Any other time of year I would gnaw holes all over this, but it's Christmas, and it felt perfect
SPOILER ALERT: This series blog is for those who have been watching the new series of Doctor Who. Don't read ahead if you haven't seen the 2011 Christmas special
"What have I told you about opening your presents early? Something like this was bound to happen!"
Welcome back, merry Christmas, and straight into the reason you're probably welling up right now. Putting aside the now-mandatory doomed spaceship that now must surely always feature, this was the smallest ? yet perhaps the most enchanting ? Christmas special we've had to date. A story where the threat is not to the universe but to the happiness of one family, and the only real enemy are some misguided and underdeveloped polluters. Any other time of year I would gnaw holes all over this, but it's Christmas, and today it felt perfect.
Steven Moffat returned once again to his favourite setting of the second world war, but not to make comic butts out of its political leaders, but this time to look at the human cost of conflict through the people left behind. Throw in some evacuated children and a magical winter forest and he's got the best excuse to revisit another children's classic ? although this felt more like an excuse for a cool title than any real retelling of the Narnia myth.
You will remember that the universe now believes The Doctor to be dead, so he has assumed the new title of Caretaker and is spending his days returning favours; doing up a forbidding old mansion into the most brilliant playroom ever. It was so refreshing after the Emo Doctor that dominated last year. I am already making plans to replace my bed with a hammock.
But there was one major niggle. While the Doctor berates the children for opening their present ? a potentially hazardous trip to another planet in the far future ? he also knows that every normal child would have done the same. Really, the whole thing was his fault. (And he can't have known that the whole business was going to inadvertently save their Daddy from certain death through leading his Lancaster Bomber through the time vortex.) Is that really a responsible way to behave around children Doctor? At Christmas?
"What's the point of them being happy if they're going to be sad later? The answer of course, is that they're going to be sad later."
The episode would not have held up so well, were it not for the power and class of Claire Skinner's performance as Madge. You know somebody is going to be a worthy companion when they think nothing of a piece of alien space tech hurtling towards them at night, and the unfussy way she rescued her Spaceman-Angel back to his time machine marked Madge out from the start. Skinner veered between a widow's heartbreak and a mother's heroic resilience in single heartbeats ? and she even got to stomp a giant robot dreadnought across an enchanted forest. As was also pointed out when Amy killed Madame Kovarian in the series finale, there is once again nothing in this universe more fearsome than a mother's protection.
"Nobody should be on their own at Christmas"
Did we really believe the Ponds weren't going to show up at all? Still, the sight of Amy seeing off carol singers with a water pistol made Christmas all the more special, and that final sequence as The Doctor experiences the "humanny-wumanny" phenomenon of "Happy Tears" was quite breathtaking. Do we think the Ponds are going to jump back in the Tardis straightaway?
Fear Factor
Not too much of a fright from the creepy wooden king and queen. Although did you notice how the king's "spooky angle shot" neck manoeuvre was stolen straight from the Weeping Angels?
Time-Space Debris
? The harvesters came from Androzani Major, a planet with form when it comes to dubious mining and interplanetary trade. In The Caves Of Androzani, it was the stockpiling of Spectrox that gave the Fifth Doctor the disease that would claim his life.
? I Loved Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir and Paul Bazely ? we just didn't see nearly enough of them.
? "Never underestimate a tree Lily, I met the Forest Of Cheen once, she fancied me." She did indeed, in Christopher Eccleston's second story The End of the World. When Yasmin Bannerman's tree lady sacrificed herself in the space station's engine room, he screamed out the immortal line; "No! You're made of wood!"
? Nice touch that the Ponds's door is Tardis blue.
? "It's funny isn't it, one can't imagine being a forest and then suddenly one can. It's quite remarkable."
? "River told us. She's a good girl."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/dec/25/doctor-who-christmas-special-2011
Milan Baros Alastair Cook Spending review 2010 Financial crisis Paul Myners Fulham
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