I finally watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special. I’d put it off for a bit, but finally I decided to watch it. What an enormous disappointment it was.
Now it’s only fair to say that the last season or so of Matt Smith’s doctor hasn’t been something I’ve enjoyed. On the whole I think it’s been way too sentimental, without clear individual stories, or indeed any real story arc. The main focus of Doctor Who has changed since the ‘reboot’. Over time it has moved. In the ‘original’ or ‘pre-reboot’ stories, each episode or story was about how the Doctor solved a particular problem or crisis, usually involving one or more alien races or enemies. The relationship with his companion(s) was there to serve the story and help to move it along in a variety of different ways, and different companions had different methods to assist the Doctor.
This has all now changed. In the post re-boot Doctor Who world the situation is completely reversed. The story now only exists to serve the relationship between the Doctor and his companion. Notice that there is almost never more than one companion now. This is best shown by the latest Christmas ‘special’, although I can find precious little that is special about it. In this episode, you had the daleks, the cybermen, and the sontarans, together with many others mentioned although not shown. The daleks had the most to do, although that’s not saying much at all. The cybermen had almost nothing to do at all and the sontarans were merely there for comedy value. What a waste of good aliens.
But the actually story (what exceptionally little of it there was), was only about The Doctor and his companion. Everything else was entirely superfluous. Even the Christmas dinner seemed to serve no purpose at all. So what’s the whole thing about now? It’s not the aliens, it’s not the planet, it’s not even about the regeneration, which was dealt with in just a couple of minutes. In effect Doctor Who has just become about the relationship between the Doctor and his current companion, that’s it, that’s all, and nothing more. The science fiction element is almost entirely incidental now, and that’s why I almost can’t watch it anymore.
I have high hopes for the new Doctor, but it’ll only work if the writing is spot on, and so far it’s just got worse and worse, and shows no signs of getting better. The really sad thing is that there’s no need for Doctor Who to be this bad. When you compare the current state of the television show against the stories that Big Finish put together there’s no contest at all. So why don’t the BBC just get Big Finish to take over the whole thing and make it awesome? That’s the question I’d like them to answer, although I’ve no expectation that it will happen.
So it’s an enormous shame, a great missed opportunity, and a terrible way to end Matt Smith’s Doctor. Please, someone at the BBC, sort this out. It really isn’t that hard.
I am Ashley Elsdon 