Doctor Who Fall and Christmas Specials

The Tenth Doctor's days are almost over. David Tenant will be leaving the role on January 1st and a new Doctor will will regenerate into his place. Russel T. Davies will also be stepping down from the position of head writer and will be replaced with Steven Moffat. Both writers have had great runs writing for Doctor Who, but while Russel T Davies has more excellent episodes to his name, including all of the previous season finales, Steven Moffat is the credited writer on some of my favorites, "The Doctor Dances", "The Girl in the Fireplace" and the one that everyone shows their friends who are skeptical of the Doctor, "Blink". Unfortunately for all of the generally high quality and lets not forget actually being responsible for resurrecting the show in 2005, Russel T. is also responsible for some of the lowest and most inane moments of the show. To my supreme disappointment, this is includes the first half of the '09 Christmas Special and David Tenant farewell, "The End Of Time".
Adding insult to injury is the way it comes right on the heels of the Fall Special, "The Waters Of Mars" which had the Doctor struggling against the temptation to meddle in historical events that must happen in order for the universe to remain intact. Though it has some problems with pacing and general tone, the episode has some really clever plays on how the standard episode plays out and shows the audience a side of the Doctor that has only ever been glimpsed in the current series- the despair and survivor's guilt that being the Last Time Lord causes him and the power that those emotions can have over his actions. David Tenant's acting is at the top of his game as is that of Lindsay Duncan in the role of the captain of the first Martian Colony who has to make some very difficult choices both in spite of the Doctor's prescience and because of it. The episode's most glaring flaw is the inclusion of futuristic Wikipedia entries for the crew and their base that flash on the screen showing that they are all fated to die on the day our story plays out. This is meant to put us on even footing with the Doctor as we were in Pompei, knowing of the characters fates but not knowing how they would play out. Without them, there would have been much more weight to the excellent acting that David Tenant does and allowed that much more weight to fall on the climax of the episode. It works extremely well as it is, but would have been just as good or better without the hand-holding that goes on in the DW Holiday Specials. Even so, the last minutes of the episode are haunting and very affecting.
The opening moments of "The End of Time" are sloppy and tonally awkward to the point of feeling like fan fiction, and it doesn't get much better. Russel T. Davies mentioned that he wanted this one to top the tension of the previous season finales. It doesn't. Right off the bat, a narrator steps in with some ham-fisted jazz about how this is the Earth's Final Days. That might fly elsewhere, but for me when I hear a Doctor Who character droning on about doom and whatever, I just tune him out. When the stakes are that high, the scheme's obviously not going to work. Destroying the Earth in the future is par for the course in sci-fi. It's a real threat. Heck, they did it on the show in the 70s, but the Earth of today always comes out ok, if a bit roughed up.  Say that you're going to bring on the, oh let's say END OF TIME, and it immediately relegates you to the level of Cobra Commander. We as the viewing audience are waiting, not to see if the hero can stop you, but to see how he does. When too much weight is given to the doomsday plan itself, it feels phony. Compounding the corniness of the episode is the manner of Master's fated return. It's nice to see the Master's Wife return in a cameo appearance, but it involves a faux Satanic ritual scene that is, maybe, the worst written single scene of Doctor Who since the garbage can ate Micky the Idiot in 05. The laughably awful ceremony goes wrong and results in the Master being resurrected incorrectly. Symptoms of which include his skull being occasionally visible the bestowing upon him of him both the proportionate strength and speed of a spider and Spirit Bomb attacks. It also makes him eat in goofy fast motion scenes that recall Benny Hill more than anything that might actually scare anyone. One of the strengths of Doctor Who has always been the fact that it, usually, doesn't insult the audience's intelligence. It will always be a show that is primarily aimed at children, but it doesn't talk down to them, and it even gives them a few tidbits about physics and General Relativity that maybe they'll go ask their parents about or look up on line and come away with something more than an urge to buy the new monster figure. I'm obviously not knocking the monster figures, as several of them are staring at me as I write this, but they're the cake, not the meat and potatoes.
I'm looking forward to the conclusion of "The End of Time". Clearly Russel T. Davies is setting up a whole new universe for the Eleventh Doctor to play in, and he's certainly written enough good episodes to warrant the benefit of the doubt. I'm hoping that the mysterious Woman in White will pay off they way I'm hoping she will, and I'm eager to see why the woman standing behind Timothy Dalton is holding her head in her hands. This might be a cheap shot, but I sympathized.
The second half of The End of Time will air on New Year's Day on the BBC and shortly there after in other parts of the world.

 

Thank you Mr. Servo for the info...good read as always.

If you could not tell, I have been a fan of The Doctor for some time.  Tom Baker introduced me to the character as a kid and over the past several years I have watched many episodes of the original series spanning most of the Doctors incarnations, with the exception of Silvester the 7th Doctor, he is hard to find on the internet.

I was excited when I heard they were bring The Doctor back in 2006 and thoroughly enjoyed Christopher Eccleston role as the 9th Doctor, he preformed an excellent rendition of the character...no scarf, but a big happy toothy grin.  Sadly I could never get into Barty Crouch/David Tenant as the 10th Doctor, try as I might he just never felt like the character to me and the direction the series took was less sci-fi/mystery and more about creating continuous plot lines and characters for spin-offs.

If the first half of the finale is unimpressive I might skip watching it all together...although I am curious to see what the new guy has to offer and the new writers...and there is only 2 more regenerations before the Doctor is no more...

I'll let you know shortly if you need to see the first half of it, or if you can skip it all together.  I try not to give major spoilers, but I pretty much guarantee that the review of the second half will ruin at least two major surprises from the climax of the first.  One is sort of interesting, but the other is seriously groan inducing.
As far as Doctors go, Tenant and Tom Baker stand shoulder to shoulder in my heart.  Tenant does some amazing channeling of Tom in the epilogue of "The Waters of Mars". 
Funny you should mention Sylvester McCoy.  I think he's easily the most under-rated Doctor.  His chubby cuddliness and goofy demeanor was only a surface that concealed one of the Doctor's darkest most troubled incarnations.  He also pulled it off being dark without being a total twat like the Sixth Doctor- Colin Baker.  That guy was a really hard to watch.  Here's hoping that the eleventh works out.  He looks like a wanker to me.  But isn't that what we say about every new Doctor?
And of course they will be Doctors after 13.  When has continuity ever stood in the way of marketing?

 

I saw an Animated Dr Who at work, it still scares me.

Oh, I like the first animated Who adventure!  I still have to see the new one.  Have you seen the animations that fans have made to fill in missing footage from the 60s episodes?  They're really weird.