DOCTOR WHO - SEASON-BY-SEASON - SERIES EIGHT

The Doctor has become old and grumpy. I can't tell you how happy this makes me!    

I wasn't annoyed that he had been young and handsome for a good six years. Both Tennant and Smith took their roles very seriously and turned in excellent performances (Yes, I'm still much happier with Eleven than Ten - but that's not to say that Ten was awful). Had they just stood in front of the camera and looked pretty and not really done a good acting job then that would have bothered me. But as long as a young hot Doctor still has some genuine acting chops then I'm fine with the whole arrangement. 

But I missed the good 'ole Classic days where Doctors came in all shapes, sizes and temperaments. He didn't need to have sex appeal. He was just a brilliant man who always tried to stand up for what's right. And we were content with that. I wanted to see that again. Yes, a succession of great-looking young Doctors was still acceptable. But a bit more variety would be absolutely wonderful! 

And then we see who's taking over from Smith. 

"Grey hair!" I exclaim to myself, "He has grey hair! This guy is old! We're getting a different kind of Doctor! He doesn't just have to seem ancient on the inside, he really does look it!"

And then the episodes start rolling out. 

"He's not just old!" I exclaim some more, "He's rude too! How great is that?!"   

This old hardcore fan who knows the show from beginning to end is more-than-satisfied. Especially with how things almost feel like they're re-creating the dynamic Peri and Six had. Will the arc they tried to create in Colin's Doctor finally get completed, here?! 

For the first little while, Series Eight had me bristling with excitement. Aside from one episode, I consider it a very strong year for the show. Better than most seasons of New Who, in fact. But, as we reach the end of this latest batch of episodes, I have to admit: some of my early hopes of a truly new and different Doctor (that, at the same time, emanates a more traditional Doctor!) get dashed against the rocks. 

Not all of my hopes. But still quite a few...

DEEP START 

Deep Breath turns out to be a very pleasant surprise. It actually runs at a feature-length so that, like Day of the Doctor, it could be released theatrically. Which I had no real problem with. It was great fun watching both episodes in a movie theatre full of fellow Who geeks. On both occasions, we all had a nice time. 

Potentially, though, there could have been some problems. If you're not watching the whole thing as a movie, if you're just sitting alone in your living room seeing it on a television, it could have felt very drawn-out and boring. There are any number of scenes that do run quite long. Amazingly enough, there isn't a whole lot of drag to anything. It's all quite engaging. Whether it's a big exciting fight with Vastra, Jenny and Strax against a whole swarm of cyborgs or just the Doctor and Clara having a protracted argument in a fake restaurant. Everything remains quite enjoyable. 

Twelve is great fun in his first story. Like Six, the regeneration has scrambled him quite badly. Particularly on a psychological level. He's wildly impulsive to the point of being vaguely unreliable. He's quite fun and goofy, in places. But, more significantly, we're seeing lots of evidence of his arrogance and general lack of kindness. Basically, he's a pretty rude jerk.  There's also some implications of a much darker side. Not just in the way it's left ambiguous about whether or not he actually killed the control node cyborg. I also get the impression that he just rolled that poor tramp for his clothing and is lying to Clara about it later. 

All of this makes the character very interesting. I'm intrigued to learn more about him. 

After a fun start, I do find that most stories of the season fit under certain categories. Rather than tackling them in order, I'll review them within the boxes they fit in. 

TWELVE IS VERY RUDE 

These particular tales really show off that arrogant side we were already seeing on display in Deep Breath. To be clear, Twelve is pretty rude in any episode in this season. But he's exceptionally bad in these stories. To the point where he almost seems out-of-character.

By tackling this category first, we'll stay chronological just a little bit longer. Into the Dalek starts with a Doctor forcing someone who has just been through severe trauma to say please before bringing her back home. A short while later, he brings the point home even harder by introducing Clara as her "carer". She, essentially, does all the caring for him, now. Cause he doesn't really seem to like anyone, anymore. Gestures such as these continue in great abundance throughout the tale. He's exceptionally cruel when he gets the one soldier to believe he's saving him when he just wants him to swallow a tracer. 

Ultimately, his total lack of empathy reaches such a fever-pitch that Clara actually smacks him across the face. She makes a horrific realization: he's put a bunch of peoples' personal safety at risk just so he could prove a point to himself about the nature of Daleks. He seemed to have no other motivation other than that. This is something we see in the "Rude Doctor Adventures". There's a climactic moment where the Doctor has finally gone too far and Clara must reign him in. The other story of this nature has an even deeper consequence when it happens. 

Unlike Into the Dalek, Kill the Moon does not feature a Doctor who is just constantly mouthing off to everyone. Sure, he's still snarking now and again. But we're mid-way into the season so he is starting to mellow a bit. However, he still reaches a moment where he comes across as completely heartless. He is viciously cruel as he leaves Clara, Courtney and the astronaut to make up their own minds about whether or not to blow up the moon. It's just the sort of gesture that would cause the huge shift that occurs in the Doctor and Clara's relationship.

Some General Notes: 

- While neither of these stories are perfect, I absolutely love how the Doctor is portrayed in them. Being such a big fan of Sixie, it's great to see the Doctor running around, again, being absolutely unpleasant to everyone around him. The character fascinates me when it functions as an anti-hero. 

- And I may say that the stories are not perfect, but I really do enjoy Into the Dalek. I find it to be really tightly-written. The battle where the Daleks raid The Aristotle is one of the best action sequences featuring them. 

- Time Heist comes quite close to being a Very Rude Doctor Story, too. The scene where Psi points out how Clara keeps making excuses for the Doctor is very poignant. Ultimately, however, when we find out who the Architect is and what the whole plot is really about, I find the story doesn't really fall under this category. It still pays an excellent tribute to Heist Films, but the Doctor just isn't quite rude enough!   

- I do find myself wondering if the ultimate results of Into the Dalek actually have a strong bearing on the direction of the Doctor's character. He does seem very upset that the Dalek is more compelled by his hatred than his love. This revelation does actually seem to take off a bit of his edge and make him seem less rude for the rest of the season.

- I'm always confused by how the ending of Kill the Moon upsets people. "It's impossible for an animal to immediately lay a new egg after its hatched from it!" they say. "Yes." I agree, "No animal on Earth can do that. But you do realize this thing is an alien, right?!" This is, of course, one of the advantages of writing science fiction. When it's an alien, you can pretty much make it do whatever you want. Cause who are we to say what an alien is or isn't capable of? Last time I checked, for instance, no animal on Earth can completely change their appearance in a matter of seconds if they've been hurt too badly. But we've seen Time Lords do this a bunch of times and still accept it.

CLARA FORGIVING THE DOCTOR 

From Kill the Moon, we move to a set of episodes where Clara must truly accept this new incarnation of the Doctor or choose to leave him once and for all. We saw her wrestling with this a lot in Deep Breath and she reached some degree of resolution when she gets a phone call from Eleven. But there's still some inner struggle going on within her. This just isn't the Doctor she first became friends with. And he's doing a lot of things to make it difficult for her to like him. 

Mummy on the Orient Express is meant to be a final trip for the Doctor and Clara and then she's done with him. We're all pretty damned sure that she'll have changed her mind by the end of the episode but we're interested in seeing how that's going to happen. I'm very impressed with how well the A Plot still manages to stay quite prevalent throughout the story while there's all this drama going on between the two of them. There's been quite a few times in the past (more under RTD's watch than Moff's) where the soap opera storyline takes the front seat when it shouldn't. But the whole plot with the Mummy is excellently-constructed. 

And, of course, we get to that final important moment where the Doctor and Clara are sitting on the beach reflecting over it all. The Doctor claiming that "good people sometimes have to make bad choices" really drives the point home and makes the changing of Clara's mind quite convincing. 

For several reasons, I also like to include Flatline in the "Clara Forgiving the Doctor" category. The most simple one being that people don't fully forgive all that quickly. Yes, the Doctor makes a great point at the end of Mummy and Clara agrees with him. But these sort of things don't resolve themselves so easily. 

Clara lying to Danny about still travelling with the Doctor does, sort of, indicate that she might still not have the best of feelings about her friendship with the Time Lord. That she's not entirely sure how she really feels about him and would rather keep her boyfriend clear of the whole thing until she's definitely figured things out.  

To me, the point where Clara does become certain of her feelings for the Doctor happens when the TARDIS is finally restored to its proper size (in an incredibly clever manner, no less!). Just before handing the Boneless their asses, the Doctor delivers this utterly fantastic speech. I love how it begins with him genuinely admitting that he doesn't want to hurt them. That he's only doing what he's doing cause he's been left with no choice. The director was careful to include Jenna Coleman in several shots so we can view how she's reacting to all this. You can see by the look on her face that she truly accepts him, here. She not only tosses him the sonic screwdriver so that he can banish the Boneless, the gesture seems much deeper than that. She gives him back the screwdriver because he is the Doctor and it belongs to him. And she sees him as that, now. 

This arc that presents itself in the middle of the season is magnificently executed. The stories that it spans are all quite good. They didn't even really need the subplot. But making the Doctor and Clara's relationship a little rocky for a bit adds an excellent extra layer to things. 

Some More General Notes: 

- Flatline is another great story in this season. It's central conceit of two dimensional beings trying to break into our reality was quite imaginative. When the murals come to life, they look utterly terrifying. There's much to love here. It would be my favorite of the year. But, once more, fan service triumphs and Listen gets that award. 

- Yes, Clara continues lying to Danny after Flatline is over. But the nature of her deceit has changed. It's no longer being fueled by her not being able to fully forgive the Doctor. By the time we get to In the Forest of the Night, it's now an issue of having dug herself a hole she can't get out of. She started a lie and just doesn't know when she should finish it. Because she knows she's in trouble when Danny finds out the truth. 

 

TWELVE IS VERY FUNNY

As if to offset his rudeness, the season also features several stories that cater to Capaldi's more comedic side. The Doctor is still grumpy in these tales, of course, but it's played up more for laughs. From a marketing standpoint, it's a good move. To make the Doctor too unlikeable could, potentially, scare off a lot of viewers. Both casual and hardcore fans. It didn't help that quite a few people watching Doctor Who legitimately left the show because the Doctor "wasn't cute anymore". So softening the character's edges with a bit of humor was smart. 

Of these "Funny Stories", I'd have to say Robots of Sherwood is the weaker of the two. Its biggest problem being that it is clearly meant to be a bit on the comedic side but really isn't all that funny! The scene where the Doctor is trying to run tests to see if Robin and his Merry Men are real is a great example of this. It does still earn a few chuckles. But it, mainly, feels forced. The fact that one of its main gags is a group of men who laugh for no, readily, apparent reason certainly adds to how artificial the comedy seems! This is definitely one of Gatiss' middle-of-the road scripts. Not outstanding like, say, Unquiet Dead. But not awful like Idiot's Lantern, either. 

On the other end of the spectrum is The Caretaker. Comedy is so much about chemistry. How characters play off of each other is crucial in its execution. Everything flows so much better, here. Right from the scene with the Doctor and Clara in the console room, the jokes are landing perfectly. It's utterly hilarious as the Doctor is trying to talk to the staff at Coal Hill and they just walk off ignoring him. I love how pleased he is with himself that his disguise is working perfectly. He even starts to just openly comment on it! The comedy in this one works great. And there's just enough drama peppered in that it still feels like a "proper" Doctor Who tale and not just the show deciding to become a bit too silly for an episode. 

Yet More General Notes: 

- I know I've said this more times than I can count about certain one-time-only characters, but the Skovox Blitzer is another great monster I'd love to see return. I would probably fill up about four seasons with all these one-timers coming back but I'll still keep building this Wish List!   

- It is cute to see Patrick Troughton briefly featured in the images of different versions of Robin Hood. 

THE DUD  

I still remember well the first time I watched Series Eight. After Flatline, I was thinking to myself: "Wow! This season is nearly done. Every episode has been either really strong or even completely amazing. Is the going to be a season with absolutely no bad episodes in it?!" 

But then, unfortunately, we get to In the Forest of the Night. 

I still stand by my word, I don't think that there's a single episode during Moff's era that I would truly label "bad". There are some weaker ones, of course. But they still had enough redeeming qualities to them that I didn't think to myself: "If this story was just removed completely from Canon, I would be okay with that!" 

In the Forest of the Night, however, comes perilously close to achieving that. Its biggest problem is that it's just pretty dull. A tree invasion of the Earth is hard to make all that exciting, really. The trees don't really do anything all that particularly interesting. They just sit there all planted and get in the way of things. The best they can do is cause a large statue to fall! It's really hard to fill up 46 minutes of run-time with just walking through some forests that aren't meant to be there! 

There are a few things that make the story likeable. The group of troubled kids are actually fairly well done. They provide comic relief but not at the expense of actually making fun of their situations. We still feel empathy for them and recognize there are things going on in their lives that are making them the way they are. The child actors all do a pretty solid job of portraying them. 

Clara getting the Doctor to return to the TARDIS and save himself was a genuinely touching moment. I like how the Doctor even tries to use her own words against her. It genuinely shows that he's grown since Kill the Moon. 

Finally, there's the stuff going on between Danny and Clara. It's reaching a sort of climax, here. Which sets up what we get in the next episode beautifully. 

Aside from that, however, Forest of the Night is like watching paint dry! Much of its conclusion also doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Particularly the final scene of Anabel being returned. 

THE BRILLIANT ONE 

Can't talk about the Dud without also mentioning the Classic. Listen is a fantastic adventure. Very odd, in many ways. The Doctor seems to go down some sort of rabbit hole as he becomes convinced that the monster under our bed is real. 

Using a very weird and haphazard date between Clara and Danny as a sort of framing device is an excellent counterpoint to all the other stuff that's happening in the plot. I love how Clara keeps employing the TARDIS to try to go back and fix the whole evening. But, in the process of doing it, she has to contend with things like astronauts beckoning her from the kitchen! It's all absolutely wonderful to watch. 

Of course, those final few minutes are what really make the story. Suddenly going back into the Doctor's childhood was quite mind-blowing. The expression on Clara's face as she listens to the two adults that have entered the barn and she suddenly realizes where she is great. It mirrors our own reaction. Basically, we're seeing a part of the Doctor's life we never thought we'd see. 

But there's more to Listen than just dipping into the Lore of the show. There's some really creepy moments that are disturbing to watch every time. Particularly the bit with whatever's hiding under Rupert's blanket. There's also a lot of emotional resonance. The comfort Clara has to keep offering to frightened children throughout the course of the story is always quite touching. And it is nice to see that her date with Danny does finally work out and that the relationship is going to move forward. 

All in all, there's a lot to like here. But what I really enjoy is the whole vibe of the episode. Unlike most stories that I feel are Classics, Listen comes across as very low-key. It tells a great tale without having to seem all that particularly grandiose about it.  

THE FINALE 

Dark Water is another one of those absolutely awesome episodes that we get in Series Eight. Losing Danny Pink in the first few minutes of the plot was an absolutely brutal twist that really did take me by total surprise. Just as he and Clara seemed to be really working things out, that brutal bastard of a Head Writer takes him away from us. 

The twists and turns continue over the next few minutes as Clara betrays the Doctor and he doesn't care anyway. Twelve not giving a crap about what she's done is still one of my favorite moments in his whole era. For once, his poor social skills seem to work to his advantage. When he likes someone, it doesn't matter how they treat him. He'll go on caring for them. 

Things keep moving along at a nice cracking pace as we learn about the 3W Foundation and see what Danny's going through in the afterlife. It's magnificently-paced. I don't think closing elevator doors have ever been used in the entire history of the show to designate a monster Reveal. So that was quite fun! 

Of course, finding out who Missy truly is in those last few minutes was the biggest bomb of them all. It's official, now:  Time Lords can change genders. Sure, Eleven said something of that nature in The Doctor's Wife, but it was still just talk. Now we're seeing it. 

It's a hell of a cliffhanger!    

Death in Heaven does feel like another one of Moff's attempts to subvert expectations in his final episode of the season. I was certainly expecting something different than what we got, at least. I figured the Doctor would find a way to escape the emerging Cyber-army. A protracted battle through the streets of London would then erupt. The two Time Lords strike at each other from a distance through the use of living pawns. With Cybermen and humans getting diced in the cross-fire. 

But we got something very different. Ultimately, it still works. But I have to admit, it comes very close to not succeeding. There's a certain danger to viciously changing the expected narrative flow of a plot. It can very easily backfire if you're not careful. And it comes very close to happening, here. 

I'm also getting just a little too tired of Easter Eggs. Once more, the Cybermen are out on the steps in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. Just like they were in The Invasion. As Clara interrogates Danny in the afterlife, she asks him when her birthday is. "November 23rd" he answers. We've been getting all sorts of little references like these over the last few years. And it's starting to feel a bit tiresome at this point. I'd really like this sort of thing to stop for a bit. Let a story just be a story. Enough with the thinly-veiled blasts from the past. 

I do still love the final few twists of this story, though. It's totally cool that Missy seems to have created an army the Doctor can't stop and then hands it over to him! It seems totally believable that she would actually do it, too. She's just that insane. It's all quite beautiful the way the Doctor and Clara lie to each other so that the other can go on enjoying a peaceful life without them. Turning the Brigadier into a Cyberman seems a bit of a stretch. But, at least, it keeps Kate Steward alive. She will go on to do great things...

THE PINK STUFF 

That, pretty much, takes care of how I feel about the individual stories of the season. Let's look at a few themes that run through this particular batch of adventures. 

The biggest ongoing storyline is the relationship that develops between Clara and Danny Pink. This is the third time in the New Series that a companion has been allowed a love life. This sort of stuff almost never happened in Classic Who. When it did, it usually felt ridiculously forced. Like when Leela falls in love with Andred after uttering about three sentences to him in Invasion of Time! 

This latest romantic tale starts feeling like it's going to follow the same pattern it did the first two times. The male character is something of a bumbling dork and the woman seems to be completely in control of the situation. This certainly seems to be very much the case in Into the Dalek and Listen. 

But then, things start to evolve. Danny gets his confidence and we really start to admire just how much he really does have his wits about him. "When did you become so wise?!" Clara even has to ask at one point. She's totally right in that observation. Danny is quite sage. Particularly as we reach In the Forest of the Night. And that's very refreshing. Mickey running around with his foot in a bucket and Rory being frightened by Amy hitting him with a shoe created some fun little laughs. But we needed a different kind of romance, this time. The male love interest needed a smoother personality. And that's definitely Danny Pink. 

His backstory is also very nicely done. It's especially impressive that he still defends the military even after the negative experiences he's had. And giving away his opportunity to resurrect to the boy he accidentally killed is extremely moving. 

All in all, I'd say that Danny Pink is an excellent near-companion. The season shines all-the-brighter because of his presence in it.  I'm still not sure how he's such an incredible acrobat at the end of The Caretaker, but I still like him a lot!  

THE ARC STUFF 

Since Series One, it has been a tradition to thread a storyline throughout the season that gets explained/resolved by the finale. This sort of thing has been executed with varying levels of success. You can, for instance, see the hugest of contrasts between just the first two seasons. "Bad Wolf" comes across as quite subtle and effective. "Torchwood" feels about as natural as artificial breasts! 

How does the arc do in this season?  I actually think Moff does a great job with it, here. What works best is how it continues to change and evolve. At first, there's a lot of talk about characters wanting to find the Promised Land. We get a glimpse of it right away at the end of Deep Breath. It seems to be run by a mysterious woman who knows the Doctor well. From there, the focus pulls more on to the mysterious woman. We even start seeing her outside of the Afterlife. 

The fact that the call-out changes regularly is very refreshing. We're not just seeing characters talking about the Promised Land or people meeting the mysterious woman after they die. Other things happen that still relate to the arc. We even start getting to know Seb a bit in one scene. All of this causes the arc to feel much more organic than it has in other seasons. 

But there is actually a far more significant arc going on concurrent to the "Who is Missy?" one. We might even call it the "Who is the Doctor?" arc. Or "Am I a good man?" Or even: "Am I really this big of a jerk?!" 

I had said at the beginning of the entry that I was hoping we were getting something similar to the character growth that had been planned for the Sixth Doctor. It certainly looks like it. Once more, we had a companion who was not thrilled by the rude personality the Doctor had regenerated into. Like Sixie, Twelve could only stay arrogant for so long. He would, eventually, soften and become more warm-hearted. As Season Twenty-Two turned into Twenty-Three, we saw that process starting to occur with Six. The same thing seemed to be happening again with Twelve. 

I can totally understand why some incarnations of the Doctor don't ever really change. It's good to keep them as a constant when new characters are getting introduced in virtually every episode. But I am far more pleased when we do see regular, ongoing growth in the protagonist. Starting him off as an anti-hero and making him more likeable as the show continues is not even something that first happened with Colin's Doctor. The First Doctor also went through a similar process. But enough time passes on the show between these various incarnations that the formula has never become stale.  A grumpy Doctor eventually losing his harsh edge is always a treat to watch. 

I'm glad we saw it again with Twelve. 

FINAL CONCLUSION 

As I mentioned in my intro, I am very happy with this season. Aside from In the Forest of the Night, all the stories are quite strong (unlike some fans, how an alien egg hatches doesn't upset me, so I quite like Kill the Moon!). I would even call a few episodes outstanding. 

There's also a couple of through-themes that run through Series Eight that are all very well-handled. Not just the Mystery of Missy, but the romance of Clara and Danny and the softening of Twelve's character. Everything here is really quite good. In terms of New Who, I still probably like Series One and Five better. But I'd probably put this in Third Place. 

But there is one more thing that I must contend with. A problem that is not just with Series Eight, but New Who as a whole. 

To me, it becomes most evident during Time Heist. They've reached the Vault of Karabraxos and the Doctor needs everyone to shut up for a moment. But he handles the situation in a very silly way. I'm thinking to myself as he does: "Why is he talking like that?! He sounds like the Eleventh Doctor, right now!" 

And that's when it dawns upon me. He may have been given some harder edges, but the Doctor is still a hyper-active chatterbox. Just as he has been for, pretty much, the entire New Series. 

I seem to recall both RTD and Moff saying in interviews: "It may be a new incarnation, but you always write the Doctor the same." (or words to that effect). I have always disagreed with this statement. Classic Who often made stories that, specifically, catered to the current incarnation. Look how well Three worked with UNIT during his reign. But we just weren't getting that same vibe as Four took over. So they phased UNIT out. How Trial of a Time Lord totally suited Six's love for debate is another great example of this. Because of Six's personality, the arc could sustain itself for fourteen episodes. But it probably really wouldn't have worked well for any other Doctor. In fact, when Two gets put on trial by the Time Lords, he just becomes petulant. Four barely even talks during his inquiry in Deadly Assassin and just draws caricatures! 

I loved the tonal shifts that occurred when a new lead gets cast in the Old Series. But, even when the Doctor is made considerably more grumpy in New Who, we still don't really get much real change. He's still this guy who seems to be on a bit too much caffeine and can't shut up!    

Again, we can't fault Series Eight, specifically, for this. But it's where we first see my issue being truly proven. It saddens me, slightly, that this is the course New Who has taken with the character. I liked it better when the show compensated more for the interpretation the lead actor wanted to give. Rather than forcing them to fit into a pattern that doesn't really suit their intentions.  

Aside from this, however, Series Eight really kicks ass!

BUT WAIT, ROB, WHAT ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL?!

I thought about reviewing Last Christmas in the next entry as it does feel like it's introducing a new dynamic between the Doctor and Clara rather than relating to everything that's happened to them in Series Eight. But, really, it works just as well, here. On top of that, of course, we've got multiple  Christmas Specials to tackle already next season! 

I did decide, however, to review it as a sort of afterthought to the season rather than putting it in before my Final Conclusion. 

Last Christmas is one of the better Christmas Specials that we get. It's a bit wild and crazy with having Santa Claus in it but it uses a good In-Universe of explanation for why he's there. It's tightly-written with a very terrifying monster in it. The Dream Crabs have all the horror impact of a Face-Hugger from Alien but do something that seems even more sinister than impregnating its victim. I do like how Moff even admits that he's slightly ripping off the idea by having a character in the story acknowledge the similarities.    

While we did just have a "Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?" premise a few seasons back with Amy's Choice, the Special takes the premise in an interesting new direction. Things feel a lot more like the movie Inception or even the episode of Rick and Morty that mocks the movie Inception! Whichever the case, there's a lot of fun with dealing with dreams within dreams and it all works quite well. 

Again, Moff makes a great move by giving us a very different type of adventure than he'd given us the previous year. This, I think is the true "secret recipe" to a good Christmas Special: Always try to do something new. When you duplicate what you did before, you end up with The Runaway Bride or The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe. Neither of these tales rank all that very highly for me. And part of their problem is that they are trying to shoehorn in plot elements that don't really fit but harken back to what had gone on previously. 

Moff, however, learnt well from that mistake. His Christmas Specials continue to do well. Especially when compared to a lot of the stuff we got from his predecessor. 

Thanks for the self-honesty, Steven!