Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time (2017)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

As Good As It Gets

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

I never really understood why DW Christmas specials tend to be so morbid and maudlin until I realized that they were meant to be watched by British extended families who'd been drinking and eating together all day. So you get enslaved tortured whales pulling starships and neurotic millionaires with PTSD and nonstop gut-wrenching encounters with dead loved ones. Except of course for last year's, which was an upbeat superhero spoof designed to please DW's new international fandom. And this year's, which being Moffat's last is less tacky and bombastic than usual, maybe because he's spent so many years having his faults pointed out to him that he's more in the mood to ironically reference them than repeat them. Thus the running gag about the Twelfth Doctor nervously trying to stop the First Doctor from making sexist comments.This year we're back to the traditional DW Christmas themes of death, grief and hauntings (well, maybe I should say the traditional British Christmas themes of....), which gives Moffat one more opportunity to yank the audience's heart strings with unmercifully long rambling scenes in which characters chattily prepare themselves for death/bereavement. Capaldi, mercifully, doesn't milk these scenes for sobs but camps them up so as not to upstage the impending Jodie Whittaker. The transformation is smooth and sweet and we believe it's still him even when we can see it's her. Well done all!

It was an insensitive episode. Technically it is over with the death of the last Doctor, and it will be a cheap political show from now on. Susan's grandfather, River's husband will a woman.A step towards pseudo-discrimination. Why is Doctor always British? If he is an alien and has no so-called gender why is there a nationality? And why do Doctor and other time lords in human form? Wherever we look, this show was killed by an illogical thought stream.

When I saw the first season with Peter Capaldi I decided I was done with Doctor Who, but then I decided to give Doctor Who a second chance and I have not regretted that decision!This season with Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts was just great and one of the best of the franchise ever.This Christmas Special introduces us to the concept of 'The Testimony', a mysterious organization from the future that takes beings just shortly before they are about to die and records their memories so that their essence remains preserved for all time. It kind of echoes the 'Nethersphere' of Capaldi's first season and the Tessalecta from season six, but here it is something quite wonderful. They travel in spaceships capable of stealing ships as advanced as the TARDIS and their agents appear to be humanoids of glass.The Testimony is after a captain of the British Army in World War One, in the trenches of Ypres, but because Doctor Twelve and Doctor One both are reluctant to regenerate, a paradox causes to let the good captain wander outside his own time and into the Antarctic.Both Doctors try to keep the captain from falling into the hands of the antagonist and after the TARDIS of Twelve is taken they make their getaway with the TARDIS of One. Joining them is Bill Potts, who explains to Twelve how she was saved by Heather at the end of the last season.In the search for the identity of the antagonist they even go to a Dalek called 'Rusty' who was once programmed to hate other Daleks, to access the Dalek database.With that information and with the realization that Bill Potts is an agent of The Testimony, they decide The Testimony is not an evil organization. The captain is returned to the time and place where he's supposed to be. According to Twelve that is! The good captain, as it turns out, is an ancestor of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart! And the moment he is returned to is the moment of the Christmas Truce of Ypres.German and British troops start singing Christmas Carols instead of killing each other. One of the sanest moments of the war!Both Doctors are now mentally in a place where they are ready to regenerate. One into Two and Twelve can say goodbye to Bill Potts, Nardole (also now data in the Testimony) and even Clara Oswald! Doctor Twelve had forgotten about her (reverse variant on the Donna situation) but now gets to say goodbye.Then Doctor Twelve regenerates into Doctor Thirteen, played by Jodie Whittaker!As the episode comes to an end, the inside of the TARDIS starts to explode and Thirteen is thrown out, plummeting to an unknown depth. I very much look forward seeing Jodie in her adventures as The Doctor!

Continuing where The Doctor Falls left off, the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) arrives at the South Pole where he comes face to face with his crotchety first incarnation, (David Bradley) who like himself is close to the brink of regenerating. Together they encounter glass-like entities, who have been snatching people from various time zones. One such victim is an unnamed world War One captain (Mark Gatiss) who fate will have it, was spirited away before he was too be killed in the line of duty. Together the two Time Lord personae's attempt to return the soldier to his own timeline, while attempting to uncover the entities plot which reveals a couple of unexpected twists. Marking something of a watershed moment in the history of the series both classic and new, Twice Upon a Time not only marks the second time that another actor has portrayed William Hartnell's antiquated, irascible first Doctor, (Richard Hurdnall took on the mantle in the 20th Anniversary Special; The Five Doctors in 1983) but that a woman has inherited the role. While the story proves to be the second best of Capaldi's Christmas specials, with it being pipped to the post by 2014's Last Christmas, it still proves to be an emotional and engaging send off for Capaldi if a somewhat flawed one. To get down to it's merits, Bradley is of-course the ideal choice to play the original Doctor (he had played William Hartnell in the television bio-pic; An Adventure in Time and Space in 2013) who William Hartnell I suppose effectively brought to life. I say suppose as I can't say I was ever a fan of his pro-type so to speak. I just never warmed to the character greatly who's successor, the late great Patrick Troughton sublimely perfected as a total differentation. Never the less, Bradley delivers a wonderful rendering of the role, choosing wisely not to attempt to impersonate Hartnell but channel the essence of the character. Peter Capaldi is quite simply awe inspiring, giving one of the best performance in the role if not the best, and one that he certainly owes to the series not least of all himself. Like previous regeneration episodes, (even the dreadful The End O Time Part's One and Two) it is is as reflective and emotional as is it should be. Pearl Mackie makes a return as former companion, Bill Potts who had just recently made her departure from the TARDIS at the end of Series 10. It's not the first time companions have briefly reprised their roles, and it has proven to have become something of a trend which has been guilty of being contrived in the past. It's pulled off quite effectively here as it's woven in to the plot. Mackie defies the naysayers who predicted she would be irritating and obnoxious as she comes in to her own, and proves them wrong. Her quiet little moments with the Twelfth Doctor, who remains irresolute as she attempts to convince him that she is the genuine article, is wonderfully realized through their nuanced performances. Mark Gatiss makes a welcome guest cast member, although of-course not for the first time (he played Prof. Charles Lazarus in 2007's; The Lazarus Experiment) as the rather a-typical World War One Captain who has the very British reserve, and stiff upper lip challenged by the extraordinary predicament he finds himself in. The story itself while efficient enough is somewhat unremarkable given that it's not the most innovative of concepts, as it planely borrows from the movie ,Avatar. It's something of a potential pitfall with multi-doctor stories that requires them being brought together by a means that could come over as forced. It does however act as a neat conceit for Capaldi's Doctor to reflect over his era as it reaches it's end. The main theme of the story is that of closure, and looking back on the past as a means to confront a future of uncertainty. It's hammered home in a myriad of ways that offer not only nostalgia which works considerably more well than David Tennant's swansong, which suffered from Russell T. Davies self-indulgence. With Rachel Talalay directing again she seamlessly uses BBC archive footage from the The Tenth Planet, which was William Hartnell's final story, and competently melds in in to the Christmas Special with it's vintage black and white monochrome fading in to colour beautifully. She also brilliantly brings the South Pole to life, and alien antagonists, The Testimony are given an eerily ethereal quality that compliments the more haunting tone of the episode. And with it's plot dealing with the Doctor's refusal to regenerate and to preserve the man that he currently he is, they offer a possible respite to his struggle before he reaches his catharsis. It elevates towards it's pinnacle with Capaldi's passionate final speech, which after the dust settles and we are faced with the rather stunning features of Jodie Whittaker before the credits finally role, we are left to muse what the future has in store with Chris Chibnall taking over the reigns from Steven Moffat. If anything, Twice Upon a Time makes for a successful bridge between both men's respective eras ,and while not exactly perfect it's one that won't necessarily be forgotten too soon.