Alternative Doctor Who Christmas Stories

T’was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Well, we’re close enough to Christmas and our writers have been stirring, coming up with some alternative Christmas stories for you to get stuck into over the yuletide period.

Mark

One of the many casualties of this difficult year has been the annual pantomime for theatres up and down the country. So, in that absence, why not allow Doctor Who to bring some of that panto magic to your home this festive season?

1980s Doctor Who got a bit of a bad rap for being a bit too pantomimey under the stewardship of John Nathan-Turner. A criticism that wasn’t helped by JN-T’s yearly pantomimes which enlisted (or should that be conscripted?) various Doctors and cast members to play such characters as Buttons and Baron Hard-Up. However, the best example of a Doctor Who panto took place prior to JN-T taking on the role of executive producer. That story?

The Horns of Nimon

Like many a story from the past 57 years, people take Anthony Read’s sci-fi take on Greek myth far too seriously. Airing between the 22nd December 1979 and 12th January 1980 this is the closest that the Williams/Adams era gets to a Christmas special, and it’s pure panto.

There’s the ensemble of plucky young theatre kids, an exhausted lead actor who’s taken to improvising and ad-libbing his way through the same old routine and a haughty princess with a wise-cracking sidekick. There’s also a fruity panto dame and a demented panto villain both played by Graham Crowden as Soldeed – never knowingly underplayed. It’s an absolute hoot, a proper bloody laugh and once you view The Horns of Nimon through that prism – and preferably through a fug of Christmas booze – you’ll forgive a lot of the ropier elements. How many Nimon have you seen today? Three, and they’re BEHIND YOU.

The One Doctor

Did you know that the great pantomime dame Christopher Biggins once (sort-of) played the Doctor? He plays Banto Zame, an intergalactic conman who in partnership with his companion Sally-Anne uses the myth of the Doctor to exploit gullible planets for financial gain.

I love The One Doctor, Big Finish’s 2001 Christmas play written by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman. It’s a comedy that wears it’s Adams/Williams influences on its sleeve and sends up the ideas at the very core of Doctor Who whilst never feeling too knowing or smug. The story feels like a forebear to the Christmas specials we get from 2005 onwards – there’s a bombastic character who pretends to be the Doctor and Matt Lucas pops up in a cameo role. Listening back in 2020, there are also shades of Bad Wolf and Ker-Blam in there too. This is a perfect Doctor Who audio for some festive cheer – a big, broad caper of a Christmas adventure which even finds time for a musical number. A joy.

The Androids of Tara

Another Tom Baker/Graham Williams story – read into that what you will. Given the influence of The Prisoner of Zenda on Androids, there’s also a real feeling of the type of large-scale literary adaptation you tend to see on BBC1 at this time of year.

David Fisher’s swashbuckling tale of mistaken identity, duplicate droids and attempted regicide is perfect for the panto season. It has a proper boo-hissable, moustache-twirling villain in the form of Count Grendel, played with a great deal of relish by Peter Jeffrey. It has a beautiful princess, a fey, ineffectual prince and an unconvincing monster. Tom Baker is having an absolute ball winging it as a royal advisor and swashbuckling swordsman, it’s a side to the Fourth Doctor that we don’t often see and it’s wonderful. It’s the jewel in the crown of the Key to Time season, and if it’s passed you by then why not park yourself in front of it with various leftovers and uneaten chocolates on Boxing Day afternoon?

Maria

The Unquiet Dead

This unassuming story by Mark Gatiss has all the ingredients for an alternative Christmas tale. Snowbound 1869’Cardiff on Christmas Eve where “the stiffs are getting lively “as ghostly apparitions haunt the streets. Eccleston and Piper play the wonder of a date in history really well. I love Eccleston’s Doctor. His straight intelligence, listening, taking things in as the aliens in the gas appear. Piper’s plucky Rose following his lead hints at how much she will want to copy his wanderer’s life.

It’s a talky script taking time to create a dark brooding atmosphere. The majority of the action is set at the funeral parlour with a small cast and a lot of its charm is that the actors all understand their characters very well. There is the marvellous Eve Myles who plays the modest Gwyneth. Simon Callow’s doubting Dickens is such an interesting character full of his own foibles a contrast against his masterful authorship which has been his legacy.  I love his wishing everyone Merry Christmas at the end much like Scrooge after his conversion. The Doctor ticking off his bucket list meeting a hero of his despite knowing he won’t be alive the following year but then giving him one last surprise. Marvellous.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

There is something about this superior story from Steven Moffat that suits the dull winter of a late December as you work your way through that box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, alcoholic tipple close by looking for something different to watch. Maybe it’s the night setting of the London Blitz bombarded by Hitler’s bombs. A very British affair with its emphasis on a lonely somewhat creepy child with a face mask repeating its plaintive cry “Are you my mummy?”, rationing, the nostalgia of Glen Miller. An old-fashioned war struggle that is an antidote to the normal saccharine fayre of Christmas overindulgence that makes me want to watch it.

But this isn’t Bleak House. It’s a thoughtful observed script with a well-cast bunch of actors.  With a touch of mystery and romance, the handsome Time agent Captain Jack (played with suave energy by an oh so young-looking John Barrowman) seriously flirts his way into Rose’s heart. In a mini alpha males’ competition of squareness guns and screwdrivers, the script allows Christopher Eccleston and John Barrowman to banter against each other which is a lot of fun. The 9th is allowed to be unintentionally funny which is often endearing because of his slightly awkward demeanour at times. I really enjoy Rose’s relationship with the 9^thDoctor as he has an edge and these are the days before Rose went completely love-struck over 10.

Let’s face it there are also some pretty good scares among the humour, the dead patients sitting up to face changes as people are converted by the nanogenes, the scene with the child and the reel to reel recording but there is a happy ending as Nancy and her restored child are reunited and everybody lives. It feels totally joyful for a Doctor filled with burning anger over the Time War. And then to top it the Doctor shows he can dance and allows Captain Jack to become part of the Tardis crew. Happy days and I’m so pleased Jack’s back this Christmas.

An Adventure in Space and Time

The biographical story of the beginnings of Doctor Who is so charming that I can’t resist putting it on around this time of year. It is a story of the people who had faith it could work and is a real love letter to the show. Going back to the 1960’s and seeing a smart and polished Jessica Raine as Verity Lambert push against the old boys of the BBC fighting for Doctor Who as the only then female producer at the BBC is very satisfying. Her supportive friendship with Sacha Dhawan’s Waris Hussein Indian-born director also brings a breath of fresh air to a stuffy corporation as well as a social commentary of the changing times. It proves the adage don’t judge a book by its cover. I love Brian Cox as exuberant Sidney Newman with a little twinkle in his eye.  Did I mention all the fun of spotting the cameos too?

A massive part of the production is, of course, David Bradley playing William Hartnell and the Doctor. He does a good job immersing himself although I didn’t really consider that William Hartnell was only 55 years old when he started Doctor Who.  David Bradley finds the frustrated tetchy proud man, older than his years who eventually finds his joy in the part. I love that idea that there are children who knew him as Doctor Who and loved HIM. There are lots of poignant moments as people come and go behind the scenes (the companions and Verity). and you can see the toll the changes take on the man. Yes, I do blub like a baby at times as WH’s illness takes hold and a new man Patrick Troughton has to come in. I love that he approved but how the programme links to the present is because of him, the original and that’s a gigantic moment.

Jordan

Horror of Fang Rock

What would Christmas be without a good spooky tale? Normally at this time of year, I struggle between Horror and Image of the Fendahl but Horror nudges to the winning spot for me most of the time. Best enjoyed this time of year, just as the sun is setting with a cup of hot chocolate and maybe a candy-cane or two, The Fourth Doctor and Leela find themselves in trouble on Fang Rock when a mysterious creature begins to kill the crew of the lighthouse.

Things get worse when a ship crashes into the rocks and they look for safety in the lighthouse things get tense in this claustrophobic thriller. For me, this is perhaps the last time the classic series was truly scary and it’s easily enjoyable viewing on a cold winters night…

Spare Parts

Despite being set at Christmas, the setting is the only thing festive about this outing for the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa. Heralded as one of Big Finish’s early classics, Spare Parts sees the pair arrive on Mondas just before the Cybermen are created. There’s some really disturbing imagery on offer here too. From grave robbing and organ harvesting to cybernetic horses and people queuing for conversion everything here is bleak despite the Christmas lights and decorations littered around the town.

In Big Finish’s early days they revelled in darker stories and this is easily one of them and it’s best enjoyed with the Christmas lights on and all the others switched off, the Cybermen might think you’re obeying the curfew then…

Son of the Dragon

There is nothing Christmassy about this story, apart from the fact I was given it as a Christmas gift when I first really got into Big Finish. As a result, it became one of my all-time favourites and inspired my love of history. When the Fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem arrive in Romania in the 1400s, they are quickly swept up into a battle, on one is the infamous Vlad the Impaler and on the other Prince Radu.

What follows is an excellent historical adventure that follows the life of the mysterious Vlad while Erimem falls under his influence. This was the story that inspired my love for history and I always enjoy it around Christmas Eve and it’s easily one of the best Fifth Doctor stories ever told.