Voyage of the Damned

A Christmassy Doctor Who special has become something of a tradition over the past few years, but it’s definitely something to look forward to.

This year’s saw the Doctor on the Titanic (no, not that one), which the Tardis had crashed into at the end of the previous series. On board he meets a waitress, Astrid, played by Kylie Minogue. When I first heard that she’d been cast in this episode I was concerned that the big name casting was taking preference to quality performance again. But I needn’t have feared. She gave a creditable performance as Astrid and I soon forgot I was watching ‘Kylie’.

The story was good, based on the old 70s disaster movies, especially the Poseidon Adventure. And there was a real sense of adventure as the survivors struggled to make it through the wreckage of the ship, not knowing who was going to make it to the end.

There were some great guest appearances from old Who performers Clive Swift and Geoffrey Palmer, as well as an excellent cameo from Bernard Cribbins (who stared in one of the Dr Who films with Peter Cushing) as the newspaper seller who, like the Queen, wasn’t going to leave London. This was quite a funny bit of continuity – Londoners had fled the city for Christmas as there’d been alien attacks the previous two years, which feature in the previous two Doctor Who Christmas episodes The Christmas Invasion and The Runaway Bride.

There were also some very lovely moments for the old fans – the Doctor mentioning the constellation of Kasterborous as the location of his home planet of Gallifrey (which was mentioned in the Christmas episode last year). Also the Titanic being a spaceship echoed former script editor Douglas Adam’s Starship Titanic. And there was a new version of the theme tune, which sounded even better than the previous one.

Finally there was a lovely moment right at the end, where a caption before the credits dedicated the programme to Verity Lambert.