All I can say is - I’m so glad Russell T Davies is stepping down. What a fucking pile of shit that was. Ridiculous plot, stupid “reveal” and the only redeeming feature was Dirvla Kirwen who was spectacular. Note to the casting people - GET SOMEONE WHO CAN ACT TO BE THE COMPANION! What the fuck was up with that Rosetta woman? All the vocal range of Donna Noble but with none of the charm.
Lamest. Christmas. Special. EVAR!
I thought it was a pretty decent period piece up until THE FUCKING GIANT CYBERMAN! RTD should have kept it small, but he can rarely resist going big style.
Great performances from David Morrissey and Dervla Kirwan though - really good actually. Sadly the woman who played Rosalita is probably the worst actor ever on New Who and that’s saying something!
Better than last years special though.
I loved it. In fact, I think it’s the best of the Christmas specials.
There is no telly show on Earth that couldn’t be made awesome by including 500 feet tall steampunk robots.
I completely disagree with Illuminatiprimus, I thought it was a lot of fun, and arguably the best constructed of the Christmas Specials yet.
So, is there anywhere online a person outside of your wonderful continent could view this? I hate having to wait.
Some people just can’t help bitching. I thought it was the best Christmas special to date. Of course, I long ago accepted the limitations of Davies’ writing style, and the Christmas specials are always excuses for him to indulge his taste, so I knew what to expect going in. I really hold the Christmas specials (and to some extent, RTD episodes in general) to a different standard than other episodes. So, within the context of what a Christmas special is, I liked this one because, however lame the reveal and however easy to predict it was, it did have some real mystery that kept me guessing for a while. I also liked the emotional arc of the “new Doctor” and the ways it paralleled the Doctor’s in “Family of Blood.” It wasn’t brilliant, but it gave the episode some emotional heft that’s usually missing from the Christmas specials (and Davies’ scripts in general). And given the inevitable over-the-top alien invasion of London that was bound to happen in a Davies Christmas special, I rather enjoyed the admittedly hokey 500-foot tall steampunk Cyberman. I love steampunk to begin with, and having the Cybermen come to London in the 19th century was a good excuse for some enormous steampunkiness. I laughed out loud when I saw the thing, but I’m not sure it wasn’t the effect they were going for, at least among adults. In any event, I was having fun.
Rosita was pretty nondescript, but they didn’t give her much to work with. A really stunning performance could have made her stand out, but as it was, she might as well have been another extra. Didn’t really effect me one way or the other.
My big disappointment was the Cybershades. They looked really good in the previews, but there was no payoff. What were they supposed to be? The Doctor mentioned a conversion using cat’s brains, but what was the body? It sure didn’t look like metal. And what was the point of using them instead of converting humans into Cybermen?
That said, Miss Hartigan’s Cybercrown was brilliantly done and just about made up for the Shades in my opinion. All in all a good show and worth waiting for. I just wish we had a real series to look forward to now instead of more specials. I’m willing to give over to them for sheer goofy fun once a year, but four in a row with no real Who in between is really trying me.
Well, YMMV. In my view the best xmas special was when the Doctor regenerated into Tennant and fought off the invasion of the Zygarax (sp?). The reasons being:
[ul]
[li]an alien invasion of London was then interesting, not a tired and annual cliche[/li][li]there was more than one point of actual dramatic tension[/li][li]the humour didn’t feel forced[/li][li]everyone in it could ACTUALLY ACT[/li][li]the villains made sense - much as I loved Kirwen, her character didn’t[/li][li]we got to see something new in the Doctor (his offing of the alien leader really took me by surprise). Watching the same smile-on-a-pogo-stick that is Tennant in this episode didn’t do a lot for me.[/li][/ul]
I think my real contention was that it didn’t feel like that much of a special, it just felt like a regular episode that happened to be aired at Xmas time. Maybe I’m being sour, as others clearly enjoyed it, but that’s my two penneths.
I liked the first half with the second Doctor (even if we knew there wouldn’t be a regeneration) and I liked the concept of steampunk cybermen (steammen?), but I thought the second half where they started getting into the adventure it completely fell apart. There were a lot of elements that just didn’t come together then and shuffling the ersatz Doctor offstage after the last second rescue early on didn’t help. I didn’t need it to be the “Next Doctor” show but having him directly involved in the climax of the episode would have been more dramatically appropriate.
Still, it’s better than that Titanic episode.
I really enjoyed this episode, though I was not fond of Rosita. I suppose I can appreciate giving the new showrunner time to get up to speed, but I do feel cheated with only four episodes this year.
Plus, spoiler for future Who sorta (for anyone not reading the news)
I am really going to miss David Tennant as the Doctor. I heard rumblings that David Morrisey is in the running to replace Tennant when Moffat takes over the show. I think he’d be fantastic.
No way. I’m positive that was just misdirection to cover the Christmas special. Seriously, what sense would it make to introduce Morrisey as a phoney “next Doctor” and then use him as the real next Doctor. They would have just made him the real next Doctor in the special or else kept him completely under wraps until he took over. How would they explain the Doctor regenerating into someone he just met?
“I kind of liked his style.”
“I guess he made a real impression on the Tardis.”
“It’s a coincidence. In a universe this size, you’re bound to run across some amazing coincidences, don’t you think?”
They can explain it any darn way they want to. It’s Dr. Who.
[spoiler]A Timelord companion in a previous series, Romana, consciously chose her regeneration form and picked someone she and the Doctor had just met (of course this was because they wanted the actress in question to carry on playing Romana when the actress who was playing her at the time wanted to leave the show).
Nothing to stop the Doctor (via the writers) doing the same thing.[/spoiler]
Obviously they can do whatever they like and come up with an explanation as believable as a gigantic steampunk robot trashing London. But if you think that’s actually what they have planned, I’ve got the secret scripts for Lucas’s final three Star Wars movies I’d like to sell you.
Misdirection, pure and simple.
It took me all day to watch it (I got about half watched and then had to go out shopping and cook dinner and so on, and then did the second part) but I really enjoyed it. I can’t say that the writing was brilliant, but it was really FUN even with the heavier parts.
David Morrissey was fantastic, and he had great chemistry (not necessarily romantic, though that would make great fic) with David Tennant. I wish he could have come along as a companion, but that would have meant Rosita and the son as well, and I don’t have any desire for that.
Rosita was boring. I can see what RTD was trying to do, but it didn’t work very well. Between her name, race, and vocal range, it was like she was supposed to be the composite Rose-Martha-Donna, except she was more boring and less intelligent. There were plot reasons for her to exist, but she didn’t add anything. One of the most superfluous characters of new-Who.
Favorite little bits:
The “tim’rous beastie” that line made me think for a second that this could in fact be the Doctor’s future regeneration, even though the spoilers said otherwise.
“It makes a sound. That’s sonic, right?”
“I can’t help noticing you’re wearing a fob watch.” through to “It’s more for decoration.”
The “whistling” thing.
Seeing the prior Doctors.
Unlike Power Rangers and every other giant robot show I’ve ever seen, there was an actual sense of fear from the people on the ground that the defeated falling robot could destroy great swathes of the town. And it was dealt with. Huzzah!
There are ways, but they would violate my user agreement here. Use that as your guide.
FTR: I’m sick of Cybermen. They are boring. The Doctor needs a new ultravillain, and that hasn’t come out of the first four series of the new shows. One cannot continue villains that come out of the limited FX of the 60s, 70s, and 80s and hope they will work over and over. Daleks, once a year, and the same for Cybermen, but they never worked over and over for more than one story arc. And battling a new invasion of either tells me the writers have lost ideas. Which they haven’t, but new villains say new ideas.
I enjoyed it immensely. I liked the initial reveal, though I thought the son was a step too far. Rosita only had one good scene - one good line, even - when she screeched for the Doctor a second time. Otherwise she was a waste of space.
I too would have liked Morrissey to have become the new Companion; but I would not object to him becoming the new Doctor either - he has the required presence.
There’s going to be a changing of the guard for 2010 and that’s all to the good.
I enjoyed it. A little confusing at first. I was told for sursies that Morrissey was the new Doctor and was a little distracted throughout the show wondering how they were going to make that work, and when it was going to happen.
I don’t mind the Cybermen making repeat appearances as much as the Daleks. The Daleks just scream everything too loud.
I really, really, really hope that Steven Moffat will invent some new monsters. He’s done that extremely well so far (clockwork men, weeping angels, etc.) so I hope he won’t rely on Daleks and Cybermen for every damn climatic moment. I know that they need to keep some continuity with the old series, but I think Moffat can do so much better. At this point, the Daleks have attempted to destroy all of reality. You can’t really top that, so let’s just move on, please?
I liked David Morrissey, and I liked this episode more than the Titanic one. I rewatched the Christmas Invasion right after, and I still like it a lot more, but that’s also because of Rose and her family - it somehow still had a warm Christmassy feel even with the spaceship battle and all (satsumas in the pockets, anyone?). This year’s episode didn’t quite capture that.
Completely agree, I’m glad to hear it too, it just completely passed me by. And it was the one special TV show I actually made an effort to catch too.
Christmas Specials aren’t supposed to be “special”, they’re just called that because they’re one-offs that get released in between regular seasons.