Christmas special title announced
The BBC has revealed that the title of the 2010 Christmas special will be A Christmas Carol.
The special, which airs in the UK on Christmas Day (and, though there’s been no confirmation, is expected to air not long after in Canada and the US) guest stars Michael Gambon (Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films) and popular UK singer Katherine Jenkins. A preview of the special is airing in the UK on Nov. 19 as part of the annual Children in Need Appeal and will likely become widely available through various official and unofficial venues thereafter.
No word as to whether Charles Dickens might be getting a co-writing credit on the episode!
Posted by Alex on Friday, November 12 at 7:41 pm
9 Comments...
I long for the day the Christmas special won’t have anything to do with Christmas at all. I mean it’s not like they really do during RTD’s time. More like set there then actually being germain to the story. Did any of them really need to be set at Christmas? No. It just means that you have a 1 hour show stuck on Earth. Again. How about Christmas on Another Planet?
This one actually seems that Christmas will actually feature in it.
Posted by Ryan on 11/12 at 09:31 PM
I don’t know - I think with the special exception of The End of Time (which I will grant you had Christmas sort of parachuted into it) they’ve all had a special feel to them. The thing is the BBC mandated a Christmas special, and RTD (and Moffat) have the spectre of The Feast of Steven that they want to avoid. That was a case of DW having to do a Christmas episode and being more or less forced to suspend the ongoing storyline in order to accommodate. The BBC could have made RTD do utter standalones with no connection to the continuity, but he managed to make most of them major aspects of the arc: Christmas Invasion had to introduce the new Doctor, The Runaway Bride dealt with the Doctor immediate after losing Rose (while giving us a preview of a future companion), Voyage of the Damned was a standalone, The Next Doctor dealt with the Doctor’s actions after losing Donna and also at the same time managed to (once and for all) put to bed any notions that the revival wasn’t connected to the original series, and The End of Time, of course, had to regenerate the Doctor. Moffat has the first Christmas special since Voyage of the Damned that doesn’t have to drive the arc. So he could if he wanted to make a story that ends up being just someone’s dream and no one will care because he doesn’t need to do anything but have fun with this one. It may not be the same story for the 2011 Christmas special, depending how Series 6/7 plays out.
Posted by Alex on 11/12 at 09:54 PM
Xmas specials have been among the weakest episodes in the reboot years, imo. I liked ‘The Next Doctor’ tho, so take it w/ as many grains of salt as you will…
Posted by Jimmy on 11/13 at 02:04 AM
I thought Voyage of the Damned was pretty good - and in fact probably the closest thing to a true Doctor Who big-screen movie as we’re likely to get. End of Time I don’t consider a Christmas special. It certainly wasn’t weak, IMO. The new one sounds interesting from some of the advance word (no spoilers in the discussion, please) and it’s got Michael Gambon, who is always cool to watch, and Katherine Jenkins is an unknown over here but in the UK she’s basically the classical music Kylie Minogue, so I think it’s going to be fun. Just as long as Space doesn’t wait till March to show it, of course!
Posted by Alex on 11/13 at 02:39 AM
It’s not the BBC who mandated the Christmas content, Alex. RTD consciously chose to do so himself—he has said so in interviews, saying that he prefers the Christmas specials that are set at Christmas—as has, presumably, Moffat. The BBC air lots of Christmas specials which have nothing to do with Christmas at all—they’re just super-sized special episodes of TV programs.
I personally have enjoyed the fact that there’s Christmas content in all of them (The End of Time, I would agree seemed shoehorned, but I enjoyed Naismith’s line “Cancel Christmas.” so there you go). It gives it a special feel. And I’m intrigued that Moffat has decided to make it a really Christmassy Christmas special.
Posted by Graeme on 11/13 at 03:38 PM
Not to worry - on Wednesday night’s episode of _Innerspace_, it was announced that the Doctor Who Christmas Special will be part of this year’s Twelve Days of Space-mas. That means it will be aired no later than 3 January, so a maximum of one week’s delay. Considering the wait we’ve experienced for “Voyage of the Damned”, not to mention Series 3 of _The Sarah Jane Adventures_, this is far better service.
Posted by David H. Olivier on 11/13 at 04:40 PM
Re: David - there was a report a couple months ago that said the BBC was planning to “fast track” (their words) the Christmas special for both BBC America and Space. I took that to mean it’ll probably air very close to the UK airdate. My prediction is Boxing Day (though it would be cool if they actually scored a same-day broadcast on Christmas itself, but I doubt they’ll be able to pull that off). It helps that the Christmas special is the only BBC broadcast for which an airdate can be accurately predicted without having to wait for official confirmation from the network (unlike the regular season which sometimes feels like it’s only officially scheduled 2 weeks in advance).
Posted by Alex on 11/13 at 04:52 PM
This is the one and only time I don’t know if I really want the Christmas special to actually air right at Christmas - as I’ll be out West visiting family.
I’m kidding of course, it would be wonderful if we get it immediately (or even a week away like last year).
I love Space Network for this…especially as we know we’re going to get the full and uncut version from them.
But if it’s on before the 29th, well, the family will just have to ignore me or watch it with me whether they like it or not. Bwhahahah!
And of course I’ll record it at home to come back to!
Posted by Julie on 11/14 at 01:13 AM
BBCA just tweeted that us lucky bastards will be getting the Christmas Special on Christmas day.
They’ve just crushed my post-Christmas dinner tradition of “refresh”, drink, gnash teeth, “refresh”. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Posted by Deborah on 11/17 at 05:37 PM
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