The definitive Doctor Who Christmas specials ranking

It’s officially time: after enough anticipation to fill a TARDIS, Ncuti Gatwa finally takes over the newly revamped sonic screwdriver as the Fifteenth incarnation of the Doctor this Christmas.

His debut Christmas special ‘The Church on Ruby Road’ will also introduce former Coronation Street star Millie Gibson as the Doctor’s companion Ruby Sunday, who joins forces with the Time Lord to fight the menacing Goblin King. The episode will join the ranks of Doctor Who holiday specials that have been brightening up our festive seasons since 2005.

But how do the Christmas specials we’ve been served up each year during the modern reboot of Doctor Who measure up? Which are sitting pretty at the top of the tree and which are Christmas catastrophes?

Here’s our ranking – beginning with an adventure that most certainly requires a few sherries for optimum ‘enjoyment’…

15. The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe

Adrian Rogers – BBC

Perhaps the only out-and-out stinker that Doctor Who’s ever offered us on Christmas Day, this Narnia-inspired escape is one of the weakest the show’s produced since 2005.

A game cast gives its all, but this saccharine and none too subtle episode is a waste of their talents – particularly high-profile comic guest stars Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir. And, in “Humany wumany!”, it delivers what may very well be the worst line in Doctor Who history. Yes, worse even than, “I know so little about tele-biogenesis.”

14. The Time of the Doctor

BBC

The first of the not-quite-Christmas specials in our list: Matt Smith’s swansong went out on Christmas Day in 2013, but is quite rightly more concerned with writing out its leading man than it is with frothy festive larks.

Unfortunately, it’s doesn’t entirely work as either a Christmas episode or as a sign-off for the Eleventh Doctor – telling a timey-wimey tale that somehow manages to feel both repetitive and rushed.

Still, Smith’s superlative performance carries it – and only a Weeping Angel could be left unmoved by his emotional final farewell.

13. Twice Upon a Time

Simon Ridgeway – BBC

‘Twice Upon a Time’ didn’t really need to exist. It was written, at least in part, out of obligation, with Steven Moffat volunteering to fill the gap between his final series and Chris Chibnall’s debut series in 2018.

‘The Doctor Falls’ was really Peter Capaldi’s swansong – this is more of an epilogue or postscript. All that being said, it’s a very sweet – at times, heartbreaking – postscript, with Capaldi milking every last bit of anguish out of Doctor Who fans with his extended farewell and David Bradley a riot as the totally unreformed First Doctor.

Whatever the circumstances at work behind-the-scenes, Moffat’s final (ever?) Doctor Who script doesn’t feel forced either – it’s a sad, funny, clever Christmas treat that serves both as frothy festive fare for families and a suitable finale to an entire era.

12. The Next Doctor

BBC

Perhaps the show’s most underrated Christmas adventure, ‘The Next Doctor’ manages to be both rip-roaring fun – with a spirited performance from David Morrissey as Jackson Lake – and supremely poignant.

The episode’s title was a wonderful bit of trolling from Davies – with David Tennant having announced his departure from Doctor Who just two months before. But the tragic explanation behind why Jackson believes he’s a Time Lord is a real gut-punch, as is the Doctor’s final admission about why he’s chosen to travel alone.

Plus, there’s a gigantic Cyberman stalking the streets of Victorian London. What’s not to like?

11. The Husbands of River Song

Simon Ridgway – BBC

“Capaldi and Kingston – it’s a sex storm!” – alright, so the 2015 special didn’t quite live up to that amazing little piece of Russell T Davies hyperbole. But there was a wonderful spark between River and Twelve that carried ‘The Husbands of River Song’ even when the plot lagged.

The final sequence is utterly gorgeous, too – with the Doctor finally taking his wife to the singing towers of Darillium, perfectly wrapping up a story set in motion eight years before.

10. The Return of Doctor Mysterio

BBC

Let’s not beat about the bush here: Doctor Who doing superheroes could have been terrible. More than that, it should have been terrible.

With the best will in the world, the BBC doesn’t have the budget of a Marvel or Warner Bros – yet, at least – and any attempt to ape their blockbusters could have ended in embarrassment.

Some of the effects in ‘The Return of Doctor Mysterio’ are a bit ropey. But you’ll be inclined to forgive the episode its flaws, because Doctor Who’s 2016 Christmas special, its first outing for a whole 12 months, is simply an enormous amount of fun.

It’s one of the most richly comic episodes in recent memory, and simply a warm, charming and very funny hour. A fine festive offering.

9. Voyage of the Damned

Collection Christophel / Alamy Stock Photo – BBC

The blockbuster Doctor Who episode that brought blockbuster viewing figures. This had it all: it was the Kylie Minogue one while also being the Titanic one. The doomed but swanky cruise liner skims through the skies above London on a tourist jaunt to witness the foreign concept of Christmas.

There are better festive specials out there, but they don’t come bigger than this one, which is capped off by the Doctor stopping the intergalactic Titanic from colliding with the Queen in Buckingham Palace, who then personally thanks him for doing so. Yes, really.

8. Resolution

Sophie Mutevelian – BBC

Landing just a few weeks after the close of series 11, ‘Resolution’ was less a festive special and more a belated finale to Jodie Whittaker’s debut Doctor Who run, capping off her freshman year with an action-packed blockbuster that reinvented the Daleks in spectacular fashion.

Providing a sheer burst of adrenaline the likes of which the preceding series never quite managed to muster, this was the show at its most Hollywood. But writer Chris Chibnall also wisely provided the fireworks with an emotional spine in Ryan’s (Tosin Cole) awkward reunion with his estranged father.

It might have struggled, as series 11 did, to juggle four regulars, plus two significant guest characters, but otherwise this entertaining hour launched Doctor Who into 2019 with supreme style and substance.

7. The Snowmen

BBC

This 2012 offering features not just a chilling threat – pun intended – in the form of the Great Intelligence and its animated snowmen, but also some of the most magical sequences in Doctor Who’s history. Victorian Clara’s ascent up the TARDIS staircase into the clouds is particularly beautiful.

Again, Matt Smith absolutely storms it – he’s clearly having a ball as Moffat’s script lets him veer from grumpy Scrooge figure to awkward lad to hopeless romantic. And the whole thing ends on an unexpected and daring note – one that followed ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ in effectively setting up the arc of the Impossible Girl…

6. The Church on Ruby Road

BBC

With his debut Christmas special, Ncuti Gatwa proves to be a ball of charisma in a fetching mustard coat who is primed to take the Doctor and make the character his own.

A snowy church in the dead of night? A perfect festive setting. ‘The Goblin Song’? Hilarious and even more catchy than it really needs to be. Davina McCall’s starring role as Davina McCall? Pure campy fun.

There’s high energy fun throughout with a touching message in the third act to give you that warm, fuzzy, Christmas feeling – goblins notwithstanding. This Christmas special with the Fifteenth Doctor is like the first glistening chocolate out of the Celebrations box: so delicious it leaves you hungrily eager for more.

5. The Runaway Bride

BBC

“I’m not… I’m not… I’m not from Mars!” After splitting up the Doctor and Rose and tearing our hearts out in the process, it was absolutely the right decision for Doctor Who to deliver a knockabout romp for Christmas 2006.

There’s much fun to be had with Ten and Donna’s zippy repartee – even if Catherine Tate’s future companion, yet to blossom into the character we know and love, proves a little grating at times – and the TARDIS on the motorway sequence is a whole lot of outrageous fun.

‘The Runaway Bride’ might not top many fans’ Best Of lists, but it was certainly a solid stab at proving that the series could survive without its beloved Billie Piper – which, 12-and-a-bit years ago, wasn’t necessarily a sure thing.

4. The End of Time

BBC/Adrian Rogers

Alright, ‘The End of Time’ is a bit of a mess. Tonally, it’s all over the place and tries to do far too much at once, with Davies throwing absolutely everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.

But, you know what? It’s still one of the most powerful and heartbreaking stories that the show has produced in its 53-year history, with stellar performances from David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins in particular.

Wilf breaking down as he begs the Doctor not to die, Ten’s raging against the dying of the light as he discovers what those four knocks really mean, and – of course – “I don’t want to go”… all utterly devastating. Damn you for making us sob at Christmas, Doctor Who.

3. The Christmas Invasion

BBC

There’s just something irresistibly charming about Doctor Who’s first proper stab at a Christmas special – well, its first since 1965 oddity ‘The Feast of Steven’ anyway.

The series was launching into bold new territory and without its established lead at the helm – Christopher Eccleston having regenerated six months previously. The BBC’s top bosses must have been concerned that their hit revival was about to flatline all over again, but they needn’t have worried.

While it has its flaws, it’s impossible not be swept up by the unfiltered festive fun of ‘The Christmas Invasion’ – with David Tennant offering up a supremely confident debut, slipping into the familiar trappings of ’05 Who as if he’d been there all along.

Oh, and ‘Song for Ten’ is one of the best Christmas songs never to have troubled the charts.

2. Last Christmas

BBC

Going big and broad and fun and fluffy is all well and good, but for his fifth special, Moffat chose to embrace the more macabre side of this holiday, offering something more akin to a Christmas ghost story.

You’d never have guessed it from the news that Nick Frost was playing Santa Claus – yes, the Santa Claus – but ‘Last Christmas’ is actually a festive fright-fest that lands somewhere between Inception and Alien.

It’s almost a pity that the episode didn’t serve as Jenna Coleman’s exit, as was originally intended, though perhaps an elderly Clara saying an emotional goodbye to her Doctor might have been a bit much for a sleepy British public still recovering from a Christmas lunch.

1. A Christmas Carol

BBC

Doctor Who was at an all-time high in December 2010 – Matt Smith and Steven Moffat had accomplished a task that many had thought impossible, not only stepping into Tennant and Davies’ sizeable shoes but also producing arguably the best single run of episodes to date.

To top it all off, they also delivered the show’s most accomplished Christmas special on their first go. Romantic, sweeping, optimistic, yet tinged with a hint of melancholy so as to never become sickly sweet, this triumphant sci-fi take on the Dickens classic is perfect Christmas Day fodder, with a touching turn from Michael Gambon and Matt Smith absolutely on fire.

It was once suggested that Doctor Who is really all about “the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism” and ‘A Christmas Carol’ is about as pure an example of that as you can imagine.

Doctor Who returns with ‘The Church on Ruby Road’ on Christmas Day. All episodes of Doctor Who are available on BBC iPlayer or Disney+ in the US.

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