Doctor Who 2010 Christmas Special - A Christmas Carol - Review

Starring: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Michael Gambon & Katherine Jenkins

Written By: Steven Moffat

Directed By: Toby Haynes

 

After a fantastic fifth series, it's time for Steven Moffat to follow up his new take on the show by delivering his first Christmas special. Up to now, the Christmas specials have all been penned by Russell T Davies, and have varied hugely in quality. So with a new writer taking on the annual festive episode, I'll be interested to see if writing a great Christmas special is tricky in general or if its specific to the writer. So how did A Christmas Carol turn out?

 

The newly-married Amy and Rory are on their Honeymoon when the space-liner on which they are cruising starts to lose control and crash on a human-inhabited planet. Unable to save them with the TARDIS, the Doctor lands on the planet to find a way of preventing a disaster. The electric clouds the ship is battling are generated by a great spire in the centre of a large city, operated by the cold and bitter Kazran Sardick. Kazran, the only one who can alter the controls, refuses to calm the clouds. It's up to the Doctor to convince Kazran otherwise, even if it means becoming the Ghost of Christmas Past...

 

When I first heard that Doctor Who was going to attempt its own version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I thought it was a great idea for a Christmas special. The original story is brilliant and iconic for a reason and let's not forget that Charles Dickens has already appeared in Doctor Who. Given the show is about time travel, it also means that there doesn't have to be any excuses made for incorporating the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. When you're a time traveller, you end up pretty much becoming a ghost to the people around you anyway. By the time I got round to watching this special, my expectations were less cautious than they have been for previous Christmas instalments. Things also got off to a great start with an impressive and dramatic pre-titles sequence with Amy and Rory crashing in a spaceship and the TARDIS appearing to arrive in the nick of time.

 

However, as this special went on, I began to pick up on a very obvious and serious problem surrounding Kazran Sardick. Kazran acts as this episode's version of Ebenezer Scrooge, but Steven Moffat's interpretation of the character is seriously misjudged. In the original book, Scrooge was a cold, bitter man with a hatred towards the Christmas season and a repulsive attitude towards many of those around him. While these traits can be found in Kazran as well, they're heightened too far. With a huge ship about to crash on his world, and 4,000 people about to die, Kazran refuses to save them. Now there's a different between a cold and horrible person and being … this. It makes Kazran an absolute monster and its difficult to want to see him redeemed. He attempts to justify his decision by saying that he doesn't want to increase the already high population further … but I don't think the 4,000 people onboard are planning to stay there! They can safely land, call for another ship and be on their way! If you were going on holiday and the plane was forced to land, does that automatically mean you're going to stay in that country from now on? Kazran's decision might make more sense if he had to go to great lengths to save the ship, but he doesn't. He simply has to flick a few switches to save everyone!

 

It's not just Kazran who suffers as Amy and Rory are reduced to literally nothing but thinly veiled plot devices. The Doctor may be on form, but Amy and Rory have no presence here, with their screen time only totalling about five minutes. Now there isn't anything wrong with writing characters just to advance the plot (it's been done before), but they at least have to have something interesting or compelling to do, which Amy and particularly Rory don't. While Arthur Darvill's name may have finally appeared in the title credits, he only gets a handful of lines over the course of sixty minutes.

 

But while not every character is used to the best of their ability, not one performance falters. Matt Smith shines again as the Doctor, bringing such an irresistible zest and love of life with him, deliberately coming down a chimney on Christmas Eve, going on annual adventures with Kazran and Abigail, and even marrying Marilyn Monroe! Michael Gambon turns in a stunning guest performance as Kazran, and while the character may be mishandled, the performance really isn't. Perhaps the most unexpected thing was how convincingly he managed to portray and bring out the emotion in the romantic scenes between him and Abigail. Lawrence Belcher also deserves a huge amount of praise for his role as the young Kazran, and shares some very mature and entertaining chemistry with Matt Smith's Doctor. Making her acting debut, Katherine Jenkins really managed to tug on the heart-strings throughout this episode. The character she's playing is completely two-dimensional and forgettable, but Katherine Jenkins' presence is what will make this episode so memorable. I was also glad to find that she got to sing – her voice was beautiful and it fit in seamlessly with the Christmas feel.

 

Speaking of Christmas, A Christmas Carol features some wonderful and even emotional festive and wintry imagery. It never felt as though it was actively trying to be Christmassy, it just felt natural and didn't get bogged down with it, as has happened in previous years. With plenty of snow, trees, crackers and more, this was certainly one of Doctor Who's more Christmassy specials, up there with The Christmas Invasion and The Next Doctor. Some scenes such as the Doctor's farewell to Kazran and Abigail, complete with silent and delicate snow falling, even managed to make me feel emotional.

 

That isn't to say that this episode entirely succeeded with its imagery, and there's something I've avoided talking about until now. Fish … just why? What was the point? At previous Christmases, we've been no stranger to unusual imagery such as the Titanic floating through space, people attacked by killer trees and exploding baubles etc. This year tops them all … with flying fish. Did they actually add anything to the story? I'm all in favour of Doctor Who going for the unusual but there's got to at least be a reason for doing it. Here you could remove the fish entirely and you'd lose nothing. As for the shark … wait, why is there a flying shark here? It's in no way threatening, the CGI doesn't look all that great, and after seeing another dangerous shark in the Doctor Who Adventure Game: Shadows Of The Vashta Nerada (which coincidentally was also set at Christmas), is there some sort of shark theme going on? The fish and the shark, along with moments of a flying shark pulling a sleigh along are just pointless and bizarre – not the good kind of bizarre either.

 

Overall, I can't really deny that A Christmas Carol left me disappointed. It wasn't bad, and it's got a great premise, an enjoyable festive feel and terrific performances all round. However, with Amy and Rory reduced to mere plot devices, Kazran's role being seriously misunderstood as well as things such as the flying fish, what went wrong here? I can see the word potential written all over this episode, but it seems that it sadly couldn't quite deliver. It seems we've not quite escaped middling Christmas specials just yet...

A Christmas Carol



5/10