Doctor Who - 'Twice Upon a Time'

"A life this long – do you understand what it is? It’s a battlefield, like this one… and it’s empty. Because everyone else has fallen."

This review will contain spoilers

The Doctor has fall, which means that it is time to rise again. But what if it isn't? What if this time it's the end?

In the frozen landscape of the Antarctic, the Doctor comes face to face with his past, and with his future. Time stands still - literally - and a dead man walking enters the field. What is the Testament? Is that really Bill Potts? Could it be time for a Dalek to do something productive? And is the universe finally big enough and old enough to look after itself?

The Good

Once more, the show displays the grasp of who (if you will) the Doctor is that has been eluding it since the regeneration into Capaldi.

David Bradley is a superb First Doctor, complete with horrendously outdated attitudes and pre-heroic grumpiness.

Both Bradley and Capaldi get a more dignified sort of end than Tennant ever did, even if Twelve does manage to wreck the TARDIS up as badly as Ten did during his Regeneration.

I love the fact that the villains turn out to be anything but, and also the fact that they didn't resurrect Bill.

The Bad

I know it was Twelve who wrecked the TARDIS, but you just know people are having a field day with the Thirteenth Doctor starting her innings by crashing the vehicle (like no Doctor every did that before(1).)

Oh, yay; it's Clara. I mean, not actual Clara, but now I have to remember that she's still out there, Mary Suing her way around the cosmos.

I wasn't convinced by Ben and Polly.

The Ugly

Nothing to report.

"Oh, brilliant!"

Theorising

Okay, so Thirteen seems to be starting the same way Eleven did, with a crash and presumably a period of recovery. I look forward to seeing how she handles whatever the world below has to throw at her.

Top Quotes

First Doctor: Well. I assumed, I'd get... younger.

Twelfth Doctor: I am younger!

"Technically, that is your TARDIS. It’s about 70 feet that way, see? Always remember where you parked, it’s going to come up a lot." - The Twelfth Doctor

First Doctor: What’s so important about one captain?

Twelfth Doctor: Everybody’s important to somebody, somewhere.

First Doctor: You’ve saved him!

Twelfth Doctor: Both of them. Never hurts – a couple fewer dead people on the battlefield.

First Doctor: So that’s what it means to be a doctor of war.

Twelfth Doctor: You were right, you know. The universe generally fails to be a fairy tale… but that’s where we come in!

"Don’t die. Because if you do, I think everybody in the universe might just go cold." - Nardole

"Oh, brilliant!" - The Thirteenth Doctor

Verdict

Yep; I'll take this. The interplay between Bradley and Capaldi is perfect, and I have far more respect for these two Doctors' determination not to regenerate than I did for the Tenth Doctor's.

I wish this was a longer review, but it's been almost a fortnight. Christmas turns out to be a busy time with a family.

Rating - 8/10

(1) Three began by being dropped on Earth with a TARDIS that didn't work at all. Five's innings began with jettisoning most of the interior dimensions, including the critical Zero Room. Seven was dragged out of the TARDIS unconscious by the Rani's Tetraps. The War Doctor Regenerated after crashing on Karn. Ten wrecked the TARDIS for Eleven pretty much exactly as Twelve did for Thirteen. And that's ignoring intra-Regeneration crashes.