Half-way out of the Dark: Doctor Who- A Christmas Carol

Ever since he jumped out of the blue box in front of an unflinching little Amelia Pond, Matt Smith had taken total control of the character of the Doctor. He seemed curiously unencumbered by the weight of expectations laid down by his ten predecessors. As Doctor Number Eleven he did not play  the Goldilocks card of being just right: romantic hero with a love interest and crazy space tourist hopping between worlds, delivering justice everywhere he goes. What he did was very much back to  basics: embrace the dark side and leave the sentimentality of Doctor Number Ten behind.

The realm of the Christmas Special had, since the beginning of the new show in 2005, belonged exclusively to David Tennant, Number Ten. He has fended off an invading space ship, an invading star with a spider queen, prevented a Titanic spaceship from crashing into Earth, fought off a Cybermen takeover of Victorian London and finally, foiled a Time Lord conspiracy to convert Earth as the new Gallifrey.

You cannot blame yourself if you feel a pattern has begun to emerge. The baddies of the Universe seem to have a habit of zeroing in on this paltry little planet (level five, mind you!) on cue from the Yuletide celebrations. How is the new Doctor to lay his claim on this last bit of the Whovian territory?

Well, not by playing on the old turf for sure. Steven Moffat moved the action to a different time (circa Year 4000) and place (a different planet). And the result? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Eleventh Doctor and his Christmas Special, a truly monumental event.

****SPOILER ALERT****

Moffat seems to be very comfortable with the idea of beginning an episode with whirlwind action while the audience tries to find its bearings. As we see Amy and Rory emerge in  their costumes of Kiss-o-gram and Centurion as their ship hurtles towards crash landing into a planet surrounded by clouds and storm system, we see the Doctor send a message of reassurance with characteristic aplomb. The new Doctor has a child like curiosity merged with adolescent social skills and wisdom of a nine hundred year old. His attitude in a crisis involving the life and death of 4000 souls does not involve making them feel good or to express what he feels towards his companions, but to plunge into fearless action with a wink. One gets the feeling that Christmas may bring a feel good episode, but it won't be heavy on saccharine.

The action moves inside the planet where we meet Kazran Sardick, the apparent owner of the skies above the planet whose refusal to allow the ship landing space makes him the Scrooge designate. We see him demonstrating a petty use of power over the other inhabitants of the planet all of whom seem to be heavily in his debt. Michael Gambon, untethered at last from the tedious display of Dumbledore seems to be entirely at home as Sardick.

There is a particularly chilling aspect of the background of the story. Sardick lends money to the colonists and takes a family member as collateral whom he freezes into a cryogenic container. His father began the practice and he has a vault full of frozen people.

We see Sardick deny a poor family their request of having their frozen family member join them for Christmas. The Doctor appears out of the chimney and informs everyone that they would soon be visited by Father Christmas or as the Time Lord calls him, Jeff. The Doctor's attempts at securing Sardick's help in saving Amy's ship goes no where. One of the children of the petitioning family throws a piece of debris at Sardick who lashes out at the boy but restrains himself at the last moment. The Doctor, observing this, realizes that Sardick still retains some humanity in him. Loneliness and his father's abuse had made him turn to cruelty. The Doctor decides to pull one more soul out of the dark. HE would become the Ghost of the Christmas Past.

 He visits Sardick in his childhood when young Kazran had been an enthusiastic child cowering at the mercy of an affection-less father. He had been curious about the fish that lived in the clouds. The Doctor sets up his screwdriver as bait to lure in the fish to show Kazran. However, a great big shark shows up and swallows the screwdriver. After it becomes immobile for being out of the clouds for too long, the Doctor and Kazran decide to rescue it by putting it in one of the cryogenic boxes that Sardick Sr reserved for his human collateral. They had to get a young woman out of her box (the same one from the family mentioned earlier) to put the shark in. The shark, having been revived, tries to attack but the young woman, Abigail, tames it with her wonderful sining voice. They release the shark in the clouds. Abigail goes back to her cryogenic cell with Kazran and the Doctor promising to return next Christmas Eve.

Every subsequent Christmas Eve is spent with the Doctor, Kazran and Abigail traveling around in the TARDIS. At the end of the evening, Abigail returns to her cryogenic state. However, each time, her cryogenic chamber counts down towards zero.

When Kazran grows into a young man, he and Abigail spend one Christmas Eve with her family. Kazran had never spent time with a poor but happy family before. They both realize that are falling in love with each other.

Yet, Abigail holds a dark secret, related to the countdown. When it come down to one, she confesses to Kazran. Kazran becomes overpowered with grief and tells the Doctor to stop visiting him on Christmas Eve. He gives up on becoming a better person than his father and surrenders to the eventuality that he would, in time, become a heartless tyrant like him.

The climax of the story reaches when we come back to the present and heartbreak had made Kazran indifferent to the sufferings of others. Once again he refuses to allow Amy's ship to land. After all the effort of the Doctor to find the light in Kazran's soul, had he in fact failed? Who would be the Ghost of Christmas Present and Future? What was the terrible secret that had consumed Kazran's humanity? Would the 4000 passengers in the ship and Rory and Amy live? Watch the episode to find out!

****END OF SPOILERS****

When the story was going around that Steven Moffat was playing Christmas music in April as he was working on the episode, I had known that he would not disappoint. He may be one of the best examples of “method writing”. May be one of the reasons why Moffat works so well with Doctor Who is because of his profound understanding and detailed knowledge of the character of the Doctor. This is particularly true about the Christmas Special.

Moffat's philosophy behind Doctor Who is very simple: Doctor Who equals Behind the Couch Moment. A typical episode must always build towards the moment when the younger members of the audience must seek refuge behind the couch and continue watching from there with trepidation of what's to come. And without fail he delivers such moments every episode.

I was particularly impressed by the fact that the ending was written in such a masterly fashion. It left no loose ends, there was no awkwardness or silly sentimentality. Moffat is not afraid of using the Dickensian model to finish the story. Heart warming as the ending was, it did not feel contrived but was rather smooth.

The strength of the script alone was a plus point for the episode. But for me, Laurence Belcher as young Kazran stole the show. He was extraordinary in his performance- very similar to Caitlin Blackwood's rendition of young Amelia Pond. There's a particular rapport between the Eleventh Doctor and children. It may also help the fact that Moffat is very adept at creating three dimensional and well fleshed out young characters who are quick to relate to the childish nature of the Doctor. And Belcher delivers the best line of the show: “There's a shark in my bedroom?”.

Katherine Jenkins was enchanting in her role as Abigail Pettigrew and rather overtly resembled the Norse Goddess Freya. Her singing brought an operatic quality to the show, hauntingly beautiful. She brought hope into a tragedy and reminded us that life must be lived through love and not regret.

Michael Gambon personified the redemption of Scrooge. It is very natural to assume that a great actor like him would deliver a good performance. However, what he did was to deliver a great one. Clearly, Kazran Sardick was the Scrooge he had been waiting to play all his life. After the inept and sickly sweetness of Dumbledore,, he was clearly delighted with Moffat's script and the punch it packed. Clearly any remake of the Christmas Carol(the Dickens version) would now have him to compete with.

Although her role was minimal, Karen Gillan was spot on as Amy and played her part wonderfully as did Arthur Darvill as Rory. Matt Smith is no longer Matt Smith. He is the Doctor.

After the episode was over, I was really excited to see the trailer of the coming season. It promises so much excitement. Here's to a great sixth season!.