My All New Top 10 (and a bit) Christmas Specials

Sunday 18 December 2016

Two years ago I did a series of posts on my top ten Doctor Who Christmas specials.  There have been two more since then, so an update is in order.  I am still finding it weird that Doctor Who now occupies the Morecambe and Wise spot as the traditional Christmas Day entertainment for all the family (and the Prime Minister.) However, it's been 11 years now, so here is my revised ranking, with 2014's Last Christmas and 2015's The Husbands of River Song slotted in.

1	The Christmas Invasion	2005
2	The Unquiet Dead*	2005
3	A Christmas Carol	2010
4	The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe**	2011
5	The Runaway Bride	2006
6	Voyage of the Damned	2007
7	Last Christmas***	2014
8	The Next Doctor	2008
9	The Husbands of River Song****	2015
10	The End of Time	2009
11	The Snowmen	2012
12	The Time of the Doctor	2013

* Yes, I know that this was technically not a Christmas Special, but it should have been.
**My new team member thinks this one is terrible, but at least it's properly Christmassy. We do agree about Nardole, though, so I'll let him off.

***Marked up for the Rudolph's nose car alarm gag

****Marked down for excessive continuity references and Matt Lucas.

There is still no change at number one.  How can you beat David Tennant, revived by a cup of tea, saving the world with a satsuma whilst still in his pyjamas, then having time to bring down the (female) Prime Minister before tucking in to turkey and all the trimmings?

I wonder which one is Theresa May's favourite?

PS Has anyone ever managed to solve the Watcher's Christmas Quiz in Doctor Who Magazine?  This year I don't even understand the questions.

PPS Have had a breakthrough with the Quiz.  Once we worked out the key, it isn't actually as hard as usual.  Woo hoo!

Last Christmas...

Sunday 28 December

It’s been a couple of days now since I first saw Last Christmas, and I’m still not sure what I think. I really did not like it much on first viewing. I thought the whole dream plot rather obvious and lazy, and the general theme ‘we are all dying and we celebrate Christmas because we think it will be our last’ very bleak. 

On second viewing, I liked it a bit better. Nick Frost’s Santa-with-attitude was excellent, as were the two sarcastic elves, Wolf and Ian. And the juxtaposition of Santa and the Doctor as two impossible beings with implausible means of transport that are bigger on the inside worked well, up to a point. 

But comparing the Doctor in this way with Santa Claus, and emphasising that dreams can be nested within dreams and that we can never know whether we are truly awake, serves to undermine any future stories. How can we be sure that next season isn’t still part of the dream? For that matter, perhaps the last season was part of the dream. I mean, the Moon is a giant egg? Forests that grow overnight to protect the Earth? Missy is surely a creature from the Doctor’s worst nightmare.