Officially, there are 15 bona fide Doctor Who Christmas specials for us to enjoy with our turkey and satsumas. But are there any other festive Who offerings that we can add to this list?
The answer is yes, and the first of these unofficial Doctor Who Christmas specials for you to consider is 2005’s ‘The Unquiet Dead.’ This is one of the earliest episodes of New Who, and sees the Ninth Doctor and Rose touch down in Cardiff, 1869, where they encounter the famous Charles Dickens giving a festive reading on Christmas Eve.
This would all be rather quaint, if it weren’t for the invasion of gaseous creatures known as the Gelth who, having lost their bodily forms during the Time War, are searching for new vessels to inhabit. And what could be better than human cadavers?
If all this sounds rather grim, it is – but this unofficial Doctor Who Christmas special is not without charm. It’s written by Mark Gatiss (a confirmed Dickens fan) and it’s peppered with jokes and light-hearted moments, and just a couple of nods to the writer’s most famous work A Christmas Carol. One of the funniest scenes is when the Doctor has a true ‘fanboy’ moment whilst riding with Dickens in a Hansom cab – and then of course has to explain to the writer what a ‘fan’ actually is.
It’s possible that ‘The Unquiet Dead’ was floated as prototype Doctor Who Christmas special – or at least, the production team’s effort to give the Time Lord a festive adventure should the relaunched show be cancelled after one series. As it turned out (and as you probably know) Doctor Who was recommissioned, and the first thing to be put in the calendar was, ironically, a Doctor Who Christmas special. Inspired by Dickens, perhaps?
Well, by the time 2008 rolled around, the production team had three Doctor Who Christmas specials under their belt, and some of these influenced the next ‘unofficial’ episode on our list – ‘Turn Left.’ In this adventure, the Doctor is dead; the whole episode takes place in an alternate reality where the Time Lord perished in the 2006 Christmas special ‘The Runaway Bride.’ Over the course of the episode, the Doctor’s companion Donna ‘revisits’ a number of his past adventures, including the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas special where a replica of the Titanic falls out of the sky.
But this time, there is no Doctor to stop it from crashing, and the vessel wipes out London, leaving Donna and her family as homeless refugees. There’s a chilling moment where the Noble family look on as a huge mushroom cloud swells over the city, and whilst such an image might not leave you scrambling for the mince pies, it all takes place on Christmas Day, so it must count as some kind of Christmas special, right? After all, if Die Hard can be classed as a Christmas movie…
There is also the inclusion of Slade’s festive anthem ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ which, by 2008, had become integral to the Doctor Who Christmas specials; you couldn’t have a Doctor Who Christmas special without Slade! So the fact that it was included in ‘Turn Left’ must elevate the episode’s status.
Everything changed when Chris Chibnall became showrunner, however. It’s not entirely clear why the BBC stopped producing Doctor Who Christmas specials; they chose instead to have New Year’s Day adventures, the first of which was ‘Resolution’ in 2019. This story has a modicum of festive flair, so you could include it on your ‘unofficial’ watchlist if you have time to spare and slots to fill.
But perhaps the most festive-feeling of all these stories is 2022’s ‘Eve of the Daleks.’ Admittedly, this takes place a week after Christmas (you can probably guess which day from the title) but there is plenty of festive iconography to get the yuletide juices flowing, including the erroneously-named Elf Storage facility where the Doctor and her friends become trapped.
It’s something of a bottle episode, as the special was hampered by the ongoing effects of the pandemic, but there’s much to enjoy, particularly if you like Daleks or time-loop adventures. But the true star of the story has to be Aisling Bea who makes a guest appearance as the hapless Sarah – a feisty character who manages to be quick-tempered without being rude, and is really rather likeable. It’s a shame her character wasn’t invited back for more trips in the TARDIS.
Interestingly, this is only the second episode in the history of Doctor Who to take place on New Year’s Eve – the other being the 1996 TV movie, if indeed this can be classed as an episode. So, you might want to pair ‘Eve of the Daleks’ with the Eighth Doctor‘s debut adventure. They’re both stories which play around with time in interesting ways, and whilst there might be a distinct lack of turkey and tinsel, you’re in for a great ride.
Finally, we can’t round-off this blog post without mentioning the much-missed (and now legendary) seventh episode from ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan.’ This episode is infamous for being the first unofficial Doctor Who Christmas special, having been broadcast on Christmas Day 1966. It famously ends with the Doctor, Steven and Sara partying in the TARDIS, with the Doctor turning to the camera to wish a merry Christmas to everyone at home.
The episode itself, despite taking place in the middle of one of Doctor Who‘s longest and bleakest adventures, has nothing to do with the main plot. The Daleks don’t appear, and the whole story (if you can call it a story) sees the travellers bumbling around in time and space, going everywhere from police stations to movie sets. It’s all a lot of light-hearted nonsense – but charming nonsense, as any good Christmas special should be.
You might need a time machine to enjoy this particular Doctor Who Christmas special, though, as it’s currently missing from the BBC’s archive. This is a sore point for Who fans, particularly as the episode was reportedly never copied for overseas distribution, meaning that the chances of it turning up are virtually nil. But then, if four episodes of ‘The Ice Warriors’ can be found in the back of a cupboard, and ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan‘ episode five can be found in the basement of a Mormon church, anything’s possible.
So tell us, reader – do you think these episodes count as unofficial Doctor Who Christmas specials? And are there any others you would add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
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