ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
Matt Smith’s first Christmas story is a retelling of Charles
Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. It very much uses the Christmases past,
present and future format but does it with such a sense of fun, aplomb and
style that you forgive it the derivative aspects. It’s just such a great piece
of Christmas TV that even the otherwise crazy concept of the Doctor and his new
friends being towed across the skies of the City in a carriage by a flying
shark just somehow feels natural. For a long time this was my favourite Matt
Smith story and still sits high up in the list.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory are aboard a spaceliner that begins
to crash onto a planet shrouded in clouds. The clouds somehow interfere with
the ships instruments to stop it being able to recover and leave the planet.
The Doctor travels to the planet and meets Kazran Sardick (Michael Gambon) who
controls the clouds with a machine invented by his father. Kazran has become a
cynical, greedy old man and refuses to help the spaceliner, preferring to allow
it to crash rather than interfere with his systems.
The Doctor travels back to when Kazran was a young,
ideological man (played by Danny Horn as a
child and Laurence Belcher as a teenager) and tries to show him the joy
of life. He summons a shark-like creature which swims in the clouds but it accidentally
bits his sonic screwdriver in half, which makes the shark ill. Kazran realises
that he can save the shark by taking it to the cryogenic units that his father
uses to store people as security for loans. Amongst the people frozen are
Abigail (Katherine Jenkins), she sings a beautiful song to sooth the shark and
Kazran promises to visit her every Christmas Eve from now on.
The Doctor and Kazran keep their promise and over the next
few years Kazran falls in love with Abigail. Suddenly, Kazran asks for the
visits to stop. Abigail has a terminal illness and each Christmas Eve revival
has reduced her lifespan and she now only has one day to live.
Old Kazran is happy to have some new memories, but is bitter
about Abigail’s fate and still refuses to allow the spaceliner to land safely.
So, the Doctor travels back one more time and brings Young Kazran to meet his
older self. The boy is horrified to see how much like his hated father the old
version of himself has become. Old Kazran now repents and decides to allow the
cloud machine to be switched off. However, the Doctor’s interference has
changed the past, so in the end Abigail is revived and sings into one half of
the Doctor’s screwdriver, resonating the other half in the shark’s stomach and
dispersing the clouds that way and allowing the spaceliner to land safely.
Kazran and Abigail enjoy a final trip through the clouds
being towed by the shark and Kazran asks Abigail if she wants to be put back
into cryogenic freezing, she says she does not and they enjoy her last day of
life together again.
There’s real joy and fun in this story, for once Steven
Moffat letting his hair down and just going with jolly. That doesn’t mean there
isn’t a serious edge to this, Abigail doesn’t find some miracle cure and the
bittersweet ending where she is alive for just one more day but accepts it
somehow fits the sadness tinged feel of Christmas when you remember those who
are not around anymore – as the Doctor says “half way out of the dark”.
As you would expect, Michael Gambon is perfect casting as
the Scrooge character, Kazran. Katherine Jenkins proves a reasonable actress
and, of course, has that angelic voice to sing the song which is so central to
the story and the whole atmosphere of the piece. Both the younger versions of
Kazran are also well acted and once again you see how well Matt Smith works
with children here.
The shark is well realised and not just a set of teeth, but
actually has an integral part to play in the plot and, even though it is a bit
treacly, that end sequence with the Doctor, Kazran and Abigail doing a
Santa-like ride above the streets of the planet is joyous.
Love this story and it’s been an absolute delight to revisit
it again.
NEXT UP: THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT / THE DAY OF THE MOON
© Text copyright - Raving Loony
Productions and
Andrew J. Müller,
Roy Barton
and Shaun Runham
© Photos and Artwork - Andrew J. Müller
© Web Design and Layout - Andrew J. Müller
2022
