Best Doctor Who Christmas Special, According to IMDb

There’s a lot of debate among “Doctor Who” fans about who is the best presenter on the Christmas specials: Russell T Davies (who ran seasons 1-4, and He returned as of season 14) or Steven Moffat (who directed seasons 5-10). The debate is made even simpler by how showrunner Chris Chibnall (seasons 11-13) inexplicably decided to do New Year’s Day specials instead, so this debate is limited only to the case of Davies v. Moffat. They both have different ways of formatting a Christmas episode, so a lot of this is down to simple taste.

Davies took a very dark approach. His first Christmas special, The Christmas Invasion, is about aliens trying to convince a third of humanity to throw themselves off buildings, and the film ends on a surprisingly brutal note with the new Doctor killing off Harriet Jones’s political career after she blows herself up. Fleeing aliens arrive. The conflict between the Doctor and Harriet is a messy and bitter one with no clear answers; There are no warm and fuzzy holiday vibes here. The Davis specials may technically air during the holidays, but they could all easily be recast as a regular episode without much effort.

Meanwhile, 2010’s “A Christmas Carol,” Steven Moffat’s first holiday special, is Christmas to its core. The whole thing is inspired by Charles Dickens’ novel of the same title, in which the doctor acts as a ghost of the past, present and future of an ancient greed. The whole thing is very cute and cute, and plays out like a whimsical fairy tale. Most importantly, it ends on a happy note, with lots of singing, hugs and snow. It is the episode As strong as the Muppets’ take on the same Dickens story? Not quite, but we give it points for trying.

Not surprisingly, so is “A Christmas Carol.” It has a rating of 8.5 on IMDbwhich is now the highest-rated Christmas episode in the show’s history. (Well, there’s one exception — scroll down a bit for that.)

So, what makes “A Christmas Carol” so great? Well, there’s the fact that the child actor who plays young Kazran, Lawrence Belcher, is actually good — a rarity for child actors on “Doctor Who.” But the main reason is how smart and creative he is. Moffat’s cute take on Dickens’s famous tale is inspired, especially that final twist where old Kazran finds out he He is the ghost of Christmas yet to come, who presents himself as an example of a future to be avoided.

Admittedly, one problem with the plot is that the use of time travel in this episode doesn’t make any artistic sense. It brazenly violates a lot of the rules that the rest of the show established long ago. But hey, it’s Christmas, who cares?

This special was released at a time when showrunner Steven Moffat seemed on top of the world, when the cracks and recurring tropes in his writing had not yet begun to show. “A Christmas Carol” promised great days to come, and when it comes to Christmas specials at least, that promise has mostly come true. 2012’s “The Snowmen” was one of the best companion intro episodes the show has ever given us, and 2015’s “Husbands of River Song” was perhaps the most romantic story in Moffat’s already romance-filled era. The 2011 episode “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe” was also an episode.

Granted, no Moffat Christmas special has ever outdone “A Christmas Carol,” but I’d argue that most of them were better (and more holiday-appropriate) than the specials from the Davies era. Then again, there was an RTD-era Christmas episode that technically beat Moffat’s best Christmas episode, at least as far as IMDb is concerned…

“The End of Time” parts one and two were part of the 2009 “Doctor Who” Christmas special, although neither actually aired on the holiday itself. “Part 1” was broadcast on December 26 and had a screening Rated 8.2 on IMDbwhile “Part Two” was broadcast on New Year’s Day and It received a rating of 8.9. This means that if you’re inclined to include these episodes in the ratings, “Part 2” is the highest-rated Christmas episode of the series.

But regardless of history, I don’t think “The End of Time” deserves this honor. I think the only reason it has such a high rating on IMDb is because IMDb in general tends to overrate finales, and “The End of Time” is basically the finale to the entire RTD era of the show. He loves Most RTD finalsthere are a lot of uncertain plot decisions and general over-the-top cheesiness, things that would drag down a regular episode’s ratings if not for RTD’s tendency to nail down emotional character beats. “The End of Time: Part 2” is mostly an effective and satisfying closing note for Tennant’s Doctor, but that 8.9 rating is overrated.

For evidence of the overrated ending phenomenon, just look at other widely considered endings in the show’s history. For example, “Last of the Time Lords” Season 3 was widely ridiculed at the time for its ridiculous anti-climax resolution, yet it… It still has a rating of 8.3. “The Wedding of River Song” was also for season six very Controversial, known as the moment when Moffat completely lost the trust of many of his fans, and yet it is He still has an 8.4. If the average ring was this sloppy, you would expect the rating to be somewhere between low 7 seconds and high 6 seconds. You can see this trend in many other TV shows as well, like Kev Abyssal season 5 finale from “shameless” It still has a rating of 8.2or How divisive the famous “Lost” finale was Still He has 9.2. “The End of Time: Part 2” may technically be the highest-rated Christmas episode on IMDb, but outside of IMDb, “A Christmas Carol” still reigns supreme.