Doctor Who: “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” Review (2016 Christmas Special)

I’ll open this with an analogy about how I felt about this year’s Christmas special.

“The Return of Doctor Mysterio” was like attending a long-expected party. When you get there, you’re expecting awesome stuff, and you enter to find there is indeed some fun stuff going on, but the only real enthusiasm is a guy blowing one of those party horns over and over again.

That’s “The Return of Doctor Mysterio.”

The special opens with Grant, a boy living in New York who, after encountering the Doctor on Christmas night and accidentally swallowing a special gemstone, gains Superman-like superpowers. Years later, the now grown-up Grant and the Doctor must work together to stop an alien plot to take over the bodies of the leaders of the world.

My favourite part of the special was the friendship between the Doctor and Grant, both when the latter’s a child and when he’s an adult. There’s a real warmth there, and Peter Capaldi and Justin Chatwin make a good pair. There was something whimsical about their first meeting and the Doctor popping up throughout Grant’s life to check up on him. I enjoyed Grant so much, more than I thought, that I definitely wouldn’t complain if the Ghost returned in the future.

The superhero theme was another aspect I liked more than I thought I would. Whether it was the loving references and parallels to Superman, the little easter eggs hidden here and there, or the fact that New York was shot and lit in a way that reminded me of Gotham City in the 1989 Batman, it was all a lot of fun.

The first…15 minutes are great. It’s after that that things reach a lull. The rest of the special is…uninteresting. I blame it on how the focus is split between Grant and Lucy’s date and the Doctor and Nardole’s spaceship investigation. They just kind of meander between the two, and when we get to the climax, and the alien plot is revealed, it’s simply not exciting. For a superhero story, it seems rather complacent to just focus on a date.

As for the monsters, I liked how Moffat reused the half-face aliens from “The Husbands of River Song,” and it looks as though their time in the spotlight isn’t quite over. However, their plot went from being pretty cryptic and interesting to boring and generic. When the Doctor played his trump card on Sim and Brock, there wasn’t that feel of victory or relief that I usually get when the Doctor emerges victorious.

Speaking of “The Husbands of River Song,” this episode ties into last year’s special really nicely. It turns out that the Doctor did indeed spend 24 years on Darillium with River, and he’s still reeling from having to finally say goodbye to her. It seems as though he’s in need of a new companion…

So, to wrap things up, “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” was a fun way to spend Christmas night, and it’s fantastic to have Doctor Who back again, but it was a big disappointment at the same time. Not terrible, but it’s far from being among the best of Who’s Christmas specials.

Rating: 6.6/10 intruder snacks

And hey, it’s the first Series 10 trailer! From what we’ve seen, I think I’m going to really like Bill.

 

Noah