ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
This is a delightful story and a great Christmas tale. It
comes a whole year after we last saw Doctor Who which was a very long gap but
is super stuff, finally giving Peter Capaldi an out and out comedy tale with great
supporting actors and a nice plot.
In New York, 1992, the Doctor meets up with a young boy,
named Grant (Logan Hoffman) who dubs him Dr Mysterio. The Doctor is on a
mission here and asks for Grant’s help. Grant, however, eats a wish-granting
gemstone by accident and wishes to become a superhero. The gemstone grants his
wish but the Doctor, before he leaves, makes Grant promise not to use his
superpowers.
In 2016 the Doctor returns to New York bringing Nardole
(Matt Lucas) whose head he removed from Hydroflax and has built a robot body
for. Here he investigates Harmony Shoals a company which is controlled by alien
brains who remove human brains from their occupants. A reporter, Lucy Fletcher
(Charity Wakefield) is also investigating here. When the three are captured
they are rescued by The Ghost, a superhero, who flies Lucy back to her home.
The Ghost is, in fact, Grant (Justin Chatwin), who works as Lucy’s Nanny but
secretly has fallen in love with her.
The spaceship belonging to the brains is in orbit above
Earth and is slowly falling towards New York where it will explode and destroy
the City. The Ghost and Lucy are captured by Harmony Shoals and the Ghost flees
to return as Grant to protect Lucy. However, the Doctor has accidentally caused
the spaceship to crash sooner and he is forced to ask Grant to intervene, which
reveals the Ghost’s true identity to Lucy.
Grant catches the ship and pushes it back into space whilst
the Doctor calls UNIT to shut down Harmony Shoals. Grant says he will retire
The Ghost and he and Lucy get together.
The plot line in this story is pretty flimsy, a scary set of
unnamed aliens who are going to destroy New York almost accidentally. But the
plot is really secondary in this story, which is a character piece about The
Doctor, Nardole, Lucy and Grant and how they interact with each other.
Comedy is strongly to the fore here, which is refreshing for
this Doctor, and Capaldi really brings his skill for comic work to the party.
Some really funny little touches like the Doctor bringing snacks when he’s
investigating.
Matt Lucas is great as Nardole, a fussy busy-body but
grateful to the Doctor for rescuing him from Hydroflax’s body and with a strong
empathy with the Doctor and his feelings of loss of River Song.
The stars of the show here though are Grant and Lucy, both
superbly acted. Charity Wakefield plays the Lois Lane glamorous reporter part
well (and it’s surprising she hasn’t shown up more often) and Justin Chatwin
makes a good job of both the inept Grant character and the cooler, superhero –
The Ghost.
It’s a bit of fun for Christmas and works well in that
mission, at the time of writing it’s the last proper “Christmassy” episode, the
following year the Christmas Special is a regeneration story and after that we
switch to New Year episodes, so in some ways The Return of Dr Mysterio is the
last of a line starting with The Christmas Invasion of jolly stories which are
generally entertaining and are one of the key themes in modern Doctor Who.
NEXT UP: THE PILOT
© Text copyright - Raving Loony
Productions and
Andrew J. Müller,
Roy Barton
and Shaun Runham
© Photos and Artwork - Andrew J. Müller
© Web Design and Layout - Andrew J. Müller
2022
