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Posted: |
Dec 26, 2013 - 7:35 AM
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By: |
mstrox
(Member)
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I felt like it was a little too busy, but all right. I liked the Silence stuff, all of the stuff with the Doctor and Clara, and the Tranzalore/aging Doctor stuff. I could have done without all of the villain cameos (Weeping Angels, Cybermen, etc). Unlike the 50th special, I feel like a new viewer who decided to watch this would have been completely confused the whole way through - too much in the way of callbacks without enough clarity in the story. All in all it didn't reach the highs of the special last month, or Tennant's departure episode, but was a good enough episode.
I also still don't buy that the Doctor had used up all his regenerations. Another idea crammed into the episode that was packed too full to begin with, and which didn't need to be there until the end of the next doctor's era. It felt like Moffit had an idea for how to give more regenerations to the doctor, and wanted to do it while the War Doctor and Gillifrey were fresh on people's minds from the 50th special, so he found a moment during Tennant's run and called it a regeneration.
The cameo was nice although didn't really need to be there. I know that this special had the dual purpose of wrapping up the eleventh doctor, but as a Christmas special I much prefer the self-contained stories of the past few years - A Christmas Carol, The Doctor/Widow/Wardrobe, and The Snowmen.
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Another idea crammed into the episode that was packed too full to begin with, and which didn't need to be there until the end of the next doctor's era.
It takes some getting used to the format for some people I think. I have the feeling that some of the writers are trying to experiment in a whole new WAY to write screenplays, a sort of multi-dimensional one. Just as he travels in many dimensions, so they're trying to fill the episodes with a kind of fast edit that means you actually miss a lot until you think about it later. It requires effort, you're not just the recipient. That's not the traditional Hollywood way. You actually really need to see an episode more than once to get the extra angles. There's something new about that, like Joyce was for traditional narratives in literature.
There's always the big 'redeemer' myth where he goes back somehow and redoes everything. I think the linking of all the baddies past to the rift in the universe and the 'terrors' probably does have a point, namely that evil needs organised participants too.
A Who episode nowadays is like a multi-faceted thing you can plug more and more stuff into, but although it has a timeline, it somehow manages to work tangentially. People brought up on trad narrative TV would be lost, I agree, mainly because of the fast edits and interrelationships. It's clever though. 'Star Trek' talks about extra dimensions, this show actuall tries to DO them. You can feel the risk-taking. That keeps it fresh.
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Seriously, it was the only pay off for me. Otherwise the story went no where.
