A Thinker in Space

The Christmas season is upon us, and I am planning to celebrate this year with a weekly article talking a bit about our Christmas traditions – of course, in particular, related to movies and shows that we watch every year. I will be going through a few articles discussing what we occasionally watch, what we try to watch, and what we always watch every year, and why each one is on the list.

But I figured I’d start out with something I haven’t talked about on this blog yet and I love dearly – Doctor Who.

I have a lot of feelings about Doctor Who right now – similar to my feelings on the current state of Pokémon, Star Wars, and Marvel (though releases on the horizon look much more promising than they have been of late). I won’t dive into this, but I have not been impressed with the last seven years of Doctor Who media. For me, the timeline ends at Twice Upon a Time, the finale of Series 10 (and even that season was hit-or-miss for me). Eventually, I would love to do a season-by-season review of these 10 seasons, because there is so much to love about these releases, despite the valid criticisms they sometimes receive.

Today, though, I have put together a list ranking the Doctor Who Christmas Specials from 2005 (the year of the rerelease) to 2017 (the final of Series 10). Surprisingly in my research, I learned that there was a Doctor Who Christmas Episode every year in that window until the tradition was broken by Chris Chibnall, who took charge of Doctor Who after Steven Moffat exited the show.

I am aware that this is not an original concept, and that you can find dozens, perhaps hundreds of iterations of this same type of article online. Nonetheless, I am going to put my ranking out there, and hopefully readers will find this a worthwhile time machine to Christmas’s past (and future).

Criteria

The criteria is crucial to understanding this list. I am not going to be ranking these episodes by their quality alone. That will be a factor, but there is a much, much bigger factor here. The core consideration that I will be lending to these episodes is this: How well do they function as a Christmas episode? I am looking for episodes with positive messages, ones that I am likely to watch during the Christmas season. They can have sadness within, but reflect the Christmas spirit, with a sense of hope and peace at the resolution, even if it is a bittersweet hope and peace. If you are a Doctor Who fan, you probably can see some episodes falling down the list as I explain this.

I have also made the decision to exclude the black sheep of this family – The End of Time: Part One. Due to its nature (being a part one of two of David Tennant’s swan song performance of The Doctor [or so we thought]), it would likely automatically rank lowest on this list, which is unfair to the quality of the episode as it cannot be ranked on the same spectrum as the other Christmas Episodes. I will also be excluding, as you can tell by the intro to this article, The Church on Ruby Road, which I have not seen.

NOTE: This list will contain spoilers for the episodes listed.

With that in mind, let’s get to the list.

#12 – Voyage of the Damned

To say that Voyage of the Damned is a bad episode would be widely missing the mark. It is actually quite a good episode. Is it one that I skip when rewatching the show? Usually, yes. There is a lot to love here, including an endearing cast, an enjoyable setting (the Space Titanic, so nothing could possibly go wrong) and some great writing. However, this episode’s tone is bleak. Spoiler alert: everyone dies. Everyone except The Doctor, Donna, and a selfish jerk who was along for the ride and was responsible for the deaths of aforementioned endearing cast. It leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth, but that’s the point. The episode doesn’t pretend to have a happy ending – it is meant for you to walk away disheartened by how unfair the world is sometimes. So, not a great Christmas episode despite being a solid addition to David Tennant’s career

#11 – The Runaway Bride

Poor Donna got panned in this list – her two Christmas specials are sitting at the bottom. The Runaway Bride, again, isn’t a bad episode. But there’s not much about it that stands out (except for Catherine Tate’s excellent performance and her chemistry with David Tennant that sets her up as a solid companion in Season 4). As far as Doctor Who episodes go as a whole, I would say that The Runaway Bride is a good one. But in a show where there are so many excellent episodes, that means this one ends up somewhere in the middle, or even lower middle, of the pile. This one is another episode that ends a bit more bleakly than I like in my yearly Christmas rotation, and thus it lands near the bottom of this list as well.

#10 – The Next Doctor

This episode has a lot of charm, and I’m actually quite surprised to see how low it ranked on this list! That, I feel, is a testament to how good the rest of these episodes are. I think the reason it falls lower is that the Christmas part of the episode gets sidelined for the main plotline, though Christmas dinner at the ending is a sweet scene. This episode had a ton of mystery in the first viewing, as we see “The Doctor”, a man who thinks he is The Doctor, come face to face with David Tennant’s iteration of the character. They some solid banter, and the story itself is fast-paced and enjoyable! The Cybermen make for enjoyable antagonists here, and the London setting hits well. If the episode leaned more into the Christmas theme, it would likely be higher, but as it is, it falls here!

#9 – Last Christmas

All of these episodes are solid, and Last Christmas is one that I wish could be ranked higher in this list. As an episode, I think it is excellent, and I would likely rank it much higher if I was strictly ranking based on quality. Part of this might be because I haven’t seen it in a while, but I remember this episode as being a rollercoaster that left the viewer with some emotional turmoil at the end. Peter Capaldi shines int his episode, with some top-notch banter, and Clara is a great companion as well. The episode is conceptually unique as well, with an Inception-style twist to it that is thrilling throughout. It’s even a good Christmas episode! I just happen to think that the rest of these episodes are, well, better.

#8 – The Christmas Invasion

The Christmas Invasion is a great episode. David Tennant’s era of Doctor Who was when the writing and plotlines strengthened significantly, and led to some of the best moments in the series. However, it is held back from being higher on this list (perhaps controversially) because it is not a great Christmas story. Russel T. Davies had a tendency to release quality Christmas episodes that were not great Christmas stories (this is the last of them for this list).

I could be convinced to put The Christmas Invasion even further down. I know I might catch some heat for this, but I personally can’t stand Rose as a companion. I actually think her romantic entanglement with The Doctor did not age well when compared to the rest of the Doctor Who storylines, and I find her incredibly annoying. I actually had this episode higher, and then rewatched part of it and said “nope”, dropping it lower. David Tennant’s presence in this episode is sidelined, and the episode itself, while excellent, has a bleak ending (something oddly noticeable in this era of Doctor Who Christmas).

#7 – The Snowmen

The Snowmen is an underrated Christmas special. I feel like it’s easily overlooked when comparing it to other excellent ones. But on a rewatch, this episode stands out as charming and meaningful, with powerful messages of life, loss, and hope. Matt Smith is recovering from the loss of Amy and Rory, and has lost his way, living in a tower in the sky, playing the role of a watcher rather than a participant in the course of events, both to protect others and himself. Clara is able to bring him out of this funk, and saves both him and Christmas. Overall, it’s a charming tale that leaves you with a warm feeling as The Doctor gets his first glimpse as to who Clara truly is.

#6 – Twice Upon a Time

I watched Twice Upon a Time years after its release, and was thoroughly impressed by it. I had stopped watching Doctor Who and was not blown away by Series 10, so when I heard reviews of Series 11, I was disheartened and didn’t finish the series by watching this episode.

I am so happy I finally gave it a chance – it ended up being a very good one. The introduction it gives to the future of immortality is a bit far-fetched, and does some unfortunate work to unravel some emotional stakes of previous Doctor Who, but it was abandoned after this episode much like the random immortality nonsense from The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived. That being said, the dialogue in this episode is excellently written – The First Doctor was a joy to see interact with Capaldi, and I liked Bill in this episode more than most of her previous appearances. Overall, a solid entry into the Doctor Who Christmas catalogue.

#5 – The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe

The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe is an episode was, as far as I can tell, not a critical success. To say it was panned would be an exaggeration, but the average audience member seems to have reacted with an “it’s okay”. I don’t really understand this – I loved this episode when it was released, and every subsequent viewing has made me appreciate it more.

The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe is a Matt Smith special, right at the beginning of Season 7. Our backdrop? A mother has received news that her husband, who is in active service, was killed overseas. The premise for the episode is relatively simple: the mother has not yet told her children, and they are going away to Christmas to a relative’s house (the relative is not there for the season). The Doctor shows up as the caretaker for the house to help the family cope and move on.

Things… don’t quite go as planned (due to some notably irresponsible behavior by Matt Smith’s Doctor), resulting in an adventure that tests the mother to her limit, resulting a powerful, emotional finale.

The Doctor’s irresponsible actions in this episode are pretty in-character for Matt Smith’s iteration, and his dialogue, as always, is excellent. This episode shines brightly in what a Christmas episode should be. It contains melancholy, but not so much that it overwhelms the viewer. It has a happy ending, which is, in my opinion, one of the core things I need in a Christmas special. It glorifies hope, joy, family, and life.

It is not an episode I watch every Christmas, but it is one that I definitely am likely to boot up every other year or so!

#4 – The Time of the Doctor

Putting Time of the Doctor as #4 on a list with a small selection is painful, as this is easily one of my top 5 episodes of this show of all time. As an episode, I’d actually put it above the following two (maybe not #1 – jury is still out there). Matt Smith remains my favorite Doctor – I love his storyline, I love his character arc and I love his companions. My only real complaint with Matt Smith’s time as The Doctor is the Series 6 finale – the buildup to this episode was so monumentally excellent that the finale felt a bit underwhelming. But more on that in another article (probably).

This episode is the end of a “trilogy”. I use quotations because this is a very, very soft trilogy, and it is made up of three independent episodes. It is as much of a trilogy as the David Tennant Specials are a five-part series. Matt Smith’s career as the doctor comes to a climactic end in these three episodes, starting with the controversial Name of the Doctor, continuing another contender for top 5 episodes – Day of the Doctor, and ends with this finale.

Time of the Doctor is a perfect finale for Matt Smith, the Doctor who is a kid at heart. It is also an excellent Christmas special, heartwarming and beautiful with a meaningful message about protecting others and keeping them safe.

So why isn’t it higher? Well, it’s loaded with emotion. And if I’m going to pick an episode to watch during Christmas time, this one is not going to be a first pick. I watched it last Christmas and loved it as a Christmas episode, but I can see myself skipping it this year, as watching Matt Smith’s final sequence is always bittersweet.

#3 – The Return of Doctor Mysterio

Another one of the most underrated Doctor Who episodes – The Return of Doctor Mysterio is one of my favorite one-off adventures. The cast is excellent, the superhero-driven plot is out of left field, and Peter Capaldi (who has situated himself comfortably as my second-favorite Doctor) has some top-notch dialogue.

It is heartwarming, the villains are fascinating, and The Ghost’s internal struggle is absolutely the highlight here. Moffat is a master of witty and fast-paced dialogue, and his writing brings these characters to life. This episode is severely underrated on critical rating platforms. It is a masterpiece, and should be treated as such.

#2 – A Christmas Carol

This episode is a favorite of mine, and is one that I try and watch every Christmas (successfully for the past five or so years). It just has everything you could want in a Christmas special – a riff on a classic Christmas story, engaging characters, a meaningful and potent message, and a beautiful ending. This is the perfect Christmas special in my eyes, and Matt Smith shines brightly in this episode.

The stakes are high, Kazran Sardick is an excellent antagonist, and the plot keeps moving. There are a ton of great scenes from the beginning to the end as The Doctor plays the role of the Ghosts of Christmas Present, Past and Future in Kazran’s life, with a satisfying payoff.

This is an episode that I will likely continue to watch every year.

#1 – The Husbands of River Song

Taking the #1 spot on this list is The Husbands of River Song. Interestingly, it has the least “Christmas-y” elements of most of these Christmas specials, and yet it is somehow once again a perfect Christmas episode. Many fans of the show were waiting for this episode’s release for 7 years, ever since Series 4’s Silence of the Library/Forest of the Dead. River Song was a character key to Matt Smith’s run, and she was excellently written and her story was emotional, meaningful, and full of unexpected twists and turns.

This episode is River Song’s finale, and it was a long-time coming. Peter Capaldi was able to interact with River for the first time in the show’s history, and their chemistry was honestly unexpectedly good. The premise of the episode, with River’s criminal history as a central plot device, was engaging, and it perfectly fit in with the already established lore around the character.

The episode had the fun-filled storyline expected from a Christmas episode, with plenty of moments of wit and situational comedy, but had heart and a meaningful message, as well as one of the best endings of a Doctor Who episode in history.

Final Thoughts

While Doctor Who might still be finding its new identity, the first 9/10 seasons still have plenty of strong episodes to revisit. I am looking forward to rewatching this show in its entirety – when I do, I expect I will do a season-by-season review, tackling each of the different seasons and arcs present throughout this show.

It is fun to remember how much I loved this show, and to revisit old episodes. The Christmas specials are a snapshot of Doctor Who throughout the first 10 years of its reboot, and are all excellent episodes in their own right. One can only hope that this show will find its balance once again and continue to create the content we have come to know and love from its directors, writers, and showrunners!

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