Doctor Who Christmas Special 3
Voyage of the Damned by Russell T. Davies
The 3rd Christmas Special by Russell T. Davies -creator of Queer As Folk- is set on the 'Titanic' and enlivened by guest star Kylie Minogue, and David Tennant's energy.
The third Christmas special was shown by BBC television on Christmas Day, and will be released on DVD in March 2008, and later in the year in the US. This is a review of that episode, without revealing too many plot spoilers.
Doctor on the Titanic
At the end of the second series of Doctor Who, the TARDIS was sundered by the great bow of an ocean-going liner, which quickly emerged as the re-incarnation of the Titanic. The Doctor quickly repaired the damage and transported the box into the liner’s hold.
Wandering the decks, the period detail is superb – only marred by the not-insignificant appearance of a two-foot tall, red-spiky fleshed dwarf and several gold-skinned black-eyed angels. A voice on the tannoy announces that they in orbit around Sol III. “Welcome to Christmas.”
On the deck the Captain (Geoffrey Palmer, who has already appeared twice in the 1970s incarnation of the series) allows the other officers to stand down. Only one eager new midshipman refuses to leave, stating that it contravenes regulations.
“Very good, Midshipman Frame,” the captain says wearily.
It is only later that it becomes just how clear Frane’s refusal to leave his post will prove.
Kylie as Astrid
So much has been made of Kylie Minogue guest-starring on the episode, from BBC Specials to the many acres of rain-forest required for all the press coverage, that there were some concerns that she might hi-jack the whole episode. Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid the entertainer, who after all started out as an actress in Neighbours, is that she never once seemed to be anything other than her part; a sparky little waitress with a wanderlust and a strangely not-too-incongruous Australian accent. That one of her lines blew the plot half-an-hour before the end of the episode wasn’t her fault, but down to one of Davies’ moments of excess.
David Tennant
In this third adventure, the Doctor is perilously close to sounding bombastic when he tells the group, “I’m the Doctor; I’m a Time-lord. I'm from the Planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Castella; I’m 903 years old, and I’m going to save you and the six billion people on the planet down below. Any of you have a problem with that?” That he gets away with it –just- is in no small part to Tennant, who throws himself into the part as usual with a hundred and ten per cent effort.
Russell T. Davies
Davies is a writer whose career from Dark Season through Queer As Folk to its current heights is testament to his awareness of crowd-pleasing as much as art, but there are times when he struggles a little too hard to please the crowd. The scenes with the Queen are toe-curling, and the jump-cuts and repeated quotes from Max Capricorn as the meteors hit are as much irritating as exciting, although not as irritating as Rickston Slade, the clumsily drawn financier.
In defence of Davies, the jokes about the savage natives of Sol work well, and as well as the splendid Astrid there is the woebegone dignity of the Captain (“They promised me old men…not young boys”) underpinning Tennant’s trademark maniacal energy.
There is enough in Voyage of the Damned to make it the best of what is already a mini-tradition, and like many Doctor Who episodes, it improves with repeated viewing.
