Voyage of the Damned [TV/2007.12.25]

★★★☆☆

  After the quite dramatic finale of Series 3, Russell T Davies decides to reach a new level of dramatic with Voyage of the Damned. I completely understand the backlash this Christmas special gets from a lot of people; for them, it's when he completely jumped the shark and made it a hero-worshipping episode drunk in its own success. Nowadays, girls kissing the Doctor -- and the Doctor kissing back with full romantic intent -- is completely normal, and an expected part of new episodes. Melodrama is a core element, with the episode frequently making pit stops to make sure everyone gets a sympathetic moment or two. Heck, angst is also a vital element of these stories, with Doctors walking towards the camera in slow motion and being carried to the heavens by angels. Depending on who you ask, Voyage of the Damned is either a fun, harmless Christmas special or (because of the aforementioned "issues") the nadir of the new series. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim it to be the best of anything... and no, I wouldn't call it the best of anything either. It's just that, as a disaster adventure with the Doctor and his merry band of mismatched heroes fighting to survive, I find the format beginning to stretch thin as everyone has to get a RTD-style exposition dump to allow more people to be sympathetic to them. It doesn't help that the middle of the 75-minute episode loses steam (and by that, I mean I lose interest in it) quite hard; the engine room sequence takes out half of the group, and every one of them has to be the most emotional they can be. Why, of course, people have to be sad for them! This melodramatic tendency and its driven nature to want to make audiences cry is why I rarely revisit this episode.

  That said, it's still a cozy little Christmas celebration. David Tennant's having the time of his life being a hero that's a dab hand at saving the world, and the guest cast are milking their Dr. Who roles every chance they get (and who can blame them?), Chief amongst them is Kylie Minogue playing companion-for-the-day Astrid Peth, a manic pixie dream girl for the post-Martha Tenth Doctor who dies to give the episode even more angst and melodrama. I would've liked to see her as a full-on companion, but her casting for one full series would've led to astronomical costs for the BBC. Sometimes you have to be aware of the money side of things, unfortunately. Astrid's still a joy to watch, and it's a joy to watch a great many things in the episode. Voyage of the Damned is much more Christmas-oriented than previous RTD Christmas specials, it's a grand and operatic drama with flying robot angels and Russell Tovey, and it introduces fan-favourite Wilfred Mott. It's an example of a head writer becoming drunk on their own success (and frequently, the results are not as brilliantly naff and entertaining as they should be, but rather boring and off-putting), but the episode mostly walks out with dignity.