"Father Christmas. Santa Claus. Or as I've always known him, Jeff."
Christmas this year zoomed by, riding on a cloud of dinner planning and avoiding all of that Los Angeles rain. I can't complain, though, because it was a good time spent with family. Christmas Eve was spent with my dad's side of the family, the side with my three little munchkins who got an obscene number of toys for Christmas. Our family decided this year's themes were Italian food and pajamas. That meant we stuffed ourselves with an assortment of cheesy and delicious dishes. But the beauty of the pajama part is that not only were we the most adorable group on the block, but the theme had built-in stretchy food pants.
Christmas Day was with my mom's side and somehow involved my sister and me in a 6 hour-long session of marathon cooking. I'm not necessarily a good cook, but I can follow a recipe like a champ, so dinner wasn't the unmitigated disaster it had every right to be. After the leftovers were packed away to be consumed for the next two weeks, my sister and I settled in watch what I'd been looking forward to all day: the Doctor Who Christmas Special.
First off, can I just say how lovely it was to (legally) watch a Doctor Who ep the same day as the UK? I felt this odd sense of pride when BBC America announced the simultaneous airdate. I remember this channel when it still played John Oliver-narrated bumpers that suggested viewers use captions because the accents can sometimes be difficult to understand. Aw. How far we've come.
* The episode started off gorgeous and wonderful. Then, like most Moffat Big Plotty Episodes, spiraled into an unwieldy ball of WTF. It's taken a re-watch, the DW Confidential, and some perusing of doctorwho and my new favorite comm starwhales to sufficiently understand what happened. Now, I get the plot. What I still don't get is how. How does the Doctor screw with time so much without collapsing all of time and space? And I thought we learned from Ten's Time Lord Victorious Adventure that you don't change people's personal timelines just because you think you're doing the right thing. Then there's that small lesson in 'Father's Day' that you don't touch another version of yourself or the world will go boom.
* On that note, it bothers the crap out of me when Moffat ignores RTD's established time travel canons. The whole "Time can be rewritten" handwave is a more obvious way of ignoring canon than "wibbly wobbly timey wimey."
* Screwing with someone's personal timeline to change him seems like an awfully complicated solution as opposed to finding a vaguely science-y way of moving whatever cloud was crashing Amy and Rory's Honeymoon Space Ship of Borderline-Innappropriate-For-A-Kids'-Show Role Playing. I mean, I get that it's Christmas and the perfect time to make someone a better person. But really, there are easier ways around this, Doctor.
* Like every Eleven ep, and even more so in this one, this ep needed more Ponds. Amy and Rory need to forever be around being all amusing and awesome and such.
* Can the Doctor visit teenaged Michael Gambon Kazran again? Because I wouldn't mind spending a few more Christmas Eves with him. Just sayin'.
* I've decided that the main difference between Ten and Eleven for me is how they deal with their emo demons: Whenever someone mentions losing someone/having a broken heart, Eleven just sort of looks likes he's doing a good job of hiding his deep-seeded loneliness. Ten, on the other hand, would stare heartbrokenly into middle distance while a small storm cloud rained on his head.
* It's taken a season, but I think I've really come to accept Matt Smith as the Doctor, especially after his entrance through the chimney and his scene with young Kazran. It was almost like I finally saw that inherent--for lack of better word--marvelousness that makes the Doctor the Doctor. For the first time, I wasn't thinking that this was the Eleventh Doctor; he was just the Doctor. It's a Christmas miracle!
* "MARILYN, GET YOUR COAT!" HEE! Probably the best part of the whole episode. The Doctor really would get married to spite his companions who were ignoring him. Side note: I love that this made it onto Marilyn Monroe's Wikipedia page.
* "Kazran, look: It's either [kissing Abigail] or going to your room and designing a new screwdriver. Don't make my mistake." I'm choosing to ignore the euphemism. Instead, I'm just imagining Ten being really confused by Rose's flirting, then going off to his room and designing what will become Eleven's screwdriver.
* If I ignore basically all of the plot, it really was quite a wonderful Christmas special what with the flying space shark and multiple Christmas Eves and the Doctor tumbling out of a chimney and being all sorts of marvelous. Moffat was really on it with the one-liners, too. Also, Matt Smith seems to be at his most charming when he's working with children. He and young Kazran were so very lovely together.
* As for the Series 6 trailer, it always makes me nervous when Rory isn't in a shot with Amy and the Doctor. S5 traumatized me. I adore him so. They wouldn't kill him off again, would they? Nah. They wouldn't. ...Would they? What I wouldn't mind them doing away with is River. I've only grown to tolerate her; I'm definitely not in a place where I'm looking forward to a Nekkid!River storyline. Let's just bring on the Ood again and move it along.
Christmas Day was with my mom's side and somehow involved my sister and me in a 6 hour-long session of marathon cooking. I'm not necessarily a good cook, but I can follow a recipe like a champ, so dinner wasn't the unmitigated disaster it had every right to be. After the leftovers were packed away to be consumed for the next two weeks, my sister and I settled in watch what I'd been looking forward to all day: the Doctor Who Christmas Special.
First off, can I just say how lovely it was to (legally) watch a Doctor Who ep the same day as the UK? I felt this odd sense of pride when BBC America announced the simultaneous airdate. I remember this channel when it still played John Oliver-narrated bumpers that suggested viewers use captions because the accents can sometimes be difficult to understand. Aw. How far we've come.
* The episode started off gorgeous and wonderful. Then, like most Moffat Big Plotty Episodes, spiraled into an unwieldy ball of WTF. It's taken a re-watch, the DW Confidential, and some perusing of doctorwho and my new favorite comm starwhales to sufficiently understand what happened. Now, I get the plot. What I still don't get is how. How does the Doctor screw with time so much without collapsing all of time and space? And I thought we learned from Ten's Time Lord Victorious Adventure that you don't change people's personal timelines just because you think you're doing the right thing. Then there's that small lesson in 'Father's Day' that you don't touch another version of yourself or the world will go boom.
* On that note, it bothers the crap out of me when Moffat ignores RTD's established time travel canons. The whole "Time can be rewritten" handwave is a more obvious way of ignoring canon than "wibbly wobbly timey wimey."
* Screwing with someone's personal timeline to change him seems like an awfully complicated solution as opposed to finding a vaguely science-y way of moving whatever cloud was crashing Amy and Rory's Honeymoon Space Ship of Borderline-Innappropriate-For-A-Kids'-Show Role Playing. I mean, I get that it's Christmas and the perfect time to make someone a better person. But really, there are easier ways around this, Doctor.
* Like every Eleven ep, and even more so in this one, this ep needed more Ponds. Amy and Rory need to forever be around being all amusing and awesome and such.
* Can the Doctor visit teenaged Michael Gambon Kazran again? Because I wouldn't mind spending a few more Christmas Eves with him. Just sayin'.
* I've decided that the main difference between Ten and Eleven for me is how they deal with their emo demons: Whenever someone mentions losing someone/having a broken heart, Eleven just sort of looks likes he's doing a good job of hiding his deep-seeded loneliness. Ten, on the other hand, would stare heartbrokenly into middle distance while a small storm cloud rained on his head.
* It's taken a season, but I think I've really come to accept Matt Smith as the Doctor, especially after his entrance through the chimney and his scene with young Kazran. It was almost like I finally saw that inherent--for lack of better word--marvelousness that makes the Doctor the Doctor. For the first time, I wasn't thinking that this was the Eleventh Doctor; he was just the Doctor. It's a Christmas miracle!
* "MARILYN, GET YOUR COAT!" HEE! Probably the best part of the whole episode. The Doctor really would get married to spite his companions who were ignoring him. Side note: I love that this made it onto Marilyn Monroe's Wikipedia page.
* "Kazran, look: It's either [kissing Abigail] or going to your room and designing a new screwdriver. Don't make my mistake." I'm choosing to ignore the euphemism. Instead, I'm just imagining Ten being really confused by Rose's flirting, then going off to his room and designing what will become Eleven's screwdriver.
* If I ignore basically all of the plot, it really was quite a wonderful Christmas special what with the flying space shark and multiple Christmas Eves and the Doctor tumbling out of a chimney and being all sorts of marvelous. Moffat was really on it with the one-liners, too. Also, Matt Smith seems to be at his most charming when he's working with children. He and young Kazran were so very lovely together.
* As for the Series 6 trailer, it always makes me nervous when Rory isn't in a shot with Amy and the Doctor. S5 traumatized me. I adore him so. They wouldn't kill him off again, would they? Nah. They wouldn't. ...Would they? What I wouldn't mind them doing away with is River. I've only grown to tolerate her; I'm definitely not in a place where I'm looking forward to a Nekkid!River storyline. Let's just bring on the Ood again and move it along.