Fun, to me is important for Christmas, I want to be able to watch them with my younger children and not worry that they don’t know 50 years of Doctor Who history, not worry that we’re going to spend long periods of time devolving plot through dialogue. Out of the four we are focusing on today this is my favourite for Christmas, I can rewatch this with my children and we can all enjoy the adventure at our own different levels.

 

In addition, it is a good Doctor Who story because it uses time. It’s odd but for a show containing a time machine, time rarely takes part in the story, it is used to get the Doctor to new places and time. Here we see the Doctor re-enact Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ with past present and future used via the TARDIS, most interestingly is that the Doctor allows the ‘future’ version Kazran Sardick to witness the alterations of his own past, showing nicely the time waves of change we are told exists but usually only ever witness the end results of.

 

We do have a ship, stuck in the Cloud belt, which provides the required ticking clock and overall situation to solve, the Thrasymachus was a Galaxy class luxury liner. We never get to see the ship in full so any sizing or really any sort of overview is impossible, other than the information that the ship can hold over 4000 people, presumably this is crew and passengers. We do get the same external shot repeated twice, giving us a portion of the hull, showing the bridge, high and towards the front with a large, rounded body beneath, engines appear to be above the main body towards the rear, but we have insufficient information on this. The bridge shows us the technology is touch based, with additional ‘ball’ control and input via an ocular device.

 

Beyond the ship we have people preserved in cryo-chambers as security on loan repayments, welcome to the global recession that occurred through 2007 to 2009 and many were still recovering from in 2010, being represented on screen. We also have an isomorphic machine that controlled the cloud belt, producing a frequency in the ice crystals contained within, this lock the clouds above, keeping away the dangerous air sharks, as well as the gentle fish in addition to locking out the Thrasymachus.

 

And of course, to complete the Christmas theme we have snow when the clouds finally unlock;

“Well, the singing resonates in the crystals. It’s feeding back and forth between the two halves of the screwdriver. Now, one song, filling the sky. The crystals will align and I’ll feed in a controlled phase loop, and the clouds will unlock”

 

In the end the Doctor saves everyone that is in his power to save and Christmas can go ahead.