The holidays are back, baby! Doctor Who has been missing when it comes to the Christmas season. The series, which used to have specials during the holiday, had recently moved to more New Years-based specials, and while it has been fun to have Doctor Who in the new year, it is nice to know that incoming (again) showrunner Russell T. Davies is planning on bringing back the holiday treat!
For the most part, the holiday specials were just a Christmas tale mixed in with some typical Doctor Who fare. We got to see some emotional moments, and everyone has their favorite, but it has felt strange not to have a new episode each holiday. Luckily, that is changing in the next few years.
“For the first time ever, I’m writing a Christmas special…at Christmas,” Davies said in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine #585 (via TVZone). “And this isn’t for next year, no, the 2023 script has been long since signed-off. The new one is for end-of-year 2024!”
So not any time soon, but at least we have the promise that the Christmas specials are returning to us all!
Some of my favorite episodes
One of the things I remember most about the Christmas specials is running down to my grandparents’ basement (because that’s where the internet was) and trying to download the episode on Christmas so I could watch it with my brother. We’d stay up and watch it because it was a show we loved, and it meant a lot to us.
My own personal favorite Christmas specials are both Matt Smith episodes, and they are the Christmas Carol take with Sir Michael Gambon, as well as Matt Smith’s regeneration in “The Time of the Doctor” because he had one of, in my opinion, the best regeneration monologues. So I was willingly crying on Christmas as I watched my favorite Doctor regenerate into Peter Capaldi (another Doctor I loved).
The point is that the Christmas specials for Doctor Who hold a weight to them that stays with fans sometimes more than just a regular episode. Bringing them back is the right call, if only because the one complaint I do have about Doctor Who is how irregular its seasons are. So, giving us that one bit of reliability in the show is a good call.
And doing so with Davies is also a good call because he did have some great ones during his time as showrunner. Remember when David Tennant went on the Titanic (in space, of course), with Kylie Minogue? Because I do!
I can’t wait to see what Ncuti Gatwa’s specials bring to us, and it’s going to be a great time to be a Doctor Who fan again—not that we ever really stopped having great Doctor Who to watch.
(featured image: BBC)
