Apart from the Jodie Whittaker era which instead did New Year’s Day episodes, every year has seen a festive offering that has brought the nation together and scored huge numbers - 2007’s Christmas special Voyage Of The Damned still holds the record for the biggest viewership of the modern era.
What the Christmas specials are can vary wildly. They can be massive events, such as a regeneration story or an introduction to a new Doctor. They also often have a lot of money thrown at them. Voyage of The Damned, The End of Time and Time of The Doctor, for example, are big extravaganzas with a lot of guest stars and a massive story where all the universe is at stake. They also sometimes are just standalone episodes that have next to nothing to do with the show as a whole - this is particularly true of episodes like A Christmas Carol and The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe which don’t feature the main companions.
They are also not that good.
Look, I love Doctor Who. I really do. But I’d be lying if I said I came to the Christmas specials for high-brow mature viewing. The Christmas Invasion is a regular festive viewing for me, and I can probably quote the entire thing, but I know that episodes like Blink, Turn Left and Midnight absolutely lap it when it comes to the quality of the script.
I’d be lying if I said I came to the Christmas specials for high-brow mature viewing.
Regeneration episodes typically have a fantastic final scene which gets all Whovians teary-eyed, but the plots surrounding them are nothing to write home about (I am still annoyed at the wasted potential of Twice Upon A Time). Much like the Christmas season, there’s many scenes of fluffy inconsequential nonsense and it’s down to the great performances of the cast that the specials are in any way memorable.
This is even the case when the specials are attempting to do something more important. Episodes like The Snowmen and Last Christmas pick up where the show has left off, and while the emotions are bang-on, the stories are still about something dumb like the Doctor and Santa Claus teaming up to battle evil alien crabs.
At risk of sounding like a Scrooge, that doesn’t mean they’re not fun. Most of them are solid romps, the cast are all having fun and they’re full of great moments. I don’t like The Husbands of River Song much, but I’ll watch the scene where the Doctor pretends he doesn’t know what the TARDIS over and over again. As stories though, they’re fairly run-of-the-mill and I’d never rank them in lists of the best episodes. I’m of course looking forward to Joy To The World, the Christmas special for this year, but that’s not because it’ll be another Christmassy masterpiece. It’s because it’s Doctor Who.
