Paul Evans Amy and Rory are celebrating their honeymoon on board a spaceship, but it's out of control and hurtling towards a planet ruled by the Scrooge like Kazran Sardick. Kazran is refusing to help, his machinery could save the crash, but he chooses to let the thousands of people die. We step in to a Christmas carol as the Doctor shows Kazran the error of his ways. Using all manner of techniques to make Kazran change his mind.This is possibly my favourite Christmas episode, it is so different from all the others, I think even Dickens would have loved it.It is a Christmas fairy tale perfect for the Festive period. Without patrsonising it, I'd say it's the prettiest episode to date, it looks incredible (you can see where the budget went.) Michael Gambon is utterly brilliant, so to is Katherine Jenkins, she did a great job considering it was her first real character part. The music is simply beautiful, I love it, works so wonderfully, in particular the moving Abigail's song.Touchingly beautiful, best Christmas episode to date. 10/10

A_Different_Drummer Seriously, it is the job of the reviewer to point out the horrific and the extraordinary.The most fun is pointing out the extraordinary.Imagine that: 1. You are possibly the greatest living TV writer. The jury will not be in of course until you pass off this mortal shell, but the evidence at hand is substantial.2. The year is 2010.3. Among your many past accomplishments is that you have taken a children's show from the BBC archives and given it a worldwide stature that exceeds both Star Trek and Star Wars. That is cool. Like bowties are cool.4. And that is merely your day job. At X-Mas, you get to have extra fun by writing "specials" that fans around the world await.5. Again, the year is 2010. You decide to go for broke and write something which will not only be as good as Dickens but, hey, why not try to improve on the original? 6. Your logic is something like this. Even the BBC executives won't see how ambitious your work is, because the "Christmas Carol" theme has been done to death in movies and TV, and no one ever has come close to the original. So you proceed under cover of stealth. And cynicism.7. And you nail it. A perfect supporting cast that includes no less than Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins.8. And writing to die for. Writing beyond belief. There is a scene where Gambon, realizing that the Doc is playing him, challenges the doctor to "go ahead, show me the future" and the Doc replies, "That is what I am doing" ... pan camera to show that the younger Gambon is already in frame and the dialog with the older one was for the benefit if the younger. So, in effect, the future has already been shown.9. And THAT is just a sample of the writing. The fact that this comes at the end of a Amy/Rory arc -- now considered (2014) to be the best arc in the series EVER -- is merely irony. Piling greatness on greatness.10. Memo to IMDb staff (as if they are EVER going to reply, even if this is being written at X-Mas) -- we need a higher rating than "10."Just for special occasions. Like this one.

shadowman-4 I am a great fan of Dr Who and think that the new lineud's great and Mr Moffatt is a breath of fresh air from repetitive offerings of Mr T.Davies. So initially I was really looking forward to this and then I'd read somewhere it was going to be 'A Christmas Carol' with Sharks! My hopes were lowered at that point and I thought 'Hmmm', but I'll give it a chance. Wish I hadn't. IMHO the BBC signed up a couple of stars and then thought "How can we spin a story around these 2?", so they came up with a Christmas Carol (for pity's sake, just leave it will you, I'm sick of renditions of this average morality tail) and a flying shark. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? Gambon acted well as usual. Matt Smith was wasted. Katherine Kenkins tried (God Bless her), but she's not an actress. Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill may as well have not bothered turning up, they had no role to play. Far too much time spent on Christmas past and almost nothing on Christmas Present and Future. Unexplained character actions (why all the face slapping/non-slapping?) Flying Sharks? Maybe I missed something, but I get the impression I watched a different program to those who raved about it. I just hope the next season is better.

boblipton Dickens' story gets the Doctor Who treatment, full of mad humor and personal tragedy as the Doctor has to reclaim a damaged soul in a world of flying sharks to save Amy, Rory (Arthur Darvill getting an upgrade to Companion status with a front-of-credits listing) and four thousands other people on a crashing space ship. With the great Michael Gambon as that Scrooge-like figure, it takes only half the show to manage the effort -- but series producer Steven Moffat never makes things that simple.As a fancier of Charles Dickens and the Doctor, I am quite taken with another example of how the Doctor treats all time as simultaneous, rushing back and forth to get information from Gambon to get himself out of scrapes half a century earlier.Moffat has shown a dab hand at making Victorian stories sensible to a twenty-first audience in series like JEKYLL and SHERLOCK. I'm glad he has decided to do the same for Scrooge.Oh, and Karen Gillan makes a wonderful Ghost of Christmas Present in a short skirt.