10 Things You Never Knew About The Doctor Who Specials
6. Christmas In The Past
Although the Doctor has billions of holidays to choose from, celebrated among the infinite number of galaxies within walking distance of his time machine, he always visits our planet at Christmas time, alighting at present-day Earth to spend the wintry December days with his companions families. Often, however, the Tenth Doctor would find himself destitute and alone after a traumatic event that just so happened to precede Christmas. Rose being imprisoned in a parallel universe on Doomsday, for example, or Martha heroically abandoning her life as a time traveller, as well as the entirety of his cohorts remaining on Earth at Journeys End. Sometimes the Doctor finds comfort in the snow-covered cobblestone streets of Victorian London, where everything is unfamiliar and nothing surfaces memories of the future, where his companions preside. The Next Doctor was the first time he followed this instinct and spent Christmas in the past. From this perspective, The Next Doctor and The Snowmen are quite similar. In both, the Doctor is lamenting the loss of a cherished friend, but finds company and a renewed spirit where he least expects it. Victorian London is definitely an ideal destination for Christmas, with its quaint Gingerbread houses frosted with layers of snow, warm, flickering fires that illuminate windows with an almost painted golden hew, and a solitude and peacefulness that is just waiting to be stirred into action by the untimely appearance of a Time Lord. After all, isn't that was Christmas is all about?
Anna is an aspiring writer who has an incurable obsession with Doctor Who. When she is not writing about Doctor Who, she's watching favorite episodes and contemplating what to write next. When she's writing about Doctor Who, she anticipates her reward: watching yet another Doctor Who episode. She also manages to read science fiction (especially Ray Bradbury), recite lines from Shakespeare's Macbeth, and make terrible puns in her free time (she likes to imagine she has great puntential, though)
