#dw: a christmas carol

[captainsupernoodle]

uuh whichever christmas special is the one with the 11th doctor and the sharkmobile A Christmas Carol time

directed by toby haynes and written by steven moffat

sharkmobile

I forgot exactly how adhd matt smith played the doctor and i really do enjoy it. leaning in to the big alien brain noticing everything all the time and juggling, say, a ship of four thousand (and three) people while christmas carol-ing scrooge and getting engaged to marilyn monroe

the pendulum between the doctor's "hey girl wanna ride in my space ferrari"/apparent irresistibleness to historical figures and his bewilderment around abigail and scrooge kissing. it's good. "top of the list of things humans like: sex appeal! i can do sex appeal, no problem. wait, they spend how much of their time thinking about it??"

like obviously there are certain lines/scenes that are supposed to be the doctor being a Cool Guy who Gets All The Girls TM but also * insert david tennet saying 'he's a fairly asexual creature' * You could probably write an essay on watsonian reasons for those scenes but i might come back to that later

the bit where they've sussed out scrooge and is sitting in that armchair going "on your own head be it." nice. love that. a more goofy doctor but also a very old, very angry creature with a great potential for callousness preparing themself to take on an opponent.

but also "WOE! CHILDHOOD WHIMSY BE UPON YE"

the bits where scrooge is like "have you ever experienced pain like this?? can you imagine it???" and i'm like yeah, yeah they have

LOCATION: the slightly carnivorous not-honey not-moon

we've got another "hey are you okay" for the count! a count i'm starting right now! reaction to amy asking right after they completely saved the day and gave abigail eight christmas eves instead of leaving her locked in a freezer for the rest of her life: "yeah i'm good" mhm right i believe it

this is a fun one on the whole meddling aspect. yeah scrooge is the doctor's enemy but he's also a child the doctor visited every christmas eve on his request while in the middle of trying to save four thousand people that child had grown up to kill from sheer apathy. mmmmm crunchy. also the bits where they careen out of the room and into the video of scrooge's past and pop back to the future for the passcode? absolutely brilliant use of casual time travel.

"i am a responsible and mature adult!"

[notyoujamie]

[ajax0404]

[sandymybeloved]

moffat stories always save the day with big important spee- WRONG the day is most often saved by people who love each other so much, no enemy however big, no obstacle however insurrmountable, sometimes not even death, can stop them from saving each other

[variousqueerthings]

people will say that nine is underappreciated when I have never seen anyone say anything bad about nine... it's me, I'm people

[millerdoc]

[bestmothertournament]

Propaganda Under Cut:

Emily Cratchit (Mother of Martha, Belinda, Peter, Mathew, Lucy and "Tiny" Tim Cratchit): Supportive mother raising a large family and taking care of a very sick son. She is dealing with poverty and her husband working long hours.

Amy Pond (Mother of Melody Williams a.k.a. River Song and Anthony Williams): Amy having absolutely no knowledge of her pregnancy until she was in labour immediately loved her newborn daughter. She begged for the Church to not take her daughter from him and was overjoyed when she thought the Doctor and Rory had rescued their daughter. She was then devestated to lose her baby twice in one night. She was desperate to find her daughter and despite never being able to raise River she loved and supported her.

[quietwingsinthesky]

can i say. top notch use of carol of the bells as a ominous musical cue.

[canarypost]

do people really think TEN said the 900 years of time and space line. did they even watch the show

[lady-phasma]

But give me time and a crayon.

A Christmas Carol - 2010 Christmas Special

[doctorfriend79]

🎵  Oh, there's no place like Skaro for EXTERMINATING...  🎵

[moffatera-episodebracket]

Round 1, Fight 2

[seefasters]

i love 11 so much, he's so indicative of the era of television he was written in

[angels-in-overcoats]

Getting into the Christmas spirit the only way I know how 🎄🎅🎁

[sallysellsseashellssundays]

Disclaimer: This post is going to be Anti Moffat for anyone who’s reading and is a fan you’ve been warned.

So...I watched A Christmas Carol and I managed to suspend my disbelief for the first half but then the second half was me just being more and more frustrated by how the concept didn’t seem to be well thought out. I obviously know what the source material is, but the only things I knew about the episode going in was the scenes that people use to reference Rose which I’ll do a separate post about!

The Good: The first half was setting up an interesting premise and it showed promise. My only eye roll was how convenient that the Doctor found footage of little Kazran filming himself talking about the fish and his father hitting him but I could forgive it. The visuals were absolutely gorgeous, and I really liked the portrayal the young and old Kazran actors did (Mr. Dumbledore hello!). Abigail’s voice was hauntingly beautiful! The Doctor desperately wanting to save Kazran instead of just saving the 4003 people with the Tardis himself was actually really sweet, I’m sure he would have figured something out anyway but he kept giving him the chance to change his ways.

The Bad: I had 2 major problems with how this episode went

1.) The Doctor really just went and changed an entire man’s life? I was even more horrified when Amy didn’t see anything wrong with that when Kazran complained about it. This wasn’t Kazran being presented with how vile of a human he had become or getting a chance to see how his actions affected others but he was getting a new life with new memories! Not to mention Kazran interacted with himself, I thought that was a huge time travel no-no.

2.) I felt an uncomfortable twinge when a young Kazran looked at Abigail like THAT, and I thought “Oh dear please please don’t let this be a Reinette/Amy repeat”...cue to Abigail saying “You’ve grown and now you’re blushing”  😢. Abigail told her sister that Kazran was different from his father when they had spent I believe 5 Christmas Eve’s together, and I immediately flashbacked to Reinette and Amy apparently being a Doctor expert after spending little time with him. It’s just *sigh* super frustrating that it’s like I’m seeing the same story over and over again.

The Unresolved: I guess I’m feeling a little confused as to why Abigail absolutely has to go back to the ice box before Xmas Day and why she can’t spend more time with her family instead of Kazran. And it seems like they fit in so many trips she and Kazran might as well be full time companions at that point lol leading me to the fact that we hardly see Rory and Amy which was a bit disappointing. I really psyched myself up to see them and they barely had any screen time. The controls suddenly not working because Kazran had changed was odd I guess they weren’t set to Kazran himself but to a rude Kazran only. The Doctor pointing out the number 8 and then never looking at it again was a little too obvious, they should have just left it at the camera panning down to show 8 going to 7 and we would have understood as the audience.

Honorable mention to what I think might have been a joke about Amy and Rory roleplaying with their costumes lol??? And the horrifying loan situation they glossed over with actual people being kept in the ice boxes, what if your great-grandson paid off your debt and you were suddenly out in a new world/generation?

Overall it looked really pretty and I’m excited to see Eleven, Amy and Rory on new adventures but I feel like this episode could have been polished up a bit and thought through a bit more. I really did like the first half so it was disappointing to see how it ended. I’m still staying optimistic for the series in general!!! Looks like The Impossible Astronaut is up next and that’s one I’ve literally never heard anything about so it will all be new to me...

[shadows-and-starlight]

I came looking for this because I was thinking of my first kiss and remembered how much I still think of this advice even as the episode came out in 2010.

It was maybe intended as a silly joke line, but the idea that you should accept that you probably won't be great at anything the first time you do it, but it's okay because it's just the first step, that is part of the plan.

That optimistic and forgiving mindset really was life changing. Make not being perfect part of the plan! It really loosens the grip of anxiety and perfectionism.

I've since had my first kiss, and while it was probably just okay and nothing stellar from my end, the fact that it was allowed to be imperfect made it perfect. It took the pressure off, and I enjoyed it enough to immediately go in and kiss her again 🤭

Anyway, thank you, Doctor 😘

some good kissing advice from the doctor