Earlier this week, Digital Spy was one of a privileged few to attend an advanced screening of this year's Doctor Who Christmas special - Steven Moffat's 'The Time of the Doctor' - which sees Matt Smith's 11th (or is that 13th?) Doctor bow out in spectacular style.

What follows is a preview containing no major spoilers - though a few tantalising teasers lurk within - and only a modest critique. For the full DS verdict on Smith's swansong, check back at 8.30pm on December 25.

Doctor Who, Downton, Sherlock: Digital Spy's 12 TV Picks of Christmas

In 60 minutes, 'The Time of the Doctor' has an awful lot to accomplish - Moffat is tasked with not only giving Matt Smith a fitting and emotional farewell, but also tying up many of this era's loose ends and incorporating all the usual festive bells and whistles that a viewer expects of Christmas Day telly.

An hour might be the standard running length of a Doctor Who Christmas special, but it's less time than was allocated last month's 50th anniversary special and half of what David Tennant's farewell received.

BBC Worldwide/Adrian Rogers



This comparative brevity is not necessarily a bad thing though. While 'The End of Time' had a driving force, it took an awfully long time to get to the point, while the best Who Christmas specials have always been the ones that had something to offer besides turkey and snow and robot Santas - see Tennant's arrival in 'The Christmas Invasion' or Jenna Coleman's debut proper in last year's 'The Snowmen'.



It's fair to say then that you could never accuse 'The Time of the Doctor' of being flabby or languid. If anything, the whole thing's a bit breathless, a bit of a mad dash to the finish, which means that some aspects of the story - the Christmassy elements, certain monsters - feel like an afterthought or window dressing.

BBC Worldwide/Adrian Rogers



Like 'The Day of the Doctor' before it, this isn't a story about the whizzes and the bangs or about the monsters, this is a story about the Doctor - and where Steven Moffat does succeed is in bringing the Matt Smith era to a satisfying conclusion.



Bar one point that immediately springs to mind, the showrunner tips his hat to every single dangling plot thread from 'The Eleventh Hour' onwards - some are referenced in passing while others form a major part of the plot.

Perhaps it was all some grand master-plan, perhaps he's making it up as he goes, but regardless it's impressive how Moffat takes what seemed like so many disparate parts and makes them form a cohesive whole.



So Matt Smith's Doctor Who tenure gets a rewarding if slightly slapdash finish, but what of the man himself - how is his final turn as the Doctor? In a word - phenomenal. It doesn't feel like an exaggeration to say that 'The Time of the Doctor' contains what may be Smith's finest ever performance in the role.



He gets to flex his comedic muscles, but excels in the sad, quiet moments - a riposte, if one were needed, to those who have branded his performances 'too zany' in the past - and in the grander moments too - those who thrilled to Matt's big speeches in 'The Pandorica Opens' and 'The Rings of Akhaten' will find much to enjoy here.

Doctor Who fans are a notoriously hard-to-please bunch, so - as ever - reaction to 'The Time of the Doctor' will likely be split come December 25, but you'd be hard-pressed to say anything negative about Matt Smith himself come Boxing Day.

Catch up on all the latest TV and Movies releases in Digital Spy's Screen Time:

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io