(770) A Christmas Carol

Matt Smith’s first Christmas Special is arguably his best. This is incredibly the sixth Christmas special since the 2005 revival. It is also Matt Smith’s 14^th episode as the Doctor and he hasn’t been Doctor for a year at this point. The beauty of Christmas Specials is that it is the only Doctor Who episode that doesn’t have much to do with story arcs and the jolliness is rather evident.

There are two big names that guest star in this episode. The first is opera singer Katherine Jenkins who plays Abigail. Even though Rory and Amy are in the story and technically part of the story, Abigail essentially becomes the Doctor’s companion for the story. With Jenkins being a singer then it was obvious that she would do singing and thankfully she is a better singer than actress because to sound a bit harsh she isn’t the most convincing. The best bit for Jenkins comes when she is singing Silence is Golden at the end opposite Michael Gambon. The next big name is Michael Gambon. Yes the actual Michael Gambon who is best known for having a corner on the Top Gear track named after him. Gambon plays an Ebineezer Scrooge type character and for all intents and purposes he is because this is Doctor Who’s attempt at A Christmas Carol and its not just the title that Moffat borrows from Mr Dickens.

The first thing that strikes me when I started watching this episode after the titles have finished and that is that the episode looks visually impressive. The writing from Moffat is rather good but the problem is that at some stage in the writing process he realised that eh didn’t have enough material to sustaine 60 minutes so he’s added the whole stuff with Kazran and Abigail’s regular Christmas celebration which got a bit tiresome after a while. The flying fish is another thing that I like about this story. The sight of a flying shark is something that still looks impressive and is worth some of the poorer stuff that happens in the episode.

There is a part of the story where the Doctor is talking to Young Kazran and is also talking to adult Kazran. The story progresses with adult Kazran getting new memories of him as a young boy travelling with the Doctor and Abigail. There are moments which work quite well in the story but despite these things I still at times felt less warmly to the story. I don’t know if its got something to do with watching a Christmas episode on one of the warmest days of the year or not but it didn’t connect with me much.

I said at the beginning that this was the best Matt Smith Christmas Special but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best special. To be honest it gets bogged down quite early on and the whole Kazran/Abigail love story isn’t the most interesting but its more the directing of Toby Haynes that saves the day and I also thought that Matt Smith was really good and seems to have well and truly settled into the role. Now the 32^nd series starts to take on a darker tone.