Doctor Who babbling
I hope that everyone had a good Christmas :)
Firstly I loved all of the little nostalgic touches like “709 episodes ago”, and the transition from the original footage to the recreated footage. There were times when the actual portrayal of the first Doctor didn’t always work as well for me though, it felt like they got a bit too carried away with shining a light on the sexism of the past and how embarrassed the 12th Doctor was with his past self, only it all felt very exaggerated and almost parody-like at times. I’ve only ever seen the very first episode of old Doctor Who admittedly, but I have read a lot of books covering that era, and it doesn’t come across that the First Doctor was casually sexist to that extent? It sounded like he had a lot of respect for Barbara for one :shrugs: And okay the ‘smacked bottom’ reactions were hilarious, but it still felt really OT to take a line from the First Doctor with his granddaughter, and present it as him addressing random adult women in that way...
The parts with Mark Gatiss were among my favourites, especially his disbelieving response at hearing the war described as the ‘first’, and then everything with the Christmas Truce. It seemed like it was all leading up to the Doctor and the solider having to accept the inevitably of his death, so it was lovely to instead have Steven Moffat end it on the sort of ‘everybody lives’ moment that he became so infamous for after The Doctor Dances, and it was incredibly moving to see a real historical moment like that dramatised with both sides in the conflict singing Christmas carols and coming together
I was so happy too that the Doctor got his memories of Clara back, I wasn’t expecting that! Clara’s cameo was very short sadly, but then from what I understand it was difficult to fit it in at all as Jenna Coleman was so busy working on Victoria
It was also lovely to have Bill back of course, and I’m still sad that Chris Chibnall couldn’t find some way to include her in series 11! She did felt a bit underused at times though, and honestly you could kind of tell that her inclusion in the script had been a bit of an afterthought for Steven Moffat just wanting to include her one last time. I was hoping that the Doctor would discover that she had survived being converted to a Cyberman, instead disappointingly there wasn’t really any closure there, and it can be argued whether or not the Doctor was right to believe that an avatar with Bill’s memories wasn’t really the true Bill
And finally it’s a bit of a shame that they always have to announce the new Doctor ahead of time, it would be cool if the show could pull off a surprise regeneration at some point, although obviously it’s probably not very practical to hope for something like that! It just kind of felt like they were trying to hold off showing Jodie for a bit when the regeneration first happened, as if it was meant to be a gaspworthy moment that the new Doctor is a woman now, but umm *everyone* would have already known about it by now, however much they attempted to avoid being spoiled...
Firstly I loved all of the little nostalgic touches like “709 episodes ago”, and the transition from the original footage to the recreated footage. There were times when the actual portrayal of the first Doctor didn’t always work as well for me though, it felt like they got a bit too carried away with shining a light on the sexism of the past and how embarrassed the 12th Doctor was with his past self, only it all felt very exaggerated and almost parody-like at times. I’ve only ever seen the very first episode of old Doctor Who admittedly, but I have read a lot of books covering that era, and it doesn’t come across that the First Doctor was casually sexist to that extent? It sounded like he had a lot of respect for Barbara for one :shrugs: And okay the ‘smacked bottom’ reactions were hilarious, but it still felt really OT to take a line from the First Doctor with his granddaughter, and present it as him addressing random adult women in that way...
The parts with Mark Gatiss were among my favourites, especially his disbelieving response at hearing the war described as the ‘first’, and then everything with the Christmas Truce. It seemed like it was all leading up to the Doctor and the solider having to accept the inevitably of his death, so it was lovely to instead have Steven Moffat end it on the sort of ‘everybody lives’ moment that he became so infamous for after The Doctor Dances, and it was incredibly moving to see a real historical moment like that dramatised with both sides in the conflict singing Christmas carols and coming together
I was so happy too that the Doctor got his memories of Clara back, I wasn’t expecting that! Clara’s cameo was very short sadly, but then from what I understand it was difficult to fit it in at all as Jenna Coleman was so busy working on Victoria
It was also lovely to have Bill back of course, and I’m still sad that Chris Chibnall couldn’t find some way to include her in series 11! She did felt a bit underused at times though, and honestly you could kind of tell that her inclusion in the script had been a bit of an afterthought for Steven Moffat just wanting to include her one last time. I was hoping that the Doctor would discover that she had survived being converted to a Cyberman, instead disappointingly there wasn’t really any closure there, and it can be argued whether or not the Doctor was right to believe that an avatar with Bill’s memories wasn’t really the true Bill
And finally it’s a bit of a shame that they always have to announce the new Doctor ahead of time, it would be cool if the show could pull off a surprise regeneration at some point, although obviously it’s probably not very practical to hope for something like that! It just kind of felt like they were trying to hold off showing Jodie for a bit when the regeneration first happened, as if it was meant to be a gaspworthy moment that the new Doctor is a woman now, but umm *everyone* would have already known about it by now, however much they attempted to avoid being spoiled...