tardis_stowaway: TARDIS under a starry sky and dark tree (santa naked eleven)
[personal profile] tardis_stowaway
Lo, appearing like a Christmas star in the sky, there was new Doctor Who shining from my TV screen, legally and on the same day of British broadcast.  Miraculous!

I very much enjoyed "A Christmas Carol."  I think it's my favorite Doctor Who Christmas special (I may still like The Unquiet Dead better, but that was a non-"special" Christmas-themed episode), and it's certainly the most Christmas-y:  no mass murder of aliens or humans, no extreme Doctor angst.  Just lots of sharks. 

SHARKS NOW REPRESENT CHRISTMAS, OKAY? If there was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus (it's in Love Actually, so it must be true), then flying sharks can darn well be part of a traditional Christmas celebration. From now on, we celebrate EVERY Christmas like it's Flying Shark Christmas.

There were some flaws in this episode.  Let's get them out of the way first.

-not enough Rory!  He was barely onscreen, and that was pretty much all comic relief.  However, Arthur Darvill's name was in the credits, and he wore the Roman outfit (for honeymoon bedroom time!), so I'm not complaining too much.  Amy was also in sadly short supply.

-a whole bunch of plot holes, fridge logic problems, and canon inconsistencies.  For instance, what is up with Kazran and his younger self being able to touch?  And how come the Doctor tried to say isomorphic controls don't exist when they canonically do? (e.g. the Master's laser screwdriver)  And why did the Doctor make all these hops in and out of time but never pause in the vortex to try to figure out some alternate way to control the clouds or whatever it was that machine was supposed to do or at least fix the screwdriver?  And...

HEY, LOOK, CLOUDS FULL OF FISH!  Time to shut the fridge and redirect my brain to enjoying the heck out of this.    A partial list of things that caused me joy:

-the Doctor descending down the chimney because he saw it and thought "what the hell?"  Oh, Eleven, ♥

-totally random steampunk production design with the unnecessary goggles and Victorian-styled future people.  Why?  WHY NOT?

-Rory and Amy playing dress-up on their honeymoon.  ;)

-the Doctor seeing Kazran's skipping hitting the boy, the portrait, the lack of decorations, etc. and then making a rapidfire series of deductions.  Someone's still in the Sherlock writing groove.

-pretty singing

-the Doctor accidentally got married again.  I am convinced that he is actually married to dozens of people across time and space. 

-the psychic paper failing when the Doctor attempted to pass himself off as a responsible adult.  *snerk*

-the timey-wimey interpretation of showing Christmas Future. 

-FLYING FISH AND CHRISTMAS SHARKS.   Apologies, I seem to have difficulty talking about them without capslock. 

-S6 trailer!  Stetsons are cooler than fezzes. 

 "A Christmas Carol" was definitely further evidence for my argument that Doctor Who is not science-fiction but a fantasy show set in space.  The science made no sense, but that wasn't a problem. Basically, this episode was thoroughly fun despite its flaws, and it filled the Christmas special niche nicely.

Profile

tardis_stowaway: TARDIS under a starry sky and dark tree (Default)
tardis_stowaway

April 2019

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
212223242526 27
282930    

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios