Doctor Who: Christmas Specials - 10 Years On! Each Episode Back to Back

On December 25th 2005 Doctor Who's very first Christmas Special of New Doctor Who aired. With it now being 2014, it has been 10 whole years since it aired. In 2005 Doctor Who was reborn with thee 9th Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston. Christopher had stayed for 1 Series and didn't quite make it to the Christmas Special. On Christmas Day in 2005 David Tennant starred in his first full length Episode. 'The Christmas Invasion' (2005 Special) was rather special for David as he was the first Doctor to star in a Christmas Special. Here is a quick break down of the 9 past Christmas Specials and a preview of the upcoming Special.

The David Tennant Era

The Christmas Invasion - 2005

Starring:

David Tennant as The Doctor

Billie Piper as Rose Tyler

With a new Doctor in charge of the TARDIS things have changed for Rose Tyler. Rose has never seen the Doctor Regenerate before so she was a bit shocked. With a giant rock starting to hover over London, the city begins to panic. With the Doctor asleep after Regenerating Rose is left with Mickey (Noel Clark) and Jackie (Camille Coduri) Rose's mum. People begin to be summoned and stand on the edge of the roof of their buildings. The Sycorax are on board the rock and summon the TARDIS, Rose, Mickey Harriet Jones and some others things get serious. We previously saw Rose, Mickey and Jackie take the Doctor into the TARDIS a they were scared. and needed help. Jackie went back to the flat for food but the TARDIS was teleported on board the Sycorax's ship. A cup of tea is seen spilt near The Doctor sleeping and wakes him up. A cup of tea is all he needed. A fight breaks out between the Sycorax leader and the Doctor. The Doctor gets his right hand chopped off! But as the Doctor is still partly Regenerating he Regenerates a new hand. The day is saved when the Doctor throws a Satsuma at the button and the Sycorax leader falls to his death. The Doctor saves Christmas for the World!

The Runaway Bride - 2006

Starring:

David Tennant as The Doctor

Catherine Tate as Donna Noble

It is Christmas once again and Christmas Day is at risk of being ruined again. With the Doctor still shaken up about loosing Rose, a mysterious woman in a wedding dress appears in the TARDIS. The woman introduces herself and she is called Donna Noble. Both the Doctor and Donna are very confused. The Doctor takes her back to London so she can resume her wedding. But once they realise they both have no money, they are a bit stuck. Once they finally reach the wedding reception things get scary. Baubles off the Christmas Tree start flying around then suddenly start bombing the place. We learn that these bombs are controlled by Robotic Santa's called 'Pilot Fish'. Who are these Pilot Fish controlled by? They are controlled by the Empress of the Racnoss. The Racnoss is a giant red spider. The Doctor and Donna have drained the River Thames and flooded the base under the Thames the Racnoss teleports to her Webstar. Once her giant Webstar comes down to Earth Christmas is at risk again. The army shoot down the Webstar and save Christmas. Donna is a bit upset as her what was going to be 'Husband' was actually behind this plan with the Racnoss. But he didn't quite make it to the end. The Doctor does one last thing for Donna and makes it snow for her. Here is a SPOILER for you. This isn't the last time we see Donna Noble.

Voyage Of The Damned - 2007

Starring:

David Tennant as The Doctor

Kylie Minogue as Asdrid Peth

This section is very brief!

The Doctor has said goodbye to Martha Jones who joined him for Series 3. This time the Titanic crashes into the side of the TARDIS. The Titanic? Yes the Titanic has been rebuilt and is now flying in space. With the Doctor being the Doctor he takes a look on board. Things are looking very fancy and posh on the boat. The Doctor meets a dashing lady called Asdrid Peth who works on the boat. This boat has very creepy looking help people. These are robots dressed as Angels. Not Weeping Angels, they are called 'The Heavenly Host'. Things are a bit strange once the boat heads right for some meteors that are coming right toward the boat. The boat is then hit and is on fire. The Heavenly Host begin to attack. When they take their Halo off, it becomes a weapon that kills. The Doctor, Asdrid and other passengers are fighting the Host on a little bridge above a big ball of fire! Some passengers don't make it. The Doctor reaches the front of the boat and boy does he have a massive shock! He finally meets someone called Alonso. So now he can finally say 'Allons-Y Alonso'! With the Titanic heading for Earth, London (again) things could end badly. This time the Titanic is heading right for Buckingham Palace. The Doctor saves the day by steering the Titanic back up again.

The Next Doctor - 2008

David Tennant as The Doctor

David Morrissey as Jackson Lake / 'The Doctor'

With the Doctor loosing Donna Noble by wiping her memory as she became half Timelord, he is alone once again. But it is Christmas so he should be happy. When he lands the TARDIS, he hears someone shout 'Doctor' he goes running to the rescue but finds another man helping the woman. This man calls himself 'The Doctor'. He has a Screwdriver that when you hit it, it makes a noise which makes it Sonic. This girl is called Rosita Farisi (Velile Tshabalala) who is a friend of 'The Doctors'. Is his name 'The Doctor'? Find out in a second. With the Cybermen roaming round 'The Doctors' are worried. The real Doctor is confused on how the Cybermen survived the Void from 'Doomsday'. He then realises that the Cybermen used a Dimension Vault stolen from the Daleks in the episode 'Doomsday'. ' The Doctor' runs back to his home and shows the real Doctor his TARDIS. His TARDIS is a hot air balloon. His TARDIS stands for 'Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style'. The Cybermen have some more help from 'The Cybershades' which are animals that have been upgraded. This 'Doctor' isn't called 'The Doctor' he just uses that name. His real name is Jackson Lake. He uses 'The Doctor' because he opened an Infostamp that has memories of the real Doctor inside it. The Cybermen and Miss Hartigan (Dervla Kirwan) are taking people off the streets to help them at the factory. The men taken from a funeral are sent out to collect all the Children and bring them to the factory. The factory is then ruined as The Doctors come to the rescue and save the children. Jackson Lake is in shock when he finally finds his son after all these years. Meanwhile Mrs Hartigan has been upgraded to the max! She is now the CYBER KING! The Doctor (real one) gets in Jackson Lakes balloon and uses the Dimensional Vault to draw both it and the remnants of the Cybermen into the Time Vortex, saving London once again. The Doctor is offered a place at Jackson Lakes Christmas Dinner. The Doctor accepts it and goes to dinner in honour of those they have lost.

The End Of Time Part 1 - 2009

Starring:

David Tennant as The Doctor

John Simm as The Master

Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott

Catherine Tate as Donna Noble

This is going to be hard because Part 1 was at Christmas and Part 2 was on New Years Day in 2010. But as I am doing Christmas Specials, I am going to talk about Part 1. Part 1 is the build up to Part 2. The Doctors time is ending in his 10th body and has to stop The Master. The Master will 'Knock four times'. That signifies that the Doctor is going to die. With it being Christmas, Wilfred Mott (Donna Noble's Granddad) wants to find The Doctor. But first the Master is back! How? We saw the Master's body being burnt in 'Last of the Timelords' in Series 3. But the Masters ring had dropped to the floor and a woman had picked it up. She took it and resurrected the Master by adding it to a spell type thing, And kaboom, he appears! The Master is trying to kill the Doctor. But once they find themselves in Joshua Naismiths house. Aliens of the Vinvocci species reveal themselves and attempt to explain that the device is a simple medical device from their homeworld, but are unsuccessful. The Master ultimately uses the device to replace all of humankind with his DNA, creating a 'Master Race' where everyone looks and thinks like the Master. This does not apply to Donna as she is shielded, the Doctor and Wilf! This is where the Episode ends. Yes it is a cliffhanger. The 2nd Part was aired on New Years Day 2010.

The Matt Smith Era

A Christmas Carol - 2010

Starring:

Matt Smith as The Doctor

Karen Gillan as Amy Pond

Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams

With Amy and Rory trapped on a crashing Space-Liner, they call the Doctor to help. The Space-Liner is caught in a Cloud Belt. The Doctor on Earth is with the miserable Kazran Sardick. Kazran has the ability to control the Cloud Belt but refuses to help the Doctor. As you can tell by the title 'A Christmas Carol' the Doctor attempts to make Kazran nicer so he would help the Doctor to save Amy and Rory. The Doctor travels back in time and meets Kazran as a young boy who is interested in the unique properties of the planet's atmosphere that allow fish to swim in it. Once the Doctor enters Kazrans room, he stumbles across a shark. This shark ends up swallowing the Doctors Sonic Screwdriver. Thankfully the Doctor can recover a part of the Screwdriver but leaves the shark badly wounded. Kazran offers a solution by taking him to a cryogenic storeroom where his father has kept people in storage as "security" for loan, including Abigail (Katherine Jenkins), a young woman Kazran has been enamoured with. Abigail, once released, sings to soothe the shark while the Doctor uses Abigail's cryo-unit to transport the shark back to the atmosphere. As they return Abigail back to storage, Kazran promises her that they will see each other every Christmas Eve. The old Kazran begins to see Holograms of the crew on the Space-Liner that are calling for help. But Kazran still has no intentions of helping them. But the Doctor is back and is going to show Kazran his future. The Doctor has brought young Kazran with him. Kazran then has a change of heart and agrees to help the Doctor out. The Doctor finds his changes to Kazran's past have locked him out from the spire's controls, but the Doctor devises a solution: by having Abigail sing through one half of the broken sonic screwdriver, the other half, still in the shark, will resonate in the atmosphere and disrupt the storm to allow the ship to land safely. Kazran then releases Abigail and knows this will be the last time he releases her. Abigail understands and shares Christmas Day with Kazran. The Doctor is back with Amy and Rory and prepare to take young Kazran back to the past. Meanwhile old Kazran and Abigail take one last ride together on a shark led carriage.

The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe - 2011

Starring:

Matt Smith as The Doctor

Claire Skinner as Madge Arwell

Karen Gillan as Amy Pond (The end of the Episode)

Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams (The end of the Episode)

The Doctor becomes the Caretaker of recently Widowed Madge Arwell and her children Lily and Cyril during a holiday away from the London Blitz. One the first night, Cyril is lured to a glowing present under the tree. The present reveals a portal to a very snowy forest. The Curator (the Doctor) discovers that Cyril is missing. So he investigates. The Doctor takes Lily with him. With Cyril being located at a lighthouse type building, Madge realises everybody is missing. Where are they? Madge soon discovers that they gone through a portal in the present. Madge is met by three miners in space suits from the planet Androzani Major. Madge takes them at gunpoint and is taken back to their excavation walker and told that the forest of the planet they are on is scheduled to be melted by acid rain within minutes, killing anything within it. Back at the lighthouse, Cyril is greeted by humanoid creature made of wood. The humanoid creature places a metal ring around Cyrils head. But Cyril is rejected and is weak ad they do to the Doctor. But the Doctor discovers that the trees are planning to escape through a living creature. The ring is acting as an interface. The miners are teleported away safely before the rain starts after helping Madge locate her missing children. Madge, using the limited flying skills taught to her by Reg, directs the walker to the lighthouse and safely reunites with her children as the acid rain starts. The wooden creatures realise that Madge is strong and identify her as Strongand call her the Mothership. This able to carry the life force safely. Madge absorbs the life force of the forest, allowing her to direct the top of the lighthouse as an escape pod away from the acid rain and into the time vortex. To get them home, the Doctor directs her to think of memories of home, allowing Madge to revisit her fond memories of Reg, shown on screens within the pod. As Christmas approaches, the Doctor lands outside Amy and Rorys house where he left them 2 years ago in 'The God Complex'. They invite the Doctor for Christmas dinner and have already made a space for him at the table. Amy and Rory do not notice that the Doctor wipes away a tear of joy.

The Snowmen - 2012

Starring:

Matt Smith as The Doctor

Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald

It is 1842 and is Christmas time. A little boy builds a Snowman and refuses to play with the other children. The Snowman begins to speak to the boy and tells him that the other children are silly. 50 years on and the young boy has now become Dr. Walter Simeon, proprietor of the Great Intelligence Institute. He hires boys to collect samples of snow which he places in a giant snowglobe in his laboratory before feeding the boys to the snowmen. The Doctor is still sobbing over loosing Amy and Rory and has landed in Victorian London above the clouds. He uses his allies Vastra, Jenny, and Strax to keep people away from him. These 3 also investigate mysteries that happen within the city. Meanwhile a barmaid named Clara Oswald spots the Doctor walking by. The Doctor moves away fastly but Clara follows him. The Doctor orders Strax to bring him a memory worm that will erase the last hour of Clara's memories with just a simple touch. Before they even get the chance, they are surrounded by Snowmen!! The Doctor realises that Clara's thoughts are creating the snowmen and ends the threat by instructing her to think of them melting. Clara cautions the Doctor that if he wipes her memory! The Doctor then goes up the staircase to the clouds which leads to the TARDIS. Clara follows him up there and knocks the TARDIS door. When the Doctor answers she flees down the staircase. Clara returns to her other job as governess for the children of Captain Latimer. She learns that Latimer's daughter has been having horrible dreams about their previous governess returning from the dead. Clara realises that the pond that contains the old governess' body is the only thing still frozen around them. She attempts to track down the Doctor but instead attracts the attention of Jenny, who takes her to see Vastra. Vastra tells Clara she gets only one word to impress the Doctor with if she wants his help. Clara chooses the word "Pond", which shocks the Doctor and gives him a shock and gains his interest. The Doctor now dresses up as Sherlock Holmes and pays the Great Intelligence a visit. Now that the Doctor has discovered that the Great Intelligence has been controlling the snowmen and has taken interest in Latimer's pond. The Doctor visits the pond and deduces that the Great Intelligence is using the old governess' body as a DNA blueprint to form an ice creature that will retain its form and not melt. The Governess breaks into the house just as Clara is putting the children to bed. The Doctor fights her and is then joined by Vastra, Jenny and of course Strax. The Doctor flees with Clara to the roof of the mansion and then to the TARDIS hovering overhead. They are pursued by the ice governess, whom the Doctor traps under a layer of frozen ice crystals. Inside the TARDIS the Doctor gives Clara a TARDIS key, but the ice governess arrives and pulls Clara down off the cloud. Outside, a salt-water rain has started, and the Doctor sees that another psychic ability has taken control of the snow from the Great Intelligence: the Latimer family, crying for Clara. Strax fills in the news for the Doctor and tells him that Clara has moments left to live. At Claras funeral the Doctor reads Claras full name on her Tombstone. He is then shocked once he finds out that it was the same Clara that became a Dalek. He announces that a person dying twice is impossible. He gets in his TARDIS to discover who Clara Oswald really is. He wants to find her.

The Time Of The Doctor - 2013

Matt Smith as The 11th Doctor

Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald

Peter Capaldi as The 12th Doctor (At the end of the Episode)

It is now time for one last bow. The 11th Doctor faces his final adventure. As he summoned onto Trenzalore with Clara things go badly. The Doctor realises that the Timelords are using the 'Crack in Time' to communicate with the Doctor. Trenzalore is the planet the Doctor is to die on! The Doctor tricks Clara into plugging a device into the TARDIS which transports her home, and remains on Trenzalore to defend it from attacks by the aliens overhead. Clara is not letting anything stand in her way. She leaps onto the TARDIS and travels the Time Vortex outside of the TARDIS. The TARDIS protects Clara and extends the shields. This causes the return journey to be longer than the Doctor had expected. Finally arriving back at the town called Christmas. She spots the Doctor who has spent 300 years in that town. Although he calls himself the eleventh, the Doctor reveals he's used all of his twelve possible regenerations; his incarnation who fought in the Time War and the Tenth Doctor's aborted regeneration. He is therefore in his final, regeneration-less body. Lying that he won't send Clara back again, the Doctor does so and she returns to Earth as the siege of Trenzalore becomes an all out war. As the centuries pass, most of the races depart or are destroyed, leaving only the Silence (with whom the Doctor puts aside his feud and allies with) and the Daleks. Clara enters to find Tasha piloting the TARDIS. Noting "flying the TARDIS was always easy, it's flying the Doctor that I've never quite mastered", Tasha returns her to Trenzalore, as "no one should die alone". Clara begins to worry. She goes to see him and has a chat with him. He is more older than ever now. The Doctor is requested to go to the tower to face his enemies. The Doctor goes up there. Clara notices that the 'Crack in Time' reappears and Clara begs the Timelords to save him. She doesn't want to die. She doesn't really want to be stuck their either. As the Doctor prepares to die the 'Crack in Time' appears in the night sky. Regeneration energy flies out of the crack and grant the Doctor a brand new set of Regenerations. The excess Regeneration energy is used to defeat the Daleks and the other enemies. As the town is pretty much destroyed Clara finds the Doctor in the TARDIS. He is young again. He explains to Clara that his Regenerations are reset whilst his next Regeneration is taking a while to start up. We see Amy Pond appear but it is in the Doctors mind. The Doctor removes his Bow Tie and drops it to the floor. In a blink of an eye the Doctor Regenerates into his new face. The new Doctor claims he has 'new kidneys', the Doctor declares that the TARDIS is crashing and asks Clara if she knows how to fly it.

The Peter Capaldi Era

Last Christmas - 2014 (Still to come)

Starring:

Peter Capaldi as The Doctor

Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald

Nick Frost as Santa Claus

The Doctor and Clara face their Last Christmas. Trapped on an Arctic base, under attack from terrifying creatures, who are you going to call? Santa Claus!

So over the past 10 years there has been a variety of Christmas Specials. From deadly Snowmen to Heavenly Host.