by Leah Stone
Have you ever come a cross a plot that do a lot to confuse you and tries hard to be intelligent but doesn't really do much else? This year’s Doctor Who Christmas special is basically that. It’s along the same lines as Inception, however they’ve replaced Leonardo Di Caprio with the grumpy and grouchy 12th Doctor. You don’t ever quite know what is real and what isn’t, so it is very easy to just get lost in figuring out the plot and not focusing on the other aspects.
Have you ever come a cross a plot that do a lot to confuse you and tries hard to be intelligent but doesn't really do much else? This year’s Doctor Who Christmas special is basically that. It’s along the same lines as Inception, however they’ve replaced Leonardo Di Caprio with the grumpy and grouchy 12th Doctor. You don’t ever quite know what is real and what isn’t, so it is very easy to just get lost in figuring out the plot and not focusing on the other aspects.
This episode sees the Doctor and Clara drawn to the North Pole to help a team of scientists who have uncovered a hibernating alien with the ability to put whoever touches it into a dream state. With appearances by Santa Clause and his elves things start taking a surreal turn.
Nick Frost plays a great Santa Clause. He brings a lovely humour to the episode, along with his two mischievous elves. Plus, there are some heartfelt, darker and emotional moments that create a great emotional rollercoaster (such is one of Doctor Who’s strengths) and one of these emotional moments does cause The Doctor to be slapped round the face. Let’s not forget the wonderful references to Ghostbusters, Alien and The Ring, or the grand sleigh ride over London.
But unfortunately that is where the positives end. After last year’s awesome Christmas spectacular, this episode feels like just another Doctor Who episode. There’s no real wow factor, no pizzazz. The Dream Crabs looked like plastic toys and, in actual fact, the special effects of this episode where not up to scratch in general. We are given plot ‘twists’ that are really rather predictable, a team of apparent scientists that pose nothing more than an annoyance with their lack of ability to understand what is going on, their lack of compliance and quite frankly, times of sheer idiocy. Nick Frost’s arrival is announced with a troop of robots, toys and slinkies and, from that moment on, it’s hard to take the episode seriously.
Nick Frost plays a great Santa Clause. He brings a lovely humour to the episode, along with his two mischievous elves. Plus, there are some heartfelt, darker and emotional moments that create a great emotional rollercoaster (such is one of Doctor Who’s strengths) and one of these emotional moments does cause The Doctor to be slapped round the face. Let’s not forget the wonderful references to Ghostbusters, Alien and The Ring, or the grand sleigh ride over London.
But unfortunately that is where the positives end. After last year’s awesome Christmas spectacular, this episode feels like just another Doctor Who episode. There’s no real wow factor, no pizzazz. The Dream Crabs looked like plastic toys and, in actual fact, the special effects of this episode where not up to scratch in general. We are given plot ‘twists’ that are really rather predictable, a team of apparent scientists that pose nothing more than an annoyance with their lack of ability to understand what is going on, their lack of compliance and quite frankly, times of sheer idiocy. Nick Frost’s arrival is announced with a troop of robots, toys and slinkies and, from that moment on, it’s hard to take the episode seriously.
It is true, this year’s Christmas special was never going to compete with Matt Smith’s grand finale last year. However you would still hope that it would bring something special to the series, since it seems to have gone up and down a lot in the ratings. However instead we are given an episode that, much like the other episodes in the series, will leave a feeling of disappointment. With Jenna Coleman having been confirmed for another series, there must be other changes that the producers can make to bring the episodes up to standard.
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