Every year, we get a Christmas special, it goes with all of the festivities and family time, gather round the TV and watch something cheesy. This year, the Dr. Who Christmas special was no different, full of cheese, the alien invasion plot was weak, but clearly not meant to be the main focus of the episode. But, we did start with something quite predictable, a boy, Grant, with some thick rimmed glasses and an obsession with super heros, most notably, Superman. It shouldn't have been too hard to see where this story was going, once we see the Doctor and Grant on the roof and he swallows a gemstone, it pretty much tells us, this is a super hero Christmas story!

Through the timeline of Grant, the Doctor has been following him, trying to see if the gemstone would "pass", but it never did. So the timeline we become more used to seeing is when Grant is an adult, calling his hero persona "The Ghost", spooky! We only got to see him after being introduced to some new aliens, which wasn't much of an introduction, they get a little more air time later. There is also a female reporter, much like in Superman really, she is called Lucy. In his day life, Grant is the nanny for Lucys baby, by night, a spooky super hero! Lucy loves The Ghost, Grant loves Lucy, eventually they work it out and typical Christmas story happens!

Matt Lucas was also a part of the Christmas special, playing as Nardole, from the previous Christmas special. I never know what to expect from him, to start with, his character just seemed a bit pointless, in it for a quick laugh. As the episode went on, I changed my mind, he really started to fit in well with the story and interactions with the Doctor did work very well. I would say Matt Lucas is very much like Marmite, but when it came down to it here, he played his role well.

The aliens! This is always the part I like, but got little of, they are brains that can take control of bodies. When the end comes, the invasion of Earth is thwarted, but we do see that after UNIT got involved with clearing the building, one of the soldiers has been taken over. What we have here is a Christmas episode that could lead us nicely into the new series, showing us the upcoming aliens of that series. What we also know from the sneak peak at the end is that we may well see Matt Lucas back, acting as the Doctors assistant, until he, the Doctor, finds a pretty young lady anyway. But what of The Ghost? He is a human with super powers, is he going to ever make another appearance?

Overall, the story was cheesy and predictable, I really felt that they could have focused a little more on the aliens and less time of the love between Grant and Lucy. But if you compare it to a lot of Christmas time films and specials, that level of cheesiness is just right, yet, compared to some of the past Dr. Who Christmas specials, it was bad. There's a balance to be struck and to me, this years just did not strike the right balance. That said, it wasn't awful either, it does have some nice set up for the upcoming series, which is good!

Those are my thoughts, my arbitrary score is a loaf of bread out of a fire station. What did you think of the Dr. Who Christmas Special? Are you looking forward to the new series?

If you have not yet seen the Dr. Who Christmas Special, you can view it on iPlayer in the UK - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b086tqm4/doctor-who-the-return-of-doctor-mysterio
If you would like to know about the main cast, the RadioTimes has a nice article - http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-12-25/meet-the-cast-of-the-doctor-who-christmas-special-2016

WRITTEN & EDITED BY Three of Seven - rena.hobden@ufplanets.com