A Few Thoughts On Christmas Day Television

Yesterday was Christmas Day and always a good day for things on the box even if yesterday was perhaps not the most exciting line-up we’ve had recently.

The Top of the Pops Christmas Special (BBC1, 2pm) was as fun as usual and once more cements that it should be on a weekly basis to showcase the music now we have some more interesting artists than the tedious in-studio acts of the late noughties. Granted the artists on show weren’t the most interesting – Robbie William’s ‘Candy’ was up first and the highlight of the show with diminishing returns – but did at least cover a good range of the year’s big hitters. Carly Rae Jepsen, in front of a set seemingly stolen from ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ sounded disappointingly off and Coldplay, who got a pretty good trailer for their live DVD, couldn’t be bothered coming into the studio. The X-Factor finalist proved he could sing live but wailed on at the end and the Christmas number one was a VT as pulling together all of the artists would have been tricky. Gangnam style made a brief appearance as did many covers, including the beautiful ‘The Power of Love’ by Gabrielle Aplin and the average ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ from Paloma Faith, chosen over her other, far better, original singles. Girls Aloud proved to be morphing into each other with two camps seemingly set away from Cheryl. Overall not a bad hour of mostly live music but the lack of the usual annual karaoke option, a few odd song choices and the lack of any cheeky Savile jokes from the hosts knocked it back a bit.

The Queen followed (BBC1, 3pm) with her first annual broadcast filmed in 3D. We don’t have a 3D television but it was hard to see what impact the third dimension would have had on the broadcast. I wanted the Queen to at least punch the screen or throw Prince Harry a Bacardi Breezer to off camera but there was no trickery like that. I’m not sure if the VTs of the damp flotilla were also in 3D to see the rain, gloom and impending bladder infection from Prince Philip, but it was a nice enough speech covering the Olympics, Paraolympics and Jubilee, but was lacking the Queen riffing on how Cheryl Cole couldn’t sing at the concert, Boris Johnson couldn’t dance in the Olympics and any visual 3D diagrams of extreme morning sickness.

Later we had Room on the Broom (BBC1, 4:35pm) a delightful CGI animation from the people behind the last two year’s Gruffallo shows, and the writer behind the books. It told the story of a witch and her cat who stumble across a series of animals as she loses various possessions like a careless extra from Harry Potter. The show reaches its dénouement as an evil, and rather podgy, dragon attacks the team but is stopped by team work. The story is very similar in theme to the Gruffallo – child-friendly repetitive rhymes, meeting animals, tricking a monster – so has a sense of over familiarity about it – and they even re-use the model of the squirrel and snake – but it was an enjoyable, extremely well animated tale with some great voice actors and set-up. Plus, it employed many excellent visual jokes that you’d blink and miss and was great not just for kids, but bigger kids. The ending was sudden but was another great slice of animation this Christmas after ‘The Snowman and the Snowdog’ with a few similarities: familiar, recreating an older idea but with some fresher elements.

It was then time for the next episode of Doctor Who (BBC1, 5:15pm), this year entitled ‘The Snowmen’ and introducing the next companion played by Jemma Louise-Coleman. The festive specials are usually the weaker episodes in the run and this year was not that different, but compared to the other entries in this series which weren’t as big and fun as the excellent series five and great series six, it was nearly up to par. Outside of the plot we got new opening credits which were much more like the classic Who titles. They looked great, the music was as fun as ever in their tweaked state but didn’t feel as long or as dramatic. The TARDIS interior got a paintjob as well and looked good, but with no explanation as to why.

The plot itself was fun. A child discovers he can project his thoughts into intelligent snow and starts building up an army of killer, scary snowman, waiting for the frozen body of a children’s nanny that fell into a frozen pond to come to life so they can replicate human DNA and create an army of snow clones. This is set aside by an investigation from a reluctant Doctor, still hurting from the deaths of the Ponds, in conjunction with a Sontaran and a lesbian double-act of a Silurian and human detective team, who it’s revealed through a conversation with successful baddie Richard E Grant, that they’re the inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes character, a moniker that the Doctor later adopts briefly complete with Deerstalker. I think writer Stephen Moffat must have been drunk over the summer and got his franchises confused.

If that brief summary sounds confusing you’d be right. The plot in the special speeded ahead at such a pace that it was difficult to keep up with at times. The Sontaran guard was the best character in the special with some great funny lines but his appearance once more showed Moffat’s lack of care for realistic explanations – even in Sci-Fi – with only a brief mention as to why he’s no longer dead after being killed earlier on in the run. Matt Smith was great once more as the Doctor, and Jenna Louise-Coleman promising in her second appearance as the assistant, and her death at the end and realisation that her character is scattered through time is an interesting twist, as the Doctor recognises her voice and traits from the ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ episode. She seemed to know more than she let on and at the beginning it seemed the Doctor recognised her – even though he never saw her in the first episode, something he does mention in the episode – so it all seemed rather confusing.

The CGI was impressive in the piece as were most of the cast, and the spiral-staircase up to the TARDIS on the cloud appeared magical and fitted in with the Christmas Special. It was a confusing episode to follow and the destruction of the big bad at the end twee and overly sentimental but the twist at the end somewhat made up for it. It was difficult to keep up with the episode with some lines hard to follow, necessitating a quick rewind of the action, and there seemed an overall lack of surprise when people were approached by a lizard woman. That said, though the one-word conversation seemed forced between Coleman and said Silurian, the ‘Pond’ word was a neat bit of writing.

Not the worst Christmas special but not the most exciting ever, but the filmography and imagery was great and the Sontaran general well written, but it’s the final plot twist that will keep the series going.

Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1, 6:15pm) came straight after and saw six dancers taking part in a variety of, well, dances. I don’t watch SCD that often but it was an interesting way to wile away sixty minutes in the company of cheesy jokes from Bruce Forsyth and a funny montage at the start of Bobby Ball’s dance. The bloke from JLS won it, no one else embarrassed themselves. Anne Widdecombe and Russell Grant made the briefest of brief appearances so didn’t have time to add some comedy factor. An OK festive special with a nice performance from Rod “Screeching Scotsman” Stewart.

Our final watch of the night, outside of watching the repeat of ‘The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff’, an amazing short-film, was The Royle Family (BBC1, 9:45pm). I never really consistently watched the show when it was on properly but have watched all the Christmas specials over the past few years. This one seemed the most surreal of the lot with an opening fifteen minutes that saw plenty of crude jokes in the direction of erectile dysfunction that seemed to be dealt in a weird way by the cast suggesting it was a misunderstanding, but it wasn’t. The best plot strand was neighbour Joe going on a series of first dates in the Royle household with a series of great characterisations and some blink-and-you’ll-miss-them visual jokes as their names are crossed off a list (Chinese lady lives on ‘Great Wall St’, a suspiciously butch woman on ‘Tranny Ave’ etc). The individual threads of ‘Dragon’s Den’, Joe’s dipsy Irish date, Dave’s problems downstairs, the borrowed drill and a sneaky win by Jim on a scratchcard all came together nicely in the final meal at the end, a neat tying up of several disparate plotlines. It was perhaps the crudest episode I’ve seen and it felt, at times, a little desperate for humour with the Christmas Pudding / Breasts montage near the end a little cringey, but it had some great laugh-out-loud moments and plenty of innuendo and was worth a watch, plus included a brief mention to actor Geoffrey Hughes who we sadly lost this year.

So, not a bad day of television overall. But, as you can see, dominated by BBC1. What happened to the other channels on this most festive of days?

Doctor Who - The Angels Take Manhattan (Review)

So far I have been quite negative of the latest series of Doctor Who, with only ‘A Town Called Mercy’ and, more so, ‘The Power of Three’, stepping up to the plate as being worthy of the excellent first two series that saw Matt Smith step up to the plate as the Doctor.

But I’m glad to say that mid-series conclusion ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’ was the strongest of the five episodes so far and an almost perfect end to the story of Amy and Rory Williams that began two-and-half years ago.

Before I get to the nature of the plot the cinematography is what needs the most acknowledgement in the episode. 1930s New York has never looked so beautiful and the periodic detail of the time, from the buildings to the clothing, were spot on. Michael McShane – Dr. Vaabit from the under-rated comedy ‘Lab Rats’ – was a great character as a gangster-style crime boss and fit the scenes perfectly, and the opening ten minutes before the credits rolled was an incredible atmospheric and scene-setting trip around depression New York that set up the story and featured not only a precursor to later events as the private investigator met himself but also a great denouement with a living Statue of Liberty, this twist damaged only by the spoiler trailer used by American TV last week and ‘Conspiracy Keanu’ on Twitter asking the question six months ago ‘What if the Statue of Liberty was a giant weeping angel?’ This twist in itself was a nice addition to the mythology of the creatures, creatures that were almost back to the scariness they commanded in ‘Blink’ that was almost missing from the two-parter of two series ago.

After a fittingly atmospheric credit sequence we returned to modern day New York to find the Doctor, Amy and Rory engaging in some fun and reading from a book, a novel that would form the crux of the episode. With Rory being zapped back to 1930s New York while on a mission to find coffee, the book turned out to be written by River Song in a well composed mechanic, built around the effective use of a typewriter overlaid over shots, equally located in the pre-war time period, in the ultimate example of written-down spoilers. Back in the 30s the angels are rife, using the building ‘The Winter Quay’ as a prison and feeding ground to ‘consume’ the time energy created by sending people back in time, a method that the angels have not used since the excellent ‘Blink’ back in the David Tennant era of the show.

With the Doctor and Amy finally finding a way to return to the 1930s, the episode continued as a tense mystery-solving and angel-avoiding adventure, taking in death, danger and plot twists. The flickering lights – alluded to throughout this first half of the series – ramped up the tension, as did the reading ahead in the book to discover their own futures. Here Matt Smith, as the Doctor, portrayed the character once more brilliantly, showing his fear at the creatures and his apprehension of what would be upcoming. Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillian were on top form, as was Alex Kingston as River Song, playing a much more muted character than we expected for it.

The episode climaxed to a roof-top scene between Amy and Rory that felt like the end with emotions running high, already building on elderly Rory’s earlier death, and felt like a touching end to the story but not before the tension was relieved by their deaths creating a paradox and thus saving them.

But just as we felt it was going to be a happy ending, albeit a cheated one with yet another RTD-inspired big reset switch, the grave with Rory’s name still present on it was spotted, unlike the angel behind him which wasn’t, leading to a heart-wrenching scene played beautifully by Gillian and Smith, and I’m not afraid to say that, between that and the excellent episode score, I found it very tearful and a sad end to the episode, perfectly rounding off the story, and emotions that continued as the Doctor rushed to read the last page of River’s story and once more the feelings came back. Yes. I cried. Sue me!

The episode ended on a touching conversation between the Doctor and River Song, rounding off the strongest episode of a previously-weaker series, and then another tear-jerking shot of a young Amelia Pond awaiting her raggedy man.

It’s difficult of me to think of points were the episode fell down. I suppose it would have been nice to have seen some scenes of Amy and Rory living out their life together and perhaps, as was suggested on the net, seeing River grow up when she was in New York previously, but it’s difficult to pick fault with what seemed a packed forty-five minutes, but one that seemed to be slow and atmospheric at times, that’s slow in a good way.

With the excellent atmosphere of 1930s New York successfully created in the episode and the well-constructed story, ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’ was the perfect way to round off the two-and-a-half years of stories and was both exciting, tense, touching and well-acted by all those concerned.

I look forward now to the Christmas special having enjoyed a story that redeemed the series so far, including the fun idea of the Statue of Liberty being a weeping angel; the inability of the Doctor to change time when it’s a fixed event; and the emotion of saying goodbye to two characters we’ve followed for two and a bit series. Well acted, well plotted and very atmospheric. I don’t think we could have asked for a better mid-season finale.

9/10

Doctor Who: The Power of Three (Review)

After two episodes in the new series that I could really take or leave and a better third one, we finally get to a corker of an episode that successfully balances drama, comedy and the feeling of an approaching threat, creating a strong forty-five minutes of Saturday night drama.

The episode, picking up many years in the chronology of the Ponds, sees them balancing their domestic and working life with that of their life with the Doctor, all against the backdrop of small cubes appearing over the world, shown through RTD-era news bulletins and CCTV footage. The Doctor, with the Ponds, has to work out what this slow invasion means before it’s too late.

So why did I enjoy this episode? Well it’s the first large-scale episode we’ve had in a while with a global impact, reflected well in their choice of locations. There is also plenty of humour scattered through the episode from cameos from Brian Cox and Alan Sugar’s Apprentice team – both well inserted in – alongside a very ‘Cabin In The Woods’ style situation under the Tower of London as UNIT also investigate the cubes, and find that each one has their own unique personality including one very musical one. In fact, I would have liked to have seen this idea explored more but there is only so much you can compress into one episode.

Matt Smith was as excellent as the Doctor once more, flipping between emotions, even if the hammy acting after one of his two hearts stopped was a tad unrealistic. His scene with Rory’s dad – played by Mark Williams in a far better and more enjoyable appearance than his last episode – was very touching and hints at what could be to come in next week’s Angels-focussed episode. Plus, he had a more rounded personality throughout the episode and added lots to the piece.

It was also nice to see the Pond’s life expanded upon and we finally get to see Rory working and that Amy actually has a job and the episode balances the normal with the abnormal well.

Then there was the scene with the Doctor painting, mowing and hoovering, alongside Rory's Dad and his log, and some creepy grill-mouthed men to add to the mix.

That’s not to say the episode isn’t without its flaws. Though the CGI of the cubes was mostly impressive some of the moving shots broke the illusion, and there were a few too many convenient plot strands, such as one of the wormholes to the “big bad” being present in the hospital where Rory works and the rushed conclusion to the episode with a motivation for the events of the slow invasion still a little bit muddy in my memory after a first watch. Again, like the other episodes, there is scope for at least getting two episodes out of each story to allow things to develop, but this mostly succeeded in its self-contained one episode.

Throw in a neat throw-back to the Brigadier, lots of clips of older episodes, the tear-jerking musical theme near the end and the nice little scenes of how the cubes are taken in by the humans, and you get an enjoyable, funny but also foreboding episode that is my favourite of the series so far, though that’s not saying much in a series that has yet to really make a huge impact on me.

(7/10)

Doctor Who – A Town Called Mercy [Review]

Well that was a bit better. After two episodes that I didn’t think were the best of Moffat’s era, we got a story that improved on what was lacking in the last two: proper time to get to know characters and emphasise with them; an interesting baddie; and a well-developed moral dilemma for the Doctor, even if it did get a bit wibbly wobbly timey wimey with Matt Smith’s Doctor flitting between his opinions.

In ‘A Town Called Mercy’ we got a beautifully realised American West town under bright blue skies and an interesting set of characters, even if the arrival of them at the town was glossed over quite quickly with a oh-by-the-way moment of the TARDIS going wrong.

The opening Terminator-style shots of the robot killing the man was well done and the Cyborg itself well realised and realistic in an episode where real effects were done instead of CGI – though the creature of the week – Kahler Jex – was clearly just human with an elaborate tattoo - though the slow disappearing and re-appearing of the Cyborg approaching the town was quite creepy in its effect.

The moral dilemmas of the episode was where the episode excelled with The Doctor, seemingly becoming more and more the justice-giver like a geeky Judge Dredd, with Amy this time acting like his moral conscience. The exploration of morals and how characters can be grey rather than black and white was well realised but it did get a bit samey as the Doctor kept changing his opinions.

The final third of the episode was perhaps not as strong as the opening but overall it was my favourite of the three episodes thanks to its interesting plotting and more time given to explore the characters and feel for them – characters such as the Marshall and the young lad keen to stand up to make a decision, in stark contrast with the hefty introductions of last week’s episode.

Hopefully next week’s episode will continue this trend of increasing returns.

7/10

Doctor Who – Dinosaurs On A Spaceship

In what is possibly the best Doctor Who title since ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ was announced last year, how could an episode that sounds like a sexed-up version of cult movie hit ‘Snakes On A Plane’ not work? Well, if it’s a little bit messy in its structure.

As a big fan of series five and six and its improvement over the nicely plotted but poorly written Tennant era, I feel a little let down by series seven so far. Last week’s ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ was an episode that improved with each viewing but wasn’t the best of the three openings but this week’s episode, though full of some great characters and equally great CGI, it just felt to be missing something.

And it’s the inherent problem with these episodes, creating mini-blockbusters in forty-five minutes: there isn’t enough time to set the episodes up properly.

In the Chris Chibnall written ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’ (affectionately called ‘In space no one can hear you roar’ on the net) the Doctor heads to space with Queen Nefertiti of Egypt, whom he is seen having a dalliance with at the start of the episode, and a big game hunter from the African planes, to investigate a spaceship heading to earth that is about to be blown up by the stereotypical Asian accent unit, or the Indian Space Agency as it’s perhaps known. On board the ship the Doctor – now with Amy, Rory and Roy’s dad – investigate the cargo to find its home to ankylosaurs, a Triceratops, some baby T-Rexs and some raptors. Oh, and that guy from Harry Potter who killed off the previous owners of the ships – a neat cameo from the Silurians – to get hold of the dinosaurs, only to find himself injured and unable to pilot the ship away from a crash course with earth and the stereotyp… I mean, ISA missles.

If that seems a lot of plot to cram into a paragraph imagine the amount of set-up required before the green-tinged credits roll (now with a dinosaur-skinned logo, confirming my thoughts that last week’s was styled like a Dalek – neat idea, but I hope we get the other logo back soon). Though it’s been done before it’s never felt this rushed or compressed and, though I understand the need to keep the episodes peppy and exciting compared to the older four-part serials to keep those with wandering attention spans happy, the lack of slowly establishing key plots and characters is absent so it’s hard to feel anything for them, a bit like the rushed breakdown of Amy and Rory’s marriage of ‘Pond Life’ and last week’s episode, which seems to have been brushed aside now with no mentions.

This isn’t to say the episode doesn’t have its moments. The CGI is fantastic and the dinosaurs very realistic. The net has been a buzz with how they made such good dinosaurs on a budget. Perhaps they borrowed at least the raptors from Primeval, with the Mill doing CGI work on both. In fact, at many times it does go a little Primeval – and Jurassic Park – with dinosaurs, electronic stun guns and even several mentions of the word ‘Arc’. I was half expecting Douglas Henshall to walk through a door as Nick Cutter and when asked why he’s not dead he answers, in a thick Scottish accent, ‘It’s all timey wimey’ before wandering off down a corridor asking for ‘Helen’ before realising she’s dead too.

The character of Solomon was a particularly good villain in this piece and got the most character development of the lot of them with some good motives for his action and played with delicious evilness by David Bradley. He was supported by two robots – voiced with some campness by comedians Mitchell and Webb – who were great characters but felt shoe-horned into this episode and under-developed, competing as they were with every other plot development and new character. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like three stories crammed ineffectively into one.

Elsewhere Mark Williams did a cracking turn as Rory’s father with some great comedy moments and a beautiful scene – the highlight of the episode for me – where he sits on the ‘doorstep’ of the TARDIS looking down to space. That said, him and Rory seemed to have some sort of relationship issues based around Rory being a nurse and not the trowel-carrying “man” that his dad is, but they are brought together at the end to pilot the ship thus bonding them back as a family. It’s just a shame that their relationship and its difficulties didn’t have more than a scene on a step-ladder to set it up.

Rupert Graves was an interesting addition as the big game hunter, channelling Jurassic Park’s Pete Postlethwaite character, but was cut from the classic misogynistic character role. He was also responsible for one of the two big scene-crashing did-they-really-say-that innuendos which, I found funny, but they did seem at odds with the style of the show. Having already heard Williams talk about the balls in his pocket – golf balls that is, matron – we had to sit through Graves glinting suggestively at Nefertiti with no hint of irony, cocking back his gun and saying something along the lines of ‘what you need is a good man with a big weapon’. Kenneth Williams would be proud. Ooh. Matron. All we needed was Amy, who took a very Doctor-like role in this piece, hacking into computers and generally helping out, to push back and her bra flies off to complete an episode that should be called ‘Carry On Jurassic Park In Space’.

Of course these comedic and camp elements did compete with the darker Doctor sending Solomon to his death and the sombre mood growing between Amy and the Doctor, developing in this episode, and these were better parts of the episode.

Overall ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’ had its moments. It’s showcased Amy and Rory being much more useful in the fight against space evil; there was touching family bonds between Rory and his dad; some top-class CGI from the Mill on the dinosaurs and the spaceship; and some decent comedy from the robots. It wasn’t the strongest episode I’ve ever seen and the introduction of all the characters seem to be just to make plot points make sense – the baddie needs the sexy Nefertiti as a bargaining tool; the ship needs two people of the same gene line to operate, quick get Rory’s dad in; we need someone to stalk dinosaurs on a ship with a big gun, let’s get him onboard before we even know there are dinosaurs on it.

Though there is much to enjoy in the episode and the dinosaur elements including the Pterodactyl chase and the race on the triceratops are well done and make it great for younger viewers, It feels like a rushed episode. Given two episodes to build it up and give more screen time to the relationship of the two Williams, the comical robots; and the setting up of Nefertiti and the game hunter, it would have been a stronger piece. I’m all for big blockbuster episodes but, on the strength of these two so far, they seem to be substituting development for spectacle and setting up key plot points quickly and then resolving them even quicker, and I’m not sure whether I like it.

(6/10)

Doctor Who – Asylum of the Daleks (Review)

*** Warning: contains spoilers ***

So here we are with series seven of Doctor Who, following on from the short five ‘Pond Life’ films, and we find the Doctor being called upon by the Daleks to save them from the breakout of dangerous, insane, Daleks from their asylum.

There have been a few changes since the end of series six. The Doctor Who titles have been tweaked slightly with a green tinge, nothing wrong there, but also have been given a change in logo which is, frankly, boring compared to the graphically clever previous one which was itself a vast, vast improvement on the RTD era logo.

Elsewhere Rory and Amy have split up – as hinted in the final ‘Pond Life’ short – and Amy has become a glamour model, which finally explains how she makes money and doesn’t just rely on Nurse Rory to bring home the bacon.

‘Asylum of the Daleks’ is a rip-roaring fifty minutes of sci-fi with many, many Daleks and many instances of danger and threat. The CGI used in the episode works well from the burnt out Skaro to the Dalek-human hybrids, and the twist of the Dalek’s in disguise as human’s works well, though whether it could become used in the same way as the Teselecta from series six remains to be seen. The opening scenes on Skaro were atmospheric and set the tone for a dramatic episode.

The Asylum planet of the Daleks was nicely realised with the snow as were the dingy, deteriorating corridors. Jenna-Louise Coleman was a surprise early appearance as a confused Dalek and unless she, like Karen Gillan and Freema Agyeman before her, is playing a different role, which I highly doubt, she obviously comes back in the Christmas special as a human. That was nicely weaved in though, to be honest, I didn’t realise it was her until the credits rolled so I missed that ‘ah’ moment and I’m not sure how many others would have twigged, or whether it would be better not twigging. To be honest, I hope her character adapts when she’s in properly as she was written like a younger River Song – though I like that character, we need something different – unless that’s intentional and I’m guessing future plot lines.

The erasing of the Daleks’ knowledge of the Doctor was a neat trick that, I’m assuming, leads into the big twist at some point of the oldest question in the Universe (Doctor Who?) or maybe it’s just another big reset switch; time will tell.

Overall it was an enjoyable, fast-paced re-introduction to the Doctor and his companions with highs lows and a cinematic break-neck speed. Matt Smith was on top form as always with his portrayal of the Doctor and Gillan and Darvill had their moments as the companions whose characters they seem comfortable now in portraying.

The break-up, potential divorce and re-connecting of Amy and Rory was emotionally done and the break-up of their relationship was handled as it would most likely play out, though the reunion was a little bit false but acted brilliantly considering, but was so quickly set-up, establishing and then dismissed it felt like an afterthought to the episode, unless it has further repercussions down the line. If you’re going to tackle something as serious and non-light-weight as a much-loved couple splitting up because the woman is infertile then you need to give it the justice of being properly built up. I know this is sci-fi and we don’t expect Alan Bennett levels of emotional drama, but neither is it Holby City.

The Daleks were given something interesting to do and the new Dalek-human hybrids were interesting, especially with the walking skeletons, though again these ideas have been recycled a little from previous stories and were a little underused in this episode. Moffat has said he is going for five big action-packed episodes and that they cram into one episode what the classic series would do in four, which is perfect for those with shorter attention spans, but I feel the ideas displayed would have had more breathing room in a two-parter.

But I am a big supporter of Moffat’s stories so far and it’s hard to judge a series on one episode, when he does have a tendency to weave threads in to come back later, but I enjoyed ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ and am interested to see how it will connect with future episodes. It had emotional scenes, action scenes, suspense scenes and a neat little twist, though it was pretty obvious from the get-go that there was something about Oswin that wasn’t at face value, even if you didn’t get the actual twist, which I didn’t.

Not too shabby for a return episode and it had its fair share of comedy moments and emotional outpouring but could have been a better two-parter and, though the intention was this from what Moffat has said, it didn’t have the feel of a new series like the episodes that kicked off the last two had, rather more like the one-offs that David Tennant took part in in the twilight of his role.

(6.5/10)

A Quick Review of Christmas TV Part One: Christmas Day

Up there with family, presents and food is television on Christmas Day, a day when the television networks bring out their big guns with one-offs, festive specials and big budget versions of their hit shows. But how did this year’s Xmas shows stand up?

Obviously between unwrapping presents – 12:30, eating dinner – 3pm, and falling asleep – 11pm, it’s impossible to watch everything but, hey, I managed to catch most of what I wanted to see, starting with the Top of the Pops Christmas Show, the now annual look back at the preceding year’s music after the mainly weekly show was axed by the BBC several years ago. Though to be hypocritical and say that I rarely watched the show, I think it was a massive shame for live music that the show was dropped but I can understand their reasons as more acts are now American or are DJ based and require a bit of, er, assistance in the live department.

It was always well known that TOTP used to have the artists lip-synching but didn’t in its noughties shows but it was difficult to tell what was or wasn’t live in this show. I’m not convinced it was all live but it could have gone either way. ‘Rizzle Kicks’, performing ‘Down with the Trumpets’, certainly were as they changed some lyrics to Christmas ones, and did it well, also excelling on their appearance out of two presents on Olly Murs ‘Heart Skips A Beat’ which was equally live, Murs recreating the DJ effects of skipping well live.

Appearances by Example, Pixie Lott, Noah and the Whale and Jessie J, an earlier recorded acoustic version of ‘Price Tag’ sung beautifully, were all welcome, a tedious performance of the tedious ‘The A Team’ by Ed Sheeran, not a patch on the great ‘Lego House’, less so. ‘Little Mix’, this year’s X Factor winners, also dropped in to perform ‘Cannonball’, thankfully not the festive number one, and it was as average as you expect. And then, much to Radio 1’s annoyance I imagine, TOTP got to reveal this year’s Christmas chart topper with the promo video for ‘Wherever You Are’.

Overall a welcome return for the TOTP and aside from a few dodgy acts and some countdowns of the big tunes of the year which including songs that were so big I’ve never heard of them, it was well worth watching. They even managed to throw in a fitting tribute to Jimmy Saville. Now then, now then.

After a lovely Christmas dinner – thanks mum! – and with the power of Sky Plus we watched The Queen, helpfully revealed at the end to be a Sky News production, possibly their first of the year that doesn’t include ticker tape banners or phone hacking. Ooh.

Her speech was as great and rousing as usual and for an 85-year-old woman she can still hold the screen and stand for a considerable length of time. Obviously this year it was backed with the knowledge that her husband was in hospital having undergone a heart operation whilst she continued on with life as usual, so the message of family being important might not have been as strong as it would have been. At least she had Mike Tindall there for all her dwarf-tossing needs.

As I said to my parents, not everyone is lucky enough to have a Phil with them at Christmas dinner this year.

After the Queen’s speech it was a break until the next programme, a break I filled with Milton Jones on one of my Christmas DVDs and a scout around the music channels, one of which was showing ‘Queen at 3’ against her majesty with him Mercury. But, at 4:50 it was time for Ratatouille.

Being the penultimate Pixar film I had to see to complete the set – just Cars 2 to see now – I was eager to watch it. ‘Up’, one of their most recent efforts, is one of the best films of all time and I hoped that ‘Ratatouille’ from a similar era would be up to it. Sadly, it’s not one of their best films. The premise and animation are as clever and well implemented as ever, and the last half-an-hour of the film was an exciting mixture of chases, emotion, drama and a fitting conclusion to the story. It’s just a shame that the first hour wasn’t as exciting as it could have been and was just missing some sparkle that I can’t put my finger on. We’ve been spoilt recently with some cracking CGI films – ‘Arthur Christmas’ being the most recent example – and this seemed to be missing something. The premise seemed to take a while to set up and it took a while to care about the characters.

Still, it was an animated film well worth watching but not up there with ‘Up’ or ‘Toy Story 2’ from the Pixar stable.

With telephone calls to family members filling up the next half an hour, it was next onto Doctor Who and the Christmas special ‘The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe’, a loose – very loose – take on the Narnia story.

It’s well documented on my blog that I much prefer the Steven Moffat / Matt Smith era of ‘Doctor Who’ over the RTD / David Tennant one. However, I didn’t much enjoy last year’s Christmas special even if it had one of the most sad, touching ends to the story ever. I think the combination of a flying shark, Michael Gambon’s shockingly tedious acting (ala his work in Harry Potter) and a so-so story did it for me. Though I do admit to sobbing a little at the fate of Katherine Jenkins’ character.

This year’s special was still very much tugging at the heartstrings. Starting with the Doctor blowing up a spaceship and landing on earth in an ill-fitting space-suit to be rescued by Claire Skinners’ war-time mother and taken to the TARDIS was a funny opening including getting the wrong Police Box, but seemed a waste of CGI with blowing up a spaceship that was only in for less than a minute. Following the Doctor’s departure we learn that her husband, played by Alexander Armstrong, has died three years later whilst in a bomber over the English Channel, but she hasn’t yet told their two children.

So, at Christmas, off they go to their uncle’s house which is deserted, apart from the Doctor as the Caretaker, who has turned the house into a magical playground with moving furniture, a kids bedroom stuffed with toys, tricks and, of course, two hammocks, and a Christmas tree with a mysterious blue parcel under it.

A special Christmas treat for the kids, Cyril, the young boy, opens it early and finds it takes him to a planet where decoration-covered Christmas trees grow naturally and there is a mysterious tower in the centre with strange wooden men in it. It’s not long before the Doctor with the daughter in tow find out where he’s gone and, instead of the safe forest he’d planned, there’s something remiss and they find the tower with none of them suitable to carry the spirits of the forest, who are to be killed by an extreme form of deforestation about to occur with acid rain, a plot stand found out by the mother who stumbles across the group of deforesters (is that even a word?) led by Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir who bring some great comic relief to the piece and are sadly underused in the story. I could have watched Bill Bailey all day in this story.

With the family all reunited in the tower the mother is found to be the perfect carrier for the souls and seemingly a lot of hair to hide the gold ring which quickly disappears from her head in possibly a prop malfunction and they head off through the time vortex to save the forest and get back home and, in a piece of lucky serendipity, become a guiding light for her husband in the fighter who survives the journey home to be reunited with the family. All that is left is for the Doctor to realise the importance of family and head over to the Pond household to join them for Christmas dinner, a tear coming to his eye.

Now, I’m going to be the first time to say that the storyline of this year’s Doctor Who wasn’t the best. Moffat once more refuses to kill off a character again and brings him back in a rather contrived way; it’s very sickly sweet in how they save the trees; and there’s a lot of tears. That said, however, I found the story very touching and a tear did come to my eye just like the Doctor’s. God, I must be getting more sentimental as I get older, but the combination of storyline, music and acting got to me.

Sure, it wasn’t the most original storyline ever and Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir deserved more screen time, but the locations and eye to detail were beautiful. Matt Smith was as spot-on with the Doctor as ever during the spacesuit sequence and the house-tour sketch, and managed to cover a whole range of emotions throughout the piece, cementing him as my favourite Doctor so far. Steven Moffat is proving to be a good writer of the series and though the storyline did once more hit the big reset button that plagued RTD’s era as well as his, there was a fair bit of emotion in it.

Now from one end of drama to the other and we come to Coronation Street. Now I’ve not watched this soap regularly for eight years now so I only really watch it when I’m seeing my parents or for big occasions like last year’s impressive fiftieth anniversary train crash plotline. This year’s big storylines involved a Nativity-birth parallel (tres original!) and the evil Tracy Barlow once more cooking up some lies, this time that Becky pushed her downstairs causing her to miscarry. This plotline also led to Becky almost killing herself in a drink-fuelled fire and her swearing revenge on Tracy, whilst Tracy’s mother knows that the truth that she lost the kids before meeting Becky.

It was quite a good episode of Corrie but there are several things to note. Firstly it started with the musical accompaniment of Shakin’ Steven’s ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ over a montage of happy and sad scenes. Since when did it become ‘Home and Away’? Secondly, is Steve an idiot? Tracy has already murdered her boyfriend, served time for it, tried to take Steve’s daughter off him and done all sorts of other unhinged things. Why would he get back with her? And thirdly, are all the men in soaps stupid? Why is Peter Barlow having an affair with Carla? Does he not learn after the whole bigamy things years ago?

Surely me criticising the reality of soap operas is an insane thing to do but the characters seem to change so wildly in their actions and motivations?

Coronation Street’s Christmas Day show wasn’t a patch on last year’s human drama, but it was never going to be. However, it is slowly turning into Eastenders with far less of the humour it once enjoyed and far more miscarriages, fires, hospital-isation, affairs and all that malarkey. Ho ho ho indeed.

After a trip to Manchester, which was covered in snow according to Corrie when nowhere in this part of England has had anything more than a light covering, it was back to the PVR to watch Strictly Come Dancing, a one-off light-hearted version of the show featuring Simon from Blue, Charlie from Eastenders, Barry the boxer, Debra the impressionist (not sure who she was dancing as), and my favourite Su Pollard. Now I didn’t see all the show as I was doing other things but what I did see was some pleasant Christmas Day night fun, with Craig dressed very well as the Grinch, some cheesy jokes from Bruce and a poor, but funny, dance routine by Su “You Rang M’Lord?” Pollard. It’s not a show I regularly watch but it was amusing to dip-in and –out of.

Earlier in the night we’d also taped The Gruffalo’s Child, a sequel to last year’s CGI adaptation of the first kiddies book. Worried that this was going to be a shameful cash-in of taking the original story and shoe-horning a sequel out of it, I realised at the end it was based on a second book. Having never read the Gruffalo as a kid – it’s 1999 release meant it was well out of my childhood – there was no emotional connection to watch either the first or the second film – and also being about twenty years too old for its target market, it would be a strange thing to watch but, like the first, the slow, pedestrian delivery of the story mixed in with some gentle humour and beautiful animation make it a joy to watch.

It’s often the little things that make these short animations and in this case it was bits like the hedgehog’s two cute appearances, and the detail of the footprints in the snow. The voice acting, style and detail were as impressive as last year and though, yes, it’s not the most dynamic of short films, well stretching out how long it should last for, it was a fun piece of story for kids and “big kids” too.

Last but not least was the festive edition of Have I Got A Bit More News For You and, thankfully, not a hastily cobbled together compilation of best bits as I thought it would be. With all fresh material, Christmas decorations and a great lead from one of the best guest presenters Martin Clunes, it was forty-minutes of great topical laughs, showing how great the programme is as it enters its twentieth year on air.

Overall, Christmas Day 2011 was a good day for television programmes with a good cross section of shows, and I didn’t even get a chance to re-watch Disney’s ‘Aladdin’ or McIntyre’s Christmas Comedy Roadshow but hopefully will soon!