Sunday, November 20, 2011

Christmas Preview Review


Like many Whovians, I have been going through withdrawal since October and waiting for the annual Christmas special. On Thursday the BBC released the preview of this year's Christmas offering during the annual Children in Need fundraiser and, to be honest, it looks like “the . . . best . . . . .Christmas. . . . ever.”

What follows is based solely on what I saw in the preview, there are no spoilers here, unless you haven't seen the preview and I know you have. If you're reading this, you as much in withdrawal as I am.

It appears that this Christmas Special will be The Doctor's fourth broadcast story taking place during World WarII (the others being “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, “Victory of the Daleks” and “Let's Kill Hitler”). There have been many ancillary written and audio stories having him popping in here and there during Mr. Churchill's time leading the British Empire, but we're just dealing with the broadcast stories here.

This is also the 11th Doctor's second Christmas Special and the second of Mr Smith's tenure that takes its name from a famous piece of literature, though this year's plays with the title a by, paraphrasing the famous C S Lewis title swapping it out for “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe”. My guess is that the Lion and The Witch are a bit miffed to have been left out.

Anyway, on to the preview review.

Once again, The Doctor is flying solo at Christmas, having left Amy and Rory at their new home. I wonder what the deal is with the Doctor Who crew and their not wanting a companion (or companions) to travel with the Doctor during the holidays. I mean we met the 10th Doctor on Christmas Day and he hung out for dinner with Rose, her mum and Mickey, but since then, the Doctor does Christmas solo? Hmmmmm.

WHAT I LIKED
It appears that The Doctor is having some sort of a problem with the Tardis – based on all of the fire and general mayhem with his running and flames behind him – probably something he does that makes a mess of things that Idris will have to fix . . .. . . or has tied the Tardis to a certain point and time that is connected to a wormhole through which weird space marines and woody tree people come through.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
I didn't like that I am in withdrawal and have to wait for Christmas evening to see the latest of the Doctor's Christmas adventures. I do hope they learned their lesson after last year's “Christmas Carol” and they don't have The Doctor marrying “The Widow”. The whole marrying Marylin Monroe thing was silly, though the (implied and not seen) duet with Frank Sinatra was kind of cool.

It also looks like maybe they used the same house that they filmed “Night Terrors” in and those creepy dolls still scare me.

FAVORITE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
I have to admit that so far, my favorite Christmas special was “The Next Doctor”, maybe because of it's “Oliver” like Victorian workhouse set, maybe because there was a hot air ballon Tardis, but mostly I think it was because of the story of Jackson Lake, the poor fellow whose wife was killed and child abducted by the Cybermen. His travels from being infostamped into thinking he was the last of the Time Lords to realizing he was a Mathematics teacher whose life had been destroyed by alien creature and then finally getting his son back just tore at me.

Let me know what your favorite Christmas special was.

Until some time during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day with my Christmas Review – this is Jayne signing off – except for seeing your faves for Christmas :)

Jayne

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