bagheera_san | Doctor Who Christmas Special 2008 (Reply)

The first... half hour maybe made me deliriously happy. Very fast start and immediately it is hugely engaging and intersting - just like any story that has more than one Time Lord. I was a tiny bit disappointed that Jackson was not a Time Lord, but the story was still good after that. Then towards the end there where a few scenes that were disappointing to painfully bad (the way Miss Hartigan died, the cheesy applause scene) and then the ending was INCREDIBLY NICE :D

1. David Morrissey: awesomecakes. I would have LOVED him as a Doctor, which tells me quite a bit about what I want in a Doctor. Cool, eccentric costume, preferably pseudo-historical. Heroic behaviour, speech patterns possibly slightly over the top, good looking but not in a bland or mainstream way, not terribly young. His angst was very Ten, something about him reminded me of Six (costume, probably), his straightforward heroism was pretty Three and the last scene, with him inside the TARDIS going "Oh my word!" and then chickening out was obviously Two. I think he could have been one of my favourite Doctors ever, and that makes me slightly sad, in the same way as REG!Nine makes me sad.

I would also have loved him as companion. "One last adventure..." made me go OMG YES PLEASE!!! He and Tennant have a lot of chemistry, and he'd be something really new as a companion.

2. Ten: I loved how every scene with Ten invariably turned angsty. Even the cheesy, awful applause scene ended with him looking melancholy. He is one sad cookie. Also, he wore the good coat.

3. Rosita: had potential, didn't get to realise it, but overall was neither annoying nor boring.

4. Miss Hartigan: Oh RTD. It started so, so well with Miss Hartigan. She was a female villain who was neither silly nor slutty nor a harpy. She was smart. She was a "human megalomaniac who cooperates with the Cybermen", a role that was until now always male. She was the Cyber King, not the Cyber Queen. "There is joy in this machine" is one of my favourite lines ever. She overcame conversion. All good. Her little exchange with Ten over him sanctioning her - very good! So why, why does she start screaming as soon as Ten takes away her cyberness? Yes, she was converted, and that should horrify anybody. But horror can be done differently. I'm thinking of Picard in "Best of Both Worlds" here. Before, she was portrayed as a tough, calm, cold-blooded woman. It would have been much more impressive if she had quietly and grimly shut down all the Cybermen and herself.

I'm not the first to notice RTD's depressing tendency to empower women (Rose in Parting of the Ways, Donna in Journey's End) and then taking it all away from them. Martha is an exception here: she doesn't get superhuman powers at all. Compare also Jackson's ability to live with the Doctor in his head with Donna's metacrisis.

5. Special effects: the GIANT CYBERMAN MECHA was... well done and rather hilariously over the top. The furry Cybermen-Yeti-Monsters were a cute nod to rubbish Who monsters of the past. The dimensional portal thingy had nice special effects. The Cybermen still look like dudes in metal/plastic suits, which is okay, because the Cybermen *are* dudes in metal/plastic suits.

What I didn't like very much was London... it was so surreal. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the Sweeney Todd movie. In any case, I just didn't buy that this was London or that it was the 19th century. Possibly because a GIANT MECHA would be pretty hard to ignore in human history.

6. Story: It was a solid Cyberman story. Not as menacing as they were in Season 2, but I liked Miss Hartigan's conversion because for once, the Cybermen are portrayed as *almost* not evil. There is an emphasis on taking away her negative emotions, and no spinning knives and other cheap medical horror. And then, well, "joy in this machine". Shades of cyberpunk that we don't get very often in Who, plus a solid dose of steampunk aesthetics.

Plot-wise this is my favourite of the Christmas specials, because it is mostly about the Doctor, it is a historical even though not a good one, and the supporting characters are FINE. Runaway Bride was more even in tone and pace, but right now I'm very happy with this episode.

7. "The Planet of the Dead" - everyone thought Gallifrey here, right? I'm not the only one? Not that I believe it, but I thought it. Anyways, it is a brilliant Doctor Who episode title because it combines "The X of Death" with "The Planet of X".