Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

Full disclosure: I hate Christmas specials. Most of them, anyway. They usually ignore and/or interrupt whatever story arc is happening at the moment, and they try to shove the idea that, just because it’s December, the world is supposed to be all shiny and happy and wonderful. So, yeah. I’m not a “Christmas miracle” kind of person. In fact, the only special I can think of that I didn’t totally hate was Supernatural‘s “A Very Supernatural Christmas”, which turned the whole “Christmas special” idea on its ear.

There is one very big exception, and it’s been a tradition since 2005 to gather the family on the couch once it stops downloading and watch with glee. (It’s also a tradition to bother the hell out of my English friends with “So? Left London yet? Huh? Did you? Something is going to BLOW UP, you know, and THAT’S NOT SNOW.”) It’s the Doctor Who Christmas special, and it never fails to be anything short of magical.

This is the first year with Matt Smith at the helm as Eleven for a Christmas special. Can he live up to it? (Why am I even asking that? Of course he can. It’s not like he’s unproven by now.)

We begin with a futuristic spaceship going down roughly. (We know it’s a futuristic ship because this episode’s director subscribes to the J.J. Abrams School Of Lens Flares.) The bridge detects a distress signal being broadcasted from the honeymoon suite. And who should bust through the bridge’s door, from said suite? “Policewoman” Amy Pond. She tells the captain that her “friend” is coming to save them, and Rory comes out too. He’s in his Roman garb. So basically, Rory and Amy like to play dress-up. Whatever tickles their peach…

The ship receives a message from a small craft beside them. The message? “Come along, Pond…”

The camera shoots down, down through the clouds of the planet, into a steampunk-inspired, almost Dickensian setting. Carols blare from iron speakers. And as we’re introduced to this world by the dulcet voiceover of Michael Gambon, we learn who rules the roost – a Mr. Sardick, and he makes the Grinch look like the tooth fairy.

A family clusters around a icy coffin containing a beautiful blonde, begging Sardick to let her go just for one Christmas. He dashes their hopes with a few witticisms, and we learn that she’s been put there as collateral on a loan that her family took out with him. In the middle of all the hopes-and-dreams bashing, the President calls – there’s a spaceship crashing through the clouds surrounding their world, and if Sardick doesn’t use his machine to stop it, over four thousand people will die. Sardick very gleefully does not care and tells the President so, which is when we hear the wonderful sounds of the TARDIS landing.

And how should the Doctor arrive? With a burst of fire and through the chimney, of course. “Blimey, sorry. Christmas Eve, saw a chimney on a rooftop, thought ‘What the hell?” Also, the Doctor has photographic evidence of himself, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, and Father Christmas (who he calls “Jeff”) at a party at Sinatra’s. This is awesome.

The Doctor is in full-on, goofy manic mode. He’s a character that continually bounces between two extremes; if he’s talking so fast that your ears can barely keep up, you’re probably fine. If he starts speaking slowly, working on his diction and pulls out the glasses, you’re done for. Sardick is lucky he’s still bouncy.

He discovers Sardick’s machine, which resembles a church organ. He tries to work it to control the cloud cover, which will allow the spaceship to, well, not crash – but the controls are keyed only to Sardick’s touch, and he’s not about to turn it off. The Doctor starts working on his diction, and says “There are four thousand and three people who I will not allow to die tonight. You know where that puts you? Four thousand and four.” Sardick, who knows nothing other than “I’m awesome” and “I’m awesomely rich”, is not impressed.

The little kid from the collateral loan family grabs a lump of coal and throws it at Sardick’s head. He rushes up and makes to slap the kid – and that’s when a light bulb goes off over the Doctor’s head. He pulls a Sherlock and figures out that Sardick’s father loved Christmas but hated him, and therefore Sardick hates his father and Christmas… and that’s why he doesn’t actually slap the little boy.

Matt Smith is such a terrific actor that you actually see the Doctor’s plan materialize right there, in that moment, in his eyes. You don’t know what that plan’s going to be, but by the end, we’ll be cheering and someone’s going to be nursing some painfully sore karma.

The Doctor soon learns that the dense clouds surrounding the planet are home to dozens of fish, which Sardick’s machine keeps at bay. A Christmas carol starts blaring, and while he’s on the phone with Amy, his master plan forms.

Sardick is sleeping in a chair, and a projection of 12-year-old Sardick getting yelled at by his father begins to play. All Young Sardick wants is to film the fish; his father screams at him for being stupid, says that the fish are dangerous, and beats him. The Doctor shows up and announces that, tonight, his name is the Ghost of Christmas Past.

The projection continues with Young Sardick weeping – and the TARDIS arriving. Old Sardick watches in horror as the Doctor charges in and announces that he’s the new babysitter. He’s damned and determined to make Young Sardick’s dream of filming the fish come true. Also, we get this gem, as the Doctor pulls out his psychic paper to prove that he’s a grown up, sane, responsible adult: “It’s just a bunch of wavy lines.” “It shorted out. Finally a lie too big.”

The Doctor rigs his screwdriver while they hide in the kid’s wardrobe. (The fish are attracted to sound.) And… we have one on the hook! Let’s check it out, shall we? Oh, look, a little goldfish – AND JESUS CHRIST GET BACK IN THE CAR IT BROUGHT A SHARK WITH IT.

The shark attacks, and the Doctor dives in and actually pulls half his screwdriver out of its mouth. Unfortunately, this ends in the shark starting to die. The Doctor tells Young Sardick that he can get the shark back up, but he needs a fully functioning life support box… Just like the one the blonde girl is trapped in. Which, of course, is exactly the box Young Sardick takes the Doctor to. Young Sardick loves that box; she’s pretty, and her recording says she loves the small fish that populate the foggy area that the frozen people are kept in.

The shark wakes back up and attacks as the screwdriver attempts to find its other half; things are starting to look like Jaws, when all of a sudden, we hear singing.

The frozen blonde has woken. And in a scene of such incredible, ethereal beauty that I cannot describe it, the Doctor and Young Sardick find the blonde singing lovingly to the now-tamed shark. Her voice is purity in aural form. I don’t even know what she’s singing, and I don’t care. Stephen Moffat could have turned this into the “Frozen Blonde Woman Sings Hour” and I would have sat, clutching my knees, mouth open, spellbound.
We cut to Old Sardick, who’s been watching this entire time. He’s as teary as we are – and over his shoulder, we see that his father’s portrait has been replaced by a portrait of the blonde woman, Abigail.

The Doctor puts the shark in the box, and by use of the TARDIS, returns it to the clouds, which are swimming with pools of iridescent silver fish. Abigail’s bright blue eyes – and Lord, is that woman beautiful – shine with happy tears just as much as Young Sardick’s. Old Sardick pulls out a box of memories, and stares lovingly at her picture.

Abigail is shut back in her box, but not for long – Young Sardick promises that he’ll be back every Christmas Eve, and in each one they have fantastic adventures, all captured in photographs. And one year, Abigail looks up to discover that Young Sardick is now Young Man Sardick – and, hey, he’s kinda cute. She requests that they visit Abigail’s family, and Abigail gets to reunite with her family, after saying that this is the life she will never be able to have.

(Also a gem: “Abigail’s crying. Aren’t you supposed to talk to a girl who’s crying?” And in a response that I believe is probably more Matt Smith than the Doctor, he says “I have absolutely no idea.”)

It comes time to say goodbye for this year, and Abigail waves the Doctor off so that she can say goodbye properly – with a long, heartfelt kiss.

The next year Abigail gets dragged to a party with Frank Sinatra – the very party that was referenced earlier. She’s upset, and she tells Young Man Sardick that she needs to tell him the truth.

The Doctor runs in with his tie undone and lipstick prints on him, sees them kissing, and says “Guys, we’ve GOT to go. I just accidentally got engaged to Marilyn Monroe.” No, really, he says; she’s got a car waiting and knows a chapel and this thing’s gonna happen NOW. They ignore him, and the Doctor says, “Fine, I’ll just go and get married. MARILYN, GET YOUR COAT.”

As with all other Christmas Eves, Abigail is put back to sleep – but this one is bittersweet. And as she freezes, Young Man Sardick tells the Doctor that this whole Christmas Eve thing is getting old, and it needs to stop. He gives Sardick his screwdriver (!) as a present in case Sardick ever needs him. As the camera pans to Abigail’s sleeping place, a set of numbers ticks down ominously – to one.

Back to the present, Old Sardick still hasn’t learned his lesson. The ship is still crashing, and he still won’t clear the fog to let it land. The President begs, and he says “as a very old friend of mine took a very long time to teach me once, life isn’t fair.”

As he slams the phone down, Amy Pond appears, calling herself the Ghost of Christmas Present. As she disappears, Sardick’s house is filled with the sound of thousands singing “Silent Night”. Amy explains that they’re the holograms of the people on the ship who are going to die, and they’re singing for their lives.

Amy asks why Abigail is still frozen, and we get our answer. Abigail was ill to the point of death when she went into the box, which is why she was so eager to be collateral. She had days left in her life, and she used all but the last remaining one having wonderful Christmas Eves, falling in love with Sardick. And thus, the message the Doctor was trying to import got warped – not “people are worth loving”, but “life isn’t fair”.

To drive home her point, Amy transports Sardick to the ship so he can see things as they go down. The ship’s inhabitants are still singing; the Doctor thought it would stabilize the ship, but it’s not working. They haven’t been told to stop, because nobody wants them to lose hope.

The captain begs, and Sardick denies her yet again.

The Doctor takes Sardick back to the icy room where Abigail lies, and he finally breaks a bit. His experiences have taught him that everyone dies, cold and alone. He has no master plan for killing the 4,000; it’s simply that he doesn’t care.

What Sardick doesn’t know is that the Doctor has pulled 12-year-old Sardick to the present, and asks him, “Is this who you want to become?” Old Sardick breaks and mumbles “I’m so, so sorry” as Young Sardick cries in his arms.

It looks like the day will be saved – and then they find out that the machine Sardick’s father created no longer recognizes him. Sardick has changed too much. Not all is lost, though; Sardick pulls out the screwdriver that the Doctor gave him so long ago, and the Doctor realizes that its other half is still in the clouds. There’s just one last thing that they need, and Sardick isn’t going to like it.

“We need her to sing.”

Abigail is brought out, and there’s a teary reunion. “There’s been so many Christmas Eves,” she says. “I think it’s time for Christmas Day.” And she sings again, gloriously, her voice filling the heavens and bringing the ship’s inhabitants – and the viewers – to tears.

It works. The cloud unlocks. The way is cleared for the ship. And, as a bonus, it snows in Sardicktown.

The TARDIS leaves, putting Young Sardick back, and everyone is saved. There’s a beautiful line – “Everything has to end, or else nothing would ever get started.” And as the episode ends, the Doctor gives Sardick a final gift – he’s called the shark again, and Abigail and Old Sardick laugh as the shark pulls them in an airborne carriage through the night sky.

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This was, unequivocally, one of my top five favorite Doctor Who episodes ever. It’s Moffat’s special gift to be able to bring a viewer to tears over and over, and in so many ways, breaking your heart and putting it back together again – always using tears as the glue.

The guest cast shines; nobody ever thought Michael Gambon (yeah, that’s Dumbledore) would be anything other than magnificent, but Katherine Jenkins as Abigail was mesmerizing, spellbinding… beauty in its purest form. Wikipedia tells me she’s pretty well known across the pond; I doubt it will be long before she’s known here in America, too, and we’ll all be the better for it. (And Brits? I envy you so much. The “Doctor Who at the Proms” this year is going to be AWESOME.) A taste:

I got a lot of gifts this year. Silly things like those loopy hair towels and better things like an amethyst necklace; but for me, one of the best gifts was getting to see this masterpiece of a tale. Where else could you find a story whose basic plot is “spaceship threatens to crash into cloud made up of fish who like music” and come away grateful for the experience?

Also? Wikipedia got hacked shortly after this episode aired. To whoever did this, my hat’s off to you.

Related posts:

1. Path Through Doctor Who – Season 5
2. Comic Review: Doctor Who volume 2 #2
3. Doctor Who’s Red Nose Day mini-episode!
4. Path Through Doctor Who: Season 2
5. Supernatural Saturdays: Christmas Edition