At first I had a grudge against this episode for what they did to my favorite gremlin old man the First Doctor, but I rewatched it with the explanation from the novelization in mind (that One was just doing that to annoy Twelve) and it became ten times funnier and also very enjoyable. It's a fun episode, even if it's very uncharitable towards the early show and the time period it was written in.

Thirteenth Doctor is born in 2017 that tenth doctor Christmas Special presents and his sisters

And here we are. The end of the Capaldi era. The end of the Moffat era and, if we're being technical, the end of the Christmas specials. From here on in, Doctor Who give us Chibnall, Whitaker and New Year's Day specials - but that's a story for another year, I think.

Settling down to this, I remembered all the various disparate parts of the story - WW1, glass people, Rusty, Bill, the Captain and, of course, the 1st Doctor.

And therein, setting out my stall early on, lies the problem with Twice Upon a Time. It's a list of items in search of a plot.

I would go so far as to say that Twice Upon a Time is possibly my least favourite Christmas Special. I can't decide if it's better than The Return of Doctor Mysterio or not. It's slightly less dull but with it's lack of actual story survives only because it has some individually interesting elements.

Firstly, let's talk about the 1st Doctor and David Bradley. Bradley is good. He does bring a performance reminiscent of Hartnell and is entertaining throughout. Prior to rewatching this, I've been very aware of the criticisms levelled at Steven Moffat's characterisation the 1st Doctor and how he makes him into a misogynistic old man with none of the actual sparkle of the 1st Doctor. I often dismiss the rantings of GB particularly when they're levelled at the various showrunners and, although I remembered some iffy lines about Polly doing the cleaning, I didn't remember it being an issue as such.

I was wrong. It is awful. Moffat does present a 1st Doctor who is sexist, old-fashioned and only superficially like the version played by William Hartnell. It's like he's taken Bradley's performance as Hartnell himself and transposed that into the character of the 1st Doctor, seemingly ignoring the magical wizard that Hartnell actually gave us. I don't think the Doctor said the sort of things coming out of Bradley's mouth and the problem is only compounded by the the 12th Doctor's constant apologising for what he says, drawing unnecessary attention to it.

There are a couple of gags which are amusing - such as Bill's hint that she is a lesbian - but they work much better directed at the WW1 Captain than to the Doctor who, let's face it, is a gentleman of the universe to boot. It's a huge misstep on Moffat's part and a shame that a fan of the series would go so far down that road.

Another disappointment of the 1st Doctor element is the re-creations of The Tenth Planet. Now I know that, for timing reasons in the episode, we don't get to see a lot of what they actually intended to show - more of it is shown in the accompanying behind the scenes documentary and it does look rather fun. However, the morph from Hartnell's dialogue to Bradley finishing the same scene is clunky and unconvincing and the less said about the stand-ins for Polly and Ben the better - Ben is about 3 feet too tall for starters.

The plot, as I say, is practically non-existent. It's basically the Doctor meeting some characters - the Captain, Bill, his earlier self and Rusty the Dalek and then finding out that there are nice glass people saving people's memories which means he gets to say goodbye to Bill, Nardole and Clara. It's almost like a sci-fi version of This is Your Life.

The whole 'holding off regeneration' stuff is pointless and it's an aspect of the modern series I actually rather dislike - the 10th Doctor's 'I don't want to go' was bad enough, but this stubborness to avoid the inevitable just makes the Doctor seem horribly arrogant. I'm not a fan of Capaldi's 12th Doctor, although Series 9 and 10 had helped me warm to him a little, but Twice Upon a Time only helps to cement him as one of my least favourite Doctors.

The Captain and WW1 scenes are about the only part of the episode I truly enjoyed (aside from Pearl Mackie's glorious Bill). Mark Gatiss does his usual stiff upper lip schtick. I always find Gatiss's performances to be too coloured by my experience oh him in The League of Gentlemen. Although I find him entertaining, I don't find him particularly convincing in straight dramatic roles. The reveal of the Captain's identity is nice, but I'm not sure it's earned - although at least it goes some way to redressing the horrific story choice Moffat made with the CyberBrig.

The re-creation of the WW1 Christmas armistice is a beautiful scene and it's easy to see why the cast found it just as moving even whilst filming it. But it's too little too late to make up for the aimless wandering of the rest of the story.

I wonder if this story was the victim of circumstance. It's fairly common knowledge that Moffat hadn't even planned on doing Series 10 but with Chibnall unavailable, he rescinded and went ahead with one final season. Then, it became clear there would be no Christmas special if Moffat didn't do it. I actually, completely coincidentally, re-watched World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls before Twice Upon Time. The Doctor Falls would have been a much better regeneration story for Capaldi and Twice Upon a Time is very much a story I don't think Moffat knew how to write and certainly one that we didn't really need.

i don't care how amazing a lot of this is, who is this man this is NOT the first doctor

The first doctor returns, with David Bradley who portrayed Hartnell in An Adventure in Space and Time.

It's a great send-off from Moffat and Capaldi. 12s final words feel like Moffat himself sending of the character.