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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
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"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
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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!
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Hi folks
Ok, this might be an unpopular opinion if I’m remembering someone’s past comments, but I actually like this one. Sure, is it the greatest episode ever? No, but I like it for its dumb fun. The Doctor accidentally makes Not Shazam and there are brain swapping aliens. Perfect Christmas special material.
It’s actually a sequel to the Husbands of River Song with Harmony Shoal reappearing, which you might not have realised on first watch given the year gap between this and the last one.
Other than the McGuffin gem and a couple of questionable lines, I like it. It’s cheesy but whatever. Nothing much else to say really.
3.0/5
Oh gooooood. We waited so long for this uuuuuhhhh. Right I have nothing much to say about this other than it’s pretty bad.
1.9/5
From gun head alien awesome Alfie
This whole episode comes off as babies first superheroes script. I feel their intention was to come off as classic comic book but instead it’s just the most cliché tropes from every superhero story. Not to mention the weird comic book panel editing in some of the scenes which as we know from Ang Lee’s Hulk doesn’t work.
I don’t know if this is a controversial opinion, but I kind of like Nardole, he’s just kind of in his own world and I like that. The Doctor is great as always but the entire time this feels like a bad CW show.
I am an unabashed fan of superhero media but Doctor Who shouldn’t be chasing trends or making Pokémon Go references, it should always try and feel timeless which is why I am giving this episode 2.2 gemstones mistaken as medicine out of 5
Hi Gang,
Another week, another Christmas Special. Except that this one is a shameless love letter to comic book superheroes – more specifically Superman – from Stephen Moffat. Quite why they choose to focus on the Clark/Lois aspect is a bit wasteful and only seems to be there for comic relief. There are some great performances from Capaldi, Matt Lucas gets to stretch his comedy muscles and Charity Wakefield is very good as Lucy.
Likes
Beefs
All in all, if you don’t think about it too hard, it’s another enjoyable Christmas special. Yes, it’s saddled with a ludicrous invasion plan and numerous plot holes and it’s more DC than Doctor Who, but it’s saved in part by some great performances and funny lines. It’s not as good as the previous episode though, but I am looking forward to season 10.
I award this 3.0 time distortion equaliser thingies out of 5
Andy Parkinson