DW "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" [SPOILERS]

[TC Pilot]

Yeah, altogether the episode was pretty bad. There was very little in the way of a story, what was there was a weird cross between a horror episode (the tree-whispering, the dark mood lighting and music, etc.) and one of the more light-hearted ones (the Doctor in the hosue, Bill Bailey's cameo, the "no one dies" end).

Like... why build (or grow, I guess) a tower for your spaceship to sit on? Why have a throne for the tree guy to sit in? Why does the girl not know the word "astronomy"? Why is the boy so completely blahze about a giant alien chasing him and putting a crown on his head? Why did he even go to the tower when the orb growing was enough to scare him away? Why did the crown painfully burn the Doctor to the touch? Why did the Doctor just tune out and watch all the Christmas lights when there's a ten-year old kid ostensibly being attacked by some unknown threat behind the nearby door? Why did the family even go to that house? Why didn't the aliens just grow a... tree to serve as a vessel for their species? Why not try contacting the humans harvesting the planet?

And further, what happened to the one British airman who was supposedly seriously wounded? It's funny how they cut from the family reunion to them all sitting around inside the house. I guess his not-wounded wingman just went for a walk.

[lordofchange13]

Why did the crown painfully burn the Doctor to the touch?

Because for what ever reason only women can take the massive quantity of tree Spirit/things inside of them selves with out ending up dead.

And further, what happened to the one British airman who was supposedly seriously wounded? It's funny how they cut from the family reunion to them all sitting around inside the house. I guess his not-wounded wingman just went for a walk.

Lol, yeah they ate him for the Christmas feast.

[TC Pilot]

Because for what ever reason only women can take the massive quantity of tree Spirit/things inside of them selves with out ending up dead.

That boy seemed cool with it.

[lordofchange13]

Because for what ever reason only women can take the massive quantity of tree Spirit/things inside of them selves with out ending up dead.

That boy seemed cool with it.

The wood queen said he was "Weak", then the doctor starts talking about how only females could handle the energy.

[Big Orange]

And yes, everyone lives.

Except perhaps the crew onboard that mile long battleship that exploded at the start. I gave it a "3".

[Themightytom]

I wonder if they intentionally foment cognitive dissonance in order to encourage emotional engagement in the story? Throw a bunch of bullshit in every direction, and when it reaches critical mass, and the audience starts thinking "What the hell sense does this make, should i change the channel or am I missing soemthing" the doctor says "Whee just hang on and pretend it's a plan, like I always do" and so with a mental shrug the audience says "Eh what the fuck let's do what he says"

[Big Orange]

Why the heck did the Doctor leave that wrapped up box that led to another planet under the tree?! I can see what he intended, a picturesque alien planet to explore on Christmas Day, but even if events on that Endor knock-off planet had not gone awry, why leave A INTERDIMENSIONAL GATE TO A FROZEN LANDSCAPE FECKING UNSUPERVISED AND RISK OVERLY CURIOUS, UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN DYING OF EXPOSURE?!

[The Romulan Republic]

The Doctor is reckless and endangers others with his recklessness ("The Girl Who Waited" explicitly made this point just last season). This is a well-established character flaw.

[Alkaloid]

He also flat out admitted it was stupid, so at least they acknowledged it.

[Themightytom]

you know the Tardis would probably have been just as fascinating, safer and a lot more predictable

[Torchship]

Despite not being much of a Dr. Who fan, I still enjoyed this episode. The worst part of it by far was when Wifey was reminiscing and having a flashback of how she met her husband. She narrated for a bit about how he "wouldn't take no for an answer" and was "very determined to win me" (or something like that), then the scene cut to her walking alone through a park, with her future-husband coming up behind her with a determined look on his face. It looked exactly like a scene out of a rape-prevention documentary, up to and including the bit where he grabbed her wrist and she looked terrified. Everyone I was watching it with burst out laughing at the sheer creepiness of portraying stalker-rapist husband in such a positive way: she was smiling before, all through and after her narration!

[Cesario]

I kinda picked up on that vibe too. It was very distracting from the sappy tone they were going for.

[Alkaloid]

you know the Tardis would probably have been just as fascinating, safer and a lot more predictable

So you have a planet that the Doctor has been to before, is normally safe, has no lifeforms apart from friendly sentient trees, and is only dangerous because its going to be melted down into battery fluid and no one told the Doctor, but he should think of all things the TARDIS, a sentient time machine that doesn't always do what he wants and has on previous occasions done shit of its own volition, is in some way safer and more predictable?

[Cesario]

you know the Tardis would probably have been just as fascinating, safer and a lot more predictable

So you have a planet that the Doctor has been to before, is normally safe, has no lifeforms apart from friendly sentient trees, and is only dangerous because its going to be melted down into battery fluid and no one told the Doctor, but he should think of all things the TARDIS, a sentient time machine that doesn't always do what he wants and has on previous occasions done shit of its own volition, is in some way safer and more predictable?

Also, the TARDIS isn't nearly as Christmasy as a forrest of naturally occurring Christmas Trees.

[Cosmic Average]

It was shitastic. Seriously, it had no plot. The woman playing the mom only had one expression/reaction. Just a muddled mess.

[Flameblade]

Also, the TARDIS isn't nearly as Christmasy as a forrest of naturally occurring Christmas Trees.

Plus the Doctor was trying to 'lay low' and 'play dead'. Showing people into the TARDIS and taking them to another world, another time, that doesn't help him. But a "Caretaker" who uses a christmas box to lead them to a christmas-themed forest? Doesn't fit his assumed MO.

[Crazedwraith]

Just watched it yesterday on the iPlayer. It was total rubbish. Silly, sappy, fun rubbish and you ould pick holes in it all day long but it was a Christmas special so that's all it was supposed to be, as far as I can tell. Not Doctor Who's finest hour not its most dismal low but somewhere in between 3/5.

I loved the reference to the ninth doctor era with the forest of cheem. The only real what the hell moment was the Doctor saying his friend all thought he was dead. I'd forgotten/Never realised at the end of series 6 that that bit applied to the Ponds.

I was amused Karen Gillian and Arthur Darvill got the 2nd and third spot on the ending credits considering they only cameoed in the episode.

[jollyreaper]

The Doctor is reckless and endangers others with his recklessness ("The Girl Who Waited" explicitly made this point just last season). This is a well-established character flaw.

It kind of goes beyond character flaw to writer flaw.

The Doctor as not perfect is good. The Doctor as having traces of recklessness and selfishness as well as loneliness are all good complexity. He has a big heart (well, two big hearts) but is also, like us mortals, flawed. With his great power comes great responsibility that he's not entirely the equal of.

There's a difference between being quirky and being manic. I thought Eccleston's take had the right tone, the right balance between goofy and serious. Tennent got a little too whacky and Smith just takes it to a whole new goofball level.





Separated at birth?

Doctor Who is straight up science fantasy but the problems and resolutions have become too much techno-babble. And so many of the problems aren't arising from the Doctor having the talent of arriving at the right place at the right time to fix things but buggering it up in the first place by being zany and impulsive. The current writing doesn't make him flawed but stupid which is not something the character is supposed to be.

This episode was not very well-done. Too much enforced zany, too many threats caused by the Doctor acting like an idiot, bizarre complication and resolution that made not a whit of sense.

[Parallax]

The current writing doesn't make him flawed but stupid which is not something the character is supposed to be.

That sort of thing has been creeping in since the reboot.
For instance, the previous Doctor fighting the lightning throwing Master ... and the Doctor's chosen course of action was to slowly walk towards the shooty-shooty Master trying to look tough and intimidating.

At which point the Doctor got zapped and promptly bitch-slapped.

Hm. By the end of his run, the 10th Doctor really was a dumbass a lot of the time...

[jollyreaper]

The first dumbest thing of new who was the Xmas invasion. The monsters were coming to destroy the Earth. They were going to kill us all. In no way could they seem reasonable from another point of view.

So the PM ordered them blown up. Were they leaving Earth? Yes. would they have just destroyed another planet? Yes. Even if Earth was now safe, they were a menace.

So the PM blows them up and the Doctor goes into a right ring parody of a stupid liberal worrying about the civil rights of nazis while calling American troops baby-killers. He purposefully ruins her reelection.

That's not quirky. That's bad writing.

[Big Orange]

Harriet Jones and the 10th Doctor were both in the right and in the wrong, with Harriet being wrong with her timing and the 10th Doctor getting overridden by his inconsistant moralising (but no matter what you rationally think of the Sycorax and their evil intent, shooting a retiring enemy in the back and also wiping out an entire community still feels wrong on a gut level). And while the 11th Doctor was thoughtless leaving that portal lying around, he's shown as very intelligent in most other respect (come on, who can make an interdimensional portal?). Also if it weren't for that 1940s family going to that snow forest, how else could the forest spirits evacuate (unless they snagged Arabella Weir)?

[Alkaloid]

Hm. By the end of his run, the 10th Doctor really was a dumbass a lot of the time...

10 was pretty clearly in the middle of a mental breakdown, he never really recovered from being the traumatised war vet 9 as far as I can tell.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hm. By the end of his run, the 10th Doctor really was a dumbass a lot of the time...

10 was pretty clearly in the middle of a mental breakdown, he never really recovered from being the traumatised war vet 9 as far as I can tell.

I hadn't considered this before, but now you mention it it does explain a few things. The shifts from zany to "imsoserious" come to mind.

[Ugolino]

Isn't Ten's mental breakdown pretty much confirmed as canon?

[Ahriman238]

Why was the crew of the Camden Lock in the forest? Okay, not relaly the same actors, but it's hard not to get that impression. For that matter, why were they melting a sentient forest capable of space travel?? That seems like exactly the sort of dickery that comes back to haunt you once they follow you to your homeworld.

I have no problem with the Doctor coming up with a fun Christmas for the kids. Especially to a planet he'd previously visited and assured himself of the safety of.