4003 people trapped in a cloud belt, and Kazran Sardick (Michael Gambon) will not let them land. They are going to die unless the Doctor (Matt Smith) performs a Christmas miracle.His solution is another reincarnation of Charles Dicken's classic Christmas Carol.Gambon was magnificent here. It probably got him the role of Professor Albus Dumbledore after the death of Richard Harris. Well, probably not, but he was great nonetheless.Sardick is a particularly terrible human being, and a perfect Scrooge. He keeps family members hostage until repay his loans.Featured is the amazing Katherine Jenkins, who I first say on Dancing With the Stars. She opened the season with the highest ever debut score, and was runner up in the final.An unusual and pleasant experience.

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.

I was really really disappointed in this episode.It was overly sentimental and not satisfying. I didn't find the overused Scrooge plot interesting. Nor did I find the time jumps for the the various Christmas Eve's past very compelling. The singing, the fish, the scenes with the father, and the rewriting of the past did not come together very well. It was like a stew in which too many ingredients have been added and none of them go together very well.I think I may be missing a sentimentality gene or something, since clearly a lot of other people reviewing this episode really enjoyed it. It lacked "Whoness" and didn't fit in very well with the types of plots and dialog from other episodes.

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.