Doctor Who

• Title: Doctor Who – The Star Beast
• wiki: link

The first of three holiday specials designed to wash the unpleasant taste of recent Who history out of mouths of fans by returning to a simpler time gives us The Doctor (David Tennant) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) together once again when another alien experience coincidentally close to Donna brings about their reunion. “The Star Beast” is forced to deal with the problem of putting the pair together (which should kill Donna), but awkwardly gets around the fact by not having any of the alien space events, characters, or the actions of The Doctor himself trigger Donna in any way (a pretty strong contradiction to events in “The End of Time“) until the script is ready to deal with the ramifications (in a way that makes the previous Doctor look incredibly stupid for not suggesting somethin similar years ago).

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• Title: Doctor Who – The Timeless Children
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As has been the tendency of writer and producer Chris Chibnall over the course of this season, the finale of “The Timeless Children” thumbs its nose at Doctor Who canon. Pulling on the thread from the classic Doctor Who serial “The Brain of Morbius,” “The Timeless Children” confirms that William Hartnell was not the first incarnation of The Doctor. Although this contradicts several episodes of Who canon, it’s an idea that has been suggested before. If that was the only change Chibnall had made in “The Timeless Children” it would have been groundbreaking enough. Instead, that’s just one piece of the story. And while that can be, somewhat grudgingly, accepted… the rest… Well, it plays like fan fiction. And not even good fan fiction.

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• Title: Doctor Who – The Haunting of Villa Diodati
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In the final episode prior to the two-part finale, Doctor Who offers up a horror story featuring a haunted house Mary Shelley (Lili Miller), Byron (Jacob Collins-Levy), and maybe the least-frightening Cyberman ever seen on-screen. The episode makes use of several common Doctor Who tropes including loops, mazes, odd ghost-like apparitions that turn out to be anything but, and historical figures not being at all what the companions expected. The episode starts off with some fun bits of horror (the crawling skeleton hand and glimpses of shadowy apparitions), but the reveal of the Cyberman and the explanation of the Cyberium is, at best, a mixed success (especially given it is supposed to kick-off the final two episodes of the year). For better or worse, it looks like Cybermen are on the menu for the finale (although there’s still that pesky “Timeless Child” paradox to deal with as well).

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