Well one Doctor Who Christmas special in and already I am calling for Russell T. Davies's head as he attempts to further erode sixty years of the beloved franchise. Davies has confirmed he is resetting the series by calling this garbage Season 1 rather than what it is, series 14th. Davies, season 1 has the renowned William Hartnell as the Doctor rather than this tosh which is shedding viewers like there’s no tomorrow. On an equally stupid fracking display of ignorance, the imdb.com is calling series 1, the one with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, as season 1. About the only people lapping up this attempt at redefining by Davis are Rachel Zegler supporters. Hey, I’m calling out Russell T. Davis as a misogynist as he attempts to erode Verity Lambert’s, the BBC’s first female producer, work in his full on attack on the franchise. Seems to be working, doesn’t it Rusty, as overnight viewership slumped to 4.73 million viewers. On the bright side if Davis continues, the viewership is going to collapse completely.

The Doctor lands in recent London, sorry was bored like I was spending a week in Hobart, where he immediately discovers a local dance club and is in a skirt quicker than you can say “Daleks please exterminate this muppet”. Watching on is Ruby Sunday, who was abandoned as a baby at the door of a church on Ruby Road, hence the name, getit! Ruby is trying to discover who her biological mum is, as opposed to her current mum of colour, the diversity is strong in this one. Anyways current Mum adopts yet another baby, named improbably Lulubelle – named used for a recurrent joke though it comes across as racist, shame Davies shame – which becomes the target for Goblins. Ruby with a lot of help from prancing Doctor Gatwa, rescue Lulubelle before she can be eaten by the Goblin King. But the evil goblins disappear back in history in order to steal and eat baby Ruby, the mincing Doctor Gatwa slips back in the time stream to rescue Ruby while putting the Goblin menace to an end via magic gloves and a church spire. Frack me, this tripe is what passes for a Doctor Who script in the modern age, and who the freaking hell is Davina McCall, the viewer is clearly meant to know, so am going to assume some gay icon no one really gives a shite about in the modern era. Guess Davis forgot about the “modern audience”, should have thrown in Kyle Minogue really.

The overriding thought I had while watching was this episode was “what the frack am I viewing here”, as we run the gambit from gay dance hall days, through Ruby’s incredibly diverse mates – did they have an Asian chick in there and was she lame and gay, to a dance number on the Goblin ship. This isn’t a Time Lord tale, it’s really bad fan fiction written by someone with no understanding of the lore of the franchise. There’s so much bad happening here, that I’m surprised the quick response team didn’t arrive outside Rusty’s place to save humanity. I’m not even going to get into the acting being presented her by Gatwa and Gibson, needless to say we are strictly in amateur hour with Gatwa playing Gatwa rather than the Doctor and Gibson trying her best not to stare to camera.

While we are wondering if Gatwa’s performance in the superior Sex Education was just the Actor, term used loosely, playing himself rather than turning in a decent turn. The plot devices are coming to us fast and furious leaving the viewer with little time to pondering about the probability of things happening on screen. Stuck on a rope ladder over London, well magic weight taking gloves will do the trick, where the Doctor stored those bad boys is anyone’s guess, and no I don’t want to go there. Old complaining lady terrorising the street, yeap she is not surprised by the TARDIS and breaks the fourth wall to ensure anyone left watching the show gets it, you don’t suppose this is going to play a part in Ruby’s time arc do you? I wasn’t really bothered with knowing either to be honest. So we now know Davis isn’t going to bother with decent writing, there’s always going to be a plot device to resolve the current situation the Doctor finds himself in. Folks, get ready for really bad writing, even worse than the writing in this review!

So we have had our first real introduction to the new Doctor and it was not a good meeting of the ways. In fact, I would go so far as to say Ncuti Gatwa makes for the worse Doctor yet devised for an ever shrinking market. While our last iteration, Jodie Whittaker – the first female Doctor, lacked the overall gravitas to be an effective Time Lord, Gatwa doesn’t even bring what Whittaker brought to the table, which was semi decent acting. As opposed to the apologists who are now starting to say Whittaker was a brilliant Doctor and it wasn’t her fault things went downhill at an alarm pace in terms of audience acceptance, I’m just going to say Whittaker as the thirteenth Doctor was completely out of her element in the role, while she did her best to mimic Tenant and Smith. Might have helped if she had of watch some, oh I don’t know, previous Doctor Who episodes. In comparison Gatwa can’t act to save himself here, he doesn’t understand the role, the character as written by Davis is so devoid of Time Lord characteristics that the Xmas special comes across as more a parody of the franchise than a serious entry in the long running show, and the plot development is simply juvenile trash that Gatwa can’t even pantomime successfully. In short bad casting choice which is going to bleed viewers like haemorrhaging is going out of fashion.

So let’s get the white elephant in the room addressed before the fanatics go ape shite crazy on us as is their won’t. I don’t give a flying toss about whether the Doctor is played by a gay person, a bi-person, or any other legally correct sexual preference. I’m drawing a line at trans, but hey under the current Davis regime we are nearly there anyways. Let’s shuffle up to the reality here, Captain Jack was played as swinging both ways, no true Doctor Who fan had a problem with this, new character new characteristics. But in the world of “modern audiences”, if you don’t think much of Gatwa’s performance thus far then you must be homophobic! Talk about stereotyping people, the WOKE are at pains to achieve this, which is ironic at the very least. I will repeat, I don’t care who plays the Time Lord, as long as they have the personality to play the role and are not chosen simply to tick some modern box no one outside Boredwood and apparently the BBC give a damn about.

Moving along, the Goblins as Doctor Who antagonists are hardly going to be selling merch, the other life blood of the franchise, and I must get past the blood references here. At once they are entirely devoid of anything like menace and are one of the stupidest foes yet thrown our way, and hey I’m including the Kandyman from classic Who here. Don’t expect a reprise of the critters anytime soon, or never again to be brutally honest here.

As a Reviewer it’s part of my job to watch and comment on stuff that the normal person reading would happily give a miss to. Actually I’m doing it while we await the return of our normal Doctor Who commentator. This special is one of the worse yet chundered out, and I’m including the Chibs era here. We have piss poor acting, badly scripted developments, and a new Doctor who is already becoming the worse yet casting. There’s going to be zero recommendation naturally, this entry to the franchise is bottom feeding bad. I’m out, thank god the new season is only eight episodes long, perhaps that will mitigate some of the damage Davis et al are doing to the franchise this series.