Doctor Who Festive Specials – A Retrospection

The Christmas or New Year’s Day special has been a yearly tradition for Doctor Who since the show was revived in 2005. It has become associated in fandom with receiving the yearly annual, or calendar, or hot new DVD or figure related to the programme. So ingrained in our yearly routine is the festive special that a new Doctor Who episode seems embedded in the fabric of the season. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a festive special. It just simply wouldn’t be Christmas!

At least, that is what I think anyway. And I am only a humble Who fan.

I was drawn to the idea of writing a Christmassy entry for my next article, but adverse to the notion of rewatching most of the Christmassy episodes of Doctor Who. For one reason or another – for instance, I have seen it plenty of times or the story is crap – I did not see this as a fun use of my time. But what I thought would be interesting is to look back, remember the host of Christmas episodes we have had and discuss them retrospectively. By doing so, I will share some opinions on the stories, and explore how the everchanging format of X-mas specials impacts the Doctor Who canon.

So let us dive in. Ho ho ho!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Doctor Who was an absolute juggernaut for the BBC and British television in general in the mid-noughties. Having a Christmas Special just made sense from a corporate point of view. The season is cold, everyone is guzzling mince pies, or swimming in mulled wine. Obviously, in this season of gluttony and self-indulgence, the television is on most of the time. Doctor Who may have decided to capitalise on this by introducing the Christmas Special.

The series was only transmitting for thirteen other weeks during the year, so a slice of festive Who offered up during the break kept the show alive in the public consciousness. Thus, the mainstream popularity of the show continued to expand.

For the enthusiasts of the show, I think there is a special kind of relationship with this yearly ritual. Speaking for myself, I have a rose-tinted fondness for Christmas in general. No matter how old I get, I still get a sense of joy from the memory the holiday brings. Doctor Who was a huge part of my growing up, so naturally, it was a huge part of my Christmas. Those earlier Christmas days were filled with excitement, chocolate and Doctor Who.

And then more chocolate. So synergised is Doctor Who with Christmas for me that the very first Christmas I remember had an episode transmit featuring a Doctor with a new face: the face of David Tennant. The Doctor looked different… how strange, but whatever, it was Doctor Who, it was crazy, and that is why I would go on to watch it every Christmas Day for the next twelve years.

Now, I don’t want to turn all Grinch or Ebeneezer Scrooge on you. BUT, if we removed the rose-tinted glasses for a second, can we honestly say that the Christmas special works from purely a storytelling point of view? When I really thought about it, I realised that I found the ongoing canon of Doctor Who having a Christmassy chapter every year a tad repetitive, gimmicky, and even a little bit irritating. It has the same annoying vibe of the Daleks turning up every series because of some legal necessity or other.

It becomes less novel over time, and more routine. The obligatory Dalek story, much like the obligatory Christmas special which was around for a long time after Russell T Davies introduced it, tires out a specific format. In a sandbox such as Doctor Who, where you can tell essentially any story you want to, relying on the same sorts of stories could be seen as counterintuitive to keeping the show fresh and exciting. Moreover, it gets rid of a slot where a bold new story may be told.

This is not to say I don’t rate a lot of these episodes. When I remember Russell T Davies’s specials specifically, with the exception of The Christmas Invasion (which I mostly found a bit boring when I have seen it over the years, possibly owing to the lack of David Tennant), I regard them as very strong. The Runaway Bride is a fun joyous romp, with the shenanigans involving Catherine Tate’s Donna brightening up the dire ending of Doomsday. Voyage of the Damned is pretty epic. The Next Doctor is a solid Cyberman story with an intriguing storyline. And if we are counting The End of Time Parts One and Two, it is one of the most emotionally enthralling Doctor Who stories ever, capping off the tenth Doctor’s story perfectly.

When we get to Steven Moffat’s specials, for better or worse, the quality tends to vary. But for a few years after Davis at least, we could count on the Christmas specials being a heck of a lot more Christmassy…

Let it snow. A lot.

Moffat’s first festive outing, A Christmas Carol, is actually my favourite of them all. It is brilliant that Doctor Who gets to have an episode inspired by the classic story. It has everything you could possibly want on Christmas Day – a redemption arc, the goodwill of a time-travelling hero, space fish and wibbly wobbly timey wimey-ness. And of course, lots of snow.

The following year we had The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe. Conversely, it was a boring, inconsequential slog through the snow – which there was an awful lot of. That, and a giant Christmas present leading to another world and a family reunited at Christmas. The Snowmen is OK at best, and also has a lot of snow, and a whole family crying on Christmas day to save the world from sentient snow. And The Time of the Doctor, which I don’t recall rating all that much, has SO MUCH SNOW and even goes so far as to have a town called Christmas. Heck, the fun dreamy base-under-siege story Last Christmas has FATHER CHRISTMAS himself, and this and Capaldi’s second Christmas outing The Husbands of River Song (another fun episode with a sweet ending for the River Song storyline) have a heck of a lot of – surprise surprise – snow! 

Are you seeing a theme here? The Christmas factor is bumped up so large over these years of Moffat specials that it is cringe-worthy.

Honestly, I love Christmas. The vibe, the aesthetic. It is familiar, comforting. There is a peaceful vibe to it. But when you realise that about every season of Doctor Who has a festive episode, with a festive aesthetic, it starts to feel a bit contrived, obligatory, tired. Yes, it is still nice to have that extra episode in the holidays, obviously. But, when we have GOT to have this one episode each year at THIS time, for this one celebration (which, by the way, is only celebrated by us earth folk and not the entire universe) it can be a detriment to the show. Over time, it limits the show’s capacity to be called an adventure in space and time! because we are routinely visiting similar spaces and similar times.

Mercifully, Moffat actually rectified this fault for his last couple of specials. The Return of Doctor Mysterio and Twice Upon A Time were less Christmassy and the better for it. It felt really refreshing! What made these episodes special were the cheesy superhero action of Mysterio and the return of the first Doctor in Capaldi and Moffat’s final outing. These were treats in the spirit of merriment that one associates with Christmas. The episodes were thankfully not glorified Christmas tributes.

The end of Steven Moffat’s era brought about an evolution, perhaps inevitable, of the X-mas special. Chris Chibnall continued this development, by making the bold choice to do away with the Christmas day slot altogether…

New Year, New Who!

Chris Chibnall made what some would call a bold decision to move the Doctor Who holiday special from its now traditional slot of Christmas Day to New Year’s Day. The first example of this was Resolution (of the Daleks) on January 1st 2019. I cannot remember rating this one too much, which was a shame as it was the only episode of Doctor Who we had for that year. The following year, the New Years Day outing actually kickstarted the twelfth series of Doctor Who‘s revival with Spyfall – Part One.

It was really cool that for the first time ever the holiday special led straight into a new series, rather than being followed by another few months of waiting! And then in the following year, we had Revolution of the Daleks, a fun episode to watch during the holidays for its return of familiar elements – Captain Jack on a Dalek spaceship, ooh and a cameo from the Silence! Once again, treats in the spirit of merriment one associates with the holidays.

Now, one could make the same argument that having a New Years Day special, set around the new year, every single new year, would become tired and would yield the above problem I had with routine Christmas Day specials. And, yes, there is potential for that to happen. But by virtue of the January 1st episode is a relatively new tradition, that format is not exactly tired in the same way that over a decade of episodes transmitted on December 25th was.

In fact, my gripe is more of a longer-running one: the repeated use of our favourite pepperpots, the Daleks, which I mentioned earlier in this article. With Eve of the Daleks coming on New Years Day 2022, it will be the third special (outside of Spyfall, if you count that) in a row with the Daleks as the antagonist. I know it is pretty much a given that this will be the last time this happens as Chibnall’s last episode will be in Autumn 2022, and as I say, these specials are a relatively new tradition. This is an issue with the show stemming from its very beginnings nearly 60 years ago when the Daleks were introduced. It is interesting that this continued problem I have with the repeated use of Daleks shares some simultaneity with the different levels of repetitiveness across all the holiday specials.

Like Christmas, I love the Daleks. I would say that in trying to find a solution to these routine formats that they should be reworked rather than entirely removed. The Dalek stories of recent memories have been fairly unremarkable. They are enemies that have been on television for nearly six decades; they are in dire need of a radical rethink to make them scary and exciting like they once were. How this is achieved, I don’t fully know myself.

All I know is that from a long-form storytelling point of view, to consistently use a specific element in a dynamic and compelling way, you have to shake things up a bit so that there is a substantial reward for the audience carrying on with the story. We die-hard Doctor Who fans will watch whatever comes out, but will the general public be drawn to yet another run-of-the-mill ‘Daleks invade Earth’ story? Yet another Doctor Who holiday special?

In a show with so much change and unpredictability, it is nice to have those familiar elements running through. I would even go as far as to say it is essential to keep the identity of the show alive and somewhat consistent. But when times inevitably change, then so must everything else. The only thing that will ever remain the same is the show’s dependence on evolution for its welfare and survival.

The Festive Special… a fixed point in time?

It is hard to imagine a festive season without a festive Doctor Who, for it has literally been around for as long as I can remember. Aside from the feeling that changes can be made to make the specials more novel and less routine, sentimentality does also factor into my resistance to the idea of scrapping specials entirely. We currently have no way of telling if Russell T Davis will bring back Christmas specials in his second era of Doctor Who, and what this and the recent acquisition of Bad Wolf (Who‘s new production company) by Sony means for the show on a larger scale. But if history is anything to go by, change is certainly coming. This can be daunting, but I for one choose to be excited. Bring it on, says I.

What was that? I didn’t talk about The Feast of Steven? Oh, how silly of me!

And a Merry Christmas, to all of you at home!