Guilty Pleasures #33 - Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio

I know someone out there, somewhere is thinking I bash on Moffat too much and should probably review a Russel T Davies episode, there are many flawed episodes to look over from his era. But Moffat is clearly a talented writer with potential, and I hate to see this potential squandered time and time again. So, if you want someone to bash on Russel episodes, go watch Diamanda Hagan, in the meantime let’s take a look at the latest Doctor Who Christmas special.

OK, you know what you’re in for with a title like that. A fun superhero romp is how Peter Capaldi described it and I’m not against a lighter toned Christmas special, it is Christmas and if you want depressing, you can always watch the soaps. My problem is 'superhero'. Doctor Who has mixed with superheroes in the past but we now live in an era where superhero films make the big bucks, last year 6 DC or Marvel superhero movies came out and there’s no sign of the pace slowing up. There are TV shows dedicated to superheroes that are growing in popularity to the extent that they're expanding on an almost yearly basis.

What I’m saying here is that this isn’t the show trying something different, it’s the show cashing in on a popular trend, and it would have to pull out all the stops to convince me otherwise. So, does it? Let’s see

We open with a comic page drawing into the action. Just like in at least a few superhero movies of a few decades ago, we’re off to a stellar start here. We actually open in New York because Moffat likes pandering to America. There’s some weird steam coming out of a manhole cover and I’m not even sure it’s relevant to anything. We enter an apartment and see our secondary protagonist. I know he has a name but I’m going to call him Peter Kent, that’s because despite being of colour and a nanny, there is nothing original about his character whatsoever.

We cut to his childhood where the person we actually give a sh*t about, the Doctor, is dangling upside down around Peter Kent’s window. We see immediately Peter Kent likes comic books. Please tell me this isn’t taking cues from Antboy. So, the Doctor had set a trap on the roof and accidentally set it off resulting in him hanging by his foot on the 60^th floor and Peter Kent decides to call his mother. Our hero. So, the Doctor tries to use his magic wand to do something, I have no idea what, but Peter Kent lets him in, saying he was expected, much to the Doctor’s confusion.

Fortunately, we get a really stupid explanation. They thought he was Santa… OK, he looks nothing like Santa in pop culture and he was hanging upside down swinging around your window. I… I can’t be bothered with it. Moving on. We get a cute scene about comics and this really is attempting to imitate Antboy. Stop it! STOP IT NOW! This episode can still be saved! He says that Spider-man should’ve died from radiation poisoning. Look, you’re a guy in a time travelling police box with a magic wand, you are hardly the more realistic one here.

He takes the Doctor to the roof where his trap is set and comments that it looks cheap. Kid, you try building a sciency thing of science like that then! For some reason, the Doctor gives Peter Kent a ruby/crystal/plot mcguffin whilst he works on the sciency thing of science. They talk about his name and I’ve heard this shtick before bla bla bla. And we get our first title drop. So yeah, about Doctor Mysterio being the Doctor. I swear I’ve heard this gimmick used before, where they’ve hinted at a new character but it just turns out to be the alias of the Doctor.

So, the Doctor has built a device to neutralise a time disturbance in New York that was his fault or something. Possibly something to do with Angels in Manhattan but to reference what would require me remembering Angels in Manhattan, which I don’t (outside of the ending of course), so moving on. The plot mcguffin is required to activate the device but thinking it was medicine for his cough, Peter Kent swallowed it. In case you think getting powers by the ingestion of a space rock was original, I introduce to you Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah and will link the movie review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2pe5MqgefY

So as young Peter Kent levitates and the Doctor tries to help him, we cut to the present and see him performing his duties as a Nanny. Non-linear timelines, totally not Man of Steel. And yes, Doctor Who, but most Doctor Who stories are relatively linear when you really think about them. Roll credits, after only 9 minutes and 10 seconds. 50 more to go folks.

So, after some cr*p looking CGI we open at a building of Harmony Shoal, the latest in the long line of evil corporations. Except this one’s owned by aliens. They offer… something. So Mrs… I’m just going to call her April Lane, questions this guy about his funding. He doesn’t give an answer, so don’t tell me, she leaves satisfied with her answer. No of course she stays behind to try and investigate further.

We’re also introduced to Nardole, who’s been restored to his own body, somehow, and is the Doctor’s designated companion/comic relief for the rest of the episode. You know, it’s not as if we had no comedy in the last 10 minutes, your presence is not really required. Anyway, he also stays behind as eyes for the Doctor and they both follow later that night as the lead villains head into a chamber full of brains.

Apparently, the chamber had fewer brains before but there haven’t been any deliveries, something that has worried the underling villain. April Lane finds the Doctor behind her eating sushi. Right… The underling advises that his boss taps the glass and we see the brains have eyes in them. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be creepy but it’s funny as heck! The underling leaves his boss with a bunch of brain surgeons. In case you haven’t guessed yet, they’re the creepy head puppet things we saw in the last Christmas special.

OK, the Doctor and April Lane break off from investigating and introduce themselves and bla bla bla, apparently, Harmony Shoal have institutes in every capital city on the globe and New York, and obviously New York is going to be special because the plot says so. They’re confronted by the big boss with a gun, saying he’s going to shoot them in “self-defence.” The Doctor has actually a very good reverse to that. It’s a small moment but it’s genuinely clever. They turn around so he’d have to shoot them in the back, much harder to claim self-defence shooting someone in the back.

Anyway, there’s a knock on the window and it’s time for the introduction of our superhero for the evening, he’s the Ghost

No, I said super HERO. Wait, I know the crystal thing was called the ghost but what does he have in common with a ghost? He’s superman without the heat vision or the ice breath, I think, what does that have to do with ghosts? He breaks through a window, which the big bad takes time to inform us were designed to withstand a 4-nuke blast, because that will be relevant later. Until now, April Lane didn’t even know he was real. Some reporter. Also, she appears to be instantly falling for him. I think we need a double barrel surname now. April Kent-Watson? So, the Ghost offers April Kent-Watson a lift without any consideration for the Doctor or Nardole. He did not, to my knowledge, see the TARDIS at any point. What a dick!

So, after, in the past, the Doctor gives the counter speech to ‘with great power comes great responsibility,’ we cut back to the present where The Ghost drops off April Lane-Watson by her house and says

“I hope this experience hasn’t put you off a career in journalism” *sigh* Superman review coming out later this month, moving on.

So, the baby monitor goes off and he heads off, but the Doctor got there first and is holding the baby. He says “with great power comes great responsibility” which is hypocritical seeing as he gave the anti-speech to that only 2 scenes ago. Anyway, he says no-one worthy of that mantra leaves a baby alone. But Peter Kent argues he can get the baby faster from half-way across the city than most mothers could from downstairs so…

The Doctor tells him this is insane and his life is about to get very complicated when April Lane-Watson arrives. The Doctor, taking very unsubtle cues from Peter Kent, tells April Lane-Watson that he came because he was worried about her. She doesn’t believe a word of it. They reveal, through flashback because they did this in Man of Steel, that she was a crush back in high school, at the same kind of time he was struggling with his x-ray vision because MAN OF STEEL. Anyway, she fell in love with Peter Kent’s best friend, had a kid and then he ran away.

April Lane-Watson has a new trick, using a squeaky toy to interrogate the Doctor. I have no words for the stupidity of this scene. At least it shows that April Lane-Watson is able to tell when the Doctor is lying, even if she’s fine with him keeping secrets and this makes no f*cking sense. Anyway, the Doctor knows that Harmony Shoal intends to replace the brains of key authority figures across the planet and then they will rule or something. She guesses immediately that the Doctor knows who the ghost is and demands to know who he is. You see the contradiction in character here. She says she’s fine with him having secrets, yet demands to know them, she’s clearly intelligent and yet is trying to threaten him with a squeaky toy, and why the f*ck did it work?

So the Doctor distracts by showing the Ghost giving a PSA about smoke alarms (seriously). And some time later he calls her just as she wanted to be put in touch with him. I’m sure the co-incidence is not lost. Anyway, they agree to meet on a rooftop and we get a scenario for wacky hijinks as Peter Kent is asked to be nanny whilst April Lane-Watson has her date with the Ghost. And yes I did just realise I wrote that.

Apparently, it’s been 24 years since the incident, incidentally the same amount of time he spent with River Song on that night bar thing. Not that it really matters since, you know, he’s a time traveller.

So, now we’ve past that cr*p, we cut to the actual interesting part, the Doctor goes to Harmony Shoal and does his usual interrogation shtick. Giving them the one warning. The TARDIS materialises around the Doctor piloted by Nardole, who can fly a TARDIS now, great… Anyway, he claims the Doctor only cut him loose out of fears he’d be lonely after River, but the Doctor declines to comment.

Time for hijinks. The Ghost arrives at the rooftop date after some pretty sh*t looking CGI complete with a picnic basket.

So, the Doctor distracted staff in Tokyo using Pokemon Go! Yup, that’s still a thing. Nice how they’ve established the actual date for the first time in the episode. It clearly hasn't been 24 years since the present day. Anyway, apparently, this station and the one in New York are sending a signal to a ship in low orbit. Whilst the picnic continues someone has the Ghost targeted and is ready to strike with the surgeons. The Doctor finds the ship, more hijinks as the couple start arguing over Peter Kent vs the Ghost. It’s not funny… OK, it’s slightly funny.

As the surgeons arrive to attack, the Doctor and Nardole board the ship, the big bad activates a couple of drones. So as April Lane Watson decides whether or not she loves Peter, the Ghost takes off his mask but she doesn’t look at him. Wow, this cliché isn’t dying, is it? The Doctor discovers the ship has rewired into a bomb and the aliens plan to drop it on New York and convince world leaders to seek the Harmony Shoal buildings as sanctuary.

Pardon me for asking, but don’t we already have emergency bunkers for that sort of sh*t? So, the Ghost and April Lane Watson are captured but the Ghost escapes and decides not to help as himself but as his alter ego of Peter Kent. I think they might have tried to capture the baby but I didn’t hear the monitor. Anyway, the Doctor decides, after finding out the time wasn’t right yet to drop it early.

With the drones preventing them getting to the TARDIS, the Doctor is forced to think up a plan B before New York is destroyed. So, The Doctor uses his magic wand to produce a high frequency warning to the ghost, the same way Lex Luthor issues his threats in Superman and Young Justice. Anyway, he’s the only one who can save New York now. He catches the ship, and his identity as Peter Kent is revealed to April Lane-Watson. So they suck face, whilst he’s holding a f*cking bomb, leave the Doctor in charge of the baby. He uses his magic wand to disarm the last of them whilst UNIT storms their headquarters. Harmony Shoal promise vengeance, and it’s revealed they’ve infiltrated UNIT.

And we end with the Doctor feeling sad about River Song and the return of that f*cking squeaky toy with a reasonably optimistic end that shows maybe the Doctor’s learning. Nardole follows, having served no real purpose in this plot whatsoever, promising to make sure the plot is alright and we get another title drop to bring us out.

So that was The Return of Doctor Mysterio

Positives, it’s shot nicely, it looks decent, the aliens are good and I actually think Harmony Shoal might be interesting going forward. And there’s nothing insulting, nothing that irritates me enough to put this in the rage issues segment.

No my biggest problem is just how by the numbers this is. The Doctor feels like a secondary character in his own story, but the story itself is a mashup of various superhero clichés from the well known to the obscure. I would be far less critical of this if either of the leads were engaging but they weren’t. They could’ve had something unique about The Ghost. He’s called the Ghost, have him phase through walls or something. Added to that that his plot is almost entirely separate from that of Harmony Shoal, he is not active in that plot, only reactive, he doesn't investigate what's going on because they need the Doctor to do that but he feels kinda superfluous to the narrative because of this, particularly after his initial appearance.

Nothing about this plot is unique and it’s the biggest crime of this movie. Because when it adds nothing new to the table, it becomes far more obvious that this is a lame attempt to cash in on a popular fad, ironically making it less popular.

I truly don’t hate this, but I feel it could’ve been so much more

Rage Rating -10%

Images/clips used in this review are from Doctor Who, Zha Zha Zaturnnah, Avengers Assemble (The Avengers) and Iron Man: Armoured Adventures and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use