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I was disappointed with it. Matt Smith will probably go on to strength now he's off the show & good luck to him.

The show's got a bit too narcissistic lately.

I was disappointed with it too. I admit it was the best of a bad bunch of Christmas telly - but being the best of a bad bunch is not good enough for Doctor Who. Here's my take on it -

I thought there were far too many sub plots included, too many monsters (and not one of them scary for me either), just too much going on and not enough time devoted to each sub plot to make it interesting. Just when I thought I was getting in to it the episode veered off somewhere else and got lost in it's own over complicated dialogue.

I don't like the way they're suddenly promoting the idea of the regeneration limit. That absolutely sucks for me. The Eleventh Doctor is the Eleventh Doctor. I simply refuse to refer to him as the thirteenth and I refuse to refer to Twelfth as 14th. The Doctors are what they already are established to be. Was it not already established that the War Doctor, although is the doctor (not disputing that before somebody jumps on me) wanted to be known as a warrior and his actions were not in the name of the doctor? It's irritating me that people are now referring to the fourteen doctors. We're not seriously counting that ridiculous half human clone that sprouted from David Tennant's severed hand way back when are we?! Come on, seriously. I blame the show for this - they're promoting the regeneration limit and I think that's where people are getting carried away with it.

What the hell was that comedy bollocks in the opening 15 minutes with the naked stuff (pardon the pun) and the Doctor suddenly revealing a wig...!!!!?? It wasn't even funny. After that it was hard to feel involved in the story because a comedy routine doesn't promote the fear which should have come later on. Then it reduced some monsters to comedy sidekicks (a talking Cyberman head called handles??!! ).

It was just a big mess for me, right up to the best scene which was the regeneration scene. It was emotional and that finally generated the proper response. I thought Peter Capaldi's introduction was spot on too - that was scary and the cliffhanger ending helped to keep the tension.

Overall though - not impressed enough. Too rushed, too many plots, not enough depth in to the characters or enough explanation in to the story. They could have done a two parter if they wanted to put that many different things in it. That would have made much more sense, but they missed that opportunity the same way they missed it in the Day of the Doctor and Night of the Doctor. Not good enough I'm afraid, Moffat.

Good luck to Matt Smith. I'm sure such a talented actor will go on to great things. As for Who in 2014, this needs to be much, much better. This year's episodes have been mostly disappointing and for Doctor Who, that's just not f#####g good enough.

After reading these posts, am still debating whether to watch it on i-player.
Thinking I might just skip it and start "clean sweep" with Peter Capaldi's first proper episode to see what they do with that.

Sounds like Matt Smith got short-changed : Tennant got a two-part finale; with a lot of self-indulgence at the end.
So why does Smith only get an hour ? The "green shoots" of "economic recovery" obviously don't seem to be feeding their way into the BBC budgets do they ? Russell T Davis seemed to have got lucky on that one, getting out while the going was still good.

These "Christmas specials" seem to be developing their own tradition of trying to lever in stuff to appeal to the casual viewer but which end up being as naff as possible ?

For me the only one of them (out of those I have seen) that has been even halfway watchable was Tennant's debut, and he was asleep in most of that one. (That's not meant to be a dig at Tennant; but plotwise it did make an interesting twist in handling the story : even if it was just a blatant steal of John Pertwee being in a coma for most of the first half of his first story)

Yes, this "tradition" that the Doctor is a bit ooly-wooly in his first story is a stupid thing. Whilst I'm happy to mock the "Tom did everything better" school, it's worth remembering he didn't need it in his first story, it was all "I'm the Doctor, that's all there is to it."

I just watched it and the way the got round the regenerations running out I thought was quite clever, nobody knows how many regenerations the doctor now has could go on for ever.

Judging by Chapaldi's brief appearance he won't be the doctor long.

How can you deduce from his brief appearance at the end that he won't be the Doctor for long? He could be in the role for a number of years for all anyone knows.

(31-12-2013 08:27 )bytor Wrote: [ -> ]How can you deduce from his brief appearance at the end that he won't be the Doctor for long? He could be in the role for a number of years for all anyone knows.

Of course he could, if you read my post closely enough you will see I don't rule it out.

I base MY opinion on the mad scarey eyes look which has been done to death already, lets hope he has more to him that that.

It was the mad eyes in previous clips and he looked as he was going to attack erm, the new companion (whatever her name is), then he tried his hand at comedy - oh how I laughed.

One of the biggest problems he faces is coming after the second best doctor (also a personal opinion)

Anyone notice this?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=...=1&theater

Just ordered the Classic DVD of Patrick Troughton cybermen adventure "The Moonbase" which is due out 20th January.

Not sure about "The Web of Fear" though. Episode 3 is still missing so are they including some kind of reconstruction with photos and soundtrack ? Doesn't seem to have been enough time for them to have done animation ? Other DVDs with missing episodes that have been animated seem to have taken years to release. It appears to be only a single disc which surprises me for such a famous "lost story" and given it's 6 episodes. So all this makes me suspect this DVD release is a "vanilla" issue with just the episodes themselves and no extra features like documentaries/commentary; as I was disappointed to find with the recent "Enemy of the World" release was - (good story, but just the story, no extras of any note at all on the DVD).
So if that's the case with the WOF also then I'd rather hold off and get a later release with the added content, as with all the others I've been collecting from the classic series.