DOCTOR WHO REVIEW
TWICE UPON A TIME
Two Doctors, both on the brink of regeneration and a great crisis looms, testimony is coming but will the doctor face his fate or suffer at the hands of it?
It had been announced in January 2017 that Peter Capaldi was going to be leaving Doctor Who, which shocked and upset most fans of the show, that this wonderful man and great Doctor was bowing out of the successful sci-fi television series. Series Ten was Peter Capaldi's best series yet in terms of performance, the scripts were better than last series and the Steven Moffat and the production team had begun to nail Capaldi's character because Capaldi's character's journey had been a bit hot and cold over the last three years. In series eight he was too moody and dark and people wanted to see more humour, in series nine the writers over pitched the comedy and Capaldi was a bit too silly in his acting, it's really hard to get into the soft spot of being both enthusiastically eccentric and witty but also serious at the same time when you need to be. And I did feel in series ten they were beginning to nail Capaldi's character and you could see it in his performance that he was playing the doctor he wanted to be, it's a shame it all came a bit too late, we should have seen the kind of material we got in series ten when Capaldi took over from Matt Smith at the start.
I think the way Steven Moffat wanted to write Peter Capaldi out was to do the same that he did with Matt Smith, which was to give him the best possible exit that he could give him, and though Matt Smith's was set up to be very self-sacrificial and epic, this felt like a much more quieter and suttle exit, quite simple in terms of story telling.
This came across to me as a kind of bitter sweet end type of story, because for some fans, "Twice Upon a Time" is where Doctor Who ends for them. Some people just do not want a woman playing the doctor and as a result, will stop watching. I'm sure those reasons are valid to them and everyone is entitled to an opinion, but to me, it doesn't matter who is playing the part, as long the scripts are good and the content is good, it's still the same show it always was, if not better. Doctor Who is a show of change and it can be anything and everything you can imagine it to be, it's one of the reasons why I love it so much.
The first doctor returns as played by David Bradley, as he once played the part before in the 2013 documentary "An Adventure in Space and Time" playing William Hartnell, the actor playing the first doctor, so he was in effect playing William Hartnell playing the first doctor. My problem with Bradley coming back to Doctor Who is, he was so good in "An Adventure in Space" and he was playing William Hartnell in that, so all I see is him being the first doctor being William Hartnell, it takes away from the whole magic of this being a show of limited worlds and outer galaxies and planets and instead reminds us all that this is just a tv show.
I did like the interlink between the Tenth Planet into this story at the start, it allowed viewers who have never seen that story before to get an insight into the first doctor's era and to also allow people to take an interest in the classic series.
The story takes place at the south pole where the Tenth Planet takes place in between the aftermath of the events at the end of the tenth planet and the first doctor's regeneration. The main problem we face is that there are two doctors in the same time zone, both of which refuse to regenerate, so they have a choice, they can either regenerate and go on or they die as they are, and if the doctor doesn't change then that would mean the future that we know doesn't happen, which is why it's important and highlighted the seriousness of why he should do it, with the Twelfth Doctor, I'm not entirely sure as to why he didn't want to change, probably because he was scared, or he was just stubborn, or he felt that everything must come to an end, I've got this far, maybe I should pack it in and stop changing? I don't know the reason, into the mix is world war one British captain, so there's the mystery as to how and why he's there, which I thought was explained nicely and worked well within the context of the story.
As for the story as a story, I kind of felt it was too simple and needed more sense of adventure and thrill, I'm almost left confused as to how it ended, I got all the bits with testimony and how that worked into the story, Bill didn't really need to be in it, but I suppose it was done in a good enough way to have her back for those who did want to see her, I just felt the story was a bit too simple, it was a bit too safe, it was mainly about the Twelfth doctor coming to terms with his fate and how in hinds sight it wasn't all such a terrible thing and as such not so bad, as portrayed in the doctor's final speech which I thought was well excuted by Capaldi it was so terribly sad to see him go, I'm gutted that the Twelfth doctor is gone, didn't really like the Thirteenth doctor's introduction but I suppose new beginnings will arise when the series resumes next year.
But what do I think of Twice Upon a Time? Well I thought overall it was good, the story telling was a bit bland and the humour was pushed a bit too much, it's the Christmas episode, so we want to make you laugh, but the jokes were pushed a bit too much in that direction that I just wasn't laughing, especially from the Twelfth Doctor, anecdotes and, silliness I felt were not really necessary. It all did seem a little silly that not even the matrix on Gallifrey, the greatest archive in the universe has no record of testimony, I did enjoy the ending though in the world war one battlefield, that had a nice sentimental touch to it and linked in with Christmas very well, there just didn't seem to be a great test for the Twelfth Doctor to face, other than he should come to terms with the fact that he should regenerate and face fate.
I'm going to give this a 6/10. Not much in it for me.
