Menu
- Podcast
Latest Episodes
N179 The Church on Ruby Road — The 2023 Christmas Special
Inter-temporal infanticide and a divisive song-and-dance number? We spend more than twice its runtime dissecting The Fifteenth Doctor's first big adve...B096 The Fourteenth Doctor Retrospective
Tennant is back, inexplicably yet fabulously, prompting a customary, cocktail-fuelled retrospective... - Articles
Latest Articles
System Notation
"Right now, I’m alone." — A data log was found in a colony in the future. This is what it contained....The Eighth Doctor: An Episode Guide
If you’re hungry for more adventures, you just have to know where to look....It Came From The Backrooms
Zoey Fleetwood finally gets to meet the Doctor! But will her first impression go as smoothly as she hopes?... - Vindex
- Shazam
Shazam!
Do you prefer listening to us rant about episodes we really liked or disliked? Coolio, then head on over to the stats section and find an episode we rated exceptionally highly/incredibly disparagingly!
And there are PLENTY of ways to get involved beyond listening to the show and exploring the article archives. Point your eyestalks at some of these links to learn more! - Merch!
Likes:
– “I died in this room screaming your name”
– Naked Doctor at Clara’s Christmas dinner.
– “Silence will Fall”, satisfyingly (?) explained.
– Handles (sniff)
– An explosive regeneration.
Beefs:
– The Winter-Wonderland hells-cape that is Christmas Town. Sick bag please. How has this Town not changed in centuries? Why haven’t they built Helms Deep defences? Why are they still armed with pitchforks? Why is the women in the bonnet still alive at the end – are they immortal? Why haven’t they all got rickets? I’m with the Daleks – everyone in this town should be exterminated.
– The Silence. Way to ruin a good villain. Do you remember when these guys were cool, eviscerating people in bathrooms. What’s the point in confessing your sins to one if you then forget? You don’t forget your sins, right?
– Wooden Cyberman. Too many questions for the 250 word limit.
– Are all the Papal Mainframe forces fighting the Daleks alongside the Doctor actually Dalek Agents?
– The reveal of the Crack being the Doctor’s worst nightmare in Room 11. What a let down. He doesn’t look remotely scared. Should have been the Kandyman! Look at the fear in the Seventh Doctor’s eyes!
Summary: Better than I remembered.
Rating: 2.8/5 sickly sweet Dickensian Christmas villagers being vaporised.
It all started with Matt Smith announcing his departure from Doctor Who. Steven Moffat, already prepping for Matt in Series 8, and he had to wrap up his era in less than an hour.
So we got this. All the issues I had with Matt’s era are amplified to eleven with cringe comedy (most notably the part where the Doctor is naked), rushed storylines, underdeveloped characters, and references everywhere. Clara is still making sad goo goo eyes over Eleven, which is annoying. This really feels like this is a full season’s worth of story in one episode.
However, this episode is redeemed by the last third with Old Eleven, the Clocktower scene with the Daleks and the regeneration scene itself. This is what this episode should’ve been. It should be somber in tone and just be dripping with this grim atmosphere, similar to Logopolis or even Caves of Androzani. Then the regeneration got to be epic. Matt’s final speech at the end is good. I would’ve cut the Amy stuff, but that’s just a tiny thing. Even the quick snap regeneration into Capaldi was good.
Overall, it was okay. Like I said, the issues from the last few years were amplified but the last third of the episode was good enough to make up for it. That last third is what everyone is gonna remember. It was perfect.
Farewell, Matt Smith. Enter, Peter Capaldi. 3.0/5
Also, expect me more regularly on the New Who reviews. I watched Capaldi’s era on TV all the way through, so I’d love to share my thoughts on his era in a more complete fashion.
Here we are at the end of the Crack/Silence/Question arc that began with Matt Smith’s first episode and here ends with his regeneration.
The Question is “Doctor Who?” and the Question was only dangerous because of the Answer, and the Answer was only dangerous because it would be the homing beacon for the lost Gallifrey, and the Return of Gallifrey is only dangerous because it would restart the Time War which would end in the Silence of all things, and the Question is the first-ever question because the Cracks are through all of time, so there’s a crack somewhere before the first people had a chance to ask a question actually relevant for their situation.
Did I untangle it correctly?
Clara circumvented the Question being Answered, so once again Silence did not fall.
That said, this episode felt surprisingly powerful. I really liked Tasha, and I like that they brought back the melody from the Rings of Akhaten (the Wake Up melody the child sang) for the Doctor’s goodbye to Amy. I am quite excited for Capaldi.
I still feel suspicious about whether the multiple-season plot feels satisfying, or if it feels like what the Doctor described in this episode: a lot of words bluffing there is a plan, then taking all the credit at the end…
But this episode did feel triumphant, and I love it, so 4.8.
On the fields (or snow drifts) of Trenzalore, at the fall (or wobble) of the eleventh, when no living creature (or reanimated Dalek thingy) can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked (more to follow on that); a question that must never, ever be answered, (even though, for plot purposes, it will be, sort of, in a hand-wavey, bullshit kind of way). Silence will fall (in line behind The Doctor, apparently) when the question is asked, or whispered creepily through the wall of an adobe church in a solitary town in the ass end of space. So say we all. Skip to the end. Sort of.
All threads lead back to Trenzalore in this blow-out Matt Smith finale, in true Moffat style. Of course The Doctor got more lives. Of course Amy Pond gets a cameo. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
How much timey-wimey does it take to cook a Turkey, anyways?
The Sonic Screwdriver still does not work on wood. Of any kind. Especially wooden cybernetic beings The TARDIS, whilst flying through the Vortex, in no way would have caused multiple versions of Clingy Clara to be tossed off to save earlier incarnations of The Doctor. Thats way too crazy.
Score: 4/5 I hate Capaldis entrance. He needed something more. Everything else was lovely.
There are so many ties to the 20th Anniversary Special, “The Five Doctors”, that you should watch that prior to watching this episode. Trust me, there are a few things that will become more clear. Also, apparently that was one of Moffat’s favorite episodes of classic Who; especially after he had them go back and update the special effects.