Okay, I could have sworn I had a River Song "spoilers, sweetie" banner to drop in here and protect everyone from, well, the spoilers. But I can't find it! It doesn't show up in the Board archives, and I guess it was long enough ago that I hosted it on Photobucket instead of Imgur. So we don't get that. Though this should cover the preview text. ^_^ Okay, explaining the pictures and some spoilers thoughts:

The Star Beast

The rose: the Doctor starts out panicking about hearing the name Rose, and the tail end of the episode has an imminent doom just like Beast's rose.

Glimfeather: honestly the Meep just reminded me of Glimfeather. It's the eyes and the way they both speak their sound effects. "Meep, meep."

Captain Marvel: looks like the regeneration effects Donna pulls out, but also, this is Binary Star Cap. "Binary" is practically the theme of these specials.

Elsa mug: Donna spilled the coffee. And, of course, "just let it go".

Donna is amazing. Always has been. A lot of Rose's blasé attitude to the alien in her shed (including challenging the person who apparently knows all about aliens on his choice of pronouns when everyone else is sensibly freaking out) can be justified on the basis that she has a chunk of Doctor subconsciously influencing her. I liked the idea that having a child meant the metacrisis was spread out and not as lethal as expected; that was good.

I didn't like "let it go" as a solution, which was a patented RTD reset button. The fact that it was bookended by the bizarre sexism of "a man would never think of [just getting rid of the dangerous thing]" and the extremely confusing trans person who is comfortably trans says "I finally feel like myself" was just icing on the cake. (So she didn't feel like herself after changing her name and appearance to reflect her true identity? She picked a presentation that wasn't comfortable, because it would be if she ever got rid of the Doctor locked away in her head? Sounds like the Doctor ruined her entire life to this point, good job dude!) But saving Donna did have to happen for the rest of the specials, so, eh.

Wild Blue Yonder

Artoo: Robot! In a white corridor! That was given a message by a woman!

Titanic: Well, they're on a ship, that's in trouble. And the captain went down with it.

Labyrinth guards: there's two on each side. And they speak in riddles. And look freaky.

Technodrome: is in Dimension X, while the spaceship is Beyond the Edge of the Universe. It's also driven by mutants and a giant brain, which encompasses everyone except Donna.

Not a lot to say on this one: I think it had the weakest CG of the three, but was the best of the specials overall. The first half, down "my arms are too long", was incredibly suspenseful. And Mr. Isaac was great.

The Giggle

2001 ape: the human race tearing itself apart, plus that little story about picking up a skull and throwing it at each other.

Gandalf: Kate Stewart! And Mel! And the Celestial Toymaker himself, and even the Master's favour accomplice, Red Nails Lady.

Jareth: there is literally a maze in this. :D And a camp musical number starring the main villain.

Thor and the hammers: there's two of them, and a hammer, and they're throwing things to each other, and Thor's lightning looks kinda like regeneration energy.

So yeah, this one had the weakest plot. The initial crisis (the Giggle itself) was unrelated to the main threat. Why did it even happen? Just because the Toymaker was bored? I guess… sure. I'm also baffled that we were told over and over that it makes people think they're right, but when Kate shows it off she just… launches into weird conspiracy theories? Is that what it's normally like in her head? (Though I note Wilf, last episode, spends his entire scene going "I knew it!". That was clever foreshadowing.)

I liked the scenes in the past. The labyrinth, the random creepy dolls, all established the Toymaker as a threat. "Well, that's alright then!" was great. And I appreciate the Doctor's plan: take a 50% shot at winning outright, while having "best of three" in his back pocket. He did NOT want to let the Toymaker at any complex games, not like back in the day.

Back in the present… why did shooting one satellite end the Giggle? We were told it chose to activate after it was fully connected, but why would it deactivate? And what happens when someone puts a replacement satellite up? And, if they could give the satellite false coordinates, why did they need a big gun rather than just crashing the thing? (Answer: because the Toymaker needed to shoot things.)

Bi-generation: RTD wants it to be a big new thing (he's been going on about it rippling backwards so all previous Doctors also bi-generated), but, like… the Fourth Doctor met a partial incarnation of his next self in the run up to his regeneration (the Watcher). In one adventure he met a Time Lord who was acting as a mentor to his own next incarnation; in both cases they merged to complete the change from one to the next. Bi-generation, to my mind, is just the same thing from a different perspective. 15 said that 14's retirement and recovery ripples down to him, so 14 is clearly still in 15's past. At some point, 14 should regenerate again and fade away, passing his essence to 15 and closing the time loop.

Catch: I don't fault the choice of game. If you outnumber your opponent, go for a physical contest! Not sure why the Toymaker let the Doctor choose though. And the filming of it was weird. Can none of the three of them catch a ball?

I should note that there's a line of dialogue confirming the Toymaker's connection to the White and Black Guardians. Something about "Order and Chaos and Play"? I approve of that. But it does mean UNIT have just locked a Guardian in their basement, which seems ill-advised.

I don't object in principle to splitting the TARDIS - again, it's just a temporal loop of sorts. But if the whole point is that 14 needs to retire, why does he need a TARDIS??? We literally established in dialogue that he will keep on using it to go wherever he pleases, so like… he's not gonna stop running! So until he goes, any 21st century stories are going to have a huge Tennant-shaped question mark over them. "Daleks are destroying London, the Doctor is held captive - is 14 having tea, or scones?" "The Master has returned, and UNIT is desperately searching for the Doctor - or will be, as soon as Kate gets back from having cucumber sandwiches with 14." It would be silly enough without a TARDIS in his garden; with one, it's going to lurk there in every story.

I suspect it's a ploy to keep Tennant in play, so they can pull him out again if ratings start to drop. But I feel like it's damaging to Gatwa's incarnation to know that the Most Popular Doctor is literally still hanging around.

I did like the confirmation that UNIT are actively recruiting former companions, though. Because, well… you would.

hS