I liked Matt Smith. Not much as the Ninth or Tenth Doctors, but he's definitely done a good job and had moments of genius just as good as the previous two. The Doctor Who team have certainly latched on to a powerful and lucrative combination of whimsy, drama and silliness that brings a joyfully quotable presence to the story of Who but keeps it firmly rooted for the children to enjoy. The Christmas episodes are traditionally more for the kids than the regular series, so I'm always inclined to give more of a license for fun over integrity. But after a surprisingly good 50th Anniversary Special, The Time of the Doctor felt tired, lacklustre, a bit disorganised - in fact, representative of most of series 7 to date.
As much as I can fault Russell T. Davies' individual writing (Voyage of the Damned, Planet of the Dead, parts of The End of Time), I find that under Moffat's tenure as showrunner the show has had less of a consistently good run. Maybe it's out of effort to impress and make his mark, overwork in the intensely demanding role, or that running the whole arc just isn't his cup of tea, but I feel that the current writing leadership is getting more and more wobbly. This doesn't decrease the brilliance of Moffat in general, or his success with individual stories - but maybe the focus and limits of single storylines is a better setting for him.
Clara is yet again one-dimensional (no disrespect to Jenna Coleman whatsoever - her performances have been brilliant at times, and she puts great life into a lot of her better lines - but she just isn't being given enough function these days). The gags got even sillier. The nudity thing was too far - there are some lines I was happy hadn't been crossed in the updating of Doctor Who, and one was the Doctor's physical sexuality or any idea of nakedness, started in The Eleventh Hour, continued in The Lodger and downhill from there. I have no kind of problem with nudity and sexuality in media, it's just not the Doctor. It's not consistent with his character and role.
So much from the first half of the episode could have been cut out to provide more integrity later on - the delivery of the second set of regenerations was necessary but barely dealt with, the raging regeneration beginning on the tower was flaky and Peter Capaldi's first moments as the Twelfth Doctor were unoriginal and far too brief. The second half of the regeneration was a nice moment for Smith inside the TARDIS (though Clara was vegetating horrifically in the corner), with some tributes to his past that I'm still not quite sure about. Handles was a nice idea but without being set up earlier in the series and having some time to grow on the audience, he had no emotional weight at all, so his 'death' just felt awkward.
A Christmas Carol is still the best Doctor Who Christmas special, and I'm happy for it to remain that way. I hope Capaldi brings a new vitality to the series, and maybe the age gap between him and Clara will be enough to put a stop to the sexualisation of the character.
For more detail from someone who consistently says what I'm thinking anyway, take a look at Kieron's review over at This Is Good, Isn't It?.
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