Christmas TV
Well the general sitting room consensus was that it was a good one: funny and no scary monsters, just 'moments of dread' as my mum put it. Also, personally, it made me cry. I mean, I know that the Maude driving the ship home bit was shameless emotional manipulation, but damn it Clare Skinner just killed me with her face, and her voice and oh yeah, sniffing again. Maude really was what held this story together and she did it very, very well.
Any complaints? Well, I was slightly: Wha? By the whole strong=woman, weak = man, mothers = the bestest things evar! I'm sure that someone could pull some sort of gender WTFery from that. But you know, its Christmas, I'm really not in the mood for in depth analysis here.
(And if I was going to analyse, which I'm not, I'd say that although one of Maude's sources of strength, and identity, is her status as Mother, it is by no means all that defines her. She also struggles with grief, reads manuals, helps waifs and strays and has a distinctive driving style. Also, this felt like one of the more 'kid friendly' Doctor Who stories and, as seen from a kids perspective the fact that 'mum always comes' is a nicely reassuring message.)
As for the Coda, I was a bit surprised by how happy I was to see Amy and Rory again. It reminded me that I do actually have a real soft spot for these characters. I loved Amy's water gun and the hug stand off.
I also now, however, have the urge to write fix it fic about Amy struggling to get to grips with the loss of her baby and how that effects her desire or not to have more. There would be conversations with River, and Amy's mum and Rory and Amy clamming up and issues and things. It'll probably never get written, but its nice to think about.
As for Downton Abbey. Well, it was better than the second season and actually a very enjoyable thing. Particularly everything that Maggie Smith did. Her 'Promise' after the newspaper man tells her that they will never meet again was simply priceless and had us all in extended stitches. However, since most of the people watching it had seen either none or only some of the previous episodes, we did spend an awful lot of time pausing the show to go: 'Right, there was this Turkish guy...'