With a year hiatus Doctor Who came back on Christmas Day for the annual Christmas Special. This one was titled "The Return of Doctor Mysterio." In which we watch The Doctor, a companion and, a superhero save Earth from an alien takeover plot. Season 10 proper is due to release in Spring 2017.

I opted to avoid the Whoniverse topic for 2015-2016 since, outside of the special, we didn't have any Doctor Who episodes. With the Special so close to the release of Season 10, it made sense to just lump the special into Season 10s topic.

So, let's discuss!

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I felt that this was a really good episode. The story was great even if it felt a bit cheesy and poorly executed. Which is a bit contradictory but there was a clear threat and rather than the typical "That's been the plan all along" Peter Capaldi Doctor we actually see him panic and make up new plans when things change. I've seen this Doctor as a very all-knowing being and a lot of times it's made the episodes and solutions seem unimportant. Like the Doctor was stringing along the enemies for an hour just for fun. This episode was not like that all.

I hope this continues throughout Season 10 and that some of the characters we see in this episode - both good and bad - persist into the season as well. Without leaving too much for spoilers so early, the bald guy was really an interesting addition and the corporation was a really interesting spin. I hope to see Missy align herself with them and more involvement from UNIT.

I have great hopes for S10 after watching this first episode. Y'all should watch it.

I felt like Episode 2 was pretty scary. Not like scary movie scary but I was pleasantly surprised by the elements in the show. Still have high hopes about the rest of the season!

I was also pleasantly surprised by 10x02. I thought that the emojibots were going to be outright pandering to milllenials, and that was not the case. I also continue to appreciate the character development with Bill, and the presumably series-long arc about the vault and its contents. On the other hand, the resolution of the plot struck me as both lame and also a little ham-handed: the Doctor implied that the robots were a new, sentient race right before he wiped out all their emergent programming that I assumed would this be part of their racial identity.

I wasn't really paying attention when that happened but it sounds like he wiped their recent memory. The bots still recognized the city as theirs but had no idea who the humans are or why they were here.

I just rewatched this bit, and yeah. He reset their memories. The Emojibots, sorry the Vardi, have no recollection of who made made them and that they were sent ahead to found and build this city. They forgot about the humans entirely, they forgot that they (The Vardi) killed humans in the first place. So, it sounds like he turned them from a vengeful robot following commands to a sentient species capable of compromise and decisions. As Capaldi said, "I turned them off and back on again."

Tifreak, I think you're trying to find something to hate with this season which is preventing you from enjoying it. Ep5 was incredible. They set up a world that was believable it all felt so compelling. There were a few places where I was like "Really?" but was later explained or something with the classic witty Doctor explanation.

That said, I'm interested to see where Ep6 takes us, given the Doctors current predicament.

I really wish the Monks took a few episodes to defeat. I'm glad they were around for more than an episode or two but I wish the Doctor and Bill had a few minor problems to overcome before this episode. Can't wait to see what's next.

Tifreak didn't post anything on this thread?

I had not, it was probably in reference to skype messages and his provoking me to reply here. :p

Honestly, up until the Monks, I found the season completely without energy or enjoyment. You could see that Peter is just forcing himself to be the Doctor, instead of enjoying being the Doctor.

I've not really enjoyed the character Bill, it just feels like they are trying too hard with the whole 'here's a gay character, see how gay she is?' feeling, and it just really needed to take a back seat to it. We already had our awesome gay character (well, he'd love on anything that moved, but still haha) and this kind of 'in your faceness' that went on was just a turn off. :/ I am glad that's pulled back, now. We've had the monks, and we got our crazy Ice Warrior 'villains' in the last episode.

Nardole, on the other hand, amuses me like no other. Any time he's in a scene, it's pretty much a sure thing you'll be laughing at something he's about to do or fail at doing.

During one of the monk episodes, we see the Doctor fake a regeneration for the sake of testing Bill. What if this is actually evidence of a deeper issue? We saw in Oxygen where he lost his eye sight due to being exposed to space. What if he actually died, and he's doing everything in his power right now to hold back his regeneration? We saw the 10th doctor do it, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. The reason I'm thinking this (as it was also suggested on facebook) was the look Missy gave him and the genuine look of concern on her face with asking him if he's alright.

Thoughts or counter points?

I feel the opposite. They aren't overtly showing this off, they're clearly showing that Bill has a life outside of the Doctor and that the events of the show just happen to interfere with her life. It's an incredibly clever way to get the audience to connect with her character without actually exploring her arc and personal life.

I find the way Bill is written to be phenomenal, she is a selfless person who makes rash decisions.



Sure, I suppose. She always seemed to be able to read the Doctor really well. But... here she is out of the room the Doctor held her in. She could be concerned about what he'll do or something else. It's plausible but I don't think that theory is accurate. Hopefully we'll find out in this next episode has the two of them will surely have a conversation that will foreshadow the end of the season.

Holy wow. Massive spoilers. But S10 is getting really good. If you haven't watched it yet and are reading expecting some light spoilers. Go away. I will NOT be holding back.

I had a suspicion about that but never expected it to turn out like this. I had suspected Missy was the Master because she was evil. Ya know, hiding Cybermen in a tank of water and destroying worlds. I think that was even discussed in a topic for Season 8 or 9. Even in S10 when we got a glimpse of the Doctor condemning Missy into a cage for all eternity, something only a Timelord could do. So, we knew she had some pretty significant offenses to her name.

Pieces fell into place when the Doctor was describing to Bill about how he grew up with Missy, and that he may have known her as a man at some point. In my mind, that cemented the fact that Missy WAS the Master at some point in the timeline. Yeah, well...

When Bill was shot by the Blue man and the masked gown guys got off the elevator it gave me serious Cyberman vibes. I was like "Holy poop!" They're back! But then I was disappointed. I also remembered that Cybermen were able to cupgrade any species (I think?) to Cybermen so it didn't make sense as to why they'd come for only the human once I realized that. And then, the 400 mile long space ship. I think they answered time dilation incredibly well. Again, the world building for this season has been phenomenal. It was a great way to pass the time and show the relationship Bill formed with that one guy. We saw her start to work around the hospital and even venture outside. All in a few seconds of the time at the top of the ship. Even when he was describing how the people needed to be stronger to venture up. It was still giving me Cyberman vibes which was reinforced with the voice boxes al the hospital gown people had, constantly asking for death or yelling in pain.

Then the bombshells. Once I saw the "hat" I knew they were Cybermen, just in the early stage of development. Once they showed the emotion suppressor I knew even more. I couldn't even. Then bombshell number 2. The fact that the dude who befriended Bill was actually the Master I didn't know what to think. How? What? And I guess Missy felt right at home because she took his side.

I'm incredibly excited to the watch the last episode and can't wait for Season 11. I'm so glad the Doctor has a larger enemy to battle again. No more single episode battles - I mean, they'll still exist but the larger fight will be across an entire season or longer. I hope. I really hope they don't wrap this up in the next episode or in the Christmas Special. I want this to launch us into Season 11 so bad.

edit: Apparently this wasn't as big of a surprise for some folks, I guess primarily because they watch the next episode previews at the end of shows. Why do you guys do that to yourself? Seriously.



That's exactly why this episode had a huge impact on me. I didn't watch the trailers at the end of the episodes all season. I don't follow DW on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc for the same reason. This episode was amazing.

For whatever reason I just hadn't gotten myself motivated to watch the 2017 Christmas Special until this afternoon. A few hot takes: I enjoyed it surprisingly much. Spoilers follow, obviously.

I liked the twist that not all of the "enemies" the Doctor meets are actually evil (most notably the Testimony Foundation, but I guess also including the "good" Dalek). I absolutely LOVED all the callbacks to the musical themes from Tennant's years (the haunting vocals from Rose's Theme and the S2 Doctor's Theme, if I'm remembering correctly). It was nice to see some closure with Clara and Twelve even if I didn't love their chemistry, and the full circle with the first Doctor was handled well, I thought. The regeneration was nice, even if the speech ostensibly to the next Doctor seemed like a pretty transparent sermon to the audience, and we were left on a predictably insurmountable cliffhanger in which the TARDIS is being destroyed and the Doctor is falling to [s]his[/s] her death. On the negative side, the fact that the Captain was a Leftbridge-Stewart couldn't have been telegraphed more obviously, and I actually rewound thinking I missed something when they glossed over Twelve getting his TARDIS back from Testimony. Overall, pleasant, enjoyable, and nostalgic, if not ground-breaking.

How about you all?

I loved how they managed to not only bring back the first doctor, but they integrated the old footage in along side him. Wasn't particularly happy to see Bill back, but she didn't really grate on my nerves in this episode, so that was a plus. The Clara closure had my laughing, especially when she said it was offensive he had forgotten her (since it was her doing, seems ironic, and how does he get his memories of her back, that was never really explained, was it..?)

When the Doctor said he was the one taking the officer back to the battle field, I knew he cheated by changing the point, and had even correctly guessed they would use the real life event where the fighting had stopped and people just celebrated christmas.

I have to say that ending, though.. I feel as if the TARDIS has rejected the new Doctor. Not only was it blowing up (which didn't happen until she pressed a button, mind you) but it completely evicted her from the ship at a high altitude, and began to fly through time (where it disappeared). Going to guess the Doctor will be stuck without the trusty ship for a while, perhaps until it can be won over with the new regeneration?

To be honest, I found the whole end of the Clara storyline to be sufficiently forgettable that I forgot he was made to forget Clara. Also, what about the fact that Clara's still flying around space and time in a diner TARDIS? That's still a thing, right?

I'm impressed with your powers of deduction; I didn't predict that at all.

In isolation, I'd say that analysis makes a great deal of sense. In context, though, we saw pretty much the exact same thing with the beginning of Eleven: explosions and fire in the TARDIS, catastrophic internal damage, crash-landing, and an episode to resolve him eventually being able to get back into the TARDIS (and in the process meeting Amy). I suspect we're getting set up for pretty much the same thing, albeit with one additional layer of drama added on top with her falling.