Christmas Specials For Eleven Doctors

Why am I thinking about Christmas at the end of February? Siskoid did it.

DWM 442 looked at the episodes closest to Christmas and rated them for Christmassiness - a rare instance where The Horns Of Nimon gets a higher score then The End Of Time - but although some came rather close, none of them were built as Christmas Specials.

So what might Christmas Specials for the Second through Eighth Doctors look like?

I'm counting The Unquiet Dead for the Ninth Doctor, but not The Chimes Of Midnight for the Eighth as it was on radio. It’s great, though.

The Second Doctor: The Christmas Fairies
Patrick Troughton was always ready for a bit of panto, so perhaps we could have seen the travellers visit the Land of Fiction over Christmas 1968 instead of September and October. A powerful alien intelligence threatens to rob children all over the world of their imaginations, and only the Doctor and his friends can set things back on track, stopping the alien preventing the stories ever being written. For a bonus point, one of the stories involved is The Box Of Delights.

The Third Doctor: The Heralds
A Christmas party at UNIT HQ sees the Brigadier rather reluctant to don a red suit and white beard, so he is quietly relieved when an emergency call comes through. Glowing figures have been sighted across London, saving people from accidents and stopping criminals dead with an electrical touch. The Doctor recognises them as the Heralds, harbingers of a psychic invasion fleet. But why are they saving some people - including Sarah Jane - and killing others? And what did the Master send the Doctor as a present?

The Fourth Doctor: The Ghost Of Christmas Past
To explain Christmas to Romana, the Doctor takes her to a stable in Bethlehem. With no gift for the baby, the Doctor gives him one of his regenerations. Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam help Douglas Adams with the script. Mary Whitehouse explodes. And there was much rejoicing.

Okay, just kidding.

To explain Christmas to Romana, the Doctor takes her to an English country house in the late 19th century, where the celebrations are interrupted by a slightly convoluted alien invasion. The image of a robot assassin disguised as Santa will of course reappear in 2005.

The Fifth Doctor: The Miracle
A classic sees the Doctor, Nyssa and Turlough in the trenches in 1914 to witness the unofficial Christmas truce, and to prevent an alien warlord stopping it and worsening the war enough to set humanity back centuries.

The Sixth Doctor: Following Yonder Star
As much a panto as The Christmas Fairies, Following Yonder Star sees the Doctor and Peri caught up in an attack on the first Christmas in another solar system, in a space colony in the twenty-second century threatened by the Krotons. Now best remembered for the Doctor singing The Impossible Dream as Peri points out that it isn’t actually a Christmas song.

The Seventh Doctor: Silent Night
Harking back to the BBC’s classic Ghost Story For Christmas series, the Seventh Doctor and Ace find themselves in a country house on Christmas Day, 1888, abandoned for no apparent reason. But Ace can hear faint sounds, indistinct voices... And was that a cry for help? And was that a shadow moving...?

The Eighth Doctor: The Star
Izzy realises that she’s been on the TARDIS so long it should be Christmas, so she persuades the Doctor to try and meet Charles Dickens. A strange chronal signature drags them off course, landing on Christmas Day 1887. London is under attack without even knowing it, by glowing-eyed near-humans (disguised by black glasses) looking to overturn Queen Victoria’s succession and thus shatter world history. Cue a breakneck hansom cab chase, Izzy having to dress up and act a proper Victorian lady (“If Sandra saw me like this she’d be delighted - I look like a People’s Friend annual!”) as she saves - and fends off the advances of - the Prince of Wales, and a laser-firing space fighter battle over Buckingham Palace hidden by a fireworks display.

A series-ful of classic Who plots: The Christmas Special

I couldn't end this series without including one of these.

It doesn't have to be anywhere near Christmas when you play it, either - they generally shoot them around July and August, and The Next Doctor is about the Doctor visiting Christmas because he wanted a bit of cheering up.

(These are actually more often the start of a new series filming block, and included in the DVD box set for the series that follows next year, but never mind.)

X: Get Away From The Christmas Trees!

Christmas song or Christmas special

It’s Christmas Eve Eve, and in less than 48 hours’ time we’ll have seen Last Christmas. Now I’ve blethered about Christmas Specials many’s a time before now (example) but of course that title gives me an idea: Find random list of favourite Christmas songs and imagine what Doctor Who stories named after them might look like.

Fairytale Of New York, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl
A couple arguing through the season find a little magic. Featuring the Ponds, of course.

Driving Home For Christmas, Chris Rea
22nd century colonists heading back to Earth as their rotation ends, lost in the dark of space and needing a light to guide the way.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day, Wizzard (is that where Terry Pratchett got that?)
A poorly worded request leads to a time loop of family, presents and the Queen’s Speech. Can the travellers find the subtle differences in each example and break the loop? Boxing Day will never be more welcome...

Happy Christmas (War Is Over), John Lennon
The trenches of the Great War, 1914, and the impromptu Christmas truce that still inspires us a century later. (Already visited by a few Doctors in other media. See also Stop The Cavalry by Jonah Lewie... as referenced in...)

That’ll Be Christmas, Thea Gilmore
Like Rose in 2005, the characters find themselves landing in the middle of a family Christmas with no warning. Of course, they do have access to a time machine...

Steven Moffat's rules for Christmas Specials

From the Christmas issue of the Radio Times, Steven Moffat's rules for Christmas Specials which are decidedly Christmassy.

(Yes, I know, if I keep this up I should give Christmas Specials their own category.)

1: Santa Claus Is Real.

2: There Should Be Flying.

3: Snow!

4: The Greatest Christmas Story Is A Christmas Carol.

Make of that what you will, but is suggests in a fortnight we'll be seeing something festive, storybooky and Dickensian.

With sharks.

If you want lashings of RT-style spoilers, read the whole article at Combom.

A series-ful of plots series two: Another Christmas Special

We've discussed this before and the basic idea is pretty much the same, unless your Christmas Special is also your Series Finale.

Do something different from last year, and from the rest of the run. A special guest PC or two wouldn't go amiss, particularly if PCs left in the series finale but their players want to bring in someone new next series.

Here are several more ideas that you might consider.

And an actual play example.

X: I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past...

Christmas game advice comes twice a year

I linked to this in this RPGnet thread about, yes, Doctor Who Christmas Special ideas. Lots of possibilities (check out the list of events occurring in late December throughout history) and I threw in two of my own.

A Space-Age Christmas from before I was born

Space-Age Christmas, The Doctor Who Annual 1974

I wish I'd known about this before doing a Who Christmas Special set on a colony spaceship in the future.

"If pollution and the effects of the population explosion go on at the present rate, there will probably be very few trees left in the world, and any forests which do still exist will be protected by stringent laws." Yikes!

"But let’s hope that all that’s best about our traditional Christmas will stay, and that it will still be the same festival of happiness and goodwill that it is today." Ahh...

I went more than twice as far into the future to be on the safe side. And I don’t remember specifying if the tree on the colony ship was real or plastic - real could work considering the need for air cleaning and such, although they’d probably focus on more multi-purpose plants than fir trees.

A Christmas Special! Of sorts.

A TARDIS Yule log, courtesy of BBC America. While the UK pulls out all the stops for Christmas Day TV, a recording of a log fire is one of the all-time classic Christmas specials in the US...

And a happy Christmas to all of you at home!

Sunday adventure hook Christmas Special: Gift Of The Magi

With a New Year special on the way, we shall have our Christmas here. With the prior importance of Christmas specials I do go on about it, and on the general blog as well, and could probably do a whole series by now (the Twelve Specials Of Christmas?) but never mind...

Gift Of The Magi

The Door opens onto a street in medieval Baghdad and the travellers soon find themselves drawing the attention of a group of astronomers, whose leader has spotted a celestial event and believes that something strange and dangerous is on its way and the Stranger is involved.

“Of course I’m involved now! You changed the result by observing it!”

Christmas presents, an early roundup

So, as well as the Christmas Special on which no doubt more later, the Beeb also gave us a rousing Christmas carol from some studenty types who I believe may have something to do with the show, a themed short story collection, and a new computer adventure game.

Shadows Of The Vashta Narada is a pretty straightforward Base Under Siege until a late twist, with a really big base (seriously, it’s big) inhabited by three people and a computer, and we get some justifiable motivations adding to the trouble in among the lumbering suited skeletons and alien megasharks.

I also got The Only Good Dalek. I’ll get back to you once I’ve read it. For now, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Speak, spirit!

I find that I'm still thinking about Christmas Specials. The RPGnet thread is still plodding along, I'm avoiding being spoilered about the real deal as much as possible, it still exists in the Maybe for me. It looks like a bit of Dickensian heartwarming, but also spaceyness, and creepiness. (And sharks.)

A full-on M.R. James Ghost Stories For Christmas Special would work - it'd stand out less than The End Of Time does, really. Pale faces and heavy coats in dark streets with a touch of frost. Less The Eleventh Hour mad romp, more The Empty Child sustained chiller.

And since we're getting a modernised M.R. James story from the BBC this year, let's set it now rather than a traditional ghost story period like the 19th Century.

Last Christmas

Last Christmas has been on now, so... post 1111 is a new adventure.

Spoilers for those Santa hasn’t reached yet.

So what would a DWAITAS Annual look like?

A grab bag of stuff, obviously, some of it tied to the year's Doctor Who. Stats for new characters and monsters, adventures based on hooks the series dangled, GMing advice on interesting topics it brought up.

So for example, the DWAITAS Annual 2012 might include...

An introduction to RPGs, just in case. A short solo adventure, character sheets for the Doctor, Amy and Rory, just enough info that a new GM could pick this book up if they got it for Christmas instead of the boxed set.

The Silence - stats for the creatures and the cult, rules for EyeDrives, and an article on UFO lore and history and their place in it.

The Corsair - stats for all nine incarnations would be a bit much, but a page or two on him/her?

The Flesh - stats for their various mutations and advice on how to use doppelgangers in a game. With a sidebar about the Teselecta.

A Good Game Goes To War - stats for the Doctor's superhero teamup.

Adventures - a nice straightforward one relating to one of the asides from this year like the Doctor escaping from Colditz, and a Christmas Special because this is in shops in time for Christmas.

And thirteen half-page adventure hooks because that's a good tradition to keep up.

(And as suggested, I am now wondering what I'd put in The Door In Time Annual...)

A small Doctor Who Christmas special

Twas the night before Christmas, a minute.

The Doctor Who Annual 2012

It being after Christmas, time to get this for oneself. It’s very much the Doctor Who Adventures Annual, with The Brilliant Book being Doctor Who Magazine’s. So short features, big type, all meant to be read before lunch on Christmas morning, two stories (about Amy and Rory being separated while tangling with alien crooks) and two six-page comics (about light-sensitive alien hunters and... Attack Of The Fifty Foot Rory - if that doesn’t tempt you nothing will) and the short fairytale Snow White And The Seven Keys To Doomsday, set in the ancient days of Gallifrey when everything was a bit mad.

And this rather lovely turn of phrase to describe the travellers:

“Running for their lives - and the lives of everyone else.”

Gifts from Paul Cornell

From his Twelve Blogs Of Christmas, Paul Cornell imagines Christmas specials for the first seven Doctors. Need plots? Have plots.

And also a free Hammer House Of Podcast commentary track with Paul and Lizbeth Myles for Dr. Who And The Daleks, including Paul’s impression of a Dalek artist and Lizbeth’s appreciation of tickertape, plus the favourite Hammers of a variety of artists.

Christmas 2025

Of relevance, the Doctor Who Annual and the DWM 15 and Ruby comic collection The Monster Makers.

All month on the regular blog I came up with adventure ideas and the like based on fairytales for my Adventure Calendar.

And could spin them around here to provide a festive adventure for The Door In Time except one of the stories in that comic collection is already about Hans Christian Andersen and the Snow Queen.

So to do another one...

King Of The Mice

The travellers arrive at a 19th century German Christmas and find themselves being asked for help by mice. Their king has gone missing!

Prison Break

One of the ideas that fell out of Steven Moffat's purposefully vague description of this year's Christmas Special as "like a compilation of every Christmas movie" was the joking suggestion it would be like The Great Escape because it was famously on TV just about annually in the 70s and 80s.

So that got me thinking of what a Doctor Who version of The Great Escape would look like. Alien prison, maybe a whole planet or a satellite in space. Robotic guards and corrupt humanoid warders. Prisoners from various species and possibly time periods having to work together to get free. And more time on the escape than the plan, of course. And if anybody does the motorcycle jump, it would be the Doctor.

But last night I had a different idea. Start in medias res, in a Porridge-style underfunded Victorian-built prison in 1960s Britain, with its beaten-down cons, its fixers, hard men (the version in my head features big bald character actor Steve Speirs as a surprisingly sensitive soul) and bosses (maybe Kevin McNally, since he was in The Twin Dilemma and deserves better)... and we see a van full of new prisoners being brought in. And the third one out is the Doctor.

Why is he there? A place like this would be impossible for him not to escape from. So why is he in here?

An extra Christmas present

As pointed out by Kit, The Twelve Doctors Of Christmas in which various clever people talk about the Doctors.

Apparently this is my hundredth post here. Goodness.

Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2024

A Merry Christmas to all of you at home!

Having a new Doctor and companion debut at Christmas means you can’t have much merch for them, but Ncuit Gatwa gets to share the Annual cover with David Tennant (as well as all the magazines - so many magazines!) and the back pages, after the story and comic section in between features and mostly puzzles.