Doctor Who 6.00 A Christmas Carol Review

 Live blogging - Doctor Who 2010 Christmas Special: “A Christmas Carol”

 

Alright this was something I’ve been really looking forward to for a long time now. I was so surprised by this past series of Doctor Who was really good. I wasn’t expecting much going into it – I still hadn’t gotten over the loss of Rose, and it gets painful that they brought her back in series 3 and 4 and David had left so I wasn’t looking forward to this new series. That being said I was really surprised, I love the new Doctor, and Amy is fantastic and poor Rory – you know I must like him, he’s been killed off like 3 times already. I’ve always liked the Christmas specials and they do seem to get better with each passing one so I go into this with the hope that this will by far be the best one yet.

I’m glad that they included Rory in this, now that he and Amy are married it will make for an interesting dynamic to have the Doctor with two regular companions (watch now that I type this Rory will get killed off for good with 6x01.) I’m not going to lie, it was pretty damn funny to see the ship going down and Amy comes running out in her policeman’s costume and then a few seconds later Rory runs out dressed up in his Roman gear – that’s.. umm.. adventurous to put It politely.

 

Doctor Who’s take on A Christmas Carol is interesting mostly because it is futuristic and ‘classic’ at the same time. I do like the twist of the ‘Scrooge’ type character keeping people frozen in ice until their families can pay off their debts to him. The Doctor falling down the chimney was funny, this particular incarnation is rather fanboy-ish when it comes to things so I can’t help but think that it would have been more interesting to see him up on the roof instead of explaining what he was doing up there before he fell.

 

The bit where Amy is on the phone trying to keep the Doctor from being distracted from the flying fish was funny but it would have been better if they didn’t say ‘fish’ practically every other word. It doesn’t help that in the very next scene they keep saying fish no less than 10 times, but at least we get a quick explanation as to why Kazran didn’t hit the child but at the same time you could pretty much see it coming. Although I honestly didn’t expect to see the Doctor travel back to Kazran’s childhood and talk to theolder version of Kazran. I was a little let down by the scenes where the Doctor is in the past with the child version of Kazran, it seemed to move a little too slowly before the giant shark showed up.

 

I do hate to say it but I think it would have been far more entertaining if Amy, Rory or even River (who hasn’t been in the special – yet oddly enough was in the commercial bumper with Matt and Amy wishing everyone a Happy Holiday.) It’s not that Matt and the boy didn’t play well off of each other it just felt like the scene needed more. Someone to really question what was going on. Okay – really, I need to create a drinking game for every time someone says a variation of the word ‘fish.’

The thing that I’m having the most trouble with here is when the scenes cut to the older Kazran and he’s watching these events on the projection in his room but he’s freaking out. I know that the rules need to be a little lax when it comes to time travel stories, but you would think that if the older version of Kazran is watching his younger self it should be pretty safe to assume that he didn’t die as a child. It’s also a little annoying that halfway into the special they introduce a new character – it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if they hadn’t shown Amy and Rory before. What was the point of even including them if they’re only in one-two scenes and the focus is on the one shot characters?

Hah the Fez is back! I wonder what the countdown is for? Is it the amount of times Abigail’s pod can be opened? Is it a countdown to an army of giant sharks that will come and destroy everything? Is it the amount of times that Abigail has to interact with Kazran before he can fully change? I like the idea of the Doctor going back on Christmas every year to visit Kazran and to let Abigail out of her pod and they all spend one day together, but it is a little bit annoying when you consider the fact that it seems like the Doctor has forgotten that Amy, Rory and everyone else aboard the ship are all falling to their deaths. I know that back in the ‘current’ time only a few seconds have passed but it is a little annoying.

Well of course it stands to reason that as soon as I complain about that up pops Amy as ‘the Ghost of Christmas Present.’ Hmm… so it turns out that the countdown on Abigail’s pod was a countdown of how many days she had left to live – I guess I was sort of right considering that is also the amount of times the pod could be opened. The big revelation that Kazran has become his father isn’t really surprising – it’s pretty obvious that is where they were going with the story. One thing I wasn’t too clear on was if the Doctor got his screwdriver back, did he leave the half with Kazran and Abigail, did he go back and get the two halves and join them together?

The trailer for series six.. oh man… lots of Amy, Rory and River. What’s going to happen now after series five? What will the repercussions of that be, are we really done with the whole Silence thing, or the Pandorica? The Ood are back, will we see any huge event big enough to bring back other characters? And the thing that I’m really interested in… what were all those countdown marks on River and Amy? How did they get there, why are they there, what are they there for, what do they mean? Oh man, the new series cannot come fast enough for me.

Rating: A+ (was there ever any doubt?)