AWKWARD ZOMBIE

So here's my review/rant on "The Doctor, The Widow & The Wardrobe" Christmas Special:

So I loved last year's A Christmas Carol special and thought it was imaginative, fun and one of those family friendly heartwarming stories. It was also one of those kinds of "only Doctor Who could pull it off" sort of things. So when I saw one of the Narnia books would be paid tribute I was ecstatic because they're some of my favorite books.

Now with that being said, I was somewhat disappointed with how it all went about. The opening 10-20 minutes to introduce the characters was... saddening as it should be but I felt like the family involved in the story wasn't actually... a family. The wife having blond hair, the son having reddish brown and the daughter being a brunette I immediately just kept thinking "these are just three people pretending to be a family" and never felt that bond that there should be between them. Maybe it was due to the lack of actual family interaction or each of them having entirely different personalities when realistically the kids should have the parents' personalities somewhat. However, Matt Smith was again, like usual, on his A-Game and I loved every bit of screentime he ate up and loved every line he uttered. You can really tell he really does love this show and the role of The Doctor. I believe the interview where he said he would never think to turn down another year as The Doctor because of his love for him after watching this.

Moving on from the characters, the story itself which I had hoped would be a mimic of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" replaced with technological advances, olden day appeal and whatnot actually turned out to be a very... bland and boring experience. There was no "White Witch" as a Villain and no Tumnus-like natural inhabitant of the other world to play as the familiar guide. Instead we got the youngest son merely following footsteps and a forest wanting to be rescued before they all burned alive. And from what? Humans! Yay us! I don't know why Doctor Who continues to spotlight redeemable characters as our main characters yet still show our overall species as Humans as being utterly despicable and uncaring beyond the stars in the future.

From there we're told simply by a Forest King/Queen that they need to put a rather boring round "crown", which looked more like a part off a car's engine, on someone strong enough to pilot a sphere on top of a tower while holding all the "souls" of the forest/planet inside their head to escape. While that seemed rather more in vein of Doctor Who's alien centric themes, it still seemed like a rather lazy and simple way of having the "mother" come to the rescue of her children. It felt more like a forceful way of saying "the mother loves her children" than letting the mother genuinely flow in that direction. And before any of that even happens, the mother pilots a 10 story high robot spider spaceship through a forest that has technology 4000 years in the future. Yes. No help, no tutorial program montage, she just straight up drives it near perfectly because "her husband piloted a plane." Just... rubbish.

Back on point, after the resolution we're in need of that family heartwarming experience. So instead of allowing the mother and children to accept their father's loss after being "lost" in a storm flying home from Christmas which started the whole family moving away to find The Doctor waiting? We have the same plot device that forced the mother/kids together also, surprise surprise, bring the father back from certain death! While piloting the ship back to Earth from Narnia Land, the mother had to remember her husband's final days to remind her of home. Why she had to "hurt" in order to remember home is beyond me. She couldn't remember all the pop flyin' days they had and the first days moving in together and having their kids? Wouldn't that have had more of an emotional and "family coming together" moment when she told the kids their father passed away being brave trying to bring home two fellow men?

Anyway, the father, for whatever reason, saw her piloting the ship while she remembered his dying moments and he followed her through the time vortex home. I still don't understand how a simple aircraft could withstand the storm of the time vortex to begin with. I know Captain Jack did by holding onto the TARDIS, but he's immortal and it showed him even dying when they finally landed. But the father just walks out perfectly fine, unharmed. Not a single scratch. Hell, even their plane looked like it was nearly brand new. Again, kind of annoying.

But the thing that really annoyed me the most... Moffat completely erases the entire point of Series 6's ending in order to slap on a somewhat lame attempt to give The Doctor family for the holidays.

--BIG SPOILER AHEAD--

The mother tells The Doctor he should be with his friends who love him the most because it's not fair to them. So he lands in Amy/Rory's front yard 2 years after dropping them off at the end of Series 6 and has a, I admit it, kind of funny and natural moment with Amy/Rory before being told they always set a place for him at Christmas because they always expect him. Leading to The Doctor crying from happiness that he now feels like he has a family.

But what urked me about this is... We went through the whole shpiel about how The Doctor had to work from the shadows, how he had to go into hiding from his arch-evils who are out to get him... but just... "Nope. Christmas. Screw that." And pops in and, should realistically, screw that plan up for Series 7. If they have him somehow still concealed behind the scenes come Series 7's premiere I'm going to be even more annoyed. He just showed his face to his most recent and supposedly beloved companions. The Silence/Kovarian/Daleks should all have eyes and ears on their home waiting for The Doctor to pop up again at some point. 2 years is nothing to them.

But all in all. If you check your head at the door going in, it was a fun ride but I have to prefer A Christmas Carol over The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe. "ACC" gave us a near true-to-the-story showing of the source material, with time travel, but "TD, TW & TW" was almost nothing like the source it was trying to pay homage to. And that kind of disappointed me.


Whew. Long booty rant.

I thought the episode was fun. Not really as emotional as the last one, but it had more of the "hey, it's Christmas, let's have fun" attitude. I think for the last one Moffat said he wanted to make it very emotional because by the time it airs everyone is hyped on sugar and piss drunk. THis one... I guess he forgot that?

Anyway, I liked it. It was weird, probably not going to watch it again for a while. The last one I watched twice in a row.



I like the scene where the space guys reveal themselves.
I was like "mmhmm, mmhmm, BILL BAILEY?"

I stopped watching the christmas special after like 15 minutes because the little ginger shitstain annoyed the fuck out of me

I went in not expecting much because Stephen Moffat.
I got what I was expecting, so no disappointments here.

on the whole I found the episode very...average.
The family was rather bland and i didn't care too much for them.
I guess driving the walker; ablet poorly can be attributed to keeping things simple, but is still silly.
Really I was expecting more from the episode, because while I noticed a lot of things that could be, in ways, connected to the Narnia series, they really weren't.

I have one other major plot point that fell through the cracks (pun intended because Moffat is useless) in the Special:

What happened to the Medic and other Soldier that was gravely injured the husband was trying to fly home to get immediate medical attention for? The husband just briskly walks out of the plane at the end like he has zero cares in the world and just goes into the house? Did the Medic and Injured Soldier just die or evaporate?

I hate Moffat so so much.

NURSE!

I have no Idea (TF2 PUN NOT INTENDED). Maybe they got off the plane before family takes notice?

Also, Amy and Rory thought that he was dead.
Even though Riversong told them that he was alive at the end of season six?

You missed the part where Amy says "River told us." and the Doctor feels bad, then Rory tries to also make him feel bad but Amy says she covered that already.


But yeah the biggest complaint is the medic and injured soldier in the plane.

I think a corpse would have ruined the Christmas spirit or something.

How hard would it have been to insert 30 more seconds with the Medic pulling the injured soldier out and The Doctor shouting "Oh my no no no!" And wooshing them away in his TARDIS to a hospital? Really? Was that too much creative brilliance for Moffat's poorly sculpted mind?

I re-iterate: I hate Moffat so so much.

His one-off stories back with the Tenth Doctor were better than anything RTD ever managed to scribble into a script. As the the head writer, though, he appears to be struggling.

I wholeheartedly agree. I just recently got into it, well it was more arguing than debating, with another user on the Doctor Who subreddit on Reddit about how Moffat has been really bad since he took over the show from RTD. And I immediately got pounded with throngs of Moffat fanboys telling me "it's not his fault, he has other writers on staff, they have input too that's probably the problem," and even when I replied "Moffat is the showrunner. He approves EVERYTHING that happens creatively written for the show," they just kept shouting in all CAPS about how much of an idiot I am and I should stop watching if I don't like Moffat, River Song, the lazy and cop-out story resolutions.

It just boggles my mind how so many people who've become 'Whovians' are actually quite dumb. I don't take anything away from Moffat's RTD-Era episodes, they were great. But Moffat having to write/plan out entire Series is unbearable. I really feel like he just phoned it in halfway through Series 5 and started appealing to the ADD-riddled fans who need something "cool" or "hot" or "shiny" to look at every week just to keep their interest instead of compelling television and like-able characters.

But hey, again, just one guy's opinion on the current state of the show/Moffat. I can't say I don't enjoy one or two moments every now and then still on the show, but frankly after being disappointed by this year's Christmas special and the entirety of Series 6... I might just take the people I argue with's advice and stop watching until Moffat steps down or is taken off his role and someone else takes his place.

Dr who is only for the elite, the unwashed masses need to apply

that's why it airs at a prime slot on christmas day, cus it's so niche

Not sure if sarcasm is implied here or not.

Regardless, I stand by my point. Some of the Whovians I've come into conflict with lately are very ignorant and seem like they have minds of 5 year olds. Half the time they can't even spell right so it's hard to understand what they're even trying to say. It just feels to me that a lot of the new fans that are being introduced this show purposely are the ones who we tend to make fun of and mock because of their idiocy.

I don't know. I'm just going to shrug it off and come back to the show when I think it's gotten better by friends telling me about it.

I actually thought the episode was okay. It was nice to see the Doctor acting all goofy and cool. Instead of River Song B.S.
Plus the kids in this one weren't annoying as fuck. Though every time the boy said "Mommy" I instantly thought of "Are you my mommy?". The only thing that did bug me was that it was another power of wuv episode.