Doctor Who - The Return of Doctor Mysterio

The BBC are mean. They are cruel and heartless and they smell bad. They didn't commission a Doctor Who series for 2016. Of all the years to need a Doctor Who series, 2016 is up there with 1990 for definitely needing one (but for quite different reasons). The Doctor would have saved Prince and Alan Rickman and Bowie and, and, and...

Or Moffat is mean. Maybe he was busy with Sherlock. Someone was mean and they smell bad.

Hey ho. Christmas special which makes 2016 a not entirely devoid of Doctor Who year. Yay!

Matt Lucas is back from last year's Christmas special too. Ha, they didn't ask David Walliams back for more, did they? Lucas will be fun in the Tardis but I can't help wanting him to romp around it in his onesie, banging on drums and insisting his name is George Daws.

A real life superhero, in Doctor Who? Sort of. A real life comic book superhero style boy who eats a thing he shouldn't eat and becomes the Clark Kent of the nannying world. And fancies the woman he nannies for. Well, he nannies for her baby, not for her. She can burp herself.

And the splitty head freaks also return from last year's Christmas special. Lots of references to that episode if we're honest which allows for plenty of Doctory emotion. Capaldi can leap from terrible puns to manic activity to deep-eyed sadness in a heartbeat. As regenerations go he somehow manages to channel pretty much all of his previous incarnations yet remain entirely unique.

Forget the plot, it's a Christmas special (did I mention that?) and what matters most is that the spirit of an intergalactic pantomime is invoked and some snow happens at some point. What, no snow? The BBC are mean. They are cruel and heartless and they smell bad. They didn't let Moffat include snow in the budget. Possibly. Or he forgot to ask. He's mean.

Charity Wakefield is a lot more fun than her turn as Mary Boleyn in Wolf Hall led me to believe. Justin Chatwin didn't try to sell anyone drugs like he does in Orphan Black. And Moffat clearly hates hospitals as this is the second time he's made masked medical folk in scrubs get all silent and dangerous on us (The Power of Three, in case you were wondering - actually written by Chris Chibnall who will be taking over as show runner after next year's Christmas special so the surgeons can't relax even though I've got my facts wrong.)

Between now and next year's Yuletide offering is a brand new series coming in the Spring. With a new companion in Pearl Mackie and more Matt Lucas (see that, Walliams, they really like Lucas, don't they?). And I can't wait. So I'm not going to; let me just fix this chameleon circuit first then I'll pop ahead and see what Doctor Twelve is up to with Bill from the chippy.