May 20: "A Christmas Carol"

Doctor Who has done Christmas specials before, obviously, but while many of them have been Christmas-y in nature, none have been quite so overt about it as the 2010 one, "A Christmas Carol".  This is emphatically about Christmas, and it makes no secret of its borrowing from Dickens to tell its tale (with Steven Moffat thus subscribing to the Terrance Dicks school of "draw attention to the issue to make it go away" writing).

But because this is paralleling Dickens' most famous Christmas story, there's a danger of this episode feeling derivative or dull -- "A Christmas Carol" may be one of the first time travel stories, but that doesn't mean it's therefore necessarily a natural fit with Doctor Who.  But this episode succeeds because it's so openly admiring of its source material; there aren't any sneers at the set-up or awkward jokes about the underlying idea (or even cracks about giving Dickens the idea in the first place), but rather a sincerity underlying everything here.  Moffat doesn't want to simply adapt Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"; he wants to use it as a starting point and a framework to tell his own version of the tale, and so the result works quite well.  (So here's another example of Moffat following in fine Who tradition.)

I like how it starts out as a sort of disaster movie, as a ship clearly designed to be a parody/homage (delete according to preference) of a Star Trek bridge -- and specifically the one from the 2009 sort-of-reboot version -- is crashing into a planet.  But then the whole story shifts its emphasis; this isn't about the crashing ship, it's about trying to make a man on the planet below a different person, one willing to save that ship.  It's about the Doctor dipping back into Kazran Sardick's past and trying to make him a better man, and having adventures along the way.  This gives Moffat the excuse to play with some time travel ideas (such as the really quite wonderful one of the Doctor leaving the "present" and then walking into the "past" of the video recording while continuing his conversation with the old Kazran) while still maintaining the core of the story.  This is a good move, not taking the mickey out of anything that might now seem too familiar, and the jokes that are present tend to be at the main characters' expense.  And so we get Amy and Rory in their policewoman and Roman costumes, respectively, having apparently just left the honeymoon suite aboard the crashing ship, while there are some great lines regarding the Doctor:

YOUNG KAZRAN: Are you really a babysitter?
DOCTOR: I think you'll find I'm universally recognised as a mature and responsible adult.
(He shows Kazran the psychic paper.)
KAZRAN: It's just a lot of wavy lines.
DOCTOR: (looks at the paper) Yeah, it's shorted out.  Finally, a lie too big.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - A Christmas Carol)

But what really makes this story work is the central character of Kazran Sardick.  The idea of the Doctor changing his history, causing him to start remembering new memories (which is a really weird idea if you think about it -- why wouldn't the changes be instantaneous, and why wouldn't he remember Abigail's fate right away?  On the other hand, City of Death also had some stuff involving changes to the timeline not being instantaneous, so at least there's precedent in the series), is a good one, and Sir Michael Gambon is very very good indeed as the old Kazran.  But it's the case that all three Kazran actors -- Gambon, Laurence Belcher as the young version, and Danny Horn as the teenaged one -- are very well cast, leading us easily to focus on the growing romance between Kazran and Abigail that ends up being the heart of the story.  Katherine Jenkins has such good chemistry with all three versions of Kazran that the audience doesn't have any trouble believing this is the same person at various points in his life interacting with his love.  Plus we get a fun moment from the Doctor:

KAZRAN: I think she's going to kiss me.
DOCTOR: Yeah, I think you're right.
KAZRAN: I've never kissed anyone before.  What do I do?
DOCTOR: Well, try and be all nervous and rubbish and a bit shaky.
KAZRAN: Why?
DOCTOR: Because you're going to be like that anyway.  Might as well make it part of the plan, then it'll feel on purpose.  Off you go, then.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - A Christmas Carol)

Abigail and Kazran watch the snow fall. ("A Christmas Carol") ©BBC

Of course, it's not love that ultimately saves Kazran so much as a desire not to be like his father -- the moments with Abigail have simply turned him bitter for a different reason ("All my life, I've been called heartless," the old Kazran tells the Doctor.  "My other life, my real life, the one you rewrote.  Now look at me."  "Better a broken heart than no heart at all," the Doctor replies.  "Oh, try it, you try it," Kazran sputters), but it's when the young Kazran sees what he'll become that a real, lasting change is made.²²⁴  Because he genuinely doesn't want to be like his father, he finally changes.  It's a nice moment, even if it's soon tinged with the bittersweet knowledge that this will be Abigail's final day alive.  But Kazran's now a better person, and while he'll have to say goodbye to Abigail he'll still get to spend one more day with her.

It really is incredibly Christmas-y at times, but "A Christmas Carol" works because it takes its characters seriously (even if it doesn't necessarily take every moment seriously) and believes in them.  At its heart it's a simple tale of redemption told less-than-straightforwardly, but its sincerity keeps it afloat.  This is an episode that will bring a smile to your face and warm your heart, as it reminds us that Christmas means we're halfway out of the dark. 







²²⁴ You can explain away the lack of an explosion resulting from the Blinovitch Limitation Effect (as seen in Mawdryn Undead) in "The Big Bang" when Amy touches her younger self by arguing that those are two different Amys -- one that grew up in a world with stars and one that didn't, among many other differences.  It's a lot harder to explain why the two Kazrans don't cause an explosion in this episode -- my best guess is that they're also two different people at that moment because the changes to Kazran's timeline haven't caught up with old Kazran yet.