
The Snowmen
There's one Christmas activity that families across the land can all agree on, regardless of age or religious beliefs, and that's watching the latest Christmas episode of Doctor Who.
This year's was a cracker (pun, as always, intended). Sure the pacing was off, Richard E. Grant and Sir Ian Mckellen were hideously underused and some of the CGI wasn't as good as it could have been. But it was a magical fairytale of an adventure, featuring a new monster that will terrify children for years to come and the return of a little-remembered classic series villain. The Great Intelligence, a disembodied Elder God who, to the best of my recollection last featured in a Patrick Troughton story where it tried taking over the London Underground - making this a prequel to that story. Best of all the new credits feature the Doctor's face, the lack of which has disappointed me since the 2005 revival.
This year's was a cracker (pun, as always, intended). Sure the pacing was off, Richard E. Grant and Sir Ian Mckellen were hideously underused and some of the CGI wasn't as good as it could have been. But it was a magical fairytale of an adventure, featuring a new monster that will terrify children for years to come and the return of a little-remembered classic series villain. The Great Intelligence, a disembodied Elder God who, to the best of my recollection last featured in a Patrick Troughton story where it tried taking over the London Underground - making this a prequel to that story. Best of all the new credits feature the Doctor's face, the lack of which has disappointed me since the 2005 revival.