I’d like to say “I love it when a plan comes together!” but in reality it just so happens that this festive Doctor Who boxset is able to be reviewed on Christmas Eve itself, with just a little bit of “why not?” schedule managing by myself. That being said, I’m putting both halves up today because I don’t want to worry about handling my blog on Christmas Day itself, nor do I was to put up a Christmas story review after Christmas (new TV Who special aside because that actually airs on the day itself, so can’t get around that!) “Twenty-Four Doors in December” is a good old fashioned heart-warming story set in roughly modern-day revolving around a down-on-his-luck man looking for a Christmas miracle… does he get it?! Well… I mean it wouldn’t be very heart-warming otherwise, but let’s take a look and act surprised anyway!
The story is set in The Doctor’s now-classic Baker Street home as The Doctor (Paul McGann), Charley (India Fisher) and Audacity (Jaye Griffiths) decide to not just spend Christmas on Earth in the mid-00s but the whole month, advent calendar opening and all. After some fun fish-out-of-water reactions from Audacity (and a few from Charley, as she’s still from the past just more used to travelling with The Doctor at this point) they decide to plan a Christmas party for local kids and need a Santa for their grotto so The Doctor visits a Santa hiring company headed by “Santa Nicholas” (David Hall) who agrees to do The Doctor’s party himself but later has to back out, leading to Santa Al, otherwise known as Al Norton (Jason Watkins) and his elf Isobel (Natalie Gumede) to stand up instead.
The issue here is that Al is a drunk and not only that he keeps having visions of Charley and Audacity shouting at him that he “killed her” along with the sound of carol singers, and this was before he even met the girls. He messes up his store Santa role and even though Isobel is a good friend and still sticks by him its safe to say The Doctor’s party is his last chance, but once he sees the two girls at the door for their pre-party meeting he runs in a panic, confusing our main trio. A lot of the rest of the story is The Doctor, Charley and Audacity trying to bring him back round and help him through everything, but the visions are getting worse and The Doctor think he might be partly responsible…
It’s a fun little story, though having each scene change start with “December *Day*: *Place where scene is happening*” was a little annoying, I get that’s the whole idea in the title of the story, but still, minor quibble.
The Continuity:
Fun cover, though I can almost hear Paul McGann exhaling given the face he’s pulling here…
Apart from following on from the end of “The Great Cyber-War”, not much. Charley does find herself re-enacting a scene from all-time classic Eighth Doctor / Charley Christmas story “The Chimes of Midnight”, though not realising it. Not sure if that means we’re still in pre-Chimes times (rhymes!) for Charley or not, but it was a fun nod that kind of had to happen given we’re doing another Christmas story featuring the duo…
Overall Thoughts:
“Twenty-Four Doors in December” is a good, simple Christmas story that won’t blow you away or keep you on the edge of your seat but will give you a smile at the end of it. Sometimes that’s all you need!
Eventually The Doctor and his companions convince Al to do their party and he gets through it without incident and really enjoys himself, so as he, Charley and Audacity head towards the bus station he’s on top of the world… then he hears the Carol singers again and panics but the two girls confirm they can hear it too, and it’s here where he realises The Doctor’s speculation that he could be having a premonition rather than a hallucination makes he realise the ”time was now” and soon a little girl runs out onto the road to meet him just as a car barrels down the road and Al pushes her out of the way and gets hit himself, changing the future where he stood and did nothing and therefore had Charley and Audacity shouting at him.
He survives the accident and is visited at the hospital by not just the little girl but his long-estranged daughter for the hell of it. The Doctor speculates to his companions that due to them spending a whole month in one location they may have affected things to a greater degree than normal, causing Al to see the old future as it was before they arrived and changed things. Or you know, Christmas Miracle! Hooray!
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