This year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, takes The Doctor to America. It’s Christmas Eve and The Doctor somehow finds himself hanging from the roof a New York City apartment building, outside the room of 8-year-old Grant. Grant has an obsession with superhero comics, and so he gives The Doctor the nickname of Doctor Mysterio. As Grant is assisting The Doctor, he accidentally swallows a unique alien gem stone, and starts to develop super powers. The Doctor asks him to promise never to use his powers.

Cut to twenty-four years later as Daily Chronicle reporter Lucy Fletcher (Charity Wakefield) is investigating strange developments at the Harmony Shoal Institute. She suspects the man in charge, Mr Brock (‘Tomiwa Edun), is up to something and sneaks into the building late at night. She crosses paths with The Doctor and his friend Nardole (Matt Lucas). The trio soon finds themselves in a spot of danger, but are rescued by The Ghost, a masked vigilante superhero. Lucy is immediately smitten with this real-life Superman, while The Doctor recognizes his old friend Grant. What Lucy doesn’t realize is that she already knows The Ghost. Grant has been her friend since childhood—he has always had a crush on her, but he has always been too scared to say anything. He watched his own best friend marry her, have a child with her and then desert her. Grant now works as Lucy’s manny, babysitting her baby while she’s at work.

The Return of Doctor Mysterio is a fun mix of romantic comedy and typical Doctor Who alien threat story. In addition to Lucy and The Doctor trying to figure out what’s really going on at Harmony Shoal, Lucy is also on a mission to learn the identity of The Ghost. Ever since their first encounter, she’s become obsessed with the superhero. Meanwhile, The Doctor tries to convince Grant to finally tell Lucy how he feels about her, but he’s too scared. As The Ghost, Grant can easily speak to Lucy, but as the dorky, glasses-wearing Grant, he’s too shy and tongue-tied. But as the alien threat puts Lucy’s life in danger, it’s time for him to man up or risk losing Lucy forever.
 

I really enjoyed this Christmas special. It’s a fun take on the typical American costumed superhero tale mixed with a delightful romantic comedy and an interesting alien invasion story. Chatwin and Wakefield have such great chemistry and comedic timing—the farcical romantic comedy between Grant/The Ghost and Lucy was my favorite aspect of this special. There were so many laugh-out-loud moments—I especially enjoyed the scenes where Grant is trying to do double-duty, babysitting as Grant while at the same time out on a date with Lucy as The Ghost. Not also in their love story fun, but it also takes some heartwarming turns.

Throughout the episode, we also get flashbacks of The Doctor helping young Grant deal with his powers and feelings. And in the present, The Doctor finally works through his own feelings of loss. There’s a lot of action and humor with The Doctor and Nardole dealing with the alien threat—it was great seeing return of the hilarious Matt Lucas returns, reprising his role from last year’s Christmas special.

I was sent an online screener, so I can’t comment on the quality of the Blu-ray’s audio and video presentation, but I did get a chance to see the bonus material that appears on the physical release. The two bonus features include an excellent 25-minute behind-the-scenes special along with a 7-minute featurette on The Doctor.

What’s Included:
Film: (60 min)

• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

• A New Kind of Superhero (7:18)
  The cast and crew talk about what makes the twelfth Doctor a hero, and what powers he has. The featurette is narrated by actress Charity Wakefield and features clips from the series as well as interviews with lead writer/showrunner Steven Moffat, and actors Peter Capaldi (“The Doctor”), Charity Wakefield (“Lucy”), Justin Chatwin (“Grant/The Ghost”) and ‘Tomiwa Edun (“Mr Brock”).
• Doctor Who Extra (25:15)
  A fun behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 2016 Doctor Who Christmas Special, narrated by actress Charity Wakefield. The cast and crew discuss the script, the superhero costume, returning guest star Matt Lucas, the love triangle between Lucy, Grant & The Ghost, the sets, working with 8-year-old first time actor Logan Hoffman, shooting New York in Bulgaria, and more. Charity also does some fun investigative journalism on the set. Includes lots of behind-the-scene footage and interviews with stars Peter Capaldi, Justin Chatwin, Charity Wakefield, ‘Tomiwa Edun and Matt Lucas (“Nardole”), lead writer/showrunner Steven Moffat, director Ed Bazalgette and costume designer Hayley Nebauer.

Final Thoughts:

The Return of Doctor Mysterio is a fun mix of romantic comedy and typical Doctor Who alien adventure. This was one of my favorite Doctor Who Christmas specials, not so much for the Doctor aspects (though there is an interesting story there), but more-so for the fun superhero parody and romantic comedy side of things. While the bonus material is minimal, the 25-minute behind the scenes feature is excellent. The special makes a thoroughly-entertaining stand-alone story that can easily be enjoyed by Doctor Who fans as well as folks just looking for a fun hour of television, and comes highly recommended.