Fine, I will say what everyone is really thinking; the big Matt Smith send off was a really lame Doctor Who episode. It didn’t help that BBCAmerica ran a 2 day marathon previous Doctor Who episodes prior. After a parade of highlights, the Christmas special came off as a real stinker.

Steven Moffat, I am looking at you. You need to stop writing Doctor Who like it was fan fiction for pre-teen boys.

First, you need enjoyable bad guys. I am trying to think of a single Moffat villain who is a character and not a horde of menacing creatures. Previous episodes gave us The Empress of the Rachnos, Max Capricorn, and the smooth Cassandra. They all had personalities, motivations, and their own legit tragedies.

Instead of an enjoyable baddie,  we got holiday hordes of Angles, Daleks, Cybermen, AND Silence. He even brought back the crack!

This brings me to my second point, stop repeating yourself. All the Doctor’s greatest foes orbit a lone planet waiting to pounce. Some great and meandering speech about how bad-assed he is. Victory in last several minutes by deus ex machina. Wasn’t that the last big finale with the Pandorica?

Why always a deus ex machina?!? This was was pretty pathetic. Hard to understand how the Daleks waged a time war when apparently Gallifreyans can become twinkly regeneration energy canons that can wipe out entire fleets. I mean, one Gallifreyan wiped out an entire planet and space sector full of  Angles, Daleks, and Cybermen. Makes me wonder why the War Doctor was fooling around with The Moment? Just pop a couple regeneration cycles and blast them all.

Next, no one likes flirty Doctor. Just quit it already. Smart. Condescending. Mean spirited. Wacky. Eccentric. Kind. Whatever you want, but the flirty comes of as Austin Powers–totally cringe worthy.

Lastly, watch your plot holes. So Gallifrey is frozen, in a single instance held in a status cube– so how are they active? How are they breaking into our universe? How are they beaming regeneration energy via mobile space cracks?

Instead of a proper send of, we were treated to a personal tribute by Steven Moffat to Steven Moffat’s favorite gimmicks. After seeing the 50th special, which I LOVED, I was a little heart broken.