Dr Who Christmas Special 2013

Me55enger

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Dr Who: where the only thing sacred is the next season.

Moffat is running out of original Lore to butcher.
 

Ninjamedic

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GeekFury said:
Saw it Albino, by relaunch I mean pre-2000 Who, such as Tom Baker, John Pertwee and the likes. Most of the new Who episodes come down to 'love conquers all' not the Doctor just being smart and lucky, go back and watch episodes from the days of yore.
I think you're referring to me, and 'most' is an exaggeration, I'll admit I hate/dislike most of RTD's episodes, and Moffat does tend to use the "HUMAN SPIRIT" as if he's writing for Gurren Lagann, but to say they're all like that is a bit of an exaggeration.

Also, finished Remembrance. The Seventh Doctor just talked a Dalek into suicide. Badass.
 

vallorn

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I wasn't a big fan of the drawn out Amy hallucination sequence that felt off to me. I was fine with him seeing that one quick hallucination of young Amy but then the whole older Amy coming down and touching his face was sort of creepy... Also I do like how Moffat decided to finally tie up all these questions although I would like to say that it took him bloody long enough some of them were approaching the realms of being obscure...

Silence being confessional priests was a good way of explaining why they could do what they did (except the lightning hands)

Tasha Lin is probably yet another incarnation of River Song.

Reusing the Dalek Eyestalk People from Asylum was a nice touch as it let the Daleks pull off quite the fast one and become what approached a credible threat.

I am still not a fan of "The time lords are still alive" however... I loved the dark, tragic side that gave to 9 and 10 and seeing the reason the the Rage of 9 and the Regret of 10 just handwaved away like that cheapens their whole arcs especially Bad Wolf and The End Of Time with The Master's sacrifice.

Sorry I probably meandered a bit off topic. I still have serious issues with Moffat as a lead writer but this was above his grade of writing in the recent series and it was somewhat gratifying to see all the plot arcs explained (again, took him long enough)

Back to Moffat issues. I think he needs someone above him to hit him on the head when he starts being self-indulgent or tries to be overly clever he does his best work that way with limited resources. It's the same as George Lucas. Give him restrictions and we get Old Indiana Jones and Original Star Wars. Give him no restrictions and practically unlimited funds and we get... Crystal Skulls, Medichlorians and Jar Jar Binks. With Moffat we get the Empty Child and The Weeping Angels (Blink version... I hold them as separate from the others if only to preserve how much I enjoy that episode) and then we get... a 4 year arc explained in a sentence with Destiny Paradoxes (doesn't The Doctor hate paradoxes?), Amy Pond, River Song (Again. newer version where he practically wrote her as his insert character) and, *Shudder*... Gallifrey Falls, No More.

There was no weight or gravitas to any of this. nothing that might scar the universe even if The Doctor regenerated and as always Moffat pulled a fucking Deus Ex Machina out of his ass to kill the daleks again... Since when were Regenerations akin to nuclear detonations? even Tennants where he was loaded up with radiation only burned a room!
 

SuperSamio64

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Well, what little story there was was told badly, all the skipping ahead with narration bridging the gaps was quite lazy and meant it was hard to care about the inhabitants of 'Christmas' at all. It felt like an excuse for Steven Moffat to give 'his' Doctor a nice death of old age, rather than having the Silence finally succeed in killing him, which would have been much more dramatic. Telling us there was a big battle isn't the same as showing it - they probably spent all their effects money on the 50th. I feel like 11 could have died about half way through, and then we wouldn't have had to wait until next Autumn to properly see Capaldi's Doctor. Another thing that bugs me, Moffat was bigging this one up as the one that answered all the big questions, but they were just sort of waved away with single lines.
 

Pickles

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Roganzar said:
And good-bye Handles.
Truly, the greatest of new companions.

EDIT: May as well give my actual impressions of the episode.

I enjoyed it, but it was rushed and convoluted. I think with the number of unexplained plot threads Moffat has cooked up in the last few seasons this is about as good as it could have been. I'm also really surprised they didn't have Clara remembering that she'd read the doctor's name and saying it for him.

The real deciding factor for me is going to be the start of the next season. If Gallifrey being at arms reach is ignored then its going to be completely ridiculous. If it ends up just being a plot device to circumvent the regenerations its going to be a massive waste.
 

Netrigan

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Gizmo1990 said:
What I do hate (besides the episode being slow and kind of boring) is that yet again we have something left unresolved. I get that Moffat likes to have a plot threads continue from series to series but it took him 4 years to explain why everything over he last 4 years has even happened and yet at the end of it all we still don't know what happened to Galifray. He should have given us a strait they are back/they are still in another universe and gone into the next Doctor with a completly clean slate.
Seeing as it's been unresolved for exactly two episodes...

I figured out some time ago that the crack was going to be linked to the 11th Doctor's death, which is why every series we had the Doctor facing down his own death... just in case this was the year Matt Smith decided to call it quits and they had to explain the whole Silence thing. The downside was they had to keep the damn thing going when Matt Smith decided not to call it quits.

Get away from the Silence arc and you'll notice Moffat didn't leave too many bits hanging for very long. The mystery of River Song was done by the middle of the second series, the Impossible Girl took half a series to resolve itself. Gallifrey's return really isn't much of an unresolved story arc. They're out there, they're looking to return, and at some point the Doctor will be in the right place at the right time to do it. The only question is how will he do it and what will the repercussions be. I'd rather him think it through before bringing it back. The Doctor needs a good reason to stay away from it without painting them as the worst sort of villains.


Also I have to point out that Moffat said that after asylum of the daleks he was going to give them a rest and who were the only bad guys left standing at the end?
Every one expects to see the Daleks, so he puts them in. We've still only had two episodes in the Moffat run where they were the primary focus of the story. Clearly, that's what he means by giving them a rest, not removing them from the show entirely.
 

Netrigan

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Colour Scientist said:
I can't put my finger on what it is but, for some reason. I think Davies pulled it off better.
Davies never bothered to work out exactly what he was going to do in the finale until he sat down to write the finale. Bad Wolf didn't mean anything until that moment, he will knock four times meant nothing until that moment, and so on.

Basically, he never wrote a check his butt had to cash later. He knew he could slot absolutely anything in place and it would work. Apart from it being a causality loop, is there any reason Rose Tyler would choose the words "Bad Wolf". In the end, she chose those words not because it made any sense in the finale (which Davies didn't even know would feature the Daleks when he started laying down clues) but because those were the words chosen. Had he put an ounce more effort in to foreshadowing that, the whole thing would have collapsed under its poor construction.

Moffat's more ambition and the ambition is what's kicking him in the ass. That the Doctor's first mystery would be the cause of his death is a great idea... only there's no way they can spread it across three series and make it work, especially not with the possibility of the show's star being able to walk away at any time. Every year Moffat had to feature the Doctor facing down his own death and something involving the Silence just in case Smith pulled an Eccelston and left with minimal warning.
 

Sir Shockwave

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BrotherRool said:
Hey we're not saying that Moffat isn't being consistent in making a sucky last episode. In fact he's upholding and ,in some areas, even expanding upon the fine traditions of a last episode (Which is weird, because as much as I think it would be a bad idea, I think he's still showrunning Peter Capaldi's first season?)
Unfortunately, yes. As I've been saying to my father when we bring the show up "I think the next Doctor is going to be New Who's Colin Baker - great actor, marred by exceptionally poor writing."

OT: Above said, it was still better than The End of Time was.
 

e90grfvsyu7bk

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i always like moffats writing better than davies, for davies his finales were the daleks, the daleks and friends, the master and friends, then daleks agian, and then the master agian
 

Hawk eye1466

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Honestly the end felt a little lacking it wasn't as poignant as Tennants departure which made me tear up a little because of how deliberately sad it was but smiths was more, well it was nice knowing you!

Also the what roughly 2 seconds of Capaldi is not cool he didn't get to do anything other than say he didn't like the color of his kidneys and ask if Clara could drive. So maybe 5 lines of dialogue? Come on I wanted to see something!
 

Gizmo1990

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Netrigan said:
My issue with the Galifray this is less the amount of time it has been an issue, as you said it has been to episodes, but more the fact that it took him 4 years to reveal any info about the silence. For an entire series they were completly forgoten about and then in this episode it is all explained in 1 rushed sentence. I think the seach for Galifray could be a good storyline but looking at Moffats trak record I cannot help but think that he will spend the next 4 years with nothing but vague refferences to it only to have it return at the end of an episode with less than 5 mins before the end.

Also it occered to me today that ,maybe they never intended to obay the 12 regen limit but then saw how ingrained it was and that is why they did the war Doctor stuff and I will tell you why. In that stupid, plot hole that the bbc claimes was an episode when Amy and Rory left, the Doctor heals River with regen energy. How did he do that if he could no longer regenerate?
 

Netrigan

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Gizmo1990 said:
My issue with the Galifray this is less the amount of time it has been an issue, as you said it has been to episodes, but more the fact that it took him 4 years to reveal any info about the silence. For an entire series they were completly forgoten about and then in this episode it is all explained in 1 rushed sentence. I think the seach for Galifray could be a good storyline but looking at Moffats trak record I cannot help but think that he will spend the next 4 years with nothing but vague refferences to it only to have it return at the end of an episode with less than 5 mins before the end.
He pulled back from complex story arcs after Series Six, so decent shot of this coming to a head by the end of the series with only a handful of mentions between now and then.

As I said, the four years to reveal exactly what was going on with the Silence was likely just him committing to the idea of the 11th Doctor's death being linked to his first story, so he had to keep going with it until Smith left or else change the underlying plan. None of his other plot threads have come close to taking that long to land. River Song is the only one which took more than one series. So if we view The Silence arc as the exception rather than the rule, then the resolution of the Gallifrey story shouldn't be too far in the future.

And as there's no mystery here, it shouldn't be distracting. Moffat loves his tricks, but he's retired a few of them. Looking at Series 7, I think there's a very good chance he's retired the overly complicated arc. The Impossible Girl is the only arc of that year and it was mostly just a promise to explain her a bit later on rather than laying down a bunch of clues and having to piece them together later.

And if the gag at the end about the 12th Doctor not knowing how to fly the ship is any indication, we might have seen the back of causality loops. They've got that little device that can return Clara to her own time, so we might be in for some 1st and 2nd Doctor wandering.
 

CriticalMiss

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I wasn't really a fan, but it's an Xmas episode so I didn't have the greatest of expectations to begin with. It seemed more like a 'Best of the 11th Doctor' episode than an episode in it's own right, but I guess that was the point. Tug at all of those heartstrings and raise a few smiles by referencing stuff. Hopefully Capaldi gets a decent start of his proper run of episodes.
 

Vivi22

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spartandude said:
I didnt understand the silence at all. Ok so if the doctor says his name the time lords return (for some reason) and if that happens a new time war will start which will destroy the universe. The silence understandably want to stop this and call themselves the silence because they dont want the doctor to talk, and they want him dead. They way they do that is by destroying the Tardis which would destroy the universe..... Did the silence not understand the controversy surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending?
What makes you think they knew destroying the TARDIS would destroy the Universe? They were probably just trying to stop him from being able to travel to Trenzalor when the time came.

Also what created the time cracks, the Timelords or the Tardis exploding?
They were pretty clear in series 5 and this episode that it was the TARDIS exploding. It outright said in this episode the Time Lords were trying to come through the scar tissue that remained after the Universe was repaired.

Why the Weeping Angels there?
The same reason every other race was there.

they need to get rid of Steven Moffat because he is running the show into the ground.
I can see why someone who seemed to miss the point on so much might think that. Most shows don't hold up very well if you miss important plot points along the way. :p
 

TheRightToArmBears

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I actually liked it- Matt Smith was awesome, the ageing makeup/prosthetics looked waaaay better than when they've done them in the past, Handles was great and I thought the script wasn't bad. Still, it suffered with the same bollocks that Who has for ages- The plotlines are confusing and flimsily held together, the continuity is messy as hell and all the female characters are pretty similar. I also though that Amy showing up was a heap of shit, but then I never liked her for anything more than the fact that Karen Gillan is kinda hot and a decent actress.
 

Thaluikhain

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Phasmal said:
It's funny because Moffat wrote my favourite RTD-era episodes, but on his own as lead writer... I'm not loving it.
Yeah, now that he's his own script editor, not doing too well.
 

Gary Thompson

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I would like a new writer for Capaldi, Who needs to shift with a new Doctor and keeping Moffat might make it more of the same.
I'm sure they'll go away from the fairy tale side, but I'm really excited about Capaldi and I hope he has his own unique style to his serieses.
 

Something Amyss

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Ninjamedic said:
(though that's not difficult)
It's really not. Saying it's better than that is the epitome of damning waith faint praise.

spartandude said:
Did the silence not understand the controversy surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending?
EA is The Silence? That explains...Well, absolutely nothing, but still!

Gizmo1990 said:
I am ok with the reset because lets face it there was no other way out of it.
They could have just ignored the regeneration limit entirely. The regeneration idea itself was a retcon to extend the show. Retconning it again would not be without precedent.

T3nno said:
im just happy smith is gone, maybe the show will be enjoyable again
At the very least, people will stop blaming Smith.

Well, unless he ends up being the show's Obama. Maybe he already was. I saw him blamed for things during Tennant's run, so maybe people will start blaming him for Capaldi's shows....
 

Albino Boo

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Zachary Amaranth said:
T3nno said:
im just happy smith is gone, maybe the show will be enjoyable again
At the very least, people will stop blaming Smith.

Well, unless he ends up being the show's Obama. Maybe he already was. I saw him blamed for things during Tennant's run, so maybe people will start blaming him for Capaldi's shows....
Nah mate its clearly Colin Baker's fault.
 

Ninjamedic

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albino boo said:
Zachary Amaranth said:
T3nno said:
im just happy smith is gone, maybe the show will be enjoyable again
At the very least, people will stop blaming Smith.

Well, unless he ends up being the show's Obama. Maybe he already was. I saw him blamed for things during Tennant's run, so maybe people will start blaming him for Capaldi's shows....
Nah mate its clearly Colin Baker's fault.
You kidding me? We all know Michael Grade conspired all of this as vengeance against the Queen for not getting a knighthood, its been obvious for years!