Doctor Who Christmas Special 2010

[yakalskovich]

• I totally love the Steampunk look-and-feel of this!
• They are doing the Dickens thingger. Pity I never read or saw the Dickens 'Christmas Carol', so the references are largely lost on me. I know there is this hard-hearted rich old man, and he gets softened up by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, but that's all I heard about it. Oh, and that Patrick Stewart did it on stage.
  
• 'How did boredom even get invented?' -- Love that quote. We must quote it often, don't you think, Nazgul?
• Awwww the big shark thing! And as a little boy, the (future) nasty old man still had sympathy left over for it.
• The fish like singing -- how oddly, whimsically poetic. I'm glad this Christmas special doesn't have Earth being attacked by spacemonsters again.
• Now, there is Abigail's ominous count-down. Very worrying!
• There is something very heart-warming, and at the same time very worrying, about the entire set-up. There is a nasty secret there. What does the cloud-controlling rich man need all those frozen people for?
• Flimsy nightie-like dress over soft knitted sleeves -- interesting look. I wonder how soon I'll see that worn in the real world...
• Marilyn Monroe? What? Why is that a bad thing, Doctor? She was only the most interesting woman of her time!
  
• Common sense in all time travel SF always says to never let anybody meet themselves from the past. The Doctor is totally shredding up this bloke's life!
• And then it comes all together, and the old man gives up the last day of Abigail's life to save all these people -- awwww! Is that what the old story is all about? Giving up the one most precious thing he's been keeping all his life? It's quite moving, though, in any case.
• Wow the previews look fascinating. Amy, Rory and River will be along for the next season! Whee!
  

Comments

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Is that what the old story is all about? Giving up the one most precious thing he's been keeping all his life?

Not really, no.

In the original, Scrooge loves a girl but he's always putting off marrying her until business is a little better, and she gets tired of it, realizes he loves business more than he loves her, and leaves him on Christmas Day. His spirits show him himself excelling at business while failing at interpersonal relationships, how most people revile him, but Bob Cratchet and Tiny Tim pray for him even though he is horrible to them, and himself and Tiny Tim dead in the near future, which convinces him that he should change his life. He is mainly saved by Tiny Tim's selflessness.

So, there's a lot of divergence. Dickens, for example, has no sharks.

The 1992 Muppet version is a good one to watch, as is the 1984 one with Turlough and George C Scott in the title role.