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With the Time Lords waiting behind the ever-present crack in the wall - and all of the big baddies from the Whonerverse drawn in by the signal passing through a quaint little town called Christmas - the episode builds itself up to a major blowout that never occurs. Perhaps the most criticized of all Doctor Who Christmas specials, but not bad enough that I can knock it all the way down to the bottom rung. Nineteenth-century Clara is a brave, self-assured companion, even though her death is used to create the deus ex machina that resolves the episode’s conflict.
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(A snowman who talks back to a lonely child? Let’s go for it! A mean, dead nanny frozen in the pond? Sign me up! But once these villains appear, they do little to present themselves as believable threats.) The lone saving grace is Jenna Coleman, who makes her second appearance in the series as barmaid/governess Clara - a wittier, more likable version of the character who would become the next companion. It certainly doesn’t help that the episode promises a much more engaging antagonist than it delivers. Taking place after the Doctor loses his companions Amy and Rory, “The Snowmen” features a markedly downtrodden Doctor - a tone shift that Matt Smith, for all his vibrant energy and kinetic charm, can’t quite pull off. Grant and Ian McKellen’s voice would rank higher, but alas, this episode about sentient killer snow is mediocre at best. One would think that an episode featuring the likes of Richard E. In an episode marked by middling dramatic action and a dearth of whip-smart dialogue, the appearance of the Master feels lazy and unearned, especially after the character’s last two momentous arcs, as played with delicious mania by John Simms and Michelle Gomez.
The twists, too, feel predictable, right down to the double-cross of the Doctor’s old spy buddy O (Sacha Dhawan), who is revealed to be the Doctor’s old nemesis the Master. The baddies - the alien spies - are too amorphous to feel particularly threatening, and their human targets seem too specific to give a sense of any high stakes.
It’s far from the first time the show has played with genre tropes, but for all the playfulness that the episode title’s punnery suggests, “Spyfall” itself doesn’t sport enough fun, intrigue, or originality. Spy: Doctor Who Edition, and its characters jump in with James Bond-style cosplay. The episode announces from the get-go that we’re in for an hour of Spy vs.
All over the world, undetectable aliens are attacking spies, and so the TARDIS team is on the case. While preparing to depart on another adventure, the Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham are kidnapped by a bunch of suits and taken to MI6 headquarters, where - surprise! - Stephen Fry is the head honcho and needs their help. It’s a shame, though, because “Spyfall” is utterly conventional, nondescript at best and dull at worst, in the way it picks up where we last left off. The second Doctor Who holiday special to not run on Christmas Day (after 2019’s “Resolution”), “Spyfall” dispenses with the show’s usual holiday themes for a straightforward dive into the new season.
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Between its sky full of fish and its magical singing love interests, “A Christmas Carol” is marked by nonsensical diversions in a story that doesn’t stand on its own. Why does the Doctor decide that his best plan of action is to literally change a man’s personality? Isn’t it bad to manipulate someone’s life? Didn’t we already learn how crossing one’s own timeline can be disastrous? For a show about a time-traveling alien and his human companions skipping through the universe and saving the day, we also get little of our protagonists, and the characters who are pushed into the spotlight - Kazran Sardick and his icebox sweetheart Abigail - aren’t nearly interesting enough to act as worthy substitutes. It’s a transparent attempt to adopt the plot of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol - indeed, even Matt Smith’s Doctor says it - but the episode’s logic and execution are both off-target. Following the trash fire that was the Pandorica arc, “A Christmas Carol” tells the story of a doomed spaceship and the rich miser who could save the day but refuses to do any such thing.