Best part is the Doctor’s answering machine message

And it was, unsurprisingly, rather excellent. But also very different to what has come before. With previous Christmas Specials all being set, at least to some degree, on Earth, this was the first one set exclusively on an alien planet, and yet in many ways it was the most human, focusing on the character of Kazran Sardick, the “Scrooge” of the piece, and magnificently played by Michael Gambon.

With Amy and Rory’s honeymoon disrupted when the spaceship they’re on starts crashing towards an unknown planet, the ship gets caught up in the planet’s unusual atmosphere, which is controlled by Sardick, and so the Doctor must convince him to mend his ways and help the trapped passengers.

And how the Doctor goes about this is typically Steven Moffat, with the Doctor travelling back into Kazran’s past to change the events that led to him becoming the bitter old man he is.   Time travel plays a key role in this story, with the Doctor whizzing back and forward in time between young and old versions of Kazran, altering his life.  This culminates in them freeing Abigail Pettigrew (in a fine acting debut by Katherine Jenkins), who is kept frozen by the Sardicks as collateral on a loan, along with countless others, who then joins Kazran and the Doctor on their many Christmas Eve adventures.

Throughout all this, the whole concept is fantastically sold by Michael Gambon.  We often return to him while all this is going on, and so its up to Gambon to play a man who’s life is altering by the minute (as the Doctor’s changes catch up to the present day).  Its a great performance, with a wonderful twist when all the Doctor’s meddling backfires and ends with Kazran roughly the same as when he started.

The design of the world was also a fantastic part of the episode.  To capture the Dickensian feel of the story, we’re presented with a wonderful, Steampunk alien world, blending that Victorian feel with technology.  And the idea of the fish swimming through the air was simple, but created some brilliant weird and alien visuals.

Possibly the only shame of this story was that its the first Christmas Special that’s not seen a change in the TARDIS crew, and yet Amy and Rory are barely in it. However the story of the Doctor and Kazran is so compellingly played by Gambon and Matt Smith that its understandable, and I found myself so immersed in that story that I didn’t really miss them.

And of course the script isn’t just clever (the reveal of the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come is a powerful moment), but also has those great quotable lines that Moffat is so good at writing and Matt is brilliant at delivering. From the Doctor’s first arrival down the chimney, to the psychic paper finally shorting out or to the Doctor marrying Marilyn Munroe there’s a lot of great lines and laughs.

The only real worry I had about the episode, also relates to how much I loved it. But I’m an adult fan, and thinking about the episode afterwards, I could see how its story of one man finding the joy and love in life could maybe lose some of its younger viewers. I hope that’s not the case though.

With its Dickensian tone, steampunk setting and Katherine Jenkins’ frozen beauty, this Christmas Special really embodied the fairy-tale aspect that Steven Moffat brought to the show last year. Much like the success they enjoyed with his series opener and finale, the new team have now also proven that they can bring something special to the Christmas episode.

Looks great to me.  A few random thoughts:

Stetsons are cool. Nice repeat of the fez gag
No clips of Mark Sheppard, awwww
Matt Smith with a beard? A first for the Doctor?
But most interesting for me:
The return of the mysterious not-TARDIS from last year. VERY pleased to see that plot thread wasn’t forgotten about as many (including me) had feared.

Doctor Who
Big Finish 140 – A Death in the Family

Chuck
Chuck Versus The Suitcase
Chuck Versus The Cubic Z
Chuck Versus The Coup D’Etat

Nikita
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 5

Tron Night

Leverage
The Maltese Falcon Job

The Mara’s back once again, and the crew end up back in the Manussan Empire where it was originally created, however they’ve arrived a few hundred years early.  But what did I think?

Head over to OutpostSkaro.com to read my full review

With pre-orders for series 2 underway, I take a quick overview of both the Companion Chronicle that started the ball rolling, and then the series 1 boxset (spoiler alert: I really liked them).

Jago and Litefoot Review

So in the spirit of shameless self-promotion, and for any of my readers who care, I’ll make sure I post links up here to any Skaro reviews I do.

First up is the latest installment in the Doctor Who Adventure Games series: TARDIS, now available for free from the BBC website.

Read the review on Outpost Skaro.

Up until this year, I would probably say series 4 was my favourite.  David Tennant had playing the 10th Doctor down to a fine art, and in Donna there was a companion who I found a much better match for Tennant’s Doctor than either Rose or Martha.  The episodes by and large I found consistently good and the return of Davros, the icing on the cake.

So Steven Moffat certainly had a lot to live up to.  And straight from the Eleventh Hour, the new series hit the ground running, with possibly the best series opener yet.

For me, the real stand-out thing of the whole series was undoubtedly Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor.  The youngest actor in the role, and pretty much an unknown (not that David Tennant was really a household name prior to getting the role) there had been a fair amount of worry in fandom about how he would be in the role.  But it quickly became obvious why Steven Moffat had had so much confidence in him.  The initial scenes with Amelia won me over quickly, and over the course of the series he continued to impress, pitching his Doctor as much more of a mad professor than his predecessor, this portrayal really struck a chord with me, aided no doubt by the great quotable lines Steven Moffat kept feeding him, and his brilliant delivery of them. “Its a fez, I wear a fez now.  Fez’s are cool.”

This series also showed a willingness to experiment a little, obviously a sign of the new production team finding their feet.  The arc plot was greatly expanded in comparison to previous years, with the scene in Flesh and Stone that was later revisited in the finale, and the cracks appearing throughout the show.   The overarching threat of the Silence was left unresolved, and instead set things up for next year.   However we also had the Van Gogh episode.  An episode that could’ve so easily been a pure historical, focused solely on Van Gogh and his mental issues.  These were brave moves, and for me paid off.  Whether the more general audience bought into it I don’t know, but at least with the overarching plot, they’re promised a resolution next year, so don’t have too long to wait.

In Amy and Rory, again Steven Moffat took what RTD had done previously and built on it.  In some ways you can easily draw parallels to Rose and Mickey in the Christopher Eccleston series, but here things play out very differently.  Rose was obviously not as attached to Mickey as Amy is to Rory, and where the former couple ended up separating over Rose’s travels with the Doctor, here the Doctor gets actively involved in trying to help the couple, bringing Rory onboard the TARDIS and taking them away for a romantic getaway (how was he supposed to know there’d be evil fish-vampires there?).  This provided the middle of the series with a nice boost, and gave Amy a strong character arc for the series as she realises how much she loves Rory, only to lose him again in Cold Blood.  All this means that when he comes back in an Auton body, only to near-fatally wound Amy and then spend 2000 years guarding her in the Pandorica, its all the more powerful, and it all culminates nicely in their wedding.

Not just the actors and writers changed this year though, with various pieces of design getting make overs as well.  The new TARDIS console room went down very well with me.  I’m not a huge fan of the actual console itself (I’ve never been a massive fan of the bric-a-brac look), especially the central column which I think looks too cluttered making it hard to make out features like the blown-glass sculpture at the centre.   However the room is brilliant.  I love the multi-level aspect that’s been increased from the previous version, and it was really nice to see a return of the big viewscreen that was completely absent in the Eccleston/Tennant console.  The fact there’s various corridors and doors heading off really leads me to hope that at somepoint we’re going to finally explore more of the TARDIS in the new series.

The one makeover though that didn’t work for me, was the new Daleks.  They’ve been discussed to death in most places, but suffice to say, I greatly preferred the RTD versions.  I do though like the idea of the specific Daleks in certain roles marked out by their colour, and what role the Eternal will come to play should be interesting (my assumption is that it’ll end up like the Cult of Skaro, working separately from the others on its own projects to ensure the Dalek race continues and thrives).

Overall, this series has definitely been a big success for me.  I’m actually slightly surprised at just how much Matt Smith has won me over so quickly.  If I were doing a “best Doctors” list, he’d almost certainly be near the top.  Steven Moffat’s ambitious scripting paid off massively for me, and the high points of the series (The Eleventh Hour, Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang) probably, for me, were even higher than those set by previous series.

I find myself eagerly awaiting the Christmas Special and series 6, but in the meantime we’ve got Matt Smith’s appearance in Sarah Jane Adventures to look forward to.  Sure to be interesting as Sarah and Jo meet the new Doctor, but also as we have Russell T Davies scripting the Eleventh Doctor for the first time, something I’m very much looking forward to.

Steven Moffat had certainly held true to RTD’s template for the first part of his finale.  All of reality at stake and lots of returning faces and everything screaming EPIC!   However for his finale, things suddenly get scaled back to become much more intimate as the focus is brought squarely on the TARDIS crew (and River) as they try to restore the universe and the TARDIS.

The opening was particularly effective, re-using the opening from Eleventh Hour, but with the twist that this is now the universe as seen at the end of The Pandorica Opens, where all other worlds have been wiped out, and the Doctor never crash lands in the back garden. Given how popular the Amelia/Doctor scenes were in the series opener, it was great to see her back, and the reveal of Amy being the one in the Pandorica was really nicely done.

Steven Moffat indulges his love of time travel here to great effect.  With the Doctor popping in and out throughout the story to help arrange his own escape, Amy’s resurrection via Amelia and the Pandorica and finally the resetting of the universe, all via the vortex manipulator seen last episode.   Its played with great fun, as the strangeness of the Doctor suddenly appearing in a fez and with a mop (fez’s are cool) sits wonderfully with Matt Smith’s take on the character.

As the Doctor takes a hit from a partially-restored Dalek, the story shifts to the Doctor, badly injured and having realised the only way to restore the universe is to use the Pandorica and risk trapping himself in the void on the other side of the cracks.   These scenes are where Steven Moffat brings back some of the emotion people have claimed has been missing from his run, as the Doctor, living his life in reverse, carefully figures out the way he can be restored, finding Amelia waiting for him in her garden, tucking her into bed, and telling his story of the old, yet new, borrowed box in the most brilliant blue.

It all built up to a brilliant “punch the air” moment, as the wedding day arrives and the Doctor’s story triggers Amy’s memories of him, allowing her imaginary friend to reappear slap, bang in the middle of the meal.  The Doctor emerging already dressed in his top hat and tails for the wedding was great, and it all built wonderfully towards giving us the great final moments of the Doctor, Amy and Rory all together in the TARDIS, heading off towards the Orient Express and the Christmas Special. The fact the old, new, borrowed, blue had been so expertly woven into the Doctor’s story worked beautifully, allowing the viewer to suddenly twig what the Doctor (and Steven Moffat) had done just as Amy’s figuring out herself.

I don’t think we’ve had an ending that upbeat since the series came back, as they’ve always had to deal with a main cast member leaving (9th Doctor, Rose, Martha and Donna), so it made a welcome change in pace, and allowed Steven Moffat to end the series in such a brilliantly happy way that RTD was always denied. But then, in fairness, RTD was exceptionally good at those emotional wringer endings, so this isn’t really a complaint, just a very nice change of pace.

Despite that however, I’m very tempted to say this was the strongest series finale we’ve had. Both parts held up as great episodes on their own, and Steven Moffat expertly weaved in finale aspects people were used to, while also allowing it to draw in things that had been setup throughout the series.

And there’s setup in place for next year as well. The Silence and whoever orchestrated everything by controlling the TARDIS remain to be revealed. Likewise, we’re teased that we’ll be finding out River Song’s story soon too. I like the fact neither of these reveals have been rushed, but I’m also glad its being indicated they will be revealed next year. I like the setup going across series, but this isn’t, and should never be Lost, so I’m glad we’ve got lots of good stuff to look forward to next year with the promise that it’ll actually be resolved.

Christmas can’t come soon enough