Mini Review: Doctor Who - Twice Upon a Time

So, it’s that time of year again, it’s been about a month since the Doctor Who special graced our screens and my review of it was inevitable. What might surprise you is this being a mini review and I do have a reason beyond being lazy, although that might factor in a bit.

But this is a very special Christmas special, not only have we got a crossover with the first doctor, not only is it Capaldi’s regeneration story, but it’s also a goodbye to Stephen Moffat as he bows out of Doctor Who. Does this hold up to those very high standards? Here are my thoughts

Talking about the story is relatively pointless since the story is ultimately the least important part of this special. But I’ll cover it anyway. The First Doctor has out of nowhere decided to not regenerate and loses his companions because… shut up… he meets up with the current Doctor, who’s also refusing to regenerate. Because of this, there’s some kind of rupture in time that sends a WWI soldier to join them in the arctic. They must find answers about the mysterious testimony and the relation to Bill Potts and Rusty the good but not really good Dalek.

OK, before I get onto the important stuff in this episode, I’ll tell you the story isn’t that great. There’s no sense of urgency with anything with the Testimony, further compounded by the fact their goals are completely benevolent. They’re painlessly extracting memories of the dead, channelling them through glass avatars so they can learn from it. I have many questions about why they decided to harness this complicated technology for that purpose (this tech is from New Earth, 5bn years in the future) but it’s ultimately not important. Also, the plot more or less stops at the 42 minute mark, so don’t worry about it.

So, let’s actually talk about the stuff that matters in this episode. The first Doctor, I have not seen any of his episodes, but I have seen bits of the 3 Doctors and the full 5 Doctors specials. Both of these put the First Doctor in a position where he was a step ahead, notably wiser than the others, if somewhat less friendly about it. Here, he’s more or less always a step behind, literally in some cases. He’s not quick to catch on about him and 11 being the same characters, makes the odd prejudiced remark (some lifted directly from the original show, but it was still a bit much for my taste) and was kinda like 12’s companion as opposed to a Doctor in his own right.

He does have an arc, as it’s about the circumstances that lead him to become a more heroic figure but then not knowing the first Doctor’s adventures, all I have to back up the need for that arc is one line about him thinking good isn’t the smart option. Nothing worth saying about Bill, I like her but she doesn’t have anything to do in this episode other than be a part of the testimony and, for no reason, convince the Doctor to run in the first place! Oh, and then there’s the ending, which I’ll get to.

The we have the WW1 soldier, played by Mark Gatiss. He is the best part of this episode, capturing an outside view of everything going on, some of the best jokes come from him, having some great character stuff and ultimately it’s his ending that turns out to be the most heart-warming. A great choice on Moffat’s part to use the Christmas armistice the way he did in this episode. Finding out who this soldier is, it’s just icing on the cake. And having this be what makes the First Doctor decide to regenerate is also a clever choice.

But yeah, 15 minutes before the end of the episode the plot more or less stops, the first 5 minutes or so covers some of the stuff I’ve just mentioned, and we say our goodbyes to the First Doctor so we can resume what this episode is really about, the 12^th Doctor regenerating. Unfortunately, to convince him to regenerate they bring back Clara and her memories (well done for retroactively making Hell Bent even worse) and for some reason Nardole as well, go figure on that one.

Then there’s a scene where the TARDIS goes full R2-D2 for some reason, then the Doctor has his long-winded monologue we’ve heard 100 times, it’d be more impressive if he wasn’t talking to himself or herself as it will be in 5 minutes. The regeneration happens, and the TARDIS blows up because why not and we end this episode on a cliff-hanger. We’ll see you in 9 months I guess

Don’t get me wrong, this episode isn’t bad, not by any means, but it did leave me completely cold and indifferent. Steven Moffat is usually a plotter as opposed to a character writer, which leaves me surprised that he’d go for such a character focused finale. There are still a ton of loose ends from his era, some of which will likely never be resolved. Here’s to a new year and new direction for the Franchise, but this finale left much to be desired

Rating 65/100