It's all change at DOCTOR WHO as both showrunner and lead actor leave the show. It's a momentous occasion, but there is the small matter of the Christmas special to be taken care of. Some of Steven moffat's Christmas specials have been less than, well, special, but this is the the last throw of the dice and he clearly wants to go out on a high. In Twice Upon a Time, he concentrates on his main character and what regeneration means to him, examining from the point of view of an old man afraid to take the step for the first time and a younger man who is just tired of the fight and the losses that he has endured.

This may all sound a bit lofty, but that's only because it is. Some of the younger audience might get a bit fractious waiting for something to happen. Most of the audience won't even have encountered the first Doctor (here played by David Bradley) through anything other than a repeat and so the soul-searching that goes on might not resonate. For them, there are some glass avatars that look great, but are obviously cut-price computer generated images when they move, some face-hugging variants on an old enemy and some hanging around from chains. None of which add anything to a story that is all about the dialogue. moffat hasn't delivered an adventure, he's delivered his last musings on death and rebirth in a Time Lord universe. There are some witty exchanges between the Doctors, mainly based around the original's out of date attitudes towards women, but there is altogether too much monologuing. Moffat wants this to be remembered as a deep an meaningful passing of an icon and so throws as many words at it as he can in the hope that Capaldi can make some of them stick. In short, the story plays fifteenth fiddle to his insistent wordsmithery. The younger audience will likely be bored stiff at times.

Which isn't to say that there aren't pleasures to be had here. The production looks magnificent. Whether it's the battlefields of Ypres, the frozen South Pole, the war torn planet of the daleks or the chamber of the dead everything is visually stunning. There are some references thrown in for the fans (visiting old companions, old enemies and revealing a pleasing connection), hoping to ramp up the goodwill whilst he gets on with his farewell speech.

The performances are pretty good as well, with Capaldi pulling out all the stops in his final performance. He takes those overlong and wordy speeches and makes them almost work, though there is nothing here that is as heartfelt as Tennant's "I don't want to go". Without Capaldi's sense of drama we might have all been muttering 'Die already, won't you?'.

Supporting Capaldi's swansong is David Bradley, who nails his impression of William Hartnell in all its grumpy glory. Though nowhere near as showy as Capaldi's role, he plays it to perfection. Mark Gatiss makes the most of his thankless role as the Captain, whose sole purpose is to allow Moffat to end his story in a time and place from which he can borrow some gravitas. The rest of the time, his dialogue is a series of variants on "I don't understand". He's almost the episode's Arthur Dent. And, for once, we can be grateful for the presence of Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts, the only character who speaks like a real person might.

TWICE UPON A TIME isn't an Doctor Who episode, it is a prolonged goodbye speech from the showrunner that excludes the younger audience for much of the running time in order to claim a depth and meaning that was so often absent from the main show.

We will miss Capaldi's Doctor, but it remains to be seen whether we will miss Steven Moffat. The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor.

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