8.0

Doctor Who A Christmas Carol
2010 Christmas Special

Although borrowing certain elements from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, this current Doctor Who Christmas special is more symbolic to the original story but somehow successfully merges with the Doctor Who mythology.

Featuring the Ninth Doctor (Matt Smith), the story is set in the distant future where a scrooge like miser runs his colonised planet with an iron grasp. This scrooge is named Kazran Sardick and is played delightfully by Sir Michael Gambon, my favourite Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series.

Even though Sardick <insert your witty cliché here> is not a very nice man, he is responsible for his people and as we find out, he assisted his father in the creation of a technology fog to keep the planets nasty creatures at bay. However when a damaged passenger cruiser from space wishes to land on the planet due to technical difficulties, Sardick refuses to lift the fog and once again, it's up to the good Doctor to play the Christmas ghost to set things straight.

It's actually quite an amusing Doctor Who episode(s) as the Doctor travels back to teach a "young" Sardick the meaning of Christmas spirit. While probably an abuse of power for this Time Lord, it's a very light and entertaining episode and there's some great acting involved by all members of the cast, including Amy and Rory (Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill) who play the ships captains.

The star is once again Matt Smith as the quirky Doctor and Sir Michael Gambon as the mean spirited Kazran Sardick, thanks to the excellent writing of Mr. Steven Moffat. Supporting both decent video and audio quality, this is one Doctor Who DVD that is a must have for new fans of the Doctor, especially if you have only just found Matt Smith because this is as good as they come and there's plenty of laughs to had along the way.

Doctor Who at its best!