result. Did neither character nor actor any favours.
Another unconvincing CGI monster - Is that the third, or fourth, or fifth this season?
Plot - Admittedly not the really the point, but didn't seem to make much sense.
Athlete - Fucking hell. Made Murray Gold look like Leonard Cohen.
All in all, something of a curate's egg. A brave move to take the series into fairly unexplored territory, and generally carried off well. A dodgy plot, some iffy characterisation and treacley end didn't detract from an emotionally-satisfying ep on the whole though.
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Caves and Twins: The Hungry Earth
Chibnall's much-dreaded two-parter kicks off with Inferno meets The Silurians meets some dreary regional soap opera. So, was The Hungry Earth like some of the bits from the five-part Torchwood, or was it like everything else he's written for Who and Torchwood?
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Scenes in the night-time churchyard - They were quite good.
Regulars - Generally coped OK with some really weak stuff
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Chibnall's characterisation - None of the lines he put in the mouths of his characters, none of whom are well-drawn or interesting, sound believable. I couldn't care less about any of them.
Chibnall's dialogue - Awful speeches by the Doctor again and again. Cliched lines for everyone concerned. Who's editing this stuff?
Meera Syal - A terrible actress in everything she's in
Pacing and plot - Stop-start, long spells where nothing happened. Boring and incoherent - with a side dose of running around.
TARDIS scenes towards the end - Simply embarrassing
Redesigned Silurians - What's the point? Predictably shit.
Worse than I'd anticipated. A misfire on virtually every level. Chibnall took one of the most interesting concepts in Who mythology and totally fucked it up.
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Caves and Twins: The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Hour - the first of a brave new era for Moffatt, for Smith, for the Eleventh Doctor, for the show.
So, did Moffatt's new fairytale Doctor Who prove to be a bit Rose, New Earth, Smith and Jones, Partners in Crime... actually all of the first episodes tend to be unremitting shite, so will this be a change?
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The crack in the wall... the edge of the eye - Loved all the stuff about creepy stuff that scares kids. Nicely understated and eerie
Young Amelia - Wonderful performance from the girl who played young Amy - threatened to overshadow Karen Gillan.
Smith - Got there in the end. Despite all the internet rumours, despite being too young, despite the Tennant squeers, despite the weight of a 47-year-old show on his scrawny shoulders, Smith pulled it off.
Amy's story - Heart-breakingly abandoned by the Doctor - or was she? - and resulting in a flighty, slightly unbalanced flame-haired babe with a Raggedy Doctor fetish. Interesting.
Patrick Moore - Recast a rogueish astronomer permanently on the pull. Amusing.
Redesigned TARDIS - Exterior anyway.
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Fishfinger custard - An idea of 'eccentric' so hackneyed even RTD would have thought twice. In fact the whole first 15 minutes, complete with Murray's "I'm writing Harry Potter score" and kerrayzee tone were like a pissed Uncle dancing to Madness at a wedding. Post-regeneration trauma has never been so twatty.
Prisoner Zero - Slightly interesting as barking man or weird housewife and kids, dull-as-dishwater as unconvincing CGI blob.
Plot - Rubbish, but prepared to overlook it cos there was so much to do in the episode.
All in all a top start. Remarkable how fresh it all seemed a matter of months after The End of Time. New Doctor, new companion and the whole new feel of the show come together to make Series Five an intriguing prospect.
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