A Christmas Carol is certainly the most Christmassy Christmas story so far in the marathon, which shouldn’t be a surprise given the title. Christmas-ness aside the story is a fun one, with some good use of time travel (though one that sort of breaks all the rules that The Doctor has been following his whole life…), a good sense of humour throughout and a pleasant, soppy ending. So a pretty good Christmas story then! Let’s take a closer look…
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On first glance you may see the title, find out that this story contains someone pretending to be The Doctor and think it’s a rip-off of another story that appeared in the this marathon, but actually that’s the only thing the two have in common, and “The Next Doctor” is a great story in its own right. So let’s take a look at the last Tenth Doctor Christmas Special in this countdown (having already covered his actual last special some time ago…)
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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!
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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!
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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…
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So… this somehow became a thing! Daleks! (yes the exclamation mark is part of the title…) is a series of five 15-ish minute episodes focused on the unique Dalek group we’ve heard/read about recently in the Time Lord Victorious stories. Sadly, even for an entirely free YouTube series, the production values are extremely low, so much so it’s distracting a lot of the time. Add in the fact that there are no human or even visibly alien characters, only robots and aliens inside robot shells, it comes off as if it had to be made in five seconds. Want to know more? Well, I don’t see why you do, but okay…
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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!
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So for the Doctor Who part of the “1,000 Reviews celebration” I couldn’t pick a single, favourite story, so I decided to go with the story that most fans would assume a review of would be on any Doctor Who review site, and that is, of course, Genesis of the Daleks. A hit at the time, a hit during the VHS and DVD releases, a hit in DWM “best story ever” polls and even now, in 2020, is still considered an all time great. In fact the advent of the 2005 revival of Doctor Who has only added to the story’s importance! So let’s waste no more time and take a look at Genesis of the Daleks!
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It’s time for our next animated missing story, and this time it’s another “all parts were previously missing” story. I remember watching the Fury From The Deep recon in parts a good while ago and thinking it was probably really good, but man there was a lot of talking, and when you’re just “watching” photo stills that can get old quick. Does the addition of animation bring the story too proper life? Let’s find out!
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The Season 14 Blu-Ray set has been released, and that means it’s time to review a story from the set! It was close in terms of which ones I hadn’t watched in the longest time, but I decided to go with Talons because… the other was Masque of Mandragora, and while I’m sure my memories of it being dull might not be true, I fancied a nice long evening with a fun six-parter that I surprisingly haven’t watched in nearly a decade. The Doctor, Leela, Jago, Litefoot, Greel, Mr. Sin… it’s full of characters, quotes and moments engraved in your head, so let’s look just how and why it still stands up, despite… “questionable in today’s world” visual effects.
Hogan Reviews 