Every Christmas for the last six years Doctor Who fans have anxiously awaited the Doctor Who Christmas special. First we had the Tenth Doctor's introduction in "The Christmas Invasion", then we met Donna Noble in "The Runaway Bride", a trip on the Titanic in "Voyage of the Damned", another Doctor in "The Next Doctor" and then the farewell to the Tenth Doctor in last year's "The End of Time".
Each year I find that I am a little anxious as the episode starts. I think that it's because I want to like it so much and I am worried that it may disappoint. So far, I have not been disappointed. And this year we were treated to "A Christmas Carol".
My initial reaction to "A Christmas Carol" was positive. I liked it.
Watch my video review after my first viewing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u72SmTV06g
I do like to view episodes more than once. Repeat viewings will either confirm my initial reaction or temper it a bit. Plus it gives me a chance to really look for all the intricacies of plot and character that may have been missed the first time.
"A Christmas Carol" not only held up to repeat viewings but I actually liked it more. There is a lot that I do like about it, a few things that I found mildly silly and very little wrong with it. I will take you through the episode to point these out.
Before I do that, I just wanted to point out that Arthur Darvill appeared in the opening credits. I guess this means that he has been given official companion status.
On with the good bits.
The episode opened in dramatic style. A star ship is caught in a violent storm and is in danger of crashing. A distress signal has been sent by someone in the honeymoon suite. The Captain questions, "Who is in the honeymoon suite?" Onto the bridge steps Amy Pond in her police outfit. I think this is her best entrance in an episode yet. She is followed by Rory, dressed as a Roman. There are a few tense moments as they wait to see if the distress signal will be answered. Then a small ship is detected and a text message appears on the screen, "Come along Pond". It is, of course, the Doctor. Then we are into the title sequence.
When we come back, the scene is quite different. We are looking at a somewhat Victorian, yet not, street at Christmas. We hear what sounds like a narrator speaking of Christmas and how this time used to be celebrated as the winter solstice and it meant that we were, "half way out of the dark". I love that. And more on that later. Then the tone turns nasty when we see that the voice belongs to a Scrooge like character, Kazran Sardick. Actually this opening speech rather made me think of the beginning of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". It was as if he was talking about how the Whos loved Christmas but the Grinch did not.
I did like the art direction in this episode. We had the sleek and pretty star ship and then the almost steampunk planet below. There were even characters wearing goggles. Sardick's home and the great big round windows were great.
We get our first allusion to the Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" when Sardick makes reference to the surplus population, of which, Abigail, the frozen girl, would be one. A poor family is there to plead for the girl to be let out just this once on Christmas Eve. Sardick refuses. As the family is being led out we hear that fantastic sound of the Tardis materializing somewhere in the background. I love that sound. So glad that the Doctor leaves the brake on. The Doctor then makes a less than elegant, but pretty cool entrance down the chimney and into room, covered in soot. I won't rehash the plot here because if you are reading this you will have already seen it, but I will point out the moments that I thought were great.
The Doctor asks who the frozen girl is. Sardick says that she is, "no one important." The Doctor replies with, "I've never met anyone who wasn't important before." Wouldn't it be great if we all looked at people like that.
The controls to the cloud controlling device are isomorphic meaning they only respond to Sardick. The Doctor says there is no such thing. Then Sardick demonstrates. The Doctor takes a beat then, "These controls are isomorphic." as if it if was obvious all the time. This reminds me of a scene in a movie I'm sure very few of you have seen. It is one on Cary Grants later film, "Father Goose" where he plays a grumpy old man stuck on a tropical island with a school teacher and a bunch of school girls. The girls think that the teacher had been bitten by a snake so he had comforted her with alcohol. One of the girls in anger goes to find and kill the snake but finds that it was only a stick. She brings it back to show Cary Grant. He says, "That's not a snake, its a stick." The girl says that it looks like a snake. Cary Grant says, "no" then a beat later he exclaims, "that looks like a snake!" I know that is a very obscure comparison, but I love that movie and the scene with the Doctor had the same feel.
I love how the Doctor can recognize humanity in a person even if they can't see it for themselves. When Sardick tried but was unable to strike the poor boy, the Doctor realized that he was not beyond hope. The Doctor then looked around the room and went through a bit of Sherlock Holmes like deduction (interesting that Steven Moffat also wrote Sherlock), and deduced that Sardick was afraid of his father and scared of being like him, in fact was not like him, "and do you know why?" Sardick asks, "why?" The Doctor replies, "Because you didn't hit the boy." Here we first get a glimpse of some emotion in Sardick as he asks, why. Michael Gambon was great in this role.
I am so glad that this episode didn't just try to be an adaptation of, "A Christmas Carol". That would have been silly, especially because we all know that the Doctor has met Charles Dickens and so the story of "A Christmas Carol" exists in the Doctor Who universe. So it was great to see the Doctor realize that he could actually use the story to his benefit.
So the Doctor became the ghost of Christmas past. Time travel opens up all sorts of questions and paradoxes that it is probably best to accept that it is all just a bunch of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. The Doctor tries to get Sardick to remember a time when he was young and innocent by playing back a video recording of himself as a boy. When that alone doesn't work, he pops back in time, while the recording is playing, and appears in the recording. His presence in the past is creating new memories in Sardick's head. I am assuming that he still has the old memories too but am not totally sure of that.
So we get to see more fish. I love the fish, especially around the lamp post and when we see them outside of the Tardis doors. We meet the shark. I didn't mind the shark although I did find the bit where it was pulling the rickshaw to be a little silly, but forgivable. I love the bit with the bow tie and then Sardick realizing that he too wears one.
We meet Abigail. I had not seen Katherine Jenkins before, other than on the Graham Norton Show, and thought she was great in the part. And what a great voice.
I enjoyed the many Christmas Eve's with Kazran and Abigail. I like how the one Christmas Eve they looked in on her family (essentially the Cratchits). But of course, Abigail's days were numbered, literally, and Kazran has to suffer the heartbreak of leaving her frozen so she will not die. Heartbreak leads to bitterness and we are still stuck with the Scroogy Sardick.
So Amy is employed as the ghost of Christmas present. I was a little surprised that Amy and Rory didn't have a larger part to play, but it served the story.
And then the Doctor finishes things up as the ghost of Christmas future. Sardick accuses the Doctor of making him fall in love then getting his heart broken. The Doctor counters, "Better a broken heart than no heart at all." That is so very true.
Here we expect that the Doctor will take Sardick to view the future, but what we get is much more subtle and effective. He has brought young Kasran to see what he will become. He will become what he feared, his dad. Kasran even says, "dad". This sets Sardick off and he lashes out but still cannot hit the boy. This was such a great emotional scene.
Now Kasran Sardick is a changed man. They go to save the ship from crashing but of course now the controls don't work for the new him. They only way to save the ship is to sacrifice Abigail.
Abigail sings and the ship is saved.
The song that she sings was quite beautiful. The lyrics could have multiple meanings. "When you're alone, Silence is all you know. When you're alone, silence is all you see. When you're alone. silence is all you'll be."
All apply to Abigail frozen alone in time. They can apply to old Sardick, alone with no friends. Of course it applies to the Doctor, the last of his species, often alone and often experiencing heartbreak. And then there is the foreshadowing of The Silence that will fall.
We also have that great phrase, "half way out of the dark". I wonder if that will crop up again. It is interesting that season six is to be split in two with a mid season cliff hanger. Could this mean that we will be led to a very dark place mid season where we will be half way out of the dark.
So that was "Doctor Who A Christmas Carol". I am really looking forward to season six.
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