What a disappointment, The Time of the Doctor honestly feels like a huge waste of time, a straight hour of too-fast-to-follow convoluted nonsense that serves a purpose that could have been done in 10 minutes.
What we are ultimately getting to here is the regeneration of The Doctor from 11th doctor (Matt Smith) to the 12th doctor (Peter Capaldi). The Doctor explains however that Time Lords only have a certain number of regenerations before they permanently die and his time is almost up.
In The first 50 minutes of padding, we're wasting our time watching shoehorned in Christmas themes (The town they visit on the alien world is called "Christmas" for pity's sake), pointless supporting characters, even more pointless villains that literally only appear for seconds each, jokes that appear and are never brought up again (The Doctor shaved his head for some reason), bad love subplots and truly embarrassing make-up effects.
But the biggest insult is the way we get to the resolution we've all come to see, how does The Doctor overcome his death problem? Well honestly I can't tell you. The episode is moving so quickly with so much techno-babble being thrown around that the main crisis gets completely lost in the echo, and before we know it it's done, problem solved and we're all just supposed to buy it.
Now, I love Matt Smith as The Doctor, he's in my personal Top 3, but his final episode is nothing short of an embarrassment. He spends most of the episode hobbling about on a walking stick in terribly unconvincing old age make-up. I remember back in 2009 when David Tennant left the show, crying about how "He didn't want to go" and many people cried foul that his character wouldn't be so feeble in his final moments. Well these people can leave Tennant alone now because Matt Smith officially gets the most terrible send off in Doctor Who history. Firstly it happens twice, the first time he regenerates in the episode he's screaming like a lunatic at a horribly unconvincing special effects UFO in bad old man makeup. Which leaves a bad taste in the mouth for when it comes to the second regeneration scene. Now in the second time it happens, honestly Smith has some great dialogue (plus a cameo by an old friend) that gets the emotions rolling and just as he's about get the slow, dramatic regeneration we're used to BANG it's Peter Capaldi. With no build up or suspense here he is screaming like a maniac too and then BANG credits.
Words cannot convey. Anger. Disappointment. Confusion to name a few. Now I always welcome a new era of Doctor Who, when Matt Smith took over in 2009 the show went through a period of prosperity with some of the best episodes in the shows history. But as time's gone by, show runner Steven Moffat's writing has gotten more convoluted, clumsy and frantic. With more and more focus of changing the basic fundamentals of the shows long history and Matt Smiths charm has only diminished by each passing season. Considering how badly they messed up Peter Capaldi's introduction only makes me more adamant that they are going to continue on this downward trend.
I feel bad for Matt Smith who has to look back on this chapter of his career knowing this is how he was treated when they sent him off, I feel bad for Jenna Coleman who's now stuck in this show with a much older actor who wont work well with her at all, I fell bad for Peter Capaldi who is going to go into the next season with so much added baggage. But I feel most bad for the fans, this was our moment to say goodbye to Matt Smith and Steven Moffat has ruined it. Steven, season 5 was great and we love you for it, but you cannot be in charge of Doctor Who anymore, Please Stop.
What we are ultimately getting to here is the regeneration of The Doctor from 11th doctor (Matt Smith) to the 12th doctor (Peter Capaldi). The Doctor explains however that Time Lords only have a certain number of regenerations before they permanently die and his time is almost up.
In The first 50 minutes of padding, we're wasting our time watching shoehorned in Christmas themes (The town they visit on the alien world is called "Christmas" for pity's sake), pointless supporting characters, even more pointless villains that literally only appear for seconds each, jokes that appear and are never brought up again (The Doctor shaved his head for some reason), bad love subplots and truly embarrassing make-up effects.
But the biggest insult is the way we get to the resolution we've all come to see, how does The Doctor overcome his death problem? Well honestly I can't tell you. The episode is moving so quickly with so much techno-babble being thrown around that the main crisis gets completely lost in the echo, and before we know it it's done, problem solved and we're all just supposed to buy it.
Now, I love Matt Smith as The Doctor, he's in my personal Top 3, but his final episode is nothing short of an embarrassment. He spends most of the episode hobbling about on a walking stick in terribly unconvincing old age make-up. I remember back in 2009 when David Tennant left the show, crying about how "He didn't want to go" and many people cried foul that his character wouldn't be so feeble in his final moments. Well these people can leave Tennant alone now because Matt Smith officially gets the most terrible send off in Doctor Who history. Firstly it happens twice, the first time he regenerates in the episode he's screaming like a lunatic at a horribly unconvincing special effects UFO in bad old man makeup. Which leaves a bad taste in the mouth for when it comes to the second regeneration scene. Now in the second time it happens, honestly Smith has some great dialogue (plus a cameo by an old friend) that gets the emotions rolling and just as he's about get the slow, dramatic regeneration we're used to BANG it's Peter Capaldi. With no build up or suspense here he is screaming like a maniac too and then BANG credits.
Words cannot convey. Anger. Disappointment. Confusion to name a few. Now I always welcome a new era of Doctor Who, when Matt Smith took over in 2009 the show went through a period of prosperity with some of the best episodes in the shows history. But as time's gone by, show runner Steven Moffat's writing has gotten more convoluted, clumsy and frantic. With more and more focus of changing the basic fundamentals of the shows long history and Matt Smiths charm has only diminished by each passing season. Considering how badly they messed up Peter Capaldi's introduction only makes me more adamant that they are going to continue on this downward trend.
I feel bad for Matt Smith who has to look back on this chapter of his career knowing this is how he was treated when they sent him off, I feel bad for Jenna Coleman who's now stuck in this show with a much older actor who wont work well with her at all, I fell bad for Peter Capaldi who is going to go into the next season with so much added baggage. But I feel most bad for the fans, this was our moment to say goodbye to Matt Smith and Steven Moffat has ruined it. Steven, season 5 was great and we love you for it, but you cannot be in charge of Doctor Who anymore, Please Stop.