Reviews

Overall I'd say this is a pretty good episode, I keep debating whether to place it at a 6 or a 7 with myself however because Tl;dr it's an entirely solid story, but not one that wows me. Some amazing elements but nothing that's so amazing that I could ignore the fact I also saw a few major flaws that put me off the episode.

If this is the direction the era is going in terns of plotting then I'm going to he a bit disappointed. But visually and tonally I really hope it sticks to this new style

To start with my favourite aspect, THE VISUALS. Never would have believed you 10 years ago if you told me my favourite aspect of a dr who episode would be it's visuals, I'd have never listened to you. But no, this episode's main strength is it's stunning aesthetic. The camera work in particular was stunning. Woth slightly off kilter camera angles and and wierd shots and intresting lighting that felt intresting whislt not being muddy and unclear. Beautiful stuff, easily the best the show has ever looked. My only problem was thst a few screnes where a bit over-lit but not by too much to distract me.

Then the characters... most of the side characters where decent no standouts but a solidly built up and realistic world. I usually think rtd doesn't bring all his character writing strengths to who but he really gave us some stuff on the same quality as years and years and I genuinely adored it.

As for the doctor?? Gatwa was amazing, his acting is stnad out and immidiately cemented him as a dictinctcharacter who ckuld definitely pull off the role of the doctor. Writing wise, 10 is one of my least favourite doctors, and i didnt injtoally think id like 15 because gatwa's performance in the 60th and his characterisation on top of that, felt a bit boring. But no, im extremely surprised. He's the exact type of analytical yet charismatic doctor I felt we wouldn't get. He still had his distinct RTDism's about him but overall I adored this characterisation and whilst not my favourite doctor quite yet, I'm putting him solidly in my top 5 immediately, it's just a shame he never got a proper post regeneration story.

Ruby was also amazing. Unfortunately she falls into the trope Russel loves to do of making major characters, particularly dr who companions, have a major part of their character development revolve around their mother. Its a trope I don't like and one that's gotten tired for me but honestly I'd be lying if I said I didn't adore how it was executed here. I loved Ruby immediately from her personality to what we learn about her as a person, she seems intresting and not quite like rtd's tendancy to have companions that relatate to his idea of the general public. A trend I'd be glad if he broke from entirely.

In terms of pacing. It was much more solid than the 60th and I enjoyed most of it up intila slightly rushed 3rd act, but this is typical of Russel, who's stories tend to have a slow first act that ramps into a rushed conclusion.

I also found a lot of the ideas intresting. The gloves which are used much more effectively than they had The goblins are fun as a villain, and I did quite enjoyt he episode but the whole episode felt a bit simple , basic, runaround esque.

A gripe I did have was that the last episode left open a perfect explanation for these explicitly fantasy esque goblins, but they never proper say it out loud. 1 like to mention that when the toymaker was let out they accidentally let in a bunch of reality bending entities who'd been sealed away. That's all you have to say, even must off hand so new viewers don't fixate on it and get confused. But no he goes out of his way to make these cartoon villains thst ru on the power pfcoincidence, who have the operttunity to he amazing villains with a simple explanation for existing, however Russel falls for his own under explaining issue and the results speak for themselves.

I don't really personally like russels statement that the show will elan into fantasy more explicitly since I enjoy when the show does the polar opposite and leans into concept scifi more explicitly. So I'm marking jt down a bit for being the start of a trend I believe I'm going to grow to hate if russel's statements are as wide reaching as many, myself included, have interpreted them. You could easily add a few more scifi elements to give it that classic dr who science-fantasy feel tk it but leaning this hard into scifi just isn't what I enjoy personally and now what I think the show can be at its best.

I found a lot oft he first act to be amazing at introducing everyone, the villains, the tone. I found thst a lot of plot points had better paypffs than the 60th, in whcih to be honest i thought most of the plot was underbaked and contribed and rarely had good set up and pay off moments. This is a massive improvement from that. Amd i felt everything ik the early second act, whislt a repeat of rose woth the doctor meeting the companion initially whilst investigating something only to end up in theor home later on talking to their family, was really solidly sone. But by the latter half of the second act as they come up with the explanations for the goblins that are underbaked and underwriten, and go up intonthe soblin ship TO save the baby. It did feel a bit too disney, that actionn adventurey byt a bit bland fun thst bores me to tears. I found some moments funny and the wire language bit to be very dr who however that whole portion, injuring the supremely overrated goblin song to just be a bit bland. And I felt by the end the plot was a bit of a mess. The villains are defeated by the doctor undoing what they started by saving baby Ruby. Its engaging in the moment and a great concept, its exacution is peak no thought Christmas fluff and I wasn't personally fond of that, beyond the payoff for the gloves, I found kinda boring. I hope this is just because it's a Christmas episode and the whole era isn't laden with the same type of basic plots with rushed plot resolutions we had in quite a bit in russsels first era. Finally the ending felt underbaked, I loved Ruby coming to the conclusion of the doctor being a time traveller on her own but I really think it could have done with ten more scene near the end it all kinda felt a bit rushed and the last scene didn't feel like a proper conclusion to me.

So in conclusion: I hope the next era isn't as fantasy themed as Russel is pushing, I hope that Russel learns to stop under-explaining and I hope we see more development fron Ruby but besides that this episode was just.. solid, and that's about it, I'm not going to go around saying it was amazing or anything, visually it was, and I loved the character work, but the plot was a bit basic. I think anything other than a 5-7 out of 10 for this would be insane, so I'll go in-between.

I don't think I'm disappointed... but equally these specials felt like a badly paced and contrived mess in retrospect. I thought they had a lot of positive elements but whole thing felt a bit... naff mostly, but more importantly the pacing issues whee intense.

As for this episode specifically, it had some amazing elements. I enjoyed the procedural scifi aspects of it. I loved mel coming back, I loved them traveling back to 1920 to discover what happened, it was a compete idea box of concepts and themes that I adored.

I thought so much of the dialouge was stunning. I love how the script sounded and how the characters really felt like themselves dialouge wise. The way the doctor just acknowledges mel felt great, there was so much to love in how the characters spoke all of that was phenomenal. Basically everything involving the toymaker as a character felt like the best type of camp sci-fi I want in my doctor who. I adored the dance scenes.

Much like how I thought power of the doctor was a weak script with some amazing scenes, I think this stands next to that aswell, granted with the great scenes being a bit greater, but my problems with the script also being greater.

The problems come with the fact this script is a disjointed mess. It feels like you took all the flaws people levied against Moffat era scripts. -underused ideas -forced character conflict -wishy washy "and everyone lived happily ever after" endings. Etc. And then put them through a pass of all the flaws people levied against rtd era scripts. -contrived plot inclusions -deus ex machina endings. -on the nose messaging in the dialouge that doesn't actually factor into the plot in any meaningful compacity.

All in abundance in this story and on concerning levels. But I felt the first 2/3rd of the story where an aight runaround, better than the giggle conceptually

But the particular point that changed my mind from a 6.5 to a 5 was the bi-regeneration plotline. There's so many problems with the idea. Doctkr who sk a series about making forward, about the few constants in a world of change. By having tenant's doctor still be out there you're giving the exact opposite of the message of needing to move on that the show should be giving and instead telling the audiance "no you'll be rewarded for wanting contrived solutions to non existent problems that entirely take the emotional weight out of core plotpoints of the series. The idea the doctor can just continue living happily ever after off the side because "writer said so something something ancient legend", feels so utterly cheap to me. This should be a chance to have a commentary about how nostalgia effects us and how we have to finally be ready to go. Abandon tenant, let him move on, let him regenerate. But no, we have to have him continue because... thematic weight is dead in the era of mcu fiction. And furthermore the plot entirely falls apart after that , becoming even more of a contrived mess than the starbeast was. The resolution just being a game of catch felt like the dumbest least impact full ending you could have had, the whole story felt like a massive letdown and it didn't really resolve anything, just pointless set up for set ups sake. It feels like the mcu in the worst way possible.

There's a rule in narrative storytelling that a twist only works if its better than the idea the audiance had in their head to begin with and adds more to a work. Otherwise it's only value is in a sudden shock of a twist and not as an actual narrative. I feel the biregeneration thoroughly fails this test. Playing it as a straight regeneration, having the toymaker be a the puppetmaster behind everything, all of that, would have been expected yes, but narratively more intresting and explanatory than all of this.

The pacing felt off aswell, I felt that in alm 3 stories, the pacing felt less like doctor who pacing. Doctor who has a very set structure, slower first act, ramp it up innthe second act, only, in the new series, to often have rushed conclusions, adapted from the classic series formula of having aslwoer first episode which is more exploratory, and having episodes 2 and. 3 be much faster paced before having the resolution in episode 4. They should have kept to that pacing imo because it works well, add the extra tike to flesh out the first act. But instead they substitute it with a rushed feeling generic action runaround pacing structure with slower moments purely slammed in where it becomes extremely noticeable .

Furthermore, a lot of plotpoints just dint come back or are left unresolved. How did these 3 specials connect narratively? I assumed they'd eventually explain atleast some of the contribances and coincidences in the first 2 strikes as being concoctions of the toymaker, but no they just happened to have that all happen to them... it doesn't feel like this grand 60th anniversary epic. Like.. the 50th was only 80 minutes long, less than half the legnth of these specials, and it felt like to told a grander more cohesive story with more weight to it than this. As it is this was 2 mediocre stories and a good one stuck together without much link. We still never got a proper explanation as to why "fate" whcih everyone assumed was affecting things, as to why the clothes changed and the face Became tenant. What happened to the new sonic? Why wasn't it used once after episode 1? They powered it up and made it unnecessarily op only to never use it again.. so many lost plot threads, so many broken plotpoints.

Overall I thought these specials didn't feels like the grand and great sixtieth anniversary we where promised. There's a decent amount I did enjoy innthe story, it was an idea box and I adore idea boxes. But it was a poorly paced mess with a terrible ending with flaws than I could possibly go into which didn't satisfactorily resolve the story set up and instead just set up more and more and more whilst giving us a tediously overly happy ending for the tenant incarnation of the dovtor, udnermining the whole point of brknging him back so they cab sell more merch. Thoroughly disappointed.

I have some issues with this episode but after a broadly disappointing and contrived part 1, part 2 of the 60th anniversary was an amazing return to form.

First the negetives, since i have reltiviely few of them for this story.

I think some elements of the script felt rushed, particularly after one, a lot of the expositional dialouge felt on the nose and, overall I I feel the script could have used 1 extra drafts, with the pacing being a bit off imo. But I feel the same way about most of my favourite Moffat era scripts so im willing to let that go for now.

Furthermore I wasn't a fan of them bringing back the flux and the timeless child stuff, however I feel the way emotional weight was added to the story improved it significantly. So I get why others would like that element and appreciate that they did something either them even if its not how I'd liked to have seen that story dealt with personally as someone who really thought that the timeless child took away form the what show is.

Also and a problem with the doctor again defaulting to biological essentialism when talking about the dead space caption, an epsidoe after he was criticised for doing the same thing, and not being called out again.. that's some bad inconsistency.

I also thought the opening scene was pretty weak, however the running joke of referring to gravity as Mavity was actually the type of stuff I adore dr who doing, it's something I'd expect from a big finish blxset in best way, kts just the scene that actually caused it was pretty weak and initially had my hopes low going into the story

And finally I think the overall arc of the specials doesn't feel set up well, it was advertised like a continuous 3 hour long story through various set pieces but were already 2/3rds of the way through amd the main villain hasn't even been introduced and it feels as though each story was barely tired together by a brief ending scene thusfar. As much as I genuinely loved this story, and think it'll prolly be my favourite of the specials, it does feel like filler. Unless it has some solid tie back to the overall arc in story 3, whcih has to do some very heavy lifting to succeed arc wise, its pretty tangential.

NOW onto the positives. I loved this story, wheheartedly it was the type of conceptual sci-fi absurdist that is a.ognst the ranks of blink midnight, time hiest, flatline, heaven sent extremis... etc maybe closest to flatline in terms of pure quality, but amongst all those stories in terms of intresting sci-fi and horror concepts excuted amazingly

There was so much fun and intresting dialouge to sink my teeth into, i loved a lot of the dialiuge and the way a lot of it was reveant to the script in a way that didnt feel cotnrived but entirely natural for the more part. And it was acted supremely well by a stunning cast. Bits and pieces fell apart on inspection, hence why is said kt was 1 draft short earlier but I found it still to be mostly amazingly written, with it actually sparking the part of my brain that enjoys intelligent well written dialouge which the last episode rarely did.

Unlike the star beast I felt this script was significantly less contrived, everything made logical sense beyond 1 aspect I didn't quite agree with, the deus ex machine tardis return right at the moment it's needed, I honestly feel dr who is made by its limitations and the increased budget it making it really easy for writers to be able to afford these contrived deus ex machinas mlw they have the budget to do whatever. Which annoyed me but was still overall an upgrade from episode one, given theres much less of them and the epsidoe overall was a lot less contrived and a lot more solidly built up compared to episode one and I felt everything bar 1 moment near the ending made complete sense. And I adored it. It was logical and mostly reasonable but not cold, exactly what the show has been missing in series 12 and 13 imo . And large parts of series 11

And the villains OMG the out of this universe creatures trying to understand the universe and prevent their own death was.. a beautiful abstract and absurdist idea that I feel was executed amazingly. I love the idea it felt like the exact type of strange idea I loved fron the moffat era. The absurdist strange and creepy psychological sci-fi that I really want to see more of going forward and the various uses of the premise where amazing and inwas in shock by how much I enjoyed it.

The directing was perfect for the tone they where trying to set with a lot of broad sweeping shots, and a lot of shots that gave just enough of an ominous vibe. The score was once again. Relatively standard but quite solid and nostalgic. And the cgi felt a bit shoddy but the production design was on point, and I adored how the extro-universal entities looked when they were morphing and changing was ridiculous but in the best most freakily jarring way imaginable and I loved it.

The ending also got to me a bit, Rest in peace Mr cribbins, one if the finest actors lf his generation, km glad to see your last performance is as stunning as ever. That was a very solid way to end an episode.

I disagreed with people enthusiastically saying "dr who is back at the peak" last week, because I didn't liek the star beast too much , but I really adored this episode, it's not peak but it's definitely the best episode since about 2018 imo and hope the next story can match its quality.

I found myself really hyped for this episode. Although I'd been cynical about how it was marketed and the new era as a whole the episode itself was still something I looked forward to deeply.

It's a shame it turned out to be a bit of a rushed mess with a lot to leave you annoyed about. Not terrible mind you, but a major disappointment for sure.

To start with the positive, I think Russel T Davies writes amazing dialouge, souding fun and distinct, besides a few lines which came down to more of a dialouge issue than a plotting one. The actors performed them great. The direction and colour grading and cinematography all looked stunning, my hat goes off to Rachel Talaley and whoever the editor was for the story. The score sounded impeccable, if a tad samey and unoriginal, more of Murray Gold's standard. But I guess a tad samey to what came before Is what you want from an anniversary so I'm accepting that. The scene where the doctor thinks Donna is about to die is supremely well acted and written, the doctors interactions with the noble family feel fun and realistic for the most part, and I felt the attempt at greater inclusively came from a very good place.

However the story felt rushed, simplistic, and as though every major plot-beat was solved by a highly contrived solutions. And the ending finds itself resolving a 14 year old old plotpoint with a resolution so supremely stupid it takes away from what was broadly regarded a great ending for a character.

Although the character interactions felt fresh and fun I feel Russel failed to pace the epsidoe correctly, having the early portion of the second act make up far too much of the narrative, whilst leaving the ending feeling rushed. There's no proper opportunity for characters to linger in the decisions they make, andnits left unclear whether Donna and Rose now share memories of her time in space, and were given no opertunity to see someone come to terms with learning a massive revalation about the life of their Mother, with the story just cutting to the doctor back outside the tardis before they can linger in how massive the moment was, leaving its dramatic weight entirely lacking.

Something else I was was annoyed by. Was them just giving the sonic screwdriver random new abilities. The sonic being able to do too many random things was an established problem, it takes the stakes away from any situation and is often used to create deeply contrived scenarios. So it feels like a clear terrible writing decision that it's been balsted with even more ridiculous abilities taking away the entire point of the doctor as a character who out-thinks their enemies and uses their surroundings against them, is now rendered an action character because now they can just use their magic wand to make force fields and blow up walls and create screens put of thin air.. things that makes the doctor overly powerful as a character and deflates any tension. The fact so many plot points where resolved through the sonic felt lazy and boring and most of all deeply contrived, robbing the show of stakes and making it feel like a pointless and simplistic plot for most of its run time.

The characters felt fun and I loved them and as a trans person, Rose Noble and the supportiveness of her family where a lovely inclusion but I felt the fact that she was trans was used as a resolution for the metacrisis plot line, as mentioned before, felt like it removed any tension from a 14 year old plot. Also using soemones non-binary identity to make an offensively tone-deaf and forced joke about Donna saying binary as her last line in Journey's end, and then making that unironically the solution to the metacrisis, was peak RTD contrived deus ex machina writing.

I didnt mind her passing it down through her daughter but the whole idea of her being non-binary being the solution.. felt like a vapid attempt to appeal to trans people in the audiance. In fact her whole writing felt like cisgender old man tries to understand and relate to trans people a third his age. And whilst I appreciate the attempt he didn't succeed, and I feel not succeeding when it comes to inclusive writing just gives transphobes ammo against us, so I won't be kind to failed attempts at inclusively. I wouldn't say this entirely failed, but it definitely didn't meet the mark with Russel defaulting to gender essentialism whilst trying to frame it as inclusive, which is unfortunate for sure.

Finally I felt giving Ruth Madeley's character rocket firing wheels just felt like something from a surface level actiln move, not really what I want in my Doctor Who. They're smart, make them do smart things, give them a moment to show how a scientific advisor can use their knowledge. Not just having them do something you'd expect Q to give James Bond in a bad 007 flick. Russel has a major problem with showing "cool people do cool things" by just blowing stuff up and it really annoys me because he's meant to be the character writing guy and yet his character writing can often be as simple as "look at the cool person, you know they're cool because they made thing go boom" A flaw repeated many times over through the episode, and one that is honestly so intrinsic to his writing that I'm surprised people don't notice that every character Russel wants to look cool at some point either blows something up or holds a comically oversized gun. Often both.

Also given its the 60th wouldn't this have been a perfect change for an Osgood cameo? I'm sure the physically disabled community appreciated the appearance of a real disabled actor playing a smart and competent character. Much needed representation.. but Kate's already appearing so unless I'm misremembering the events lf her last appearance.. surely Osgood is still the scientific advisor? Really hope she appears.

I have other complaints but those are the major ones. And I also thought there was a lot more to enjoy than I stated hence the 6/10, since overall depending on how critical I'm being I could have been happy giving it a 5 or a 7. So I'll settle for the mid-point. Despite the broadly negetive review since I couldn't help but focusing on how blatantly some of the flaws presented themselves, I did enjoy it, but nowhere near as much as I felt I could have.

If you love the end of time you'll like this. Russels strengths and flaws are on full display but unfortunately the flaws shine a bit brighter than the strengths in my opinion. I wanted to love this, to the extent i spend the whole afternoon quite excited, and had been preparing the day before as I couldnt get the hype for the first new Doctor Who tv stories in over a year out of my mind.

The more I think about it the more I think "well I enjoyed it but its not perticularly unique or original like a special should be" I'm not satisfied and I feel my favourite director to have worked on Who has been a bit wasted on a flimsy script.

I still have a lot of hope the next two are much better than this. I love the premise for specials 2 and 3 based on what I've heard about them , and I'm excited to see Ncuti shine come Christmas. But I can't say the 60th got off to the best start.

This episode was anticlimactic near the end but I found kt the most enjoyable episode ofbthe chibenm era, an era I'm not fond of, and u think chibnel really outdid himself.

Edit like a few months later: I enjoyed it as mindless fun and at the time I was just really glad it wasn't horrid and unenjoyable but in retrospect I've marked it down from 7/10 to 5/10 because the plot makes zero sense...

I am not a fan of the chibnel era.

And I could go on for far longer than I should abojt its flaws. Mid direction, mid score, bad, inconsistant, and bland character writing, mostly mid plot writing, and a higher degree of stunted acting than other eras os just the tip of the iceberg.

And this episode isn't free. Of these flaws by any margin. I hate that this platform has a tendancy to be mainly 10/10 or 1/10 when very few pieces of media deserve either. This episode to me is a surprise because it had everything g going against it. Chibnel showed with flux that he was bad at Moffat style confusing blasted plots, and this episode was one, he's shown time ajd time again he's not good at writing weird scifi premises, and this was that, chibnel proved he's not good at respecting fanservice, this was that. Yet by some miracle this episode is pretty good.

So we'll done, only took you 4 years and you wrote 1 good episode. The plot is nothing special, but still pretty good, would stand amongst the decent episodes of the moffat era ngl, but there are certain elements that I adored, the nordes pf fan service, the ra ra rasputin, and a lot of small things like that. The character writing however isn't present and it still suffers ,although in a diminished compacity from the flaws of his era. The timeless child mentions didn't go down well with ke but ig jeered to be advised and I found the ending a bit anticlimactic as with a lot of his era.

But yeah, wow, it was actually decent. Way to go chibs, you wrote 1 decent episode, im in disbelief.