Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time (2017)

Redundant and unnecessary.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Capaldi was a 10. He was brilliant, as always, as the Doctor. Everything else - crap.The portrayal of the First Doctor had nothing but the look. It was an empty shell as the actor captured few of Hartnell's mannerisms, and the character served no purpose other than to highlight the reimagined morality of Doctor Who.In this, Doctor 1 is a sexist fool. They prove it by having him treat Horse Faced Biww like he treated his granddaughter. Not that it's sexist to treat a granddaughter like a child. The writers made sure we knew Doc 1 was a cad by having Capaldi's doc express horror at Doc 1's attitude towards Biww.Anyone who saw any of the Doc 1 episodes know the reimagining of him as a sexist fool who hasn't yet developed a passion for helping people is ridiculous. Doc 1 often insisted on helping people when others wanted to get back in the TARDIS to leave. But in SJW reimaginings, everything from the past is wrong and bad.Speaking of Biww, this episode included an obligatory "Biiww declares she's gay" scene. It also had lots of the actresses horrid acting - she uses the same horrified face to show fear, love, sadness, any emotion.The overall message is everything is relative, so if we'd just stop fightiong the world would be like a fairy tale. That ignores that fairy tales are most often good vs evil rather than moral relativity/ There is evil in the real world, and Doctor Who used to have a message of fighting that evil. If the cause is good, fighting doesn't corrupt the fighter.But now the "War Doctor" is only about peace.Tell that to the people liberated from concentration camps and to people saved from Hitler's tyranny. It was people with guns, fighting and doing violence for good,. who made WW2 end up like a fairy tale - evil vanquished, good people saved.But in reiimagined Who where gender is backwards, so the Doctor has to be a woman; it's so great that Biww is gay that she has to declare it every episode; and there are generally no protagonists the only good is in recognizing that everyone is the same - there is no evil, it's all relative.Evil works hard to make people think that. Doctor Who has gone from being a fairy tale full of good overcoming evil to a nightmare of SJW, leftist drivel.One more thing - the companion who saved every Doctor in every story, who's more important than the Doctor, Clara is back in a short cameo at the end. She utters some nonsense about being insulted that the Doctor forgot her, even though it was her who made him forget.TL/DRDoctor Who has been reimagined into leftist, unwatchable garbage.

The usual fun. The usual amazing acting from Capaldi. The main issue was that it was trying so HARD not to be discrimate towards women. It was so cringey and in your face. I don't see me liking the new direction with a female doctor. It just don't feel right. I will certainly give it a chance but who knows. All in all a solid episode but kind of a nothing episode as it was all rather meaningless....?

Twice upon a Time is the title of this episode, which sees a nice bit of casting by drawing David Bradley from the depiction of the actor William Hartnell, to here play the character he was most famous for (while Bradley himself is more famous for Game of Thrones now). This is one of the many positive things that this special held out; a final outing for Capaldi, a final appearance for Mackie (somehow), and a regeneration into a new Doctor. Lots on offer, so it is frustrating that it doesn't really hit many high notes as it goes.The plot sees time frozen, but it is the tone that seems the most awkwardly stuck between two stools. It knows it has to be 'important' but at the same time it also kind of knows that it should be entertaining too. Any time it tries to do one, it seems overly conscious not to move too far from the other; the end result is something that is very middle-of-the-road and lacks conviction in what it is doing. Capaldi deserves a stronger bow out than this; he gets his moment on screen but the episode itself doesn't build up as well as previous exits have. Bradley's Doctor isn't used particularly well at all; there is a novelty of seeing him but mostly his character is not great - which is a fairly poor situation if you are going to bring the original Doctor back. As a story there isn't really a pace to it, and I didn't find myself held by it as it unfolded. Returns and references for many characters just felt like they were throwing things at the screen, not that the story made sense to have them all.This weakness meant the more important moments felt fake, or at very least unearned. The use of the WWI setting and famous moment is corny, the references/connections to other characters are clunky as usual, but what bothered me more was the way that themes were not delivered on as they could have been. More could have been made of the two Doctors being there - more could have been done to engage that reflective tone, and to bring it round to be a conclusion and decision to start afresh. At times it seems to be looking for this, but the show doesn't have the determination to go for it.

I had seen the trailers and certain online spoilers for this episode and waited with eager anticipation. I finally sat down to watch and man did it live up to the hype. I agree that it was a tiny bit slow in parts but the nostalgia aspect maintained the episode's watchability. Parts of this story were set along the Western front during WW1, 1914... at Christmas time - so if you know your history, you will notice some foreshadowing for the upcoming narrative. Everyone knew, myself included, how the story would end (Unless you have been living under a rock... on Gallifrey!) but it was still nonetheless captivating and goosebump-inducing to witness. Peter Capaldi's Doctor had really grown on me, his delivery of some really laugh-out-loud lines with expert timing endeared himself to this viewer. That said, I am very eager to see where the cliffhanger takes Jodie's incarnation of The Doctor in season 11. 8/10