The Doctor meets a superhero in the new Christmas Special.
Full spoilers for the 2016 Doctor Who Christmas Special follow.
We’ve been in a bit of a Doctor Who drought with the decision to push Season 10 back to Spring, 2017, and in fact it’s been a full year since the last new episode aired -- 2015’s Christmas Special “The Husbands of River Song.” And while it’s great to finally get a new Twelfth Doctor adventure with this year’s Christmas Special, “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” is a just O.K. return for the character.
In fact, “Doctor Mysterio” is a sequel to “The Husbands of River Song,” albeit in a roundabout way. But its most effective moments land with the few brief times when it connects to that tale or the Doctor’s past, with the rest of the superhero-themed segment feeling slightly detached and less relevant, particularly when the River Song connection is revealed at the end of the special.
Still, Steven Moffat, heading into his final stretch as showrunner with this and the impending tenth season, does have fun with the comic-book movie craze. The episode kicks off with a camera push through a Tim Burton-esque city street of steam and neon, as we meet young Grant, a superhero-obsessed kid who mistakes the Doctor for Santa before accidentally swallowing a “gem stone” that gives him super-powers. Cut to years later, and Grant (Justin Chatwin) is now all grown-up, a bespectacled Clark Kent stand-in who works as a mild-mannered nanny by day but becomes the crimefighter known as the Ghost at night. (Also, the Doctor’s revelation that Clark Kent is also Superman is a perfect, classic Twelve moment.)
The whimsical, post-Clara tale also features an ersatz Lois Lane in Lucy (Charity Wakefield), the reporter from a Daily Planet-like newspaper who is also Grant’s employer and unrequited love. There’s also a kinda/sorta Lex Luthor figure, but the real villain of the piece is a group of alien brains looking to take up residence in human bodies, particularly powerful human bodies… like that of the Ghost. (Those brain creatures, which have the ability to split their host bodies’ heads open once they’re onboard, were also glimpsed in “The Husbands of River Song.”)
The episode is full of comic-book references which fans will appreciate, like when the Doctor tells Grant “with great power comes great responsibility.” But the Doctor, as usual, is feeling that responsibility himself, in this case because it’s kind of his fault that Grant has these powers in the first place. His periodic check-ins with the young Grant over the years recall Twelve’s keeping an eye on Maisie Williams' Ashildr last season, another recipient of one of the Doctor’s super-human-making gifts.
Also along for the ride is Nardole, Matt Lucas’ character from “Husbands.” Lucas will now be a companion for the Doctor for (at least part of) Season 10, which should bring a nice touch of humor to things, and while he was last seen last year as just a head that was part of the Hydroflax body, Nardole reveals here that the Doctor reassembled him because he was afraid he’d be lonely. This seemed to be a Clara reference at first, but later it becomes clear that the Doctor is now smarting over the loss of River.
And that’s because, yes, “Husbands” ended with that final date the Doctor and River had on Darillium -- where a night lasts for 24 years. That’s where the Doctor has been since we last saw him, which means River must finally have gone off to die in the library (where we first met her all those years ago). “Things end… that’s all,” he tells Grant and Lucy. “Everything ends, and it’s always sad, but everything begins again too. And that’s always happy. Be happy.”
The Ghost
So the Doctor helped play matchmaker in a roundabout way in this episode, while also working with a superhero to save the world. Not a bad way to spend Christmas.
The Verdict
“The Return of Doctor Mysterio” is a pretty lightweight entry in the Twelfth Doctor’s oeuvre, which considering the events of last season isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But the different elements of the episode don’t come together as smoothly as they could, and the emotional through line for the Doctor is treated mostly as an afterthought.
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