The Return Of Doctor Mysterio

If there is one thing I look forward to on Christmas Day; at least after the kids have littered the house with wrapping paper and I’ve sorted out two German women threatening each other with kitchen knives following some “discussion” about goose cooking time and everyone has eaten far too much and ends up lying in front of the TV flatulently watching the Queen’s speech and someone has had to find the one petrol station open on Christmas Day because the batteries weren’t bloody included; If there is one thing I look forward to it’s the hour of escapism that is offered up by the now traditional festive episode of Doctor Who.

This year it featured “a superhero” which rather raised my heckles as I’ve really lost patience with the whole megabucks superhero movie genre. At least that appears to be how they have gone since DC and Marvel have both decided that rather than producing some escapist fantasy fun they are trying to earnestly produce a modern version of Shakespeare except with crap dialogue, endless fistfights and at least an hour’s worth of pointless explosions. I ended up watching the original Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve the other week, mainly to give the kids something to do aside from hitting each other, and I actually really loved it – possibly as much as I did when I was 10 years old (or whatever I was when it originally came out). Fortunately, it appears that it is that style of old-school superhero adventure that Doctor Who was aiming at.

I wasn’t that fussed on last year’s Christmas episode, The Husbands of River Song. It seemed to have a wafer thin plot that was really a premise to tie up a hanging plot line from some 7 years previous that can’t have been of any particular interest to the casual viewer. It also made very poor use of their guest stars, not least Matt Lucas as Nardole who was back this year. I wasn’t so sure on that choice but I actually found him to be more entertaining this year although I’m still not sure what his role is meant to be – it's almost the role suggested for Frank Skinner who I still think would have been a better choice (although maybe too like Capaldi). I’d also expected the new assistant to have been in this episode but it looks like we will have to wait until the start of the new series. This is a pity as I’d been looking forward to seeing Pearl Mackie and I really loved the one-off sidekick in Mysterio in the form of Charity Wakefield.

Anyway, as for the episode, I thought it worked really well as a throw away Christmas Day romp and it was something different: another genre for Doctor Who to do their own inimitable take on. This lead to some discussion with the kids as to whether the Doctor is actually a super-hero or not. I would say he isn’t as he solves problems with wit and intelligence rather than using supernatural powers or alien technology: except for that magic pill thing and, well, apart from the TARDIS… and the sonic screwdriver… and that psychic paper… OK, it’s a fine line. The superhero in this story was of the Doctor’s inadvertent making which still made it feel like Whovian daftness and Justin Chatwin put in a good performance as “The Ghost” - it’s nice to see him in something again since I don’t think I have actually seen him in anything since The War Of The Worlds when he was much younger.

Overall, I though The Return Of Doctor Mysterio hit the mark: it was light and funny enough for Christmas Day and it may have hooked in a new set of fans which is no bad thing considering that Doctor Who has been off our screens for a whole year now. It also did the one thing that I really miss with modern comic book adaptations: it actually had the look and feel of a comic book. Anyway, the new series trailer at the end has wet my appetite for series 36 which I am assuming will start showing around Easter time. Until then there are the DVDs to play with – did I mention just how good the Power of the Daleks animation was?