Doctor Who is now one of my all time favorite shows (if you look on my profile and "Top 10 TV Shows" list, trust me, both Classic and New Who are there) and that owes no favors for this episode.So the plot technically starts with a short film called Time Crash, the only fond thing about this special, because it has its own IMDb page, sucks for the rest of this special but I'll give you a brief rundown - Doctor runs into past incarnation of Doctor, they bicker as usual, both actors look like they're having fun, they move on. While they got the characterization for Peter Davison's Doctor wrong...its a really great short and its what got me into Classic Who (even though I started with a Tom Baker story, go figure).Anyway, the story begins with a Space Ship thats modeled after The Titanic flying around outside Earth's orbit...so no one watching the sky NOTICES this? It'd be pretty hard to miss and The Doctor goes aboard this ship and befriends Kylie Minogue as an alien Stewardess (to be fair, I won't pick on her acting, partially because I'm not sure how much acting experience she's had and partially because...thats only a small problem) and he meets a couple of other aliens dressed in Cowboy suits because...it was a trick from the snobby aliens who said it was fancy dress...even though THEY'RE wearing Early 1910's dress. Don't think too hard about that. There's also an Earth expert who gets everything wrong played by Richard from Keeping Up Appearances(and thats the height of comedy in this episode...oh what, you thought a story about aliens replicating a space ship out of the Titanic would be completely comedic?), the only alien looking alien called Bavacavalatta (I have no idea if I spelled that right) and a stereotypical "asshole" join The Doctor.Anyway, the General from Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough pilots the Titanic into the path of oncoming meteors mainly because he's mentally flipped. So the goal is that The Doctor has to crawl his way, with the other passengers to the command bridge so they can stop the Titanic falling to Earth (because the WHOLE WORLD needs to be in danger to get emotional investment) while also fighting off "Information Robots" that are in the design of Angels (which, to this special's credit, look really good). Anyway, after a few of them die, The Doctor gives this speech thats supposed to be epic (considering the plot, is THIS where you'd REALLY put an "epic speech"?) and The Doctor asks for the help of one of the other...pilots(?) played by the Werewolf from Being Human and one of the people Russel T. Davies considered for the role of The Doctor after Tennant left (even though I LIKE Russel T Davies...NO! Thats miscasting if ever I've heard it!).Anyway, The Doctor meets up with the robots and he manipulates them into taking him to their leader (and he acts like he's never said that before even though he said that as Christopher Eccleston, the FIRST DOCTOR FROM NEW WHO AND FROM A SCRIPT THIS SAME WRITER WROTE!) and it turns out that the owner of the company who made this trip possible planned for this to happen (yes I remember what the first sentence was of the previous paragraph!) so there could be a major disaster, killing over 6 billion people because he lost controlling interest in the company and this would bring him back because of the sheer loss of lives...even though he's ON the cruise. One wonders why if that was to be a major disaster he planned to happen (even though that would rely on knowing the Captain would flip) why he'd even be in the same star system? If it failed, he could still make a decent case for his company takeover so...I really have nothing on why he's even there.Anyway, Kylie Minogue manages to kill him by driving a forklift into him (he's in a 'head chair', a wheelchair if the person using it was just a head) and even though she could've easily, Kylie doesn't bother to get out of the forklift as she's driving it over the edge (at a whopping speed of 5 miles an hour!) and she dies...anyone that stupid was asking for it. The Doctor goes up to the bridge, saves the Titanic JUST AS it was passing over Buckingham Palace (for some unbearably unfunny moments where the Queen and royal guards are in a panic about The Titanic falling) and he manages to pull up just in time and just as The Queen thanks him, even though, old or new, Elizabeth II has never met any incarnation of The Doctor.This is a really crap story, all around but the cherry on top of the cake is that this episode is dedicated to the memory of Verity Lambert, the first producer of Doctor Who and one of the first Female Producers at the BBC. She was a legend and gave birth to the show as fans know and love it today. And as a personal fan of the William Hartnell era of the show, what she deserved was a story on par with Genesis Of The Daleks, not THIS! This entire episode is BAD! Even by the standards of bad Doctor Who. It would've been laughed out of the writing room in the Colin Baker era and that Doctor had to fight bombs that turn people into trees! Its like one of the writers had a bet that they could get their kid's worst fan fiction of Doctor Who broadcast on Television. Whoever that kid was, I hope he improves as a writer and his father won big.

It seems that DOCTOR WHO has now become part of Christmas and I for one am glad of that . I always used to receive a DOCTOR WHO annual without for my Christmas as a youngster . Ironically enough a few minutes after seeing this Christmas I caught a snippet of CORONATION STREET where a child character was trying out their " human Dalek " mask seen in Daleks In Manhatten . It says something of the show's success when BBC merchandise makes an appearance in an oppositions show As for the episode itself it will be for ever remembered as " The one with Kylie Minouge " which isn't really a bad thing . Whilst being enjoyable this episode by Russell T Davies is far from original . I'm all for traditional ( read scary ) stories but basically it's a remake of the 1977 story Robots Of Death where instead of passengers being murdered by voc robots they're being murdered by robotic angels . Throw in some of THE POSIEDON ADVENTURE and you've got television by numbers . I shouldn't criticise too much because it was much better than the previous year's special and this episode got almost 14 million viewers making it the second most watched programme of the year - only the EASTENDERS episode the same day got more viewers !

This is the second Christmas Special for New Who to really disappoint, without actually being dull, particularly bad, or really horribly offensive. This was prettier, wittier, and just plain bigger than the story we got last year for Christmas, but it still paled in comparison to the hit of 2005's special which introduced the ever more popular David Tennant as the dashing geek, the Tenth Doctor. The primary complaint to be leveled here is that this was a rather tired and very familiar sort of story for Who, all flashy and fun but still overwrought with so many strange notes of high passion when the passion just seems to be all wrong for the moment. It was not bad, just tired. Nothing really new and worthy went on here after the first five minutes passed. For fear of spoiling your enjoyment, I'll keep quiet about most of the details.Great success was to be found here by the production team for Who in making a truly beautiful show, all shiny and gorgeous, but the many witty homages, jokes both inside and out, and great casting aside, this was still just another overwrought melodramatic Russell T. Davies story with some really bizarre scenes involving the deaths of short-term characters and some inexplicably emotional responses to said deaths. If you watch this for the cheap thrills of the Who-ness of some really pretty big-budget Doctor Who on Christmas, then by all means, enjoy. But the thematic, imaginative, and storytelling great heights and depths that have been reached occasionally in the best of the new series are not touched here, merely aimed for - and missed.This was a very pretty disappointment. Frankly, I'm tired of that. The majority of the big themes are undeveloped enough make the justification for epic qualities, unfortunately. Even if it surely justified 12.2 million live British viewers upon first viewing.

Another Christmas Day, another Christmas Day 'Dr.Who'. This one was different in that it had the Kylie factor. To be honest, I'm not the world's biggest fan of 'La La La' Minogue. I suppose it stems back to 'Neighbours', a show to which I have a long-term aversion. I can't get squeaky clean 'Charlene' out of my memory banks. Fortunately, she has come a long way since then. The role of 'Astrid Peth' could have been played by anyone, but to her credit she infused it with a fair amount of vitality and warmth. Her demise was never in any doubt ( the production team could never afford her as a regular ), but she got a suitably spectacular exit.As for the plot being ripped off from 'The Poseidon Adventure', well, doesn't that just take the cake? Fancy taking someone else's idea and turning into a 'Dr.Who' script. Russell T.Davies' head should roll for this. Of course this sort of thing never used to happen back in the days of Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe, when 'The Talons Of Weng-Chiang', 'Planet Of Evil' and 'The Brain Of Morbius' were made. Any resemblance to these and 'Sherlock Holmes', 'Forbidden Planet' and 'Frankenstein' must have been coincidental then.A survivor of the 'Titanic' was quoted in the press as saying that the tragedy should not be used as the basis for entertainment. Fair comment. The thing is Dr.Who's 'Titanic' was a spaceship. Unless there was a spaceship disaster recently that involved robotic angels, cyborg dwarfs, and teleport bracelets, I think we should let the complaint pass.I think what has miffed some fans is that 'Damned' did not take place on the real Titanic, because then they could have savaged R.T.D. for messing up continuity by not having the tenth doctor meet his predecessor ( who was also aboard, if 'Rose' is to be believed ).Being a Christmas Special, 'Damned' had to be spectacular - and was. We've come a long way since the wobbly sets and quarries. The sets and S.F.X. would have done credit to a movie. Everything was BIG. The cast were exceptional too - Clive Swift, Geoffrey Palmer, Bernard Cribbins, George Costigan, and that old thesp Nicholas Witchell. There were some good gags, such as Mr.Copper getting Christmas wrong and London being deserted because the public remembered the events of the previous Christmas Specials. Jessica Martin was The Voice Of The Queen. You have to hand it to her Majesty. The moment she saw the Titanic hurtling towards her, she knew the Doctor had to be involved somewhere.'Damned' pushed all the right buttons; it was funny, thrilling, tragic, suspenseful. Anyone expecting another 'Blink' was a fool. Yes, the plot was thinner than one of my Aunt Doris' After Eight mints, but sweet all the same. Yes, a lot of people died, but then they do in real disaster movies. David Tennant confirmed his status as the best Doctor of them all. His 'I am a Time Lord' speech was electrifying. While the 'fans' pick over the Special like a housewife cutting up the remains of the turkey on Boxing Day, I shall raise a glass of sherry to everyone involved in its making, and bask in the glory of the viewing figures.'Dr.Who' is no longer a 'fans' only show. When I buy D.V.D's, I no longer feel embarrassed, because I know now I am no longer alone in my love for the show. While 'fans' cry into their Tom Baker hats and pretend that the new-look 'Who' is a bad dream, I feel sorry for them because they are missing the best British television in years. Like him or hate him, R.T.D. is part of that success story. Could Steven Moffat have done better than thirteen million viewers? In some strange parallel universe, R.T.D. never existed, 'Dr.Who' did not come back in 2005, and the 'fans' spent this last Christmas Day writing yet more letters begging for its return.