All I want for Christmas is Who: A Christmas Carol

Hello my hot, cute, geeky girls and boys! This is your favourite swede typing! If Mendy is hosting a Doctor Who special you know I have to be part of it, right? This took me and hour to write so you better darn well appreciate it 😉

As the title of this episode implies this episode is a take on Dickens’ old classic, a Christmas Carol. In the old classic, one of my favourite Christmas films, the old grumpy man is met by three spirits of Christmas, and something similar is what happens in this episode.

Starring in this episode we have Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor along with Karen Gillian and Arthur Darvill as The Ponds, Amy and Rory. We also have a few other characters as usual in these Christmas specials. The two to focus on are Kazran and Abigail. The episode is written by the great Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes. I’m not going to go into any major details but more or less swoosh you through the story adding my own thoughts as we go.

We hit the story during Rory and Amy’s honeymoon that they seem to be spending on a cruise spaceship. The first scene is pretty intense, Amy, in her policewoman outfit, and Rory, as a centurion, barge into the control room of the ship that is, without a doubt, going to crash. The ship is caught in a strange cloud belt and the crew seems to think it’s all over. Amy, on the other hand just knows that they will be saved. You sit staring into the stars, hoping, as the message “Come along, Pond” appears on the window and the TARDIS swooshes by.

The Doctor can’t save the ship, but lands on the planet below to try and get the leader Kazran Sardick to help him. You see, Kazran has a machine that controls the cloud layer but he is one grumpy man and he just refuses to do it. (Can you see the similarity to Ebenezer Scrooge? I CAN!) The machine is built by Kazran’s father and the Doctor can see that Kazran has a fear of his father by the way he talks and acts around the machine. So, the cunning and brilliant Doctor decides to go back in time, and make Kazran a better man using the old classic tale as inspiration.

Present Kazran is shown what happens in his past by a film monitor, and he watches the Doctor appear in his bedroom when he was just a young boy. The Doctor presents himself as young Kazran’s new Nanny (Imagine having Eleven as your Nanny… YES PLEASE!) Young Kazran is an imaginative and curious boy who, more than anything, wants to meet one of the flying fish that appear in the clouds, but his father won’t let him. The Doctor sets a trap using his Sonic Screwdriver and the two hid inside a closet. The result of this is that a Shark eats the Sonic and the Doctor can only retrieve half of it. The shark is wounded in the process and cannot fly back into the cloud belt. Young Kazran has an idea about using cryostorage to help the shark back. Cryostorage is more or less a big freezer with containers created by Kazran’s father. He gave loans to his people if they had a person that he could freeze as security. This is where Abigail enters the story. She is one of the people in the cryostorage and she is released from her container and sings the shark to health and calms it down. Something about the cloud particles resonating with the sound from her singing. (Everything isn’t logical in Doctor Who!) Using Abigail’s container the Doctor gets the shark back into the cloud belt and as they are about to lock Abigail up again Kazran promises that they’ll come and release her every Christmas Eve. The Doctor uses his TARDIS to jump forward one year and we are treated to a montage of crazy. A montage where Abigail at first is interested in the Doctor and then becomes infatuated with Kazran as he grows older. During these visits they go places using the TARDIS and he takes them to a party where Abigail lets Kazran in on a little secret. We, the audience and the Doctor, are not told this secret but we can tell that Kazran is heartbroken by the news. When they lock Abigail away Kazran tells the Doctor that he doesn’t want him to come back next Christmas and their little tradition should be cancelled. The Doctor agrees, but turns up anyway, trying to change his mind, although Kazran won’t budge.

Old Kazran, who watches all this happen smiles at his memories but is saddened by the news given to him by Abigail and still refuses to help save the spaceship.  He is visited by the holograms of the 4003 people on the spaceship, singing Christmas songs, and a pleading Amy but he waves them away. Suddenly the Doctor appears infront of old Kazran and he mocks the Doctor, asking if he will take him to see his future. He continues to say that he doesn’t care if he dies old and alone because Abigail won’t be with him anyway. It turns out that Abigail had an incurable disease when she was handed in as security and she now only has one day left to live. And how do you chose what day should be the last you spend with the love of your life? What old Kazran doesn’t know is that the Doctor had brought Young Kazran with him and he now sees that he himself grows up to be very alike his much feared father. This means that the memory that Young Kazran gets upon seeing this is the equivalent of the ghost of Christmas Future. When Young Kazran decides to change so does old Kazran and Young Kazran releases the controls to save the ship. However, the machine is isomorphic. AKA it will only work for Kazran, and now that he has changed, the machine doesn’t recognize him. Every hope seems to be gone until the Doctor has an idea:

THE OTHER HALF OF HIS SONIC SCEWDRIVER IS STILL INSIDE THAT SHARK!

Now, do you remember that Abigail’s singing calmed the shark down? Well, apparently her voice can make the cloud belt go away aswell. But, this means that Kazran must release her from her container and doing this will inevitably kill her. With this knowledge in mind he still releases her, and she understands him, telling him that it’s high time that they spend Christmas Day together. She sings into the half Screwdriver that the Doctor still has and her voice resonates into the cloud belt and the clouds vanish and the ship can land safely. It starts to snow as Amy and Rory are reunited with the Doctor and Kazran and Abigail enjoy one last shark-led carriage-ride.

I think that this is my favourite Christmas Special, maybe because it contains the old classic mixed in with my favourite show or maybe because it contains love and adventure just like a good Doctor Who episode should!
Then again, I’ve been slacking immensely in the watching of Doctor Who episodes and have not seen last year’s Special yet so who am I to talk?

Now I’m going to take my milk carton TARDIS and my crocheted Adipose and wait for my dad to finish the English Christmas dinner downstairs. Who knows, maybe this year the Doctor will come for me?

Until next time, keep rocking that geek!
xx Zandrina