Doctor Who: Ranking The Christmas Specials From Worst To Best
7. The Next Doctor (2008)
The Next Doctor places this low only for the fact that, simply, the rest are better. While a solid overall episode, with some gratifying elements of classic Dickensian Christmas cheer, it cant help but feel rather routine. Once again, the highlights of the episode are courtesy of the David-and-David combo that works surprisingly well, with David Morrissey as would-be Doctor, Jackson Lake, playing well against Tennant. Tennants Doctor is as enjoyable and effusive as ever, but with a subtle thread of loneliness woven in that is Tennants defining brilliance during his run as the Time Lord. Cybermen in a strikingly realized Victorian London make for a fun enough Tenth Doctor thriller, and the additional subplot of Jackson Lakes questionable identity as the Doctor vaguely adds to both the intrigue and the emotion of the episode, making it almost as enjoyable as a veritable double-Doctor story. Miss Hartigan, meanwhile, is an effective enough human villain, although her motivations are murky at best. She gets handled quite clumsily by the end. She loses out on her red-dressed, Victorian, Gothic potential with the over-the-top but still rather anticlimactic Cyber-king conclusion. (And its best not to mention the bizarre, Cyber-animal creatures popping in every once in a while...) Overall, despite many things to enjoy in the episode, The Next Doctor, similarly to the Doctor for which the episode is named, cant help but feel rather ordinary.
Canadian student. Spends probably an unhealthy amount of time enthusing over musicals, unpopular TV shows, and Harry Potter. Main life goal: to become fluent in Elvish.
