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To its credit, Doctor Who played a relatively subtle hand for a Christmas Day blockbuster

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2011-12-31 Times.jpg

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  • Publication: The Times
  • Date: 2011-12-31
  • Author: Caitlin Moran
  • Page: Saturday Review, p. 10
  • Language: English

To its credit, Doctor Who played a relatively subtle hand for a Christmas Day blockbuster. Yes, it started with the Doctor escaping a spaceship noisily exploding above the Earth. And, yes, it then went on to merge the plots of Avatar, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Lord of the Rings in a manner one could scarcely describe as "low-key". We were in a perpetually snowy land, where the trees radiated an energy that was about to be exploited by intergalactic industrialists, causing the trees to panic, come alive, and fight back. And, yes, this involved the trees reproducing by growing baubles and wreathing themselves in trillions of stars. But underneath all the festive extravaganza, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe had a couple of quieter things to say. The love so great it brought someone back from the dead will have had anyone over the age of 12 wiping their eyes with the bobble of their Santa hat. The sequence where the Doctor showed us his notion of interior decor (a lemonade tap, motorised chairs, a 16ft Christmas tree and kids' bedroom kilted out with "rubber walls, Dream Tank, a window disguised as a mirror and the Magna Carta") was like the best episode of Grand Designs ever. But the main thrust of the story was how great mothers are. Only a mother (played by Claire Skinner) was able to save a whole planet-full of trees, by storing them all in her head ("How does all life travel? In the mothership!" the Doctor yelped. as she downloaded six billion trees into her brain). Essentially, the Christmas Day Doctor Who was a love letter to every watching mum. A nation whose womenfolk were. by that point, slicked in turkey fat, sweating pure stuffing, and aware that it was only swiping Nari's "leg pills" earlier that was keeping them from outright insanity, felt a quick sugar rush of self-esteem. Yeah. We are the mothership. We're the fricking Enterprise, dude. We're boldly going where no man has gone before (the cupboard under the sink, where we hid all the Disaronno from Grandad.)

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  • APA 6th ed.: Moran, Caitlin (2011-12-31). To its credit, Doctor Who played a relatively subtle hand for a Christmas Day blockbuster. The Times p. Saturday Review, p. 10.
  • MLA 7th ed.: Moran, Caitlin. "To its credit, Doctor Who played a relatively subtle hand for a Christmas Day blockbuster." The Times [add city] 2011-12-31, Saturday Review, p. 10. Print.
  • Chicago 15th ed.: Moran, Caitlin. "To its credit, Doctor Who played a relatively subtle hand for a Christmas Day blockbuster." The Times, edition, sec., 2011-12-31
  • Turabian: Moran, Caitlin. "To its credit, Doctor Who played a relatively subtle hand for a Christmas Day blockbuster." The Times, 2011-12-31, section, Saturday Review, p. 10 edition.
  • Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=To its credit, Doctor Who played a relatively subtle hand for a Christmas Day blockbuster | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/To_its_credit,_Doctor_Who_played_a_relatively_subtle_hand_for_a_Christmas_Day_blockbuster | work=The Times | pages=Saturday Review, p. 10 | date=2011-12-31 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=29 March 2024 }}</ref>
  • Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=To its credit, Doctor Who played a relatively subtle hand for a Christmas Day blockbuster | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/To_its_credit,_Doctor_Who_played_a_relatively_subtle_hand_for_a_Christmas_Day_blockbuster | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=29 March 2024}}</ref>