I was disappointed with it too. I admit it was the best of a bad bunch of Christmas telly - but being the best of a bad bunch is not good enough for Doctor Who. Here's my take on it -
I thought there were far too many sub plots included, too many monsters (and not one of them scary for me either), just too much going on and not enough time devoted to each sub plot to make it interesting. Just when I thought I was getting in to it the episode veered off somewhere else and got lost in it's own over complicated dialogue.
I don't like the way they're suddenly promoting the idea of the regeneration limit. That absolutely sucks for me. The Eleventh Doctor is the Eleventh Doctor. I simply refuse to refer to him as the thirteenth and I refuse to refer to Twelfth as 14th. The Doctors are what they already are established to be. Was it not already established that the War Doctor, although is the doctor (not disputing that before somebody jumps on me) wanted to be known as a warrior and his actions were not in the name of the doctor? It's irritating me that people are now referring to the fourteen doctors. We're not seriously counting that ridiculous half human clone that sprouted from David Tennant's severed hand way back when are we?! Come on, seriously. I blame the show for this - they're promoting the regeneration limit and I think that's where people are getting carried away with it.
What the hell was that comedy bollocks in the opening 15 minutes with the naked stuff (pardon the pun) and the Doctor suddenly revealing a wig...!!!!??
It wasn't even funny. After that it was hard to feel involved in the story because a comedy routine doesn't promote the fear which should have come later on. Then it reduced some monsters to comedy sidekicks (a talking Cyberman head called handles??!!
).
It was just a big mess for me, right up to the best scene which was the regeneration scene. It was emotional and that finally generated the proper response. I thought Peter Capaldi's introduction was spot on too - that was scary and the cliffhanger ending helped to keep the tension.
Overall though - not impressed enough. Too rushed, too many plots, not enough depth in to the characters or enough explanation in to the story. They could have done a two parter if they wanted to put that many different things in it. That would have made much more sense, but they missed that opportunity the same way they missed it in the Day of the Doctor and Night of the Doctor. Not good enough I'm afraid, Moffat.
Good luck to Matt Smith. I'm sure such a talented actor will go on to great things. As for Who in 2014, this needs to be much, much better. This year's episodes have been mostly disappointing and for Doctor Who, that's just not f#####g good enough.