TL;DR – A riot of dancing and murder as a villain from the deep past returns and carves up the screen.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Warning – Many, many messed up dolls.

Doctor Who Review –

Well, it has been a ride, but today, we have come to the end of the three Doctor Who 60^th Anniversary Specials. We started with Donna (Catherine Tate) and The Doctor (David Tennant) getting back together in The Star Beast. Then we got weird with Wild Blue Yonder, which harkened back to a classic episode of the show. But all of these come to their fruition tonight when we get an old villain returning, some good friends, oh and probably a regeneration.

So to set the scene, in Soho in 1925, there was a toy maker who was unnerving in the extreme, with a German accent that seemed to slip. I mean, what could be the worst thing to be sent on the first TV signal but a burning doll head? Back in the Today, at the end of Wild Blue Yonder, The Doctor and Donna crash land back into the alley they left in The Star Beastto find Wilf (Bernard Cribbins) waiting for them. Because everyone else has gone into hiding as the world falls apart. Because everyone thinks they are right all the time, and they will not back down for anything. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.   

One of the things that you always need to do with Doctor Who is be prepared for the mechanisms behind the narrative to be really stupid. An excellent example of this would be the classic Silence Day of the Moon two-parter. So, having that doll somehow being embedded in every screen because of reasons is really dumb. But it is also one of those silly things that you kind of just go with because it absolutely fits into this world. The fact that the show can hold silly and serious in the same hand is one of its strengths, when they get the balance right.    

Even though this is a deeply serious episode at times, because of the nature of the villain, it also relies heavily on comedic moments. The most notable of which was The Toy Maker dancing through UNIT to the sounds of the Spice Girl’s Spice Up Your Life. Which might be up there with musical choices like the Earth dying to the sound of Britny Spears’ Toxic or The Master dancing to Boney M.’s Rasputin, while being Rasputin. Of course, you then have the fate of the universe being determined by a game of catch, which somehow feels fitting.   

If there is one thing I could take away from this week’s episode, it is that Neil Patrick Harris was having a ball. He got to chew every bit of scenery, dance, and soliloquy in equal measure and brought a new energy to an old villain. While I am not sure, everything they were trying to say about humanity landed as well as it could have. I do feel that their comments that we keep “using our intelligence to be stupid” hit home. They also do a pretty good job of summing up the post-Donna history that the show has gone through, including, I think, the first on-screen reference to the passing of Sarah Jane Smith. However, we need to talk about the Rory erasure.

To add to that, David Tennant is also not holding back a single moment as he oscillates from charm to determination. There is a moment when he turns to Donna and says that he might not be able to save her this time, and I felt it. I liked a lot of the analogies about games throughout, but can I just say that not every game starts from scratch. If you have ever played Resistance with my family, you will know that past games can very much impact on future games.  

Suppose there is one moment that people will be talking about. In that case, it will be that moment when, instead of regenerating, The Doctor Bi-generated, which meant that the audible gasp I made when they killed The Doctor far too early in the episode than I expected was followed by several more “Whats!” as the two Doctors were ripped apart from each other. I had suspected that they had gone with David Tennant rather than going straight to Ncuti Gatwa, that they wanted a buffer between the two Doctors, and that Ncuti was still busy with Sex Education. But I am not sure anymore.     

The immediate effect of this is that Ncuti spends the whole episode running around in their underwear, which I am sure is going to be good news to a decent chunk of the population. But in the middle term, it allows The Doctor to do something they have never done before: take a moment and breathe. While that might be the narrative reason, I am wondering what that production effect will be. Now, two active Doctors are roaming around at the same time. Will there be David Tennant specials that pop up from time to time, or was it just a happy goodbye for this character?   

In the end, do we recommend Doctor Who: The Giggle? Well, I do have to say that I think they did actually stick the landing. I liked the villain. I liked the history focus of the show while still moving forward. At the same time, hinting about what is coming next with The One Who Waits and with that little Master tease. There is one more special this year at Christmas: bring on the sky goblins.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Doctor Who yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.
    
Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Doctor Who
Directed by – Chanya Button
Written by – Russell T Davies
Production/Distribution Companies – BBC Studios, Badwolf & Disney+
Starring – David Tennant, Catherine Tate & Ncuti Gatwa with Neil Patrick Harris, Jemma Redgrave, Ruth Madeley, Bonnie Langford, Yasmin Finney, Jacqueline King & Karl Collins and Charlie De Melo, John MacKay, Alexander Devrient, Tim Hudson, Aidan Cook, Nicholas Briggs, Lachele Carl, Leigh Lothian & Luke Featherston