Confession #160: I Miss the Holiday Specials

Doctor Who holiday specials have never been particularly high on my list of “must see TV.” Aside from them being Doctor Who, which gives them inherent watchability in my eyes, having something over-the-top fluffy (or even silly) that doesn’t necessarily fit within continuity (that is, if you eliminated one entirely, the arcs of the stories surrounding it wouldn’t really be affected) doesn’t particularly appeal to me.

As an American, I’ve not had the cultural tradition of Christmas specials designed for the whole family to sit down and watch together on Christmas Day (presumably at least in part to keep the peace for a while in the event that one’s family doesn’t even get along). At most, the TV traditions around here were watching Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer or The Year Without a Santa Claus, but those were always aired well before the holiday itself.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself feeling a bit distraught at the idea that there would be no “festive” Doctor Who episode airing this year (on either Christmas or New Year’s).

I don’t often like to think about how long it’s been since the modern era of Doctor Who began. Even if I myself didn’t get on board the fandom train until 2008, some three-plus years into its run, it’s still disconcerting to be confronted with the passage of so much time. But as I looked back on the list of Christmas (and New Year’s) specials, I realized it has been an annual tradition for the past seventeen years.

This upcoming thirteen-month gap between The Power of the Doctor (Whittaker’s swan song) and the 60th anniversary specials is the longest we’ve had to wait between new episodes in the modern era. We twice previously had a one-year gap between specials, first between the 2015 and 2016 Christmas specials (“The Husbands of River Song” and “The Return of Doctor Mysterio,” respectively) and then between the 2019 and 2020 New Year’s specials (“Resolution” and “Spyfall: Part 1“).

But even when there were long gaps between new series with only a single episode (with Daleks) in a calendar year (to preserve usage rights), we’ve never before entirely skipped a holiday special. Somehow, that lack feels far more disappointing to me than I’d ever expected. Although I will appreciate not needing to spend some of my holiday break writing up an episode review, I think I’m going to miss having that little bright spot of new content to look forward to.

Should you, as I may well do, decide to watch one of the past holiday specials to tide you over, here are the seventeen (or eighteen, if you include the very first New Year’s special, which was not a standalone) episodes from which you have to choose. Which one is your favorite?