another weak christmas special
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Doctor Who
BernieSanders — 9 years ago(December 25, 2016 11:28 AM)
What was good?
- The invasion plot was pretty neat, although it was essentially a recycle of the Aliens of London and World War Three concept, just with a safety tower and converting brains added to it.
- Parts of it were actually quite funny, the humour was well-balanced this time round.
- The villains were actually original and quite threatening at times, something we rarely see nowadays. Their plan was also fairly interesting.
What was bad? - Ok, Moffat has to stop throwing in his childish fantasies every time he comes up with a new idea. The whole superhero subplot was weak and unoriginal, Moffat's thinking is essentially
"I love superheroes and secret identity, and Doctor Who has never done superheroes - why not?!"
. The story was essentially a collection of all the worst parts of Toby Maguire's Peter Parker and some underfunded Superman movie's special effects. It had no relevance to the overall plot whatsoever, anything could've been put in its place, the only way it tied into the plot was him saving it at the end. - The villains were once again underdeveloped. Why does Moffat think his audience don't care about their backstories? I WANT to know who these aliens are, why they are invading, and what special abilities they have. There was a massively missed opportunity here to expand hugely on an original alien. I'd rather they cut the entire superhero subplot and replaced it with more story to the alien's plans and origin.
- There was no tension. Although this can be applied to virtually all episodes last series apart from perhaps the Under the Lake / Before the Flood two-parter, and also Heaven Sent, and the Zygon part 2 (not part 1). There was no reason to care who lived and died, because we knew that everyone we cared about would live. There's no threat to the situation, so there's nothing to engage the viewer and make him actually care what the hell happens.
- Everything else was mediocre. Acting was great from Capaldi as always, and the black guy who was CEO of Harmony or whatever role he was. The rest were just average, nothing special there. The story's weaknesses could've been filled if the acting was superb in general.
- Unoriginality with regard to the superhero subplot. I have nothing wrong with superheroes in Dr Who, but why on Earth does it have to be the dogmatically repeated 'hero saves the damzel in distress' and the 'superman waking into bullets', or the 'secret identity is a pathetic, submissive character'. You can tell Moffat just looked at Superman/Spiderman and said "these ideas are good enough, why come up with my own?". There was opportunity to come up with something unique about this superhero, or even just his origin, or superpowers. But no, he 'ate a crystal' it could've been something to keep in suspense, instead Moffat shoved it into the pile of things he assumes the audience doesn't care about.
My conclusion - it could've been loads worse, but it could've been HUGELY better. If Moffat wants to throw in an original (to Doctor Who) story, develop it and make it last, rather than ticking boxes as if he has a checklist of what's to be done. I can imagine him with a checklist saying "does the Superman bullet-resistant walk", "catches the bomb in one hand and stops it", "flies and saves the damzel in distress", "has a Toby Magurie-esque secret identity", "has conflicts with real life issues". This formulaic manner that is used to fuel the episode is just annoying. I have nothing wrong with a superhero in Doctor Who, but why does Moffat have to waste the opportunity and essentially make it the worst parts of Spiderman?
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Klein_Returns — 9 years ago(December 25, 2016 06:56 PM)
Good review.
http://media.ifunny.com/results/2015/11/10/4cj4ciw3up.jpg -
draivin — 9 years ago(December 25, 2016 07:01 PM)
I decided to skip this because I had similar feelings about it going by the promo; the superhero thing killed it for me and left me thinking "waitwe're doing superheroes now"? I guess that's from the overload of superheroes everywhere now with Doctor WHO being one of those shows where I don't have to worry about it. Not saying I don't love my comic shows, but it's become too much lately. I am with you on wanting backstories because I don't like these characters thrown at me and I have no idea who they are and wtf they want.
Looks like I didn't miss much of anything in not watching.
I have EXORCISED the demon
