The Christmas Specials poll.

[trekkiedane]

I actually wrote this for Flukie's Café's Doctor Who forum, but perhaps there's also a bit of interest here...

Doctor Who Christmas Specials are unusually well made and entertaining episodes of Doctor Who with loads of guest stars and re-appearances of past characters - You could almost call them a series beyond the series itself!

While we're waiting for the 2009 Christmas Special of Doctor Who, why not take a look at the previous four christmas specials?


First there was The Christmas Invasion (2005), Where the newly regenerated Doctor brings Rose to Earth to celebrate christmas, and ends up in bed missing the overture to the invasion of the Sycorax -an ugly sword-yelding species apparently with medieval society structure (who said Klingons?)- But a nice hot cuppa brings him around just in time to save the day.

Then came The Runaway Bride (2006), Introducing Donna who appears out of nowhere in the TARDIS and brings The Doctor on the trail of an ancient plan of the Racnoss -if a horses body with a human torso is called a Centaur, then what is an arachnid body with a humanoid torso?- to devour humanity (literally)

The 2007 christmas special Voyage of the Damned, takes The Doctor aboard the space ship "Titanic" where he meets Kylie Minogue and ends up steering the ship away from ending up like the Earth ocean liner, after which it was named, and causing an extinction level collision with Earth in the process.

In 2008 The Doctor travelled to London of 1851 where he meets The Doctor(!) in The Next Doctor. This is a great cyber/steampunk special with a little taste of Dickensian christmas.

The End of Time is the 2009 christmas special. This time it's a two parter! first part airing (as usual) on the 25th of December (with the usual length of 60 minutes) and the second part airing on the 1st of January (with the unusual length of 75 minutes). As a special treat this special introduces the eleventh Doctor.

 

[Mr Light]

1. Runaway Bride. Had that crazy Tardis car chase and the Racnoss and Donna. 2. Voyage Damned. some nice disaster movie stuff. 3. Christmas Invasion. first Doctor-less half wasn't very good but the second half was. 4. Next Doctor. the Cyber King was kinda cool but aside from that.. meh.

 

[Count Zero]

I have a hard time deciding between The Christmas Invasion and Voyage of the Damned.

 

[Winterwind]

Voted for "The Next Doctor". While the ending was absolute crap in my view, I found the personal trauma that caused Jackson Lake to believe he was the Doctor quite moving.

 

[Andy S]

Had to go with The Christmas Invasion, though The Runaway Bride was a close second. To my mind, the Christmas specials have got steadily less enjoyable as they've progressed so I've really got my fingers crossed that this year bucks the trend!

 

[Neroon]

I have to cop out and say I can't decide; I loved them all!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

What? No love for "The Feast of Steven"?

My favorite Doctor Who Christmas story is "The Monopoly Pub Crawl of Doom" from BTR Productions.

But if I have to choose from those four, "Voyage of the Damned."

 

[Worf2DS9]

It's a toss up between The Christmas Invasion, 10's first adventure despite being immobile for much of it, and The Next Doctor, which was the most Christmas-y of the lot, plus a lot of fun as the Doctor reacted to things like the other Doctor's TARDIS and sonic screwdriver. But I do enjoy them all.

 

[Bones2]

I've not seen any of them since their first runs, but I'd say Voyage of the Damned. I like that they almost all die.

 

[ChristopherPike]

"The Next Doctor" is my favourite to date. Sure the title went against the trade description act... but Jackson Lake made for wonderfully old school Doc, and there's that ever so slightly rubbish monster. No, not the steampunk Transformer... I'm talking about the wall climbing Cybershade, of course.

 

[captcalhoun]

Runaway Bride

 

[Lonemagpie]

Voyage Of the Damned by a long way

 

[Starkers]

The Christmas Invasion

 

[trekkiedane]

Originally I designed the poll to be the kind where you are able to change your mind -and vote- whenever you feel like it, Simply because it can be difficult to have an all-time-favourite and not change your mind a couple of times during the season

My favourite is The Christmas Invasion, It's got...

• His name.
• Homicidal Santa's...
• ... and x-mas trees.
• Harriet Jones, PM.
• Butt ugly aliens.
• Harriet Jones, PM.
• The Doctor's hand falling towards London.
• The Doctor in a dressing gown, making an Arthur Dent comment.
• A group hug.
• Politics. (*
• The Doctor's wardrobe (notice the scarf on the right )
• The Doctor actually partaking in one of those things...

(Images for each of those points in the original thread; here. I just didn't want this thread to become too image heavy.)
_____________________
*)
Harriet Jones responds to the US President's request to take command of the situation by replying, "He's not my boss, and he's certainly not turning this into a war," a reference to the popular perception that Tony Blair obediently followed George W. Bush's wishes in relation to the Iraq War.

and

Jones's order to destroy the retreating Sycorax ship is a reference to Margaret Thatcher's decision to attack the General Belgrano in the Falklands War. The Doctor's six words that would bring down Jones's administration are a reference to rumours about how Thatcher looked tired at the end of her term of office in 1990.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

"The Next Doctor" by a mile. I have issues with all of them, but I have the least issues with "The Next Doctor" (mainly the giant Cybermen) and I absolutely love the mystery behind Jackson Lake. Oh, and I'm sucker fan service.

What? No love for "The Feast of Steven"?

No. Absolutely not.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

"The Next Doctor" by a mile. I have issues with all of them, but I have the least issues with "The Next Doctor" (mainly the giant Cybermen) and I absolutely love the mystery behind Jackson Lake. Oh, and I'm sucker fan service.

Whereas I find "The Next Doctor" to be the most flawed of the Christmas specials.

RTD puts a really interesting piece on the storytelling board -- Jackson Lake. And it's that piece that really drives the first half of the episode. But once the Jackson Lake mystery is resolved, the energy of the episode dissipates as it turns into the Doctor battling steampunk Cybermen, and it's not very interesting.

Davies really needed another draft, because I think "TND" would have been easily fixable. Have Lake play a role in the climax, rather than standing around as a passive observer. Have Lake, not the Doctor, save his son. Have Lake discover that, while he's not the Doctor, he can still be a hero.

And finally, put Jackson Lake in the damn balloon.

I thought it was fantastic that Lake had built himself a TARDIS. He should have had the opportunity to use it.

The first half is wonderful. The last half is terrible. Davies needed another draft, though he also needed someone far enough removed from the story to tell him why the script didn't work.

What? No love for "The Feast of Steven"?

No. Absolutely not.

Well, phooey on you!

 

[23skidoo]

I voted for Voyage of the Damned. For one thing it was the only one of the 4 Christmas specials to actually feel like a special rather than just another episode. It also had a cinematic feel to it that the others don't have. This thing could have been released as a movie to theatres and it would have worked (with maybe a little tweaking to the start).

It also had great supporting supporting characters like Mr. Copper and Astrid, a villain straight out of The Avengers, and our first glimpse of Wilf, to boot!

Not that I dislike the others, but The Christmas Invasion is not a standalone story and Tennant spends most of it in a coma, Runaway Bride is not a standalone and much as I love Catherine Tate as Donna I didn't care for her much in this initial outing (but the special gets lots of brownie points for Love Don't Roam and the first name-drop of Gallifrey in the new series), and The Next Doctor was a good story and Jackson Lake was cool, and the flashbacks to the other Doctors were a great touch, but given the choice I'd watch Voyage first. In fact it's the only Christmas special I've felt like rewatching multiple times.

Of course, in a couple weeks The End of Time might (and will hopefully) blow these four away!

Alex

 

[jbny67]

Runaway Bride is not a standalone

How is Runaway Bride not a standalone story? Unless I'm forgetting something, it seemed pretty standalone to me, at the time.

 

[Hennessy Badger]

I voted for Voyage of the Damned. For one thing it was the only one of the 4 Christmas specials to actually feel like a special rather than just another episode. It also had a cinematic feel to it that the others don't have.

I agree 100%. VOTD is clearly the most elaborate of the Christmas specials (so far). The others are enjoyable in their own way but they don't feel like "event television" the way Voyage did.

Was it over the top? Sure. But it was memorable. And I'd love to see Doctor Who done on that scale again someday.

 

[The]

Runaway Bride. Christmas Invasion was too silly, and The Doctor (the star of the show) was in it for barely 15-minutes. Voyage of the Damned is one of the worst episodes of Doctor Who ever made (only matched by The Doctor's Daughter). The Next Doctor would be my next pick, but I agree with a lot of Allyn's complaints. Still, like EMH said, I'll take my momentary fan service where I can get it...