Welcome to… the voyage of the damned! Aka… Titanic in space
Yep… so… what? I’m confused, Titanic in space?! Wooooow… never really expected to see that! I will say, the set pieces look really nice in this episode, the interior of this space Titanic is absolutely beautiful. Also, the entire theme of the “Titanic” always ending up “sinking” in a sense, was also very blatant, but entertaining to watch. ALSO… this was a Christmas special… oh brother.
Yes yes, Dr.Who Christmas specials are really nothing to write home about, they are just there, with massive setpieces, decent acting, mediocre story, and clichéd plot. Nothing more, nothing less, they are just, solid. And this episode is really no different to be honest, it’s solid! And it doesn’t really shine until the very end, when they are finally getting off that stupid ship!
Part of the negatives that surround this episode, surround its ongoing theme. The Doctor is supposed to represent Jesus… which is quite honestly, stupid. And I would be fine with this idiocy if it wasn’t hammered in every five minutes, and accumulated with him being raised up by angels… which is just so much cheese I felt like I was suffocating.
This episode was of course not without its regular Christmas cheese, which was generally fine… the little red guy who sacrificed himself was funny ENOUGH to sustain the bullshit that, that dialogue was written as.
The villians were also fairly “there” in a sense… they weren’t special, they weren’t unique, they weren’t original. I liked their designs at first, because they had that delightfully creepiness to them that this show sometimes does really well… but after that base theme was developed I couldn’t help but facepalm.
But enough about the negatives… I liked the Doctors performance, although it seemed like he was trying to cope with the not-so-great dialogue by simply bugging his eyes out more, and acting EVEN nuttier. His one-shot companion was also a neat choice, I won’t say she was fantastic… but she was definitely a slightly interesting character at the very least. So in general, it was just a solid episode throughout, filled with enough cringe-material to make it a true Dr.Who Christmas special, but also filled with enough heart to make it lovable.
Particularly the final scene, when the poor elderly man gets taken to earth and finds out he’s rich. I swear, maybe it’s because I have a really big soft spot for elderly people in sad/happy situations, but man if that scene didn’t give me just a slight hint of misty eyes. I don’t know… maybe my cold heart is finally starting to warm up? All I meant, is that, that final piece of dialogue between the Doctor was my favorite scene, not only in this episode, but in every Christmas special thus far!
Grade: B
awkwardreviews 
This one was good even though I went into it wanting to hate it. The one playing Astrid is a BIG popstar over here, and I don’t particularly like her music and find her over rated, plus they were playing up the whole “look we got KYLIE MINOGUE a big celeb, isn’t that great!” which I don’t like shows doing. But she was ok in this and I guess she did start off in soaps, so she had some acting experience before this.
It was around the time that this aired that I first started going on line and I liked all the speculation of Astrid’s character, the most memorable being that she was a part of the TARDIS because Astrid is an anagram of TARDIS and the surname she was given ‘Peth’ means part in Welsh, well kinda, sort of.
Another interesting fact, the old newspaper vendor was in the old Doctor Who movies that aren’t classed as canon but alt reality.
Interesting!
The Doctor represents Jesus? I’ve watched this episode a few times but never got that out if it.