After the disappointing (IMHO) finale to season 5, this wonderful Christmas special restored my faith in the series. It is an ingenious combination of the classic Christmas story and "The Girl In The Fireplace". Steven Moffat pulls out all the emotional stops, and also cranks up the fairy-tale quotient to eleven; I suppose the most cynical of viewers could describe "A Christmas Carol" as cheesy, but if you surrender yourself to the Christmas spirit of things, it can be a magical experience. Amy and Rory have little to do in this episode, but I didn't mind that. The production values are lush, and Katherine Jenkins acts and sings so beautifully that she may send chills (of the good variety!) down your spine. *** out of 4.

I am going to have to side with remembrapril and his review. Yes, it was interesting and touching in many ways, but it violated a Cardinal Rule of Doctor Who continuity. That is: The Doctor cannot intentionally go back in time to make his present situation more favorable. That has been stated repeatedly. For instance, after the death of Adric at the end of Earthshock, The Doctor cannot go back in time to save him. If this is something that becomes a trend, it can easily become a deus ex machina plot device that can be used as a "get out of jail free card" in any circumstance. In fact, if he fails to do this in future episodes, then it will beg the question, "why doesn't he just go back in time and...?" The precedent has been set. As a stand-alone time story in the general "time travel" genre, it works. As a Doctor Who episode, it fails.

If you take the letter 'C' off the word 'Carol', you're left with 'Arol', the Welsh word for backside, and it pretty well sums up the 2010 'Dr.Who' Christmas 'Special'. Since Steven Moffat took over as showrunner, there has been a noticeable drop in script quality and ratings. The new Doctor and his companions ( Rory exempted ) are not likable, and it is impossible to care what happens to them. 'Special' did nothing to reverse the decline. In fact it was rivalled only for sheer inanity by 'The Big Bang' which consisted basically of people running around inside an empty building. I know money is tight at the B.B.C. right now, but come on! The basic idea - a crippled space liner with 4,000 passengers ( Amy and Rory among them ) careering towards catastrophe - is essentially a pinch of 'Voyage Of The Damned', the far superior 2007 Special. The only man who can save the vessel is Kazran Sardick ( Michael Gambon ), a miserly individual who keeps the 'surplus population' entombed. The Doctor gets nowhere with him, so he decides to go back into the man's past and tinker with it in order to turn him into a nicer person. So why did he not think to do this before with say Davros or any other of the nastier 'Who' villains?Unlike previous Specials, this is not even an adventure story. We all know Moffat thinks of the show as a fairy tale ( he's wrong ) which presumably explains why he thinks its okay to dispense with the show's format. Wrong there too. 'Dr.Who' is either science fiction or it is nothing. Had Russell T. Davies ripped off the plot of an 1843 novel for one of his scripts, he'd have been crucified by his detractors.Stunt casting reared its head here again in the shape of Katherine Jenkins as 'Abigail', Sardick's doomed love. She was not too bad, but I was at a loss to explain how her singing was able to save the liner. It is yet another in a long line of Moffat 'deus ex machina' endings.But the low point came with the flying shark. It has to rank as the most stupid idea yet seen in the show. The creature pulling a sleigh through the air in the manner of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer had me cringing. Moffat's tendency to indulge in wacky comedy went over the top here.As the end credits rolled, I thought 'thank god that's over'. We then got a taster of Season 6 ( or should that be Season 6b? ) which looks to be about as thrilling as the weather forecast. Even the most rabid Moffat zealot must now be able to see the show is doomed unless he resigns and hands over the reins to someone more competent. Smith and Gillan should go too.The B.B.C. must have sensed that this was a loser as they screened in the days that followed repeats of earlier specials. We should give grateful thanks that Davies was ever in charge of the show at all and for so long, and that he had the good sense to cast first Eccleston and then Tennant. Can you imagine 'The Waters Of Mars' with Matt Smith as the Doctor? It would have been disastrous! 'Blackadder's Christmas Carol' over on B.B.C.-2 beat Moffat's effort hands down for sheer entertainment. He should hang his head in shame!UPDATE ) As I write this ( 27/1/11 ), 'Dr.Who' has just been humiliated at the National Television Awards by failing to win anything. Let's hope someone makes big changes to the show soon before it goes down with all hands on deck.

Dickens' story gets the Doctor Who treatment, full of mad humor and personal tragedy as the Doctor has to reclaim a damaged soul in a world of flying sharks to save Amy, Rory (Arthur Darvill getting an upgrade to Companion status with a front-of-credits listing) and four thousands other people on a crashing space ship. With the great Michael Gambon as that Scrooge-like figure, it takes only half the show to manage the effort -- but series producer Steven Moffat never makes things that simple.As a fancier of Charles Dickens and the Doctor, I am quite taken with another example of how the Doctor treats all time as simultaneous, rushing back and forth to get information from Gambon to get himself out of scrapes half a century earlier.Moffat has shown a dab hand at making Victorian stories sensible to a twenty-first audience in series like JEKYLL and SHERLOCK. I'm glad he has decided to do the same for Scrooge.Oh, and Karen Gillan makes a wonderful Ghost of Christmas Present in a short skirt.