{"id":2072,"date":"2017-12-27T22:47:04","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T22:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2072"},"modified":"2017-12-27T22:47:04","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T22:47:04","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-twice-upon-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2017\/12\/27\/so-what-did-i-think-of-twice-upon-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 what did I think of Twice Upon A Time?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Give me a second to blow the dust off. Right, there we go. Hello everyone.<\/p>\n

As what I fondly imagine are \u201cregular readers\u201d will recall, I was, by and large, hugely impressed with Series Ten of Doctor Who, and the two-part season finale in particular I thought was a total triumph, one of Steven Moffatt\u2019s very best scripts for the series, brilliantly orchestrated by Rachel Talalay and anchored by a titanic performance from Peter Capaldi. I was fully on-board for the gimmick of regenerating Doctor meets regenerating Doctor and so was beside myself with anticipation for this year\u2019s Christmas special.<\/p>\n

What we got was\u2026 unexpected.<\/p>\n

The opening was glorious, clips from The Tenth Planet<\/em> artfully merged with recreated scenes, until finally Doctor meets Doctor in the nostalgically studio-bound polar wastes. But for the first forty minutes or so, this was pretty flaccid stuff. True, both Doctors played their parts to the hilt \u2013 although as usual the returning Doctor is a pastiche version rather than an accurate evocation of the real thing. The most outr\u00e9 lines though, were accurate Hartnell quotes. Mark Gatiss too plays his part with real feeling and sensitivity, and of course it\u2019s a delight to have Bill Potts back, and even more of a delight to see her wandering around a beautifully-recreated classic TARDIS.<\/p>\n

But where\u2019s the jeopardy? Where\u2019s the drama? Where, in short, is the plot? As delightful as it is to have Peter Capaldi and David Bradley exchanging well-crafted zingers, put-downs and in-jokes (\u201cMr Pastry\u201d) the whole thing seems almost entirely inert, and that allows nagging questions to start to impinge. Just why exactly does two Doctors meeting in 1986 pluck a dying soldier from the battlefield in 1914? Why is such a big issue being made of Bill\u2019s identity if no solution proffered is going to prove acceptable to the Doctor? And why on Earth are we risking life and regenerating limb to double check Nikki Amuka-Bird\u2019s story with Rusty the Dalek from the forgettable Series Eight story?<\/p>\n

If that was all this story had to offer, I would be pretty pissed off by now. Luckily, the last fifteen minutes are something a bit special. From the Christmas Eve Armistice onwards, the story suddenly takes flight. An evil villain plotting the downfall of our heroes still fails to materialise, but the rich themes of sacrifice, honour, friendship and kindness come to the fore, and the returning companions are handled with much more grace and subtlety than Karen Gillan\u2019s reprise of Amy in the very unsatisfactory Time of the Doctor<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The regeneration itself \u2013 alone as it was the last time a Doctor and a showrunner departed together \u2013 was a little laboured, but who could really argue for cutting Capaldi\u2019s final barnstorming performance? And lo! There she is. The Doctor. All blonde hair, wide eyes and in the most terrible trouble, plunging to certain death out of the TARDIS doors. Oh brilliant.<\/p>\n\"4\n

 <\/p>\n

So \u2013 some housekeeping.<\/p>\n

To briefly recap, Steven Moffat\u2019s first three seasons were characterised by vaulting ambition which rapidly out-reached the series\u2019 ability to attain them. While the arc-plot collapsed into further and further gibberish, only a few stand-out episodes survived (The Girl Who Waited<\/em>, A Good Man Goes to War<\/em>, The Crimson Horror<\/em> and especially The Doctor\u2019s Wife<\/em>) despite Matt Smith\u2019s supple performance.<\/p>\n

With Capaldi at the helm, the seas were calmer. The last series alone boasted Thin Ice<\/em>, Oxygen<\/em> and The Pyramid at the End of the World<\/em> which would be poll-winners in any year which didn\u2019t include World Enough and Time <\/em>and The Doctor Falls<\/em>. So, Chibnall and Whittaker inherit a series in rude health. I can\u2019t wait to see what they do with it.<\/p>\n

Lastly, this blog will probably not spring back into the kind of life which it enjoyed in its heyday, but I will be recording some probably fairly brief Oscar reviews in the coming weeks and months, when I can find time away from my new podcast \u2013 Best Pick<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Give me a second to blow the dust off. Right, there we go. Hello everyone. As what I fondly imagine are \u201cregular readers\u201d will recall, I was, by and large, hugely impressed with Series Ten of Doctor Who, and the two-part season finale in particular I thought was a total triumph, one of Steven Moffatt\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[18,19],"class_list":["post-2072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-doctor-who","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-xq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2072"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2078,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072\/revisions\/2078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}