Good old disaster movies, they’re… not my thing at all, but they do often get shown around Christmas, so the next Christmas Special being very much a Doctor Who version of that makes sense. It also has Kylie Minogue as a sort-of companion, which is pretty much all the advertising was leading into it, but hey-ho. It was a big deal! So let’s have a look at “Voyage of the Damned” and see if it holds up past the big guest!
Continue reading
Having already reviewed the first Tenth Doctor Christmas story a few years ago, we jump straight to the second. The Runaway Bride features the debut of future companion Donna Noble, and even dabbles in the Dark Times (which is relevant to the current Time Lord Victorious storyline being released…) Overall though it is what it was always meant to be: a fun Christmas story, with a bit of Doctor rehabilitation after losing Rose in the previous story. Let’s take a look then!
Continue reading
You know I’d completely forgotten this story was set at Christmas until last year, when I was preparing this marathon (that ended up getting delayed until now) and saw it pop up in a search I did to “make sure I hadn’t forgotten one”. It’s nice because reviewing a Ninth Doctor TV story is always going to be a rare thing, and Christmas Specials are sort of a classic thing post 2005, so it’s nice he got one. Anyway, ghosts and Charles Dickens? Sounds good to me! Let’s take a look…
Continue reading
After the downbeat Death in Blackpool we reunite The Doctor and Lucie, along with Susan and Alex (The Doctor’s great grandson), to have a much more upbeat Christmas Special. While not devoid of drama by any means, specifically how The Doctor treats Alex, it will still leave you with a smile on your face. So let’s take a look!
Continue reading
You know what I always disliked? Soaps. You know what I really disliked about soaps? The Christmas episode that was almost guaranteed to be depressing as hell. Well, welcome to the Doctor Who equivalent of that! Death in Blackpool is Lucie Miller’s leaving story (though far from her last story) and it’s not exactly full of Christmas cheer, to put it bluntly… Let’s have a look then…
Continue reading
The Chimes of Midnight is one of those “holier-than-thou” Big Finish releases along with Spare Parts, and it was also among the first I listened to. While some stories my opinions differ from the majority, as all people find with things like this, but in terms of “The Chimes of Midnight”? No, it’s firmly one of my favourite Doctor Who stories period and I need no excuse to listen to it (though its Christmas setting does lend to a December re-listen…) So let’s finally get a review of The Chimes of Midnight up, shall we?
Continue reading
I’ll be honest with you, this time last week Flip-Flop wasn’t part of this marathon. It’d been well over a decade since I listened to it last and the fact it takes place on Christmas Eve/Day had completely slipped my mind. Still, a random look at a forum thread on “Doctor Who stories set at Christmas” and here we are! Flip-Flop isn’t actually very Chirstmassy, beyond a few mentions here and there, but it is very cleverly written! So let’s take a look…
Continue reading
The One Doctor is a bit of an odd-ball in this Christmas specials look, as it technically doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas. It was released in December 2001, but that’s about it… except it’s clearly a light-hearted comedy affair set up to be Big Finish’s “Christmas Panto”. For that reason I feel it deserves to be here on this list, unlike the next year’s release “Bang Bang-a-Boom”, which while more light-hearted felt more like a Star Trek parody than anything Pantomime-y. ANYWAY, so let’s have a look at the first of five audio Christmas offerings in a row!
Continue reading
Kicking off this rundown of Christmas stories I haven’t reviewed already is the very first one (which makes sense as I’ll be putting the reviews up in Doctor order…), though it’s oddly a single episode in the middle of a larger serial. Thankfully it’s also completely standalone, the six episodes before it and the five that air after it make up the real meat of “Daleks’ Master Plan”, this is merely a comedic interlude because the episode happened to end up airing on Christmas Day. Is it still funny, even though it now only exists as a soundtrack and some still photos? Let’s find out!
Continue reading
Hi all!
Alongside my regular, roughly 9.10am posts on most weekdays (plus Scrolling Sundays of course!) I’ll be putting up an extra Doctor Who review at 2:30pm between tomorrow and December 23rd. Each story is a Christmas themed story (that I haven’t already reviewed) that will culminate with a “Ranking all the Doctor Who Christmas Stories” list on Christmas Eve (which WILL include the ones I’ve already reviewed, obviously!) In order to not give the game away the reviews will be uploaded in Doctor order, rather than any order of preference! (Also it won’t feature “Spare Parts”, because although there are references to the Mondas version of Christmas, it just… doesn’t fit in my mind as a “Christmas Story”. Also I’m sure there are one-off comics set at Christmas by Titan and IDW, but they don’t end up in the collected GNs I have, so I can’t comment on them!)
For the sake of not over-Who-ing this blog I have put the DWM Eighth Doctor comics/Lost Stories rundown on hold until January, though given the amount of Big Finish releases and Time Lord Victorious stories there are this month a few days with two Doctor Who reviews going up is unavoidable, so sorry if that part of the blog doesn’t appeal!
After all, given how 2020 has gone, who doesn’t want some extra Christmas things? (though being honest I started this last year then ran out of time, so… yeah. Some of these reviews are a year or more old! … of things much older, so makes no difference to anyone but me, but there you go… man this is a rambling bracketed comment… I’ll stop now.)
Hogan Reviews 