Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned (2007)

The 2007 Christmas Special had to get it right. After the 2006 offering "The Runaway Bride" went for half-hearted comedy it was necessary to give a festive outing that would keep viewers interested. It's a shame it had to resort to the 'stunt casting' of Kylie Minogue but that did draw in a crowd and helped make the episode the most viewed episode in the history of the show, not even "The Day Of The Doctor" outperforms it on ratings. Minogue swiftly reminds us though that her previous acting experience is limited solely to soaps and she seems to be phoning it in. Credit is due to David Tennant as the 10th Doctor for supporting her helping her look like a better actress than she actually is but her performance doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny as you realise she's merely on screen with the amazing Mr Tennant.RTD had to redeem himself with his script after a so-so series finale (Remember the bit with Dobby the House-Elf Doctor ??) prior to this episode and he just about manages it with a story about the Titanic threatening to crash and burn destroying Earth. It's a clever idea and makes for a unique experience but it's not too long before the whole thing becomes an extended obstacle course which is disappointing. Still, the Heavenly Host of killer angels make for one of NuWho's more deadly villains and create most of the sense of dread throughout the story.The supporting characters are not particularly interesting either. RTD seems to think that they all need some sort of back story but none of the characters are fleshed out enough to make us care. The same is true of the villain Max Capricorn with his plot being hard to truly buy into as a credible motivation for his actions (Complete with a plot-hole: Why not choose a planet closer than Earth? Why travel so far from home?). His character gives us some overacting, as with many Sci-Fi villains, but it's another opportunity for David Tennant to support his costars with his own incredible performance.To conclude: Average episode, 'meh' script, uninteresting supporting cast, worthy of 5/10. To be fair though, David Tennant is wonderful here and this may not be the best 10th Doctor story but it is one of Tennant's best performances and raises the score to 6/10 instead.Also, Bernard Cribbens makes his debut as Wilfred Mott ahead of his recurring status in series four. So that's good. Bernard Cribbens makes everything better.

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 !

It's time once again for the Doctor Who Christmas Special, in this one The Doctor, recently companion-less, finds himself inboards the Titanic, an interstellar cruiser orbiting Earth to observe how they celebrate Christmas (which in London isn't festively on account of the previous years' fiascoes) The Doctor also must deal with the Titanic 'crashing' into asteroids.Pretty much "the Posieden Andventure" set in space with killer robots. This was a little bit of fun fluff, nothing that substantial to think about. The one strike this special has going against it is Kylie Minogue, who can't act her way out of a plastic bag. The other thing going against it is seldom lapses into cheap sappy sentimentality. Neither of those totally ruins the episode, but they do keep it from being on the same caliber as "The Christmas Invasion" My Grade: C+

Heading out by himself, the Doctor finds himself on board the Titanic again, but this time it is filled with strange creatures and aliens. Quickly he realises that this is a tourist space cruiser currently approaching Earth as part of its tour. The Doctor decides to relax and enjoy the cruise ship but naturally this wouldn't be Christmas if something didn't go wrong. The Captain of the ship deliberately impacts with meteors, killing most of the passengers and starting the ship on a downward trajectory towards Earth. With the robotic assistance on the ship now killing any survivors, the Doctor and his group try to get to safety and stop the collision with Earth.For the past few years the new Christmas fixture for the BBC has been Doctor Who. Understandably given the loss of Wallace & Gromit and the fact that everyone has seen the "big" film on DVD, cinema, download and Sky by the time it washes up on terrestrial this days. Anyway, this is one of those things that really should be seen in the context of the holidays, where we are all bloated and sitting around television and just looking for something to feed our eyes without really taxing. For that reason it seems unfair to critique the Doctor Who special in any way that goes beyond explosions and excitement; it may seen unfair but of course I cannot help doing it.In regards spectacle though the special is quite entertaining with plenty of good effects and big moments but it is the substance that I felt let it down. The plot is very much The Poseidon Adventure in space and this tends to be the focus and the idea of corporate greed destroying life is not used as well as I think it wanted to. Outside of this we get some solid excitement in the action scenes but the emulation of the 1970's disaster movie is carried through too much. You see in those, any group of survivors will die off one by one after we have gotten to know a little about them and, where this is done over two or so hours then it maybe doesn't overwhelm. However with this we have the same thing happening but in a very short period of time. So we get death after heroic death and it does get a bit tiresome after a while as it becomes meaningless. I know that the nature of the special requires spectacle rather than reflection but it is worth noting that the episodes that are considered best from season three did not rely on spectacle and big effects but rather story or simple thrills. Here it is all quite exciting but the lack of real meat is a problem.The cast are all reasonably good though. Of course Tennant dominates and I genuinely wonder how they will manage to fill his shoes when he eventually does stand down from the role. Kyle can't act and doesn't bring much wonder to the role; the female companion bright-eyed with wonder is not a new act but both Piper and Agyeman did it much better than her – she just seems to bring her name to the role, although in fairness the script gives her little. The support cast are mostly quite unmemorable but I did like Palmer as the captain, Swift and Vee as the small alien.Overall then a special episode in the series that delivers what the majority of Christmas viewers would have expected in a big story with lots of action. The disaster movie genre elements feel rushed and tiresome though and I would have liked less action if more substance had been delivered.