If you’ve just watched Face The RavenĀ and you’re looking for something positive to make a dent in your inconsolable grief, the good news is that there will be not one, but two jolly, red faced, belly shaking bowl full of jelly types appearing in the Doctor Who Christmas SpecialĀ in 2015. This time around it won’t be Santa that takes centre stage, as he did last year in White ChristmasĀ with Nick Frost in the Chris Kringle fat suit, but we will be getting both Matt Lucas and Greg Davies to round off the year with.
Davies, who has starred in everything from The InbetweenersĀ and Man DownĀ on Channel 4, to CuckooĀ on the BBC (as well as being spotted eating a pie next to a bin with Rod Gilbert at the Green Man Fedtival earlier in 2015), will play the enraged King Hydroflax in the special episode. Matt Lucas (Little Britain, Come Fly With Me) will be playing a character called Natdole and with a crazed robot and an intergalactic chase sequence it sounds like it’s going to be a distracting Christmas for the Doctor, as he continues to mourn the loss of Clara.
If that’s not enough consolation for the recent departure of Jenna Coleman from the show then the announcement that River Song will also be making an appearance in this year’s Christmas Special should be enough to turn the dial a little more. Played by Alex Kingston, the character hasn’t starred alongside Peter Capaldi as the twelfth doctor as of yet, so it will be interesting to see how they get along.
The story will see the Doctor hiding out on a distant human space colony, as far away from turkey dinners and party poppers as he can find, only to get dragged into the adventure by the arrival of a crashed spaceship signalling for help. It turns out to be River, AKA Melody Pond, who recruits him into her squad and whisks him off on a mad ride in outer space with the mayhem of the disfunctional giant robot to deal with.
However, to begin with River doesn’t know who the Doctor is, so there’s at least one surprise on the cards. It’s added to by the mystery of the squad’s destination, which according to the synopsis from the BBC is a place the Doctor has been avoiding for some time. The mystery of it all is set to be revealed on the star liner they find themselves aboard, which happens to be packed with a variety of intergalactic super villains to make matters even more precarious.
Perhaps the biggest unanswered question for the episode at the moment is how they’re planning on bringing river back into the series. She was written out as dying saving the Doctor in the final episode of Series 7, The Name Of The Doctor, so either itās a different timeline, a continuation of her echo or her death wasnāt quite as finite as we might have thought.
Talking about the episode, Steven Moffat gave a pretty good indication that the episode would be much less seasonal than last year’s White Christmas, so you probably shouldn’t expect any carols or mince pie. He also seemed to indicate that there’s a possibility his Doctor Who writing days may well be behind him, which is one of the reasons he was keen to give River Song one last hurrah.
