Truly Dreadful Film

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

If I was to summarise this episode in one word it would be crap. Didn't feel Christmassy in any way. Probably the worst episode of modern Who ever. After seeing the previous Christmas special "The Husbands of River Song" which was good, the 2016 Christmas special was a complete and utter piece of crap. Didn't make me feel in a Christmas mood at all, but instead made me as bored as hell. Why oh why did they have to put a flipping superhero into the mix. The worst episode ever! Do yourselves a favor and watch, the Time of Doctor or The End of Time for God sake two of the best Christmas specials so far. Although I reckon Twice Upon A Time will be amazing. Can't wait to see that episode and I definitely won't be switching off this time!

This Christmas special opens in New York City with the Doctor hanging outside the window of young Grant Gordon; once inside he gives Grant a small crystal which he mistakes for medicine and swallows… it is no ordinary crystal; it has the power to make the users dreams come true and this young boy dreams of having similar powers to Superman! Twenty four years later the Doctor is back in New York investigating the sinister Harmony Shoals Corporation; also there is reporter Lucy Fletcher and Nardole, who has become The Doctor's latest companion. The find a room full of brains in jars; brains that want human hosts as part of an alien invasion plot! They are captured but then they are rescued by a flying superhero known as The Ghost. We soon learn that he is Grant Gordon and when he isn't The Ghost he is working as Lucy's nanny. It turns out he has known her since they were children but she has no idea that he has superpowers. Lucy is determined to find out more about The Ghost but he tries to keep his identity secret. While this is going on The Doctor tries to find the details of Harmony Shoals' plans and with the help of The Ghost thwart them.When I saw trailers for this special I wasn't too optimistic; it looked like an attempt to cash in on the popularity of superhero lately and the New York setting made me think the creators were just trying to attract more US viewers. It is possible that this was true but ultimately it didn't matter as the story was rather good. I liked the alien invaders; they were suitably unpleasant and were just about as scary as one could hope for in a show aimed at a family audience; the way their heads opened was delightfully disturbing. The story played with the conventions of the superhero genre in an enjoyable way; never taking itself too seriously but equally not being deliberately silly. The cast did a fine job; Peter Capaldi continues to impress as The Doctor and Matt Lucas made a surprisingly good companion in the role of Nardole… I know there will be a new female companion next year but he showed that a male companion can work. Justin Chatwin did a solid job as Grant/The Ghost and Charity Wakefield was pretty good as his love interest Lucy. Tomiwa Edun and Aleksandar Jovanovic also impress as the story's villains. Overall this was a really solid episode which thankfully didn't overdo the fact that it is a Christmas special.

Its Christmas time again, thus we are treated to our first Doctor who episode in an entire year and... well... the word dull comes to mind. First things first this was supposed to be a Christmas story, think back to the 'Christmas invasion' where the Earth was saved by a satsuma and ended with a charming scene of the Doctor opening presents and pulling crackers or a Moffat era story like 'The snowmen' maybe not the most Christmassy episode ever but it was set at Christmas time with a Christmas themed villain, now look at this years special, which bar an opening scene had little to nothing to do with the actual holiday. The theme was "super heroes" the genre I'm sure we all associate with the winter season and not, you know, like the summer when all the major superhero movies come out. That's not exactly a bad thing and I wouldn't hold this against the show if the story was good but I'm a huge superhero fan and I've read, watched and played stories so much better than this. The show felt like a golden age comic come to life with all the nonsense plot points, technobabble and leaps in logic that were products of a shoe string budget and a system were the art was drawn before the story was written. Doctor who does not have these excuses yet still comes off like babies first Superman story. The Doctor takes a back seat in his own special only appearing to act like the whimsical madman with no room for character development, this is, I'm afraid the legacy the Moffat will leave for his era of Doctor who, the earl of Deus ex machina who only exists as a plot device to move the plot forward, never breaking for character development. This episode spends far too much time with characters who are really bland, the point of Clark Kent is that he's dull and mild mannered to contrast with the Superman persona yet so why does the show stick us with the Ghost, a character whose boring and underdeveloped with powers never defined so I never get the sense anyone is in danger because much like Sup's in the 90's Ghost could just pull out a new power from anywhere and snap his fingers till the bad guys poof away. The episode climaxes with the Ghost catching a falling space ship but we're never shown the limits of his strength so the character never seems like he's in any danger. Sadly the show takes one to many directions from the 90's when it comes to the art style, it loses the vibrant colours that were a staple of the type of stories the episode references and tries to emulate. The episode has a gray filter hanging over it and if it wasn't for the accents the show could have taken place on a mild June night in Manchester. The bad guys are all right one part face hugger, one part Krang from TMNT with the kind of plan you'd expect from a race that can build faster than light spaceships but not exist outside of jars without help. Nardol, the character that people expected to be the downfall of this episode added a sweet bit of comic relief and made the show that little bit more bearable with some genuinely funny lines and this episode gave us the first look at the new season so watch it if you've got the time but it might be worth downing an energy drink cause the dull tone and grey filter might just send you off to sleep.

I thought the Return of Doctor Mysterio was a nice, well rounded episode. I still like the Husbands of River Song much more, but these two specials are completely different episodes with different objectives. They're both light-hearted for the most part, but Husbands focuses more on the Doctor and River's story while the Return of Doctor Mysterio just wants to be an entertaining hour of television that continues Doctor Who's tradition of having a Christmas special. What I really liked about this episode though was that it wasn't afraid to be fun. Capaldi and Nardole made a great team, and their words to Lucy and Grant at the end of the episode were probably the highlights of the episode. I do think that the best parts of this episode stemmed from the references to the Doctor and River Song's relationship and her death at the Library though. Those small, yet deeper moments really made this episode for me, and it's nice to see Capaldi's Doctor develop a bit more and show that he really is attached to those who travel with him and to see that Nardole has different sides to his character. While I wasn't a huge fan of director Ed Bazalgette's episodes in series 9, I liked how he made this episode feel like a comic book and how there was such a long pre-credits sequence. I think he did a great job directing this episode. The writing seemed a bit weaker in this episode than usual: the Doctor's "Plan B" seemed rushed and was a bit hard to follow in the moment, and there were a few lines here and there that felt unnecessary. Aside from that, Grant and Lucy were good characters and it would be cool for them to come back in the future of the show. The actors who portrayed them were good and the Doctor has obviously impacted their lives in a big way. The villains weren't really threatening though and to be honest I'm not that excited to hear that Osgood might be coming back. I hope that the cliffhanger with the brain aliens is developed a bit more next series though.Overall, I think that the Return of Doctor Mysterio was a nice episode. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was funny, adventurous, well acted and directed, Matt Lucas and Peter Capaldi were great, and it had a pretty nice ending as well.