A Christmas Carol

Without any Wallace & Gromit and robbed of "big" movies by virtue of everyone seeing them already, the BBC continue to put all their festive spirit on the back of reality dancing shows and the annual outing for Doctor Who. This is not the place for people such as myself that watches Doctor Who for the occasional darkness and engaging plots and just puts up with the kiddie-friendly silliness that it will always have; no, the Christmas special is usually full of colourful, noisy nonsense and Bernard Cribbins in a Santa hat. So there was a certain amount of "strapping in for the ride" when I heard the plot of this years special (which it took me till now to watch – happy Christmas!).

The plot is essentially that Amy and Rory are on a spaceship crashing onto a planet but trapped in a thick cloud layer which is controlled by one man on the ground. Kazran Sardick is a real sour dick though and decides to just let the ship crash and kill everyone. Unable to do it without his help, the Doctor decides to travel back in time and show Sardick the miracle of Christmas, thus changing him into a good person and getting him to allow the ship to land. Meanwhile though, the Doctor cannot help but also be mystified by the cloud layer, in which fish freely swim and live. So it is a version of A Christmas Carol with flying sharks basically – sounds like a recipe for silly spectacle and easy sentiment right? Well, a little, but far less than I expected.

The viewer does have to deal with the image of a shark harnessed like a reindeer flying through the sky, but otherwise the special is actually very engaging and smartly done. The Christmas Carol aspect is actually pretty good and it even held my interest even though I'm not one for the whole "what a special day Christmas is" thing. Gambon plays his scrooge really well and I thought he gave the special a lot of heart. I had assumed that Jenkins would be a novelty but, while not brilliant, she was reasonably OK. Smith worked the thing as well as one would expect while neither Gillan nor Darvill (who really should not be in it in my opinion) didn't have much to do other than be the plot device – but weirdly the special was better for their absence.

Overall this was a really enjoyable Christmas special which (unlike the Poseidon in Space one the other year) actually feels festive due to its content rather than its trimmings. Engaging, quite clever, quite touching while also having the silliness that kids need – much better than I expected it would be.

This is one of the most beautiful episodes of Doctor Who. It's almost a year since i watched it, and simply can't get it out of my head. Perfect Christmas episode, guaranteed to have tears in your eyes by the end of the show.

This special has that fine line of strange, funny, sad and exciting. Steven Moffat at his best.

I hope the next Xmas special will be as good as this one. Season is also good, so special continue to give prediction of season that will follow in the new year. Can't wait for new episodes of this silly show, that has something that holds you and doesn't lose it's grip for a long long time.

Dickens' story gets the Doctor Who treatment, full of mad humor and personal tragedy as the Doctor has to reclaim a damaged soul in a world of flying sharks to save Amy, Rory (Arthur Darvill getting an upgrade to Companion status with a front-of-credits listing) and four thousands other people on a crashing space ship. With the great Michael Gambon as that Scrooge-like figure, it takes only half the show to manage the effort -- but series producer Steven Moffat never makes things that simple.

As a fancier of Charles Dickens and the Doctor, I am quite taken with another example of how the Doctor treats all time as simultaneous, rushing back and forth to get information from Gambon to get himself out of scrapes half a century earlier.

Moffat has shown a dab hand at making Victorian stories sensible to a twenty-first audience in series like JEKYLL and SHERLOCK. I'm glad he has decided to do the same for Scrooge.

Oh, and Karen Gillan makes a wonderful Ghost of Christmas Present in a short skirt.

I loved this episode, perfect for the holidays. Imaginative, unpredictable, original and a great holiday diversion.

Some viewers seem to find it necessary to pick apart the plot and think of ways the Doctor could've resolved things without jumping back and forth in time, or that time-lords shouldn't be doing it for those reasons. It's the Christmas Special; rather removed from the series in general and is meant to be enjoyed in the spirit of the holidays, let go and have fun with it ;)

My only criticism is that you can't yet purchase that wonderful song written for the show, sung by Katherine Jenkins -- "Abigail's Song".

Seriously, it is the job of the reviewer to point out the horrific and the extraordinary.

The most fun is pointing out the extraordinary.

Imagine that:

1. You are possibly the greatest living TV writer. The jury will not be in of course until you pass off this mortal shell, but the evidence at hand is substantial.

2. The year is 2010.

3. Among your many past accomplishments is that you have taken a children's show from the BBC archives and given it a worldwide stature that exceeds both Star Trek and Star Wars. That is cool. Like bowties are cool.

4. And that is merely your day job. At X-Mas, you get to have extra fun by writing "specials" that fans around the world await.

5. Again, the year is 2010. You decide to go for broke and write something which will not only be as good as Dickens but, hey, why not try to improve on the original?

6. Your logic is something like this. Even the BBC executives won't see how ambitious your work is, because the "Christmas Carol" theme has been done to death in movies and TV, and no one ever has come close to the original. So you proceed under cover of stealth. And cynicism.

7. And you nail it. A perfect supporting cast that includes no less than Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins.

8. And writing to die for. Writing beyond belief. There is a scene where Gambon, realizing that the Doc is playing him, challenges the doctor to "go ahead, show me the future" and the Doc replies, "That is what I am doing" ... pan camera to show that the younger Gambon is already in frame and the dialog with the older one was for the benefit if the younger. So, in effect, the future has already been shown.

9. And THAT is just a sample of the writing. The fact that this comes at the end of a Amy/Rory arc -- now considered (2014) to be the best arc in the series EVER -- is merely irony. Piling greatness on greatness.

10. Memo to IMDb staff (as if they are EVER going to reply, even if this is being written at X-Mas) -- we need a higher rating than "10."

Just for special occasions. Like this one.