Half Way Out of the Dark: The Christmas Specials Ranked

It is difficult for fans who grew up in the wilderness years to fully comprehend that a 13-year-old fan will not have lived through a single Christmas Day when Doctor Who was not on the television. To think that when the show returned in 2005, we were worried that it might be unsuccessful, or worse – an embarrassment! Doctor Who now motors through the Christmas schedules every year, each time offering something new, unique and very, very strange.

Which are the best though? What does each festive treat have to offer? Here’s my rundown of the specials from least to most favourite, including the most recent Twice Upon a Time. What I will say though in the spirit of Christmas is this: I’d happily sit down with a mince pie and some mulled wine and enjoy any of these prestigious and very special programmes. There is not one bad programme among them. Well, apart from this first one:

THE RUNAWAY BRIDE

It’s just rubbish, isn’t it. We meet Donna Noble who, contrary to what yeasayers would have you believe, does indeed shout her way through most of the story. (She gets better later in the episode – and much better in her full television season – but here for much of the story’s length, she’s an irritating mouth on legs: “Get me to the church!”) What kills the episode is its feeling of repetition. We’ve got the Killer Santas from last year but this time, there’s not much reason for them to be there and they’re not quite as sinister. We’ve got a Killer Christmas Tree but this time it doesn’t spin wildly like a whirling dervish; it plops baubles at you. At the time, I remember wondering if every Christmas special was going to be like this: trees and Santas. And The Runaway Bride stands out now as the only special to feel like a re-hash of last year’s bonanza before Russell T Davies realised that this show would go on forever and that every Christmas special can be quite vividly different. Granted, the taxi sequence is terrific and worth tuning in for, but there’s a feeling of diminishing returns in this episode as its big reveals become less… big. In the last act, we meet the Racnoss, a clearly immobile, stupid prop with an annoying actress (who is usually bloody brilliant!) inside it and her annoyingly invisible brood. Then, we have a boring trip to the beginning of the Earth which we witness from miles away. I’ve always held that if the Doctor must return to the TARDIS for a conversation (Hello Impossible Astronaut! Hello Black Orchid!) then the story has some serious pacing issues. There’s the nebulous huon particle plot which equates roughly to magic dust – see also vortex energy, void-stuff and the power of the archangel network. There’s a lovely summery feel to this episode so it doesn’t even feel like Christmas and the latter half is set against garishly lit red and green flats. The major problem with this story is that we’ve seen it many times before but better. What’s that you say? The Thames has been drained? So what, it was Big Ben last year and that really was amazing.

THE NEXT DOCTOR

If this story had been called The Court of the Cyberking, I may feel better about it. As it happens, The Next Doctor as a title is drab. It feels clunky and undercooked and compared with the previous year’s epic outing, that’s exactly how this Christmas Special feels. It’s an hour long compared to last year’s 75-minuter and thus feels smaller. It’s a more contained story but with less spectacle. The Cyberking, in all its glorious CG beauty, towers over the city in the last 10 minutes of The Next Doctor. Starship Titanic, in all its glorious CG beauty is glimpsed in the first few seconds of Voyage of the Damned and that’s only the very beginning. The Next Doctor feels comparatively so much less special. Were it a mid-series episode, it would certainly be looked upon as grander but as it stands, it’s falling short of last year’s dizzying heights. The title never, not even for a second, convinces so the essential mystery of the story’s first half feels like something to be got over before we get to the meat of the tale. Had the focus been more on Miss Hartigan, her lonely life and rise to Cyber-monarch, we may have had something more entertaining. As it stands though, David Morrissey mopes about mumbling in the dulcet tones of a Russ Abbott impersonator for half an hour. Funny that both he and Sarah Parrish, who had been so wonderful together in Blackpool alongside David Tennant both fail spectacularly to enliven a Doctor Who episode. Derblha Kirwin, on the other hand, dazzles in the story’s best scene: the Cyber invasion of a snowy graveyard. Bluntly though, the Cybermen look shocking. Gone is their might of steel, to be replaced by black plastic heads and rubbery digits. All told, The Next Doctor is just a bit dull and unspectacular when everything around it is so full of pizazz. 

THE RETURN OF DOCTOR MYSTERIO

This is a particularly strange beast. In and of itself, Mysterio is decent stuff but as a Doctor Who Christmas Special - in a year when Doctor Who has been off the telly – it fails to pack a punch. Quite unexpectedly, the only time the story feels less like knockabout fluff and more vitally alive is in the last few minutes at the mention of River Song. Mysterio is a superhero film with a 60-minute runtime, meaning that cuts have had to made – chiefly budget ones. It is irritating that we fail to see the superhero in question do anything remotely super. He holds up a bomb at the very end of the tale, but his remaining feats of derring-do are left off-camera and delivered via news reporters. Instead, we get Matt Lucas pulling focus by twatting about with an elephant and a three-way split-camera phone-call which tries desperately to be funny but isn’t. However, there are scenes which do work. The Ghost and his girl meeting for a romantic dinner on a rooftop deliver scenes which truly sparkle and the pre-titles hanging-from-a-rooftop business is cherishably Doctor Who. Quite what this story has to do with Christmas, on the other hand, I don’t know.

THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW AND THE WARDROBE

There is much to love in this most unloved of Christmas Specials. The pre-titles sequence has got to be one of the most exciting pieces of action Doctor Who has ever presented. The “caretaker” sequence in which our hero conducts a tour of the house is warm, upbeat and extraordinarily Christmassy. The wooden King and Queen are rather frightening in their imposing statures and stillness. It has charm by the bucket-load and the whole thing looks beautiful too. So why is it so reviled? Honestly, by the time the children have passed through the Christmas present and into the new world, the story grinds to a halt. It takes an eternity to reach the lighthouse and the Androzani crew, despite being played by terrific comedy actors, have nothing to do. The ending too is utterly predictable and a touch saccharine. Perhaps Steven Moffat, after a whole season of inter-tangled, over-complicated plotting and misdirection writes a reactionary story which is far too simple with certainly nowhere near enough plot to fill its runtime.

THE END OF TIME

As a regeneration story, The End of Time probably just about works. As a Christmas Special, it’s an odd one. In the episode actually broadcast on Christmas Day, offerings are surprisingly drab. It’s the equivalent of a stringy piece of tinsel in lieu of decoration. The Doctor’s chase after the Master through the wasteland is odd, colourless and bleak. Scenes melt into each other without definition or ironically, a sense of time. After the Doctor’s aforementioned breathless chase, he simply finds the Master’s hideout a few scenes later, walking in on him without energy or sense of occasion. Things in The End of Time just happen because they happen. We find out what a white-point star is when we are introduced to it because suddenly the plot needs an ‘out.’ There are so many rules being broken here, it’s almost irritating. However, The End of Time does mark the finish of one very vivid golden age of Doctor Who. When watching Planet of the Spiders, we forgive the chase sequence because it’s one last hurrah for Jon Pertwee. Here, we forgive the plot deficiencies and leaps of internal logic because we are saying goodbye, not just to David Tennant but to Russell T Davies and this is as fitting a tribute as one can imagine. The regeneration roll call lasts an eternity but it feels earned. This is very much the end of a five-year story and it feels right that it’s a little indulgent, even a bit heavy-going at times because it is deserved. Most affecting of all though, are those scenes between David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins, the old soldiers, discussing skirmishes and graves and death and weaponry. They alone are worth what is essentially a flabby, cluttered and unfocused celebration, though celebration – and a grand one at that - is probably the best word to describe The End of Time. 

THE CHRISTMAS INVASION

Henceforth, it is very difficult to order the Christmas Specials, such is their extremely high quality. Awarding The Christmas Invasion such a lowly position is difficult because there is so much joy in it, so much to love, so much of the spirit of Christmas that it feels cruel. However, order must be had and given the staggering quality of those stories above it, here is where it sits. David Tennant’s first story makes the bold move of having him essentially absent for 45 minutes. Granted, there’s the very funny “I need…I need…” sequence up in Tyler Towers but for the rest of the time, Tennant is bedbound. We forget how innovative a move this was at the time, because we’re so familiar with The Christmas Invasion’s plot now. But it is extremely canny. “So you wanna see the new Doctor? Tough. You’ll have to waist til Easter.” However, in the 15 minutes of screen time he is afforded, Tennant dazzles. He has an instant handle on the part and Davies’s dialogue that Christopher Eccleston, try as he might, never quite got to grips with. Tennant quotes The Lion King, talks of Big Red Buttons using audible capital letters and chooses a magnificent costume in the last few minutes. There are one or two niggles. Directorially, there are a few “off” sequences. What is with that crazed military music as Harriet Jones walks uncomfortably around a corner in the base? The height of the ship is never quite clear and the colour grading is a bit grey and murky for Christmas. However, like the festive period itself, this is a story of hope. The Doctor and Rose will carry on having adventures. Forever. The last scene completely warms the heart: The future looks so bright. 

LAST CHRISTMAS

What a strange beast this one is! Despite the presence of Santa Claus, a sleigh ride, a snowy rooftop, elves, toys and the North Pole, this story doesn’t much feel like Christmas. It feels dark and dangerous and scary, tinted in deep blues and a feeling of uncanny isolation. Face-crabs slither down from ceilings, people are sucked into television sets and a woman who dreamt she was a scientific outpost worker in reality cannot walk. It is a story in which we are allowed to mourn Danny Pink and are promised that every Christmas could indeed be “last Christmas.” This is a Christmas Special for the Capaldi era: grim, bittersweet and unpredictable. It really shouldn’t work given its menagerie of elements and dangerous tone but – despite one scene in the middle in which every bugger reiterates that we could well be in a dream using almost exactly the same explanation over and over again – it resolutely does. Last Christmas is a moving triumph and ultimately the story of the Doctor and Clara’s reconciliation.

THE SNOWMEN

Compare this to The Next Doctor, the other Victorian Christmas Special, and The Snowmen’s richness is evident. It’s more complicated, ambitious, magical and atmospheric. Directorially, it’s leaps ahead of its 19th century counterpart: there’s the supreme sequence of Clara entering the TARDIS for the first time, and for the very first time we get that shot – we’re outside, we circle the ship, we enter, it’s bigger on the inside: all in one fluid movement. The snowmen themselves look frightening and sinister, the CG snow which opens the episode looks haunting and alive. Richard E Grant gives an unpredictably tremendous underplayed performance (given his dreadful turn as the Shalka Doctor) and to top it all, it’s a prequel to The Web of Fear. The only downsides are niggles: I wish the Paternoster gang had been given an onscreen introduction, rather than their own internet-only “prequel.” The narrative leap from A Good Man Goes to War to The Snowmen doesn’t quite work. Given where the story sits in the ongoing narrative of Doctor Who, the special also feels like it lacks its own ending, acting as a springboard for the Doctor’s mission in the next series. In that sense, The Snowmen doesn’t really work entirely on its own merits but nevertheless, by emulating Mary Poppins, Tim Burton, The Web of Fear and Sherlock Holmes, the story boasts all the ingredients of a very clear winner. It is a sumptuous, beautifully-told tale of the snow and ice at the heart of Christmas. 

THE TIME OF THE DOCTOR

Yes, there is an awful lot going on in The Time of the Doctor, but after a few viewings, when all the dots are joined and everything has fallen into place, it’s easier to see what a minor masterpiece it is. Steven Moffat finds himself at a point when he suddenly has to conclude a story he has been telling for almost four years and one which he might have suspected he’d have a bit longer to tell. He has to wrap up not just the time of the Eleventh Doctor, but also the Silence arc, the “crack” arc, the Trenzalore arc and jolly well make the story a Christmas Special too. At 60 minutes, a lesser writer would be all at sea with this impossible task, but Moffat manages to navigate it with aplomb and even finds time to introduce us to Handles, a Cybernetic head whose death we feel as sharply as the Doctor and Clara. After four years, we even discover who blew up the TARDIS. (Spoilers: It was the Silence. Obvs. Duh. It rankles personally and embarrassingly that I worried about this for a good while during those four years.) When Matt Smith’s time comes to an end, he has such dignity. As an old man, he is heart-breaking. As a younger man for just five more minutes, he is The Doctor again. (Though I do wish the production team had had the gall to introduce Peter Capaldi as the owner of the boots that walk up the TARDIS staircase.) The Time of the Doctor wraps up the era in a neat bow and parcels it away. What could be more Christmassy than that? We can now watch an entire era, from start to finish, from beginning to end and enjoy a very definite and satisfying ending.

TWICE UPON A TIME

For the most part, Twice Upon a Time is a fairly serviceable runaround with added First Doctor. In fact, it’s more of a plodalong than a runaround, the only action being when our four heroes jump onto the chains securing the TARDIS and even that sequence is wonkily directed. The First Doctor doesn’t ring true either: he is a curious mixture of First Doctor and the actor William Hartnell. There are very few examples of the First Doctor being sexist in the original run. The “smacked bottom” line is originally directed at Susan, his grand-daughter and the female companions he travelled with after her departure were essentially substitutes for her. Ironically, the one time he orders his female companion to “fetch” something is at the start of The Tenth Planet Episode 1 and fortuitously a clip the production team can use to bolster their depiction of the original Doctor as a behind-the-times sexist bigot. He never was. So there are plenty of things wrong with this Special: It’s not rip-roaring and action-packed; it’s ponderous and slight. But something happens at the 45-minute mark. Suddenly, it comes alive. We realise this is it for Peter Capaldi and as he looks on at the WW1 battlefield and considers the innumerable friends he has watched die, we feel with him. As he sees Clara, we see the alien, bittersweet melancholy in his smile and we feel it. In every word of his final, quite beautiful speech, we feel it. He and indeed Steven Moffat, have been truly remarkable, utterly magnificent. And we can forgive and forget the wonky journey with an off-centre version of the First Doctor (and a staccato performance by the usually brilliant David Bradley) we took to get to the end of this story and remember only where we ended up: with something majestic. Something transcendent.

THE HUSBANDS OF RIVER SONG

When fans talk about Christmas Specials, this beauty always gets missed. Perhaps, that’s because fans were too busy thinking of this as the last story for an entire year rather than seeing the great story that it actually is. The Husbands of River Song is superb. There’s a crashing Voyage of the Damned style spaceship, a head in a bag, a head with a diagonal schism through its centre, a rollicking screwball element throughout, and – at the finish – one of the most beautiful and underplayed scenes in the whole history of the programme. Look at Capaldi watch River as she looks on at the stones. He stands, composed and strange behind her. What is the man thinking? Loss, love? This is the Doctor. Capaldi plays the scene in a distant, alien and deeply affecting way. What is so wonderful about Capaldi as an actor is that every single decision he makes is an offbeat, unusual one and he is never ever predictable. The last scene of Husbands is one of my very favourite Capaldi moments. And isn’t the music just terrific? The whole story is an underrated masterpiece. In years to come, fans will realise they’d never had it so damn good.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Second place for A Christmas Carol feels insulting. It is so rich, so beautiful. Even its musical score is one of the most accomplished and filmic the series has ever enjoyed before or since. Murray Gold is on fire here. His score is as Christmassy as the episode itself, which unlike more saccharine fare, acknowledges the darkness at the heart of the festival. Katherine Jenkins also adds her considerable vocal talents to the world of A Christmas Carol and - in the end - fills it with a beautiful melancholia. Steven Moffat’s “halfway out of the dark” plotting is a thing to balk and marvel at. Every moment, every second buys us either a laugh, a tear or a shock and gives us moments of awe, wonder and thrill. The shark trip across the skies is wonderous and indicative of a director at the very top of his creative game. The story is at once familiar and unusual. We don’t realise there hasn’t been any snow until in the final few minutes, it starts snowing. I simply can’t articulate how perfect an adventure A Christmas Carol is. Even using the word adventure seems to belittle it, make it sound hollow. There is a great, beating sad, happy heart at the core of this tale and it flits across the screen like well-oiled clockwork of the grandest design. This is perfection.

VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED

Only a super-sized 75-minute, Kylie-starring blockbuster of a disaster movie could knock A Christmas Carol from the top spot. This is Doctor Who at its biggest and best, told in the most vivid possible colours. The casting of Kylie says everything. The Starship Titanic setting says everything. This is a massive adventure. It is also a perfect disaster movie script from Russell T Davies: we meet the characters quickly and they are painted in memorable, broad but original strokes. There are moments of laugh-out-loud funny, the Tenth Doctor is loveable and fun, there is a talking conker that we fall in love with and cry for when he dies, there are flying angels with killer halos, there’s a metal-bound, bald nutcase whose teeth twinkle even in death. The last scene is marvellous too. Mr Copper – in a brilliantly funny turn from Clive Swift – discovers he is rich and goes a little mad. The Doctor smiles and leaves. That’s our hero. In any other series, the fate of Mr Copper would be that of the lead character, but here we have a man who isn’t remotely interested in money. He is a thrill-seeking nomad and as he leaves we are promised adventures still to come. They can’t all be as tremendously grand as Voyage of the Damned but they can at least aspire to be.

JH