27 December 2013

A long one as well (Review: 'Doctor Who' 2013 Christmas Special, "The Time of the Doctor")

So, that's it for the Eleventh Doctor, who has made his final bow.

13 thoughts below:
  • The holographic clothes bit was a somewhat distracting joke for the first half of the episode.
  • Matt Smith has played a convincing old man through much of his time as the Doctor... and now we got to see him actually play one, although the make-up job was slightly less convincing than the one Karen Gillan had.
  • Speaking of Karen Gillan... nice to have her turn up.
  • Handles was lovely... shame we won't be seeing him again.
  • Hope we don't see Clara's family again, they weren't very effective here.
  • Again, no Dalek extermination effects; budget going elsewhere?
  • Perhaps having four different lots of aliens turn up in one episode, when that episode is only 60 minutes long, resulted in a basic lack of screentime for any of them... well, except the Daleks, who are pretty overused.
  • That's a simple yet effective way to get around the 13 regenerations issue.
  • And also the issue of the Doctor's name... now you think about it, the truth field wasn't actually an issue.
  • Worth pointing out that this is the shortest regeneration story to date in terms of run time.
  • And probably the longest in terms of real time for a main character... correction that's "The Big Bang".
  • I'd have liked the Twelfth Doctor to have a slightly longer scene than he actually did.
  • No preview from Season 34? At all?

Conclusion

Well this had a lot of enjoyable moments, I've got to confess a bit of disappointment in this one; much of it was spent (especially near the end) just waiting for Capaldi to show up and when he did, it wasn't a patch on Smith's first scene.

7/10

1 comment:

Sam Fraser said...

After the 2026 Christmas Special cancellation and competitive tender news, I've wondered what would have happened had they never did the War Doctor and Timeless child recton, and Matt, Peter and Jodie were indeed their incarnations "official" numbers and then they did Power of the Doctor, but instead of regenerating, the Doctor dies (perhaps the 13th Doctor as she burns away, goes though every face they have been through and then it all goes dark). Granted, it would have been dark and I am glad they resolved the plot thread for better or worse, but it would've been much more emotional and in keeping with the lore first established in The Deadly Assassin before Russell, Steven and Chris decided to wipe their bums with the show's established canon!