Steven Moffat: 5 Reasons To Love Him and 5 Reasons To Hate Him

...and 5 Reasons To Hate Him.

5. Christmas Specials (Doctor Who)

In fairness, this is less of a definite cause to criticize him and more of a pet peeve, though I am aware that a lot of other people prefer the Davies yuletide installments to the ones Moffat's been coming out with. That said, these really just seemed to me like excuses to bring in a bunch of guest stars and parody children's stories, and while these parodies never play out exactly like their bases it still shows a definite lack of creativity... or possibly a surplus of it that I'm just not tuned in to. Maybe I'm thick, I don't know. But compare the tension and grit of 'A Christmas Invasion' to 'The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe', and you'll see where I'm coming from.

On the other hand, they're not necessarily bad, they're just a tiny bit weaker and a tiny bit more forgettable than their predecessors and rely far too heavily on their guest stars. Don't get me wrong, these guests can actually be their saving grace, particularly in the case of Michael Gambon, or even Claire Skinner in places.

I think the main problem with these new specials is they just don't leave much of an impact. Sure, the Gambon/Jenkins love story was quite touching and the idea of the forest planet being destroyed by pollutants gave us a lot to think about, but they won't stay with us forever unlike some of the other emotional Who-stories. The war-dead father coming back to life at the end of the 2011 special I'll forgive as, after all, it WAS Christmas and we DO want to see a happy ending.

I apologize if I've criticized anybody's favourite episode here, but this one's just a personal nitpick. The rest will be more general.

(Liked 'A Christmas Carol' or 'The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe'? Let me know! That's what comment boxes are for.)