“Michael Gambon, you sexy two-wheeling b***h!” Is something I would have said if this was a script I were reading to you, possibly in a seductive voice just to make it sound weirder. What was it I was on about when reviewing the last episode? Something about not liking the fairy tales and importance of everyone and everything in the grand scheme of the universe. Ok, let’s slightly ignore that for half an episode while I say one of Moffat’s greatest episodes is a sci-fi fantasy version of the Dickens’ story, “A Christmas Carol”

“It’s Christmas!” as a cosmic space hobo often dressed in tartan, by way of Staffordshire once shouted. It’s also what Amy says knowing the Doctor is always there for her (and now Mr. Pond) as they are crashing in a ship. I love the whole thing. Okay, not the whole thing, but I do love Kazran Sardick and Abigail. Even young Kazran doesn’t annoy me beyond belief. I even like the setting. The spacey-Dickensian world is designed by Michael Pickwoad, of flying murder fish and magic (waveforms are a kind of magic, right?) space machines that keep them in the clouds. It is brilliant.

It is a fantastic turn on the 1843 novel by the man who is very much a way of cooling one’s self of a great evil turned good antagonist. Of course, the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future don’t come to meet Kazran, just what the Daleks call “the oncoming storm.” That’s the thing about a space and time machine. You can be a ghost in someone’s horrible little life and change their established timeline; Even if that’s strictly forbidden, except for cheap tricks. Ok, yes, have a little whinge about established nonsense if you like, but it’s Christmas (in April) I’ll allow it.

“A Christmas Carol” is just another one of those fun little episodes that let Steven Moffat flounce about acting smug about being playful, while being enjoyable with an established story. Ok, it is not a Who-based established story (this time) but it is one we’re all familiar with and one that we’ve seen the Muppets play with. Even if when you have a time machine and you’re just trying to change someone’s past, you aren’t going to go in their future and you are already in their present. Though, technically, going into someone’s past is their present for them at that very moment. However, the past from our future point of view looking at a video of a 12-year-old is the past.

Time travel, it is a wibbly wobbly timey-wimey ball of stuff, I’ve heard. Yes, we’re going to do the whole Scrooge McDuck thing, but going as far back as Kazran’s childhood. Damaged adults tend to be damaged as children, so we might as well go that far back. It is a time that explains why he might have a painting of his dad, a painting with a Christmas tree. Though as an adult Kazran lives alone, with all the chairs in his living room facing away from the painting, and no tree in sight on Christmas-eve. 

The point (of course) isn’t to say “YAY! Child abuse,” but rather to showcase that Kazran doesn’t want to be like his dad. He wants to be better, but he projects this air of arrogance and staleness towards any sort of heart and compassion (as his dad did) and thus people think that of him. There is a foothold to make with the young Kazran, one which will make the Grinch’s heart grow two sizes that night. Leading to him remembering a memory that is now changing, for the better.

Ok, I have a feeling I need to address this for the pedantic among you: Yes, that would mean other things change. Does that mean we see those changes? No. Would it be nice to? Yes. Will it happen? Probably not. Yes, it does make part of the story fall apart as you assume he’d show heart to others and be a different man by the age of Michael Gambon; but it is Christmas (again, in April, shhhhh!). You are probably filled with enough turkey, gravy, roast potatoes, and Yorkshire puddings that the President of the English Empire could say something discriminatory (again) and you wouldn’t care.

So many people don’t understand this because they are caught up in the haughtiness of Doctor Who lore that they assume they need to both defend and deride it all the time. Look, I’m willing to let a few things slip on Christmas if we get a fun story. I’m more than happy to have a fun story on Christmas if we’ve had a less than perfect series before it. It is okay to let your guard down for one day and just enjoy an adventure in time and space. For all his faults with trying to make Clara the most perfect human that she’s no longer human, Moffat knew how to make a story fun. Though he also knew how to make folks be alright with making Clara, a teacher, be okay with killing kids.

Shall we talk about Katherine Jenkins, playing Abigail? She plays an angelic late 20-something who first meets Kazran as a 12-year-old and kind of likes him by the age of 19-20. Ok, yes the relationship is a little weird and maybe I’m doing as others do with the changing of memories for Kazran, but it is a little strange, is it not? Cryogenically frozen, she’s held as insurance on a loan, as a form of showing how heartless Kazran and Elliot Sardick are; particularly Kazran, pre-Doctor’s visit.

Smith! Oh, he’s on top form today (well, 2010), “Finally a lie too big,” After saying this, he waves the psychic paper in young Kazran’s face, “I think you’ll find, I’m universally recognized as a mature and responsible adult!” He’s just such a wonderfully energetic and Doctor-y Doctor. It is fun seeing him talking about Frank, Frank, and Albert (Sinatra, Clause, and Einstein) at that hunting lodge and little fun bits that make him one of the best. Very geography teacher, very childish, and oh how I do love him! “try and be all nervous and rubbish and a bit shaky […] Because you’re going to be like that anyway. Might as well make it part of the plan, then it’ll feel on purpose.”

Though, as always with Moffat, I’m left saddened by the gut punch that is Abigail’s reality. She has a terminal illness and only those 8-days left to live; 8-days on the clock, and another embittered old man knowing he’s used up seven of those magnificent days with a woman he’s fallen in love with. Through all the lovely memories the Doctor has given Kazran, he’s come away with the thought that “As a very old friend took a very long time to explain, life isn’t fair!” He simply can’t decide which day, which glorious and amazing day, to make her very last.

It is a sentiment beautifully paralleled with the ship Amy and Rory are about to crash in, that Kazran has no care for. The one thing the Doctor has been trying to do is teach him is that life is worth every moment, yet still “everybody has to die […] tonight is as good as any other night.” Though, unlike the Dickens novel, never does the Doctor take him to his grave. Instead, he takes young Kazran to the embittered old man as he claims he will never care about those people about to die. As he’s about to hit his younger self the way his dad did to him all those many times, the two break down into tears and start hugging.

“Could you do it, could you do this? Think about it Doctor, one last day with your beloved, which day would you choose?” Michael Gambon, you and your voice are too perfect for that moment. Every single word delivered with the sound of a man that just knows how much he’s wanted that one day, ever since his last with her 40-sum years prior. Aching every single day, able to but restrained by a desire to hold on. All while knowing there is only one day, one perfect day to do it, and letting her die afterward. The smile as she puts her hand on his face, the creaking voice as he tells her “sorry” for waiting as long. It is perfectly Moffat: Romantically tragic.

Ok, it is not perfect as an episode. There are things I’m less enamored with, but overall I can’t help but rate the episode highly. I’d put it with “Voyage of the Damned,” “The Husbands of River Song,” and Moffat’s last hurrah, “Twice Upon A Time.” In fact, I’m willing to put it up there with ‘proper’ Who such as “Blink,” “Human Nature” & “The Family of Blood,” “Smith and Jones,” “The Girl in the Fireplace,” “The Empty Child” & “The Doctor Dances,” “Amy’s Choice,” “Vincent and the Doctor,” “Let’s Kill Hitler,” “The Power of Three” (I know, a Chibnall episode!), “The Rings of Akhaten,” whichever one of the “Heaven Sent” & “Hell Bent” ones was the good one, and “Rosa.” Did I just list all the episodes I could think of and really like? Yes, yes I did!

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Doctor Who "A Christmas Carol"

9.5

Score

9.5/10

Pros

• Michael Gambon's wonderful acting.
• The most 11 that the 11th has been yet.
• Bitter, sweet, and romantically tragic.
• "Saw a chimney, my whole brain went, what the hell!"
• Everyone has won the lottery.

Cons

• Amy and Rory playing dress-up is a bit much?