A Christmas Carol (Doctor Who)
In the episode, a crashing space liner with more than four thousand people on board has been caught in a strange cloud belt.
The alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) lands on the planet below and meets the miserly Kazran Sardick (Michael Gambon), a man who can control the cloud layer but refuses to help.
Inspired by Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, the episode has the Doctor attempting to use time travel to alter Kazran's past and make him kinder so that he will save the spaceship.
A space liner carrying more than four thousand passengers loses control when passing through strange electrified clouds over a human-inhabited planet.
The Eleventh Doctor discovers the clouds are controlled by the bitter old man Kazran Sardick, who refuses to allow the ship to land safely.
Meeting Kazran as a young boy, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to summon a shark that swims in the clouds and fog.
Though old Kazran in the present is pleased with his new memories, he remains bitter at Abigail's fate and refuses to help save the ship.
In Pyramids of Mars (1975), the TARDIS's controls are said to be isomorphic, though in subsequent adventures this feature was retained or ignored as the plot demanded.
Instead he was more of a "damaged" character; the Doctor recognises this when Kazran demonstrates his inability to hit a little boy, due to it reminding him of when his father beat him.
[9][10][11] Moffat stated, "Michael Gambon is as distinguished an actor as I can imagine and the fact that he was Dumbledore means that he is already known to millions of children".
Pickwoad and Haynes worked together to create the town, incorporating elements that would be needed in a society that shared its daily life with fish.
[7] The scenes in which the characters ride through the air in a sleigh pulled by one of the flying sharks was filmed in front of a greenscreen.
The sleigh was in fact a rickshaw which crew members rocked back and forth as a wind machine created the effect of flying through the air.
[7] Selected pieces of music from this special, as composed by Gold, were released on a soundtrack 21 March 2011 by Silva Screen Records.
[23] In the United States, 727,000 viewers watched "A Christmas Carol", an 8% increase on the previous holiday special, part one of "The End of Time".
[28] Website Den of Geek's Simon Brew applauded Moffat for "not taking the easy way out" with the adaptation, saying it was "really quite mad, undoubtedly festive, and it treats the Dickens source material with respect".
He praised Gambon, Smith, both actors playing the younger Kazran and thought Gillan and Darvill "[made] the most of what they're given", though he commented that "Katherine Jenkins is more an ethereal presence with a lovely voice...than an actress".
[31] Dave Golder of SFX gave the episode four and a half out of five stars, explaining that, although there were "creaky" moments, it was "the most adult Christmas special we've yet been given, with some complex story-telling techniques, a plot driven by the characters and some quite mind-bending concepts".
[3] IGN's Cindy White rated the episode 8 out of 10, describing it as a "clever remix" of A Christmas Carol and praising Smith, Gambon, and Jenkins.
[4] MTV's Rick Marshall called it "easily one of the best episodes of the series' modern era...populated with just the right amount of humor, drama, scares, and sentimental reverence for the classic story that inspired its narrative".
While he considered Amy and Rory "criminally underused", they were responsible for "heavy laughs" and left the Doctor to be the "delight of the episode".
"[35] "A Christmas Carol" was nominated for the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), but lost to the preceding series finale "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang".
