Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2010)

As Good As It Gets

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Amy and Rory are celebrating their honeymoon on board a spaceship, but it's out of control and hurtling towards a planet ruled by the Scrooge like Kazran Sardick. Kazran is refusing to help, his machinery could save the crash, but he chooses to let the thousands of people die. We step in to a Christmas carol as the Doctor shows Kazran the error of his ways. Using all manner of techniques to make Kazran change his mind.This is possibly my favourite Christmas episode, it is so different from all the others, I think even Dickens would have loved it.It is a Christmas fairy tale perfect for the Festive period. Without patrsonising it, I'd say it's the prettiest episode to date, it looks incredible (you can see where the budget went.) Michael Gambon is utterly brilliant, so to is Katherine Jenkins, she did a great job considering it was her first real character part. The music is simply beautiful, I love it, works so wonderfully, in particular the moving Abigail's song.Touchingly beautiful, best Christmas episode to date. 10/10

I'm sorry, it had all you needed to make a great Dr Who episode, except that it broke THE cardinal rule when it comes to the Dr and time travel; YOU CAN'T GO BACK ON SOMEONE ELSE'S TIME LINE!!! This is known as First Law of Time. Not only did he go back on the time line, but the old man actually hung out with his older self. Whoever was the script editor for this should be fired. I am not usually a stickler for precise detail, but come on, this is ridiculous. The whole premise of the TV show going back all the way to the beginning (and I'm talking about William Hartnell, not Christopher Eccleston) was that the Dr had to solve the problems then and there, and could not go back and 'try again'. I know people will give examples like "The Three Doctors" and "The Five Doctors", however, these episodes were influenced by the Time Lords, and though the Dr is the last Time Lord, I feel by breaking the First Law of Time, it goes against the spirit of the show and sets a bad precedent for future episodes.

If you take the letter 'C' off the word 'Carol', you're left with 'Arol', the Welsh word for backside, and it pretty well sums up the 2010 'Dr.Who' Christmas 'Special'. Since Steven Moffat took over as showrunner, there has been a noticeable drop in script quality and ratings. The new Doctor and his companions ( Rory exempted ) are not likable, and it is impossible to care what happens to them. 'Special' did nothing to reverse the decline. In fact it was rivalled only for sheer inanity by 'The Big Bang' which consisted basically of people running around inside an empty building. I know money is tight at the B.B.C. right now, but come on! The basic idea - a crippled space liner with 4,000 passengers ( Amy and Rory among them ) careering towards catastrophe - is essentially a pinch of 'Voyage Of The Damned', the far superior 2007 Special. The only man who can save the vessel is Kazran Sardick ( Michael Gambon ), a miserly individual who keeps the 'surplus population' entombed. The Doctor gets nowhere with him, so he decides to go back into the man's past and tinker with it in order to turn him into a nicer person. So why did he not think to do this before with say Davros or any other of the nastier 'Who' villains?Unlike previous Specials, this is not even an adventure story. We all know Moffat thinks of the show as a fairy tale ( he's wrong ) which presumably explains why he thinks its okay to dispense with the show's format. Wrong there too. 'Dr.Who' is either science fiction or it is nothing. Had Russell T. Davies ripped off the plot of an 1843 novel for one of his scripts, he'd have been crucified by his detractors.Stunt casting reared its head here again in the shape of Katherine Jenkins as 'Abigail', Sardick's doomed love. She was not too bad, but I was at a loss to explain how her singing was able to save the liner. It is yet another in a long line of Moffat 'deus ex machina' endings.But the low point came with the flying shark. It has to rank as the most stupid idea yet seen in the show. The creature pulling a sleigh through the air in the manner of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer had me cringing. Moffat's tendency to indulge in wacky comedy went over the top here.As the end credits rolled, I thought 'thank god that's over'. We then got a taster of Season 6 ( or should that be Season 6b? ) which looks to be about as thrilling as the weather forecast. Even the most rabid Moffat zealot must now be able to see the show is doomed unless he resigns and hands over the reins to someone more competent. Smith and Gillan should go too.The B.B.C. must have sensed that this was a loser as they screened in the days that followed repeats of earlier specials. We should give grateful thanks that Davies was ever in charge of the show at all and for so long, and that he had the good sense to cast first Eccleston and then Tennant. Can you imagine 'The Waters Of Mars' with Matt Smith as the Doctor? It would have been disastrous! 'Blackadder's Christmas Carol' over on B.B.C.-2 beat Moffat's effort hands down for sheer entertainment. He should hang his head in shame!UPDATE ) As I write this ( 27/1/11 ), 'Dr.Who' has just been humiliated at the National Television Awards by failing to win anything. Let's hope someone makes big changes to the show soon before it goes down with all hands on deck.

Highly entertaining and perfectly fitting for Christmas.Takes an old tale and masterfully reinvents it, meshing it seamlessly with the Doctor Who look and feel. Where many try to simply shift the story into a new setting, and by so doing botch the underlying message of the tale or make it so blatantly obvious as to strip it of all of its poetry, the Doctor Who team have managed to make it entirely their own while keeping its simple elegance.This once again reaffirms my belief that Doctor Who is one of the best series on television in quite some time, even after having watched now for five years, each new episode continues to be new and refreshing.One comment on the music ... beautifully executed, and magnificently sung by Katherine Jenkins ... did anyone else get the impression that "Abigail's Song" was strongly influenced by Philip Glass' "Open the Kingdom"?