June 16: "Bad Night" / "Good Night" / "First Night" / "Last Night" / "Up All Night" / "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" Prequel / "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" / "Good as Gold"

(5 Night and the Doctor scenes, the 2011 Christmas special, and a Blue Peter scene)

Whoops, one more bit of series 6 to get through: much how the series 5 boxset included two extra scenes, so the series 6 one contains five of them -- but as they're in general difficult to insert into series 6's continuity, I've elected to wait until now (relative to when the surrounding episodes were transmitted), when the boxset was released.

The Doctor informs River she's in the wrong TARDIS. ("Last
Night") ©BBC Worldwide Ltd.

We get five quick little scenes, all under the umbrella title Night and the Doctor and most of them set inside the TARDIS, ostensibly showing us what the Doctor gets up to while Amy and Rory are asleep.  The first one, "Bad Night", is a quick bit of whimsy, as the Doctor deals with a queen who's been turned into a fish and a great warrior who's also a fly, and gets Rory out of bed because Amy's "having an emotion", and it's his turn to deal with it.  ("You two have turns?!" Amy replies indignantly.)  The second scene, "Good Night", is probably the best one, as it shows Amy struggling to make sense of her life, despite things like suddenly getting parents after the Doctor rebooted the universe; it's actually about something rather than just flitting around.  The next two, "First Night" and "Last Night", involve River Song, both the first time the Doctor took her away from her prison and the last time, mixed with some hijinks involving multiple Rivers getting confused as to which TARDIS is which.  They try to make it dramatic at the end -- apparently the older Doctor has arrived at a point shortly before "Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead", which means River will soon die -- but they're only partially successful.  Meanwhile, the final scene, "Up All Night", is focused solely on Craig and Sophie from "Closing Time" and acts as a prequel to that episode -- to the point that one wonders if this was initially intended to be released online, much like the other prequels this series, but then wasn't for some reason.  It's purely a throwaway scene, made even more so by the fact that already watching "Closing Time" robs it of any mystery it might have had.  Still, these five scenes are a charming bit of entertainment, and a nice extra for the DVD/Blu-ray buyers.

And now it's on to series 7, with the 2011 Christmas special "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe".  First off we get a prequel, with the Doctor ostensibly talking to Amy (but really just to himself) as he goes about stopping an alien spaceship from conquering the Earth by blowing it up.  It's quick and suitably exciting but rather sweet, and it reminds us that the Doctor is traveling alone right now (remember, he thinks Amy and Rory think he's dead -- he doesn't know River told them).  So in terms of getting us interested in the actual episode, mission accomplished.

That prequel basically carries us straight into the opening moments of the main event, as the Doctor is trapped on the exploding spaceship and ends up tumbling to Earth -- but fortunately he's grabbed an "impact suit" that saves his life.  It's a strong, action-packed opening, but it is slightly strange in retrospect how this is just about the most exciting the episode ever gets, as Steven Moffat chooses to give us a slightly more mysterious and quiet Christmas special.  Much like last year's Christmas special, "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" steals its premise from another classic work -- but unlike "A Christmas Carol", this time around Moffat takes the very basic premise of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (a whole winter world in a small container -- here a cardboard box) but then jettisons the rest.  That's not totally surprising -- Dickens' A Christmas Carol is already a time travel story, so it's easy enough to adapt, but there's less to crib in C.S. Lewis's Narnia books -- but what is surprising is how calm everything seems.  There's no huge dramatic enemy to work against, no sense of evil to be fought; instead this is a story about magical happenings.  It's clear from the planet where Christmas trees grow, complete with ornaments, that this is meant to charm children rather than frighten them.

Lily and the Doctor debate whether they've entered a trap.
("The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe") ©BBC

But because we're running around with trees that have souls and can grow buildings and spaceships and people, with a certain sense of "just accept that this is magic", when the main threat shows up in the form of a big ship crewed by people here to "melt down" the forest with acid rain, it distinctly jars with the rest of the story.  It doesn't help that the scenes of the Androzani Major harvesters (oh look, a pointless reference to The Caves of Androzani) are largely divorced from the rest of the story -- they're there to provide an impetus for the trees to leave, and supply a touch of comic relief along the way, but that's about it.  In a story about trees growing people and having souls that can get on a ship and leave, a clunking, rusted spaceship with similarly attired crew sticks out like a sore thumb.

It's a hard episode to judge, because while it has lots of magical bits, the threat is a touch too abstract to really connect (we don't see anyone die in the acid rain, or even anything get really damaged -- some holes in Madge's coat and that's about it), and the incredibly oversweet ending (where Madge rescues her husband pilot (Alexander Armstrong, who gets to show his face in front of the camera after five series as the voice of Mr Smith on The Sarah Jane Adventures) by shining a light for him to follow) threatens to sink the whole thing.  But, counterbalancing that, there's some lovely dialogue ("I don't know why I keep shouting at them," Madge says.  "Because every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they're going to be, and it breaks your heart," the Doctor replies.  "Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later?  The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later"), and I do like the efforts to make this an overt fantasy -- it's the type of setting in which Matt Smith shines.  The push-and-pull of all these factors does make for a rather uneven episode, though.

And look, there's one more quick episode today: "Good as Gold".  We're now jumping forward to 24 May 2011, and just like "Death is the Only Answer", we've got another winner of a script-to-screen competition, this time for perennial children's show Blue Peter.  This one's officially written by the Children of Ashdene School and features the TARDIS materializing in the path of the Olympic torch relay, where a runner is chased inside the TARDIS by a Weeping Angel.  To be honest, this one's not as good as "Death is the Only Answer", as the whole thing seems a bit more contrived, with less finessed dialogue (the stuff about having one adventure per week is particularly wince-inducing) and an odd cliffhanger ending that seems to suggest there's now a Weeping Angel trapped in the TARDIS.  And where's Rory in all of this?  It's not the most successful effort ever, but at least it's only three minutes long.