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Tag: Christmas

Follow the Ruby Church Road

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Review of The Church on Ruby Road
Warning: This review may contain episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Welcome to the Ncuti Gatwa era proper! In case you haven’t actually watched The Church on Ruby Road before reading this (admittedly unlikely), let me just start with a Content Warning for child endangerment. If “‘Rule #1: Don’t lose the baby.’ Hijinks ensue” is your jam, you’ll probably enjoy that aspect of the episode. However, if that kind of thing cranks up your anxiety (which, until I was watching, I didn’t realize it did for me), it might be nice to know going in.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2023 BBC

Aside from the unexpected maternal alarm the episode gave me, though, it was great fun to have a proper Christmas special again. We haven’t had one since Capaldi’s regeneration in 2017’s Twice Upon a Time—though we did have four episodes on New Year’s Day, after the twelve Christmas episodes that opened the modern era. (Anyone else feeling old now that I mention that “new” Who launched nearly nineteen years ago?)

Most of the holiday specials we’ve had over the years have been standalones neither tying off loose ends of a story nor launching a new, series-long plot arc, though there are obviously exceptions. But I think we will likely find in the long run that there is more in The Church on Ruby Road to set the stage for the upcoming series than is immediately obvious.

Perhaps highest on the list of statistically likely elements is the question of Ruby’s parentage. On first viewing, we may think that she simply won’t ever know anything about her birth mother (or at least the woman who left her at the eponymous church, who may or may not be related to her, let’s be honest). But if you go back and listen carefully to that pre-credits voiceover, you’ll hear the Doctor say that “No one ever knew her name until that night a time traveller came to call.” In other words, the Doctor knows her name.

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Confession #160: I Miss the Holiday Specials

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Doctor Who holiday specials have never been particularly high on my list of “must see TV.” Aside from them being Doctor Who, which gives them inherent watchability in my eyes, having something over-the-top fluffy (or even silly) that doesn’t necessarily fit within continuity (that is, if you eliminated one entirely, the arcs of the stories surrounding it wouldn’t really be affected) doesn’t particularly appeal to me.

As an American, I’ve not had the cultural tradition of Christmas specials designed for the whole family to sit down and watch together on Christmas Day (presumably at least in part to keep the peace for a while in the event that one’s family doesn’t even get along). At most, the TV traditions around here were watching Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer or The Year Without a Santa Claus, but those were always aired well before the holiday itself.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself feeling a bit distraught at the idea that there would be no “festive” Doctor Who episode airing this year (on either Christmas or New Year’s).

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Bookends

Review of Resolution
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Last month when we watched the final episode of Series 11, we weren’t actually watching the final episode of Series 11. This was the final episode of Series 11.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2019 BBC

Resolution ties into the rest of Whittaker’s tenure to date so seamlessly, I can’t help but wonder whether or not it was Chibnall’s intention all along to make an eleven-episode series. Evidence of that idea is peppered throughout the special, making Resolution and The Woman Who Fell to Earth a pair of perfectly matched bookends.

For starters, both episode titles have double meanings. In TWWFtE, the identity of the eponymous woman is up for interpretation, while here the titular resolution could either be the Doctor’s stated intention to come for the Dalek or the completion of a plot through-line or two.

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Nu-View #23: Time Marches On

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The Time of the Doctor (Christmas Special; 2013)
Viewed 24 Apr 2018

Doctor/Companion: Eleven, Clara Oswald
Stars: Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman
Preceding Story: The Day of the Doctor (Eleven, Ten, War, Clara, Kate Stewart)
Succeeding Story: Deep Breath (Twelve, Clara)

I don’t know what others’ families are like, but in ours obsessions come and go in waves. We’ll get all excited about something and dive in head-first, only to get derailed somewhere along the way for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s a scheduling issue that throws us off our groove, or sometimes something else piques our interest and supersedes the current passion-of-the-moment.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2013 BBC

Such is the way of the girls’ run through modern Doctor Who. Once we got on a roll, we were powering through episodes at an incredible rate. With only twenty-one left to get them up-to-date on the entirety of the modern era, we hit one of those bumps in the road. It’s now been more than a month since we last watched Who, having for the time being move on to the MCU.

All this is by way of explanation that my recollections of the girls reactions to this (and the following) episode have already been blurred by time. I have my notes, but they’re spare, and lack of temporal proximity makes them more difficult than usual to interpret. Besides, the girls did more watching than openly reacting. But there are a few key moments in the Eleventh Doctor’s last story that made an impression on them, and therefore on me.

Moffat threw everything but the kitchen sink at us here. There are Daleks, Cybermen, Silence, and the Crack. In fact, there appears to be a message coming through the Crack that no one can interpret. But the Doctor conveniently has something that can help his new “friend” Handles the Cyber-head decode that message: the Seal of the High Council of Gallifrey. “Nicked it off the Master in the Death Zone,” he explains, and the girls bark a laugh. We’ve only recently watched The Five Doctors, and they understand the reference perfectly.

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Twice the Emotions

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Review of Twice Upon a Time
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I am at such a weird crossroads of emotions, I hardly know where to begin. Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor has become my all-time favorite (just edging out the Eighth—sorry, Paul! I still love you!), so watching his regeneration story was even more bittersweet than usual. On the other hand, I’m eager to see Whittaker take the reins. Add in the other ups and downs along the way, and I’m just a mess.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2017 BBC

As is often the case at the end of a modern Doctor’s tenure, Twelve’s last hurrah was full of looking back as much (if not more) than forward. We knew going in that he’d be sharing the spotlight with his first (sort of) incarnation, and I was okay with that. I was also okay—more than okay!—with Bill Potts making a return.

I’ll be honest, though; it wasn’t a whole long time after the release of the trailer that revealed Bill’s return that I started thinking about how it might be possible. I never came anywhere close to being right (par for the course, with a Moffat episode), but I had enough difficulty concocting my own hypothesis that the Doctor’s suspicions (and later, opinions) about her presence echoed mine. As a result, it was difficult for me to be as delighted by having Bill back as I wanted to be.

I was also oddly ambivalent about having the First Doctor on board. I had quite enjoyed An Adventure in Space and Time, so was rather looking forward to David Bradley’s rendition. However, I didn’t get quite the vibe from him that I have come to associate with One; some of that was obviously down to the writing.

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Just a Sprinkle of Humbug

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Review of The Return of Doctor Mysterio
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Ah, the annual Christmas Special… That sixty-minute episode that tries to be all things to all people, but most especially to those who never watch Doctor Who except this once a year. No wonder Moffat chooses Christmas as the time to trot out his most gimmicky ideas.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2016 BBC

Having already exploited Santa Claus/Father Christmas two years ago (and included a nod to Sherlock Holmes (and thus his own work on Sherlock) in 2012), Moffat needed a new cultural icon to shoehorn into his annual holiday offering. Since there would undoubtedly be copyright issues with something like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, it seems he decided it was instead time to cash in on the recent resurgent popularity of superheroes—thus we end up with “Doctor Who Does Superman” this year.

Not that a fluffy superhero “romp” is entirely unsuited to the situation. The trope is easily relatable to a casual viewer, who thereby doesn’t have to know anything about the show at all to understand the premise of the episode. I’m not a huge fan of this type of genre crossover, but I thought the conceit by which young Grant gained his superpowers was sufficiently Doctor-y and believable in-universe. (“Take this,” the Doctor tells 8-year-old Grant, handing him a gemstone to hold with what, in retrospect, turns out to have been a particularly unfortunate choice of words.)

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A Song of Comfort

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Review of The Husbands of River Song
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Christmas episodes are unusual creatures, trying to be all things to all viewers. There is the expectation that a large number of families, including those who don’t regularly watch the show, will be tuning in. Thus, the episode should be easy to follow for those with little or no knowledge of the characters and ongoing storyline(s), and fun and cheerful for those making it part of their holiday celebrations.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

At the same time, it has to be satisfying for those of us who follow the show regularly. If it’s a complete toss-off, the production team risks alienating its core audience, which is also bad. Thus a Christmas special is a weird hybrid (see what I did there?) of fluff and substance that can be very difficult to execute.

As one might expect, then, there were parts of The Husbands of River Song (THORS—Ha! What an acronym!) that made me really happy and others that made me cringe a little. It’s difficult even to generalize which was which. Most of the interpersonal bits were good, though some were not; most of the guest artist bits were pants, though some were not; most of the plot points were eyeroll-y, though some were not. You get the idea: par for the course.

On first viewing, though, I found the good bits outweighed the bad. Moffat’s dialog was mostly rich in quotable one-liners, with the occasional battle-of-the-sexes comments that he seems to think are funny (but as far as I’m concerned almost never are). I took the lighthearted feel of a “romp” at face value that first time through, too, which meant that the guest cast (Greg Davies as King Hydroflax, Matt Lucas as Nardole (whom I kept mentally calling Unstoffe at first), and Phillip Rhys as Ramone) were all played at a just-right-for-the-occasion “panto” level of off-the-wall.

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Can Every Christmas Be “Last Christmas”?

Review of Last Christmas
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Santa Claus has absolutely no place in Doctor Who. Except when he does.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

I will freely admit that I was among those fans who cringed and gnashed teeth when Santa showed up in the TARDIS at the end of Death in Heaven. The whole idea that this mythical (if well-beloved) person should exist as an entity as real as the Doctor himself within the Whoniverse just gave me hives.

The comedy-rich pre-credits sequence was, thus, painful to watch (though I do love to see Dan Starkey wearing his own face for a change). And on first viewing, Clara’s declaration that she does indeed believe in Santa Claus just adds the cherry to the top of the whole saccharine mess.

After one knows how it all pans out, though… Well, it all fits together nicely.

Note, for starters, that the Doctor never gives Clara an answer when she asks with breathless wonder if being back in the TARDIS with him is real. Combine that with his face-off with Santa before joining her there (“I know what this is. I know what’s happening. And I know what’s at stake.”), and I think it’s hard to argue that he’s not completely aware for the entire episode that they’re all dreaming.

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Nu-View #19: Enter Number Ten

The Christmas Invasion (Series Two, Ep. 0; 2005)
Viewed 08 Jul 2014

Doctor/Companion: Ten, Rose Tyler
Stars: David Tennant, Billie Piper
Preceding Story: The Parting of the Ways (Nine, Rose)
Succeeding Story: New Earth (Ten, Rose)

As the Ladies gather one last time at the current Chez Neowhovian, the impending move to a new house is top on everyone’s mind. Next time we get together (hopefully jO will finally be able to join us again; it’s been too long!), we’ll be at a completely new place.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2006 BBC

We barely even mention in passing that we’ve tried before to watch this episode (though there’s a little muttering about it as Mickey shushes his coworkers to listen more carefully to the TARDIS materializing). The next thing we know, Jackie’s delivering the classic joke line (“Doctor who?”) and the opening credits crash across the screen.

Poor Mickey is still getting the short end of the stick. “Can you just let it be Christmas?” he begs Rose. “Not so much,” jE answers for her. On screen, Rose herself is trying a little harder, nodding acquiescence.

“You promise?”

“Yeah,” she assures him.

“Well, yeah, until the life or death stuff,” amends jE. “Then I’ll renege on my promise.” And so it goes.

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The Winter of Our Cautious Optimism

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Review of The Snowmen
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I’m not sure there’s much more I could have asked for. (Oh, of course there is. A puppy is always nice, for example…)


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

Seriously, though, I think this is the best Christmas Special in a good long while (the best since Christmas Invasion, in my opinion). No episode is ever absolutely perfect, and I’ll get to the parts that irked me later. Frankly, I wouldn’t be much of a blogger if I couldn’t find something both to love and to hate about any given story, but generally speaking, I have to say I quite enjoyed The Snowmen.

I think a great part of that is because it wasn’t terribly Christmassy. That is, it felt like a “regular” episode (with a bit of extra time for plot development) that just happened to be set at Christmas, much like Nine’s story The Unquiet Dead. Nothing except (here it comes – my first, biggest complaint) the über-sappy, saccharine explanation of “a whole family crying on Christmas Eve” relied on the specific time of year in order to make “sense.”

And, to be honest, it just doesn’t. It’s not like no one else in London has ever – or even in that very year – lost a loved one right at Christmas. It happens to people the world over all the time. Why is this family’s pain special? The simple answer is: it’s not. (No more so than the loss of his most recent Companions is particularly special to the Doctor. But I’ll get to that later.) That fact, combined with the overwrought emotional manipulation that plagues Moffat’s episodes, make the denouement of this part of the story unsatisfactory.

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