Anyway, you
may remember me recovering the Wedding of River Song, spoiler alert: it sucked.
But immediately following that was another Doctor Who Christmas special,
written by the Grand Moffat himself. Can he redeem the franchise after his last
abysmal effort? You already know which review type I’m doing, so you already
know the answer to that, let’s dig in
We open with
a space-ship of undefined origin turning it’s speakers to the Earth and making
a declaration of intent to conquer. The problem is it’s in space, so no-one can
hear it, and it’s also entirely in English so most of the Earth can’t
understand it. It goes ‘intruder alert’ as it blows up, I think it might’ve
been a bit late there, whatever aliens own that ship have cr*p security. The Doctor runs through an exploding corridor as ‘I am the Doctor’ plays for the
trillionth time, he’s blown out of the ship, even as he reaches for a space
suit.
He somehow
makes it far enough away from the ship that they explosion doesn’t kill him and
uses his space swimming ability to catch up with the suit. Also he’s laughing,
in a non-existent atmosphere. Roll credits. OK, this scene has nothing to do
with the episode, it’s fine, but was it worth using ½ the effects budget for
this? HELL NO!
A woman is
riding her bike down the road at night when she hears the Doctor crash nearby.
He has his suit on backwards, which given what we find out about it should’ve
been catastrophic. She heads home and we see her two children. One is a girl,
the other a nerd. Her husband is played by Alexander Armstrong, put him on the
list of actors who play two characters in the Doctor Who Universe (he also
voices Mr Smith) anyway, she borrows a car and crashes it several times on the
way to a police box. Oh f*cking joy, that stereotype is here
We finally
find out her name is Madge as she uses a hairpin to unlock the police box. 2
questions. If this is the TARDIS, why did that work? Or if it isn’t, why was it
locked? Unless they were holding
someone, which is horrifying since no-one’s around. The Doctor says “if there’s
anything I can do for you, let me know” something which is a bit odd,
considering he wants to stay out of the limelight after the events of the last
episode. Pity this one didn’t have the same writer, OH WAIT! He walks in and
finds it’s a regular Police Box. Har har! You know, Police Boxes didn’t
actually look much like the TARDIS but…
Oh and the
suit, it’s called an impact suit, designed to repair your body from the damage
from a fall, first off: why didn’t that just trigger a regeneration? Second and
more worryingly, how is it repairing him correctly with him wearing it
backwards? Couldn’t they just say it was designed to withstand impact? Also, thirdly, why would a space-ship have these, are they expected to impact
things often?
She returns
home and says this line
“Not the war, again!”
“Not the war, again!”
...
We cut to
the husband in a plane in WW2, 3 years later. His engine is damaged, they’re
over the channel but not looking likely to make it.
His death is
reported to Madge by telegram, but she decides to not tell the children.
They’re moved away to an old mansion as a result and so they can parallel the
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The nerd says this line
“I like the
bombing. It’s exciting”
...
Turns out
the caretaker of the mansion is the Doctor. And the next 5 minutes are spent
with him babbling and it’s annoying as f*ck! Look, I don’t mind that this
Doctor is a bit more zany than previous ones, but in bits please.
He’s made
chairs move because television isn’t really a thing yet, made a tap for
lemonade, there’s some mention of Panthers and has created a bedroom that has
everything except beds in it. I get what he’s doing but damn if it’s annoying
as f*ck. He shows them hammocks and you can all tell what obvious joke is
coming next.
OK, so Madge
hasn’t told the children yet because she doesn’t want them to associate his
death with Christmas. Problem one of course being that when he doesn’t show up
for Christmas as they’re expecting and you eventually do reveal the truth it’ll still do exactly that. Second, I think this reasoning is nonsense, anyway.
There’s a
bit that could be considered emotional honesty but as I mentioned this
reasoning is nonsense, and that kinda ruins it. They meet up with the kids as
there’s a Christmas tree with things flying around it. This Doctor never knows
what 'too much' is. There’s also a giant blue present that’s gonna make less
sense later. It does appear to be glowing, if that’s a hint
Cyril, or
the nerd as I’ve been calling him, can’t sleep, thinking about the present. But
it’s Lily, or the girl, who sneaks out of bed first. She finds the Doctor, in
the room he claimed had panthers, a lie to keep them away, she eyes the TARDIS
and the Doctor calls it his wardrobe, remember this as Cyril gets up and
approaches the present. Inside the present is a time corridor to a cold winter
planet.
This seems a bit beyond even the Doctor if I’m honest. Cyril heads through the corridor, touches something which
then cracks open. He backs away but soon returns, seeing footprints in the
snow. The Doctor and Lily soon follow but thanks to some dimensional
discrepancies, they end up several minutes behind him. You know what would’ve
solved all this, just using the TARDIS! It would’ve fit with your story theme
to since it would be the wardrobe that allowed passage. It’s not called The
Lion, the Witch and the Cardboard Box is what I’m saying.
The two
follow Cyril’s footprints and notice the footprints Cyril is following are
growing. So the Doctor saw trees that grow baubles on them and thought it’d
make a great Christmas trip, he didn’t bother to check the day after to make
sure the planet was still there. Also, the trees are kinda talkative, they’ve
been whispering through most of the episode.
Madge
stumbles upon the corridor herself and makes her way through. Cyril finds
himself at a massive tower in the shape of a penis. He makes his way inside and
finds the stupid as f*ck looking human-tree. Madge stumbles into a group of
miners lead by Bill Bailey (completely wasted in this part) and has a complete meltdown. I know, I’m sure they
all felt the same way…
Cyril makes
it to the top of the tower, and finds another stupid as f*ck looking tree,
holding a crown above a throne. The Doctor and Lily arrive at the cock tower
and the Doctor confirms that the tower is in fact a group of trees grown in
this shape? I have many questions but I think I'll need lot's of alcohol to fully comprehend the
answers. He concludes it’s a trap for people.
After a
scene with Madge that… just no… no to all of it… And definitely no to
referencing the Caves of Androzani in this sh*t.
The Doctor
finds a wooden door blocking his path but of course the sonic’s weakness to
wood exists now so it doesn’t work. Also the tree is moving, trying to put the
ring, which is now glowing, on Cyril’s head. Lily sees the trees light up and
alerts the Doctor, but the attempts to breach the door are unsuccessful and the
crown is placed on Cyril’s head. Oh no… I don’t know what will happen so I
don’t know whether there’s any tension
So, somehow
she has Bill Bailey and one of the others tied up in their ship. The other
pilot says they can scan for life-forms but Bill Bailey warns that the planet
is about to be harvested via acid rain. Also, why are you here then? So, want
to hear the latest level of dumb. Because Madge has seen her husband drive a plane
once, she’s now perfectly capable of driving whatever f*cking machine this is.
Back with
the Doctor, the door opened and he’s caught up with Cyril, who thanks to the
crown has a sort of connection to the trees. With that the Doctor deduces the
trees are well aware of the acid rain and are transferring their life-force,
‘souls’ to the crown to be transported away. Unfortunately, Cyril is ‘weak’ and
can’t hold them. The Doctor is also ‘weak’ and can’t hold them. This girl-power
message they’re going to push is going to be accidentally sexist isn’t it?
Lily can
handle it but is too young, and making matters worse the acid rain is starting.
So, yeah Madge approaches but we can’t veer too far from her stereotype so she
crashes. Also, she fires the Doctor as
the caretaker which I’m not sure makes any sense. Madge gets the crown put on
her and the souls float into it.
And to top
off this cake of dumb, the top of the tower has engines and can fly, something
trees are not famous for doing. They head into the Time Vortex and… oh f*ck
off! Anyway, to return the kids home, she needs to concentrate on it, the good
and the bad! Also, turns out the relationship with her husband, Reg, as we find
out now his name is, is based entirely around stalking. That’s comforting.
Of course,
she’s shown all their history and that includes him dying and oh my god is the
acting here terrible. Madge less so, but damn these child actors. They crash
back on earth and it’s time for the truth to come out, for the second time?
Anyway, she reads out the telegram she’s been keeping the entire episode. But
thanks to time-stream shenanigans he’s alive, although given that he was
presumed dead and turned up randomly with no memory of where he’s going,
probably not for much longer.
OK, you get
your schmaltzy ending, can we wrap this up now? Madge says her goodbyes to the
Doctor, ‘I am the Doctor’ plays for no good reason at all. And the Doctor
decides to reveal he’s still alive to Amy and Rory. Thanks to River they
already knew this and I don’t see why the Doctor abandoned them anyway. All
ends in hugs and thank f*ck the credits are rolling.
Steven
Moffat had an interesting idea here, it just needed a couple of hundred extra
drafts. The characters are bland, the story is stupid, the parallels to
Christmas are forced and the parallels to the book even more so. This was a
busy time for Moffat, with a season just finished, Sherlock to write and from
what I understand, movie scripts to do. Maybe this would’ve been a good time to
hand it off to someone else cause this just sucked!
This episode
gives me rage issues
Rating 45%
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