For all its genuine heights, it’s clear that Series 9 was the natural endpoint of Moffat’s tenure, and that Series 10 was essentially the television equivalent of a bonus disc of album outtakes and remixes. We’re two Christmas specials past The Husbands of River Song. The trouble is that in Twice Upon a Time, the quietly striking impact of going small works to cover up a myriad of fairly aggressive faults. Indeed, it’s worth noting that the previous time Moffat thought he might be on the way out, he had similar instincts, penning a River Song farce. Yes, it only works if there are also regeneration stories that go the other way (and Time of the Doctor at least had it both ways), but a small and intimate regeneration story is a move that works and works well. ![]() Going small in regeneration stories works, as Time of the Doctor (which I’ll defend to the bitter end) demonstrates. On one level, this confirms that Davies had a good idea there. And so Moffat, finding himself with an extra episode after the bombast of World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, takes up Davies’s discarded idea for a story in which the Doctor waits around to die and there’s no actual villain. Davies talks in The Writer’s Tale about his discarded initial plan for Tennant’s regeneration, which was to do a self-consciously small episode with none of the epic grandeur you’d expect. Here to, Twice Upon a Time looks odd, but at least the contrast is consistent. Which leaves The End of Time, the series’ sole other example of a Christmas special showrunner/Doctor send-off. ![]() As a regeneration story, it’s similarly perplexing, but at least Time of the Doctor (and I suppose technically The Tenth Planet ) provides a vague point of comparison. ![]() Understood as a multi-Doctor story, it is simply perplexing. There’s a very small number of stories we might compare this to, and most of them are unenlightening.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |