Doctor Who: 10 Worst Things That Have Happened To The Doctor At Christmas
Normal people get socks for Christmas, but the Doctor gets death and misery instead.
In the real world, Christmas is a time for drinking Bucks Fizz and salivating over pigs in blankets, while constantly complaining about how rubbish the TV schedule is. But in the Doctor Who world? It's about trying to survive the holidays with your life intact.
While the annual special has recently been moved to New Year's Day, the Doctor used to embark on a yearly Christmas adventure, a tradition that began with David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in 2005's The Christmas Invasion, and ended (for the time being, at least) with 2017's Twice Upon A Time, the final outing for Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor.
Each of these specials were packed with the alien attacks and sci-fi weirdness that Doctor Who is known for, and for the Doctor, this usually meant that their Christmases weren't exactly relaxing. Rather, they consistently ranked among their most memorable and action-packed adventures, full of important and often saddening events like regenerations, companion deaths, and final goodbyes to fan-favourite characters.
All things considered, it'd be completely understandable if the Doctor now hates the festive period, because the show's Christmas specials tended to be quite arduous and distressing experiences for the Time Lord to endure...
10. Dying (In An Alternate Timeline)
Dying might seem like it should be higher up on a list like this, but we're putting it last because it only happened in an alternate timeline - one that was eventually erased. We see this alternate timeline in Series 4's Turn Left, which, while not a Christmas special, shows us a parallel version of The Runaway Bride, which is a Christmas special.
In this timeline, Donna Noble never meets the Tenth Doctor, meaning that she isn't there to save him during his confrontation with the Racnoss. As a result, the Doctor becomes completely consumed by rage, and ends up drowning himself - along with the Empress of the Racnoss' children - by flooding a chamber with water.
As well as being a tragic incident in its own right, the Doctor's death also ends up being disastrous for the entire human race, as he isn't there to save them when aliens attack planet Earth in the future. Which happens a lot.
But again, this all took place in an alternate timeline. In the main timeline, the Doctor's Christmas wasn't ruined by suffering a horrible, watery death.