View source for Doctor turns tale of the flying shark into a Christmas cracker

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| publication = The Times
| file = 2010-12-14 Times.jpg
| px = 450
| height = 
| width = 
| date = 2010-12-14
| author = Mike Mulvihill
| pages = 30
| language = English 
| type = 
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Doctor Who

BBC One

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For his first Doctor Who Christmas special, the writer of the moment, Steven Moffat, has prepared a festive feast with all the trimmings.

There's Michael Gambon doing his best Scrooge impression, Katherine Jenkins, the opera diva, as the damsel in distress, Karen Gillan, right, in her policewoman's uniform and Mitt Smith on boyishly good form as the Doctor. Throw in snow, carols, sleigh rides and a bit of Dickens and the only way that this special could be any more Christmassy would be if the Doctor saved the day armed not with his sonic screwdriver but with a turkey drumstick in one hand and a tin of Quality Street in the other.

But the real shock is a terrifying shark that can fly and go straight through windows into little boys' bedrooms, a monster that, after the latest incidents in Egypt, won't do the shark's already battered reputation any good at all.

Set on Christmas Eve, and played out in real time, the magnificently surreal plot is an otherworldly adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It opens with the newlyweds Amy and Rory trapped on a stricken space liner and hurtling towards a mysterious planet. Their fate, and that of the other 4,000 passengers on board, rests solely in the hands of Kazran Sardick (Gambon), a lonely old miser who rules the skies above the planet and is in possession oft' a machine that can guide the craft to safety. And he's not in a festive mood. Save lives? Bah, humbug.

The Doctor's only chance of rescuing the ship is to save in the first place. And where better to start than in his childhood with a trip back to his Christmas past ...

It's amazing to think that Moffat wrote this episode back in April when he was stuck in Los Angeles Because of the Icelandic volcano eruption. He said that he was the least Christmassy place on Earth, but, after taking advice from his predecessor, Russell T. Davies, he listened to all the Christmas music that he could find to get himself in the mood. And it's certainly worked. It's completely honkers — even Moffat himself admits that there are times when viewers will be thinking what on earth is going on — but somehow it all works and will leave you smiling until Boxing Day.

Highly recommended viewing, even for the modern-day Scrooges out there.

The Doctor Who Christmas Special will be screened on BBC One, Christmas Day, at 6pm


Caption: Michael Gambon meets Matt Smith's Doctor in the surreal take on A Christmas Carol, while Katherine Jenkins also stars

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