Twas the Night Before...

[jjpor]

Well, hopefully the Great Pumpkin (assuming I'm not wildly mixing up festive occasions) will bring us all what we want tomorrow. Me, I want Moffat being like egregiously Moffat-y, but I suspect in the event he will tone it down a bit for crimbo.

I haven't watched The War Games in Colour yet, not for any particular reason. I may check it out in conjunction with the special tomorrow. That sounds like a plan, in fact.

EDIT: I meant to say, I am going to watch the no doubt very Gatiss-y A Ghost Story for Christmas on BBC Two tonight. That's become a bit of a Christmas Eve tradition for me over the last couple of years, even if they always go for exactly the same "twist" ending every time. :D Knowing the story this year's is based on quite well, I can already imagine exactly how the ending is going to be handled. Who knows, though, maybe I'll be wrong!

EDIT 2: I was wrong! A surprisingly restrained affair compared to past years. Very good, though.

Apart from that, I just want to extend the best wishes of the season to anyone who might be reading this, however you may or may not be celebrating. The world isn't a great place at the moment in lots of ways, it is fair to say, but I think you need to take whatever comfort and joy you can possibly get. All the best. <3

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, best wishes back to you! I enjoyed the special overall - it was pretty Moffat-y, I think we can say that. ;-)

I am curious about The War Games in colour but do not think I am quite up for watching it, so you will have to tell me what it was like.

Glad to hear Mark Gatiss managed to surprise you in a good way with this year's Ghost Story.

[jjpor]

Thank you - hope you have had a good one too :)

I was wrong again - Moffat didn't really tone it down for crimbo, did he? I find it bracing, to be honest, how little he seems to care about reining in his opinions and preoccupations (compare and contrast with Chibnall, who seemed to think having anything other than the safest and most obvious opinions on anything at all was out of order). And at times expresses them in ways that are beautiful and clever and make you go "ahh!", and at other times gets a bit crass, e.g. Cyber-Brig etc. And I think there was a bit of both in this one. Absolutely great to see a bit of naked politics expressed re wine fridges etc, even if there were unfortunate implications to the idea of obeying rules being for chumps, considering. And I don't think that was the point Moffat was trying to make, but I could also see how some have interpreted it that way. Assuming they're not interpreting it that way in bad faith in order to have an excuse to be Outraged on the Internet, that is. I love Gatwa's swagger and charisma in the part, and thought all the guest stars were great. The whole bit with the Doctor staying at the hotel for a year could have been an entire story, and maybe should have been. Loved the cheekiness of his bootstrapping his way out of a crisis by just telling his past self the password he remembered hearing from his future self. :D Not sure entirely how the ending worked, though - it seemed a bit too similar to the plot resolution in Boom! to be honest. Although it did give me Feelings, which I guess was the desired effect. Liked using the rope, train etc to pull the stone block out. Laughed at Sylvia Trench in the end credits. Groaned a bit at Bethlehem, though (even though I was expecting it as soon as I saw the star shining in the sky :D)

Still haven't watched The Colourful War Games myself, although have been amused/baffled by some of the angry Discourse about some of the choices it's made. Said choices being the kind of thing that makes me think of this and the Daleks one as just being particularly well-funded fan projects rather than, like, Proper. Poor creative impulse control, maybe. I will watch it, though, at some point in the near future and maybe get angry too. Or not. Angry seems like a lot of effort, to be honest.

Well, the normal format of these things is that in the end of the story, our protagonist thinks they have survived whatever supernatural menace they have brushed shoulders with...and then, as they turn around, a Wild Special Effect appears and eats them, or something. And I now realise that Gatiss was playing the long game, so that when they did adapt a story that particularly lends itself to that approach the twist would be not to go down that route. Or I could be reading too much into it. XD

[thisbluespirit]

And at times expresses them in ways that are beautiful and clever and make you go "ahh!", and at other times gets a bit crass, e.g. Cyber-Brig etc. And I think there was a bit of both in this one.

Yes, I think that's fair!

The whole bit with the Doctor staying at the hotel for a year could have been an entire story, and maybe should have been.

It was the best bit, I think everyone's agreed on that!

And I cringed too at the Star business, but then also realised that apparently I have been waiting warily for a DW Christmas ep to inevitably do something tacky like that for nearly 25 years and was, on reflection, relieved that they had got it out of their system relatively painlessly at last!

I can't quite bring myself to watch the colourised versions, not really in any spirit of disapproval, it just feels to weird for me when I know the originals. Even if I totally would be willing to trim down The Daleks, heh.