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Naturally, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark… or, Victorian London, and it’s a variation on clockwork droids, but looking rather different than before, this time led by the Half-Face Man (Peter Ferdinando), although from his voice, I thought it was Philip Glenister at first.
And this time, the Doctor declares himself as being over 2,000 years old. At first, I wondered when did he get so much older, since David Tennant declared his Doctor to be 904 years old, adding a year on for each series, and then Matt Smith’s Doctor was no more than 1200… for most of the time, but then he did spend an awful long time getting old in the 2013 Christmas episode.
Finally, yes, Matt Smith is back! Well, for about 2 minutes. It’s a wonderful almost-ending to this episode.
Capaldi and Coleman have got great chemistry from the off, so we have a wonderful series and Christmas special to look forward to. Well, there’s always the occasional duff episode to trawl through. He’s also given some great one-liners:
- On his eyebrows: “They’re independently cross… You could take bottletops off with these!”
And because he’s Scottish: “I can complain about things!”
Really? I’m not Scottish and I can complain for the whole of Britain!
Oh, and when the T-Rex screams very loudly: “Oi! Big man, shut it!”
Go to page 3 for a stack of screenshots and more thoughts on this episode, including comparisons to the rough cut.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.