Monday, 2 April 2018

A Christmas Carol review [Steven Moffat]

On Christmas Eve, the Doctor must convince resident miser Kazran Sardick to save a crashing spaceship with 4,003 people aboard, Amy and Rory Williams amongst them. How best to do this? Why, rewriting his entire life's history, of course.

The Doctor's Case:
  • A Good Quotation:
    • "Where's Mrs Mantovani?" / "Ah, you'll never guess. Clever old Mrs Manto. She only went and won the lottery." / "There isn't any lottery." / "I know! What a woman!"
  • The title and Michael Gambon's obvious Scrooge that we meet at the beginning of the episode ("I despise Christmas") together set up a predictable and cliche Christmas special with the Doctor time-travelling around with a humbug showing him the error of his ways before he decides he loves Christmas. Fortunately, this isn't what we got. Kazran's not a complete Scrooge, having some small degree of decency that the Doctor spots and which prompts him to build Kazran into a better man to save a crashing space-ship.
  • Kazran quickly turns out to be a far more interesting character than first expected, with all three of his actors doing superb work. Here's hoping for an Eleventh and Kazran Big Finish box set.
  • The fish sound ridiculous but watching the episode they make sense. They're an obvious way to try to weave Katherine Jenkins's voice into the episode somehow but they're still a nice idea.
  • The Doctor serving as the Ghost of Christmas Past is the best sequence of the episode, where we explore Kazran and follow his growing affections for Abigail. More interesting, though, is his transformation from a sweet boy to a love-struck young man to a bitter miser, even if the reason behind Abigail's countdown is obvious. Amy as the Ghost of Christmas Present is fine, although we don't have any real emotional connection to anyone on the ship but perhaps her and Rory. The Ghost of Christmas Future, however, turns out to be Kazran himself, who angrily goes to strike his past-self before remembering his father.
The Valeyard's Case:
  • A Bad Quotation:
    • "Father Christmas. Santa Claus. Or, as I've always known him, Jeff."
  • In The Aztecs (a great story) Barbara decides to end the religion of the Sun God to protect the culture from the landing of Cortez. The Doctor says to her, "But you can't rewrite history! Not one line!" Yet here the Doctor does so, rewriting most of Kazran's biography, in fact. Not only is he going against what he said and has, more often than not, stood by but in changing the course of this man's life he's playing God. The Time Lord Victorious.
  • Surely given that the Doctor is rewriting time, reality should be changing rather than old Mr Sardick remembering new things and being aware of temporal changes (e.g. the painting of his father being replaced by and then replacing one of Abigail).
  • Kazran starts off as a very nasty man, yes, but his willingness to let 4,003 people die without so much as a thought does come across as cartoonish and moustache-twirling. We know that he's a bad guy but it makes him somewhat difficult to buy into.
  • The Doctor learns that the Sardicks have amassed a collection of people as insurance and does nothing. He doesn't bring up how people aren't a commodity or that the lives of these people have been put on hold whilst their families suffer their absence. He doesn't release any of them but Abigail. Any other Doctor would have been disgusted by what they'd seen and freed everyone.
  • There doesn't feel like there's much of a threat in this episode with regards to the crashing space-ship. We're told that there are more than 4,000 people aboard but all we see is the cockpit with Amy, Rory and a small handful of crew members. A sweeping shot or two of the people inside the ship might have helped as it feels so small.
  • Katherine Jenkins's performance is fine but Abigail Pettigrew isn't much of a character. Perhaps Moffat deliberately underwrote Abigail to avoid giving Katherine Jenkins too much material given that it's her first acting job. She's happy to spend the last few days of her life with two strangers than to return to her family. Why?
I'll Explain Later:
  • Abigail is dying. Is she really that useful as insurance when she has only a week to live?
  • What space disease does Abigail have that shows no symptoms up until the very day she dies?
  • Hopefully the delta wave in the fog caused by Abigail's voice isn't the same kind of delta wave the Ninth Doctor planned to use to destroy Earth in Bad Wolf.
The Inquisitor's Judgement: Overall, this is a flawed but decent Christmas special - probably amongst the best of the festive specials. Occasionally the Doctor's fast-talking quirkiness irritates and Abigail isn't a fully-formed character, but the character of Kazran manages to make A Christmas Carol a touching story that avoids most of the cliches derived from its source material. B


Doctor Who (Series 6)
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang  A Christmas Carol  The Impossible Astronaut

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