Doctor Who perfected the Christmas special with Voyage of the Damned

But it also comes down to Doctor Who having a magical quality about it, just like Christmas. When you hear that theme tune, the excitement hits, knowing anything could happen.

For me, one Christmas special exemplifies this above all - Voyage of the Damned.

That's a statement that will trigger scoffs - and already has - from other Doctor Who die-hards. After all, when considering the groundbreaking first modern special, The Christmas Invasion, the beautiful performances in A Christmas Carol, and the actual TV event that was The End of Time, how could Voyage of the Damned compare?

If you weren't one of the 13.1 million to tune in on Christmas Day 2007 (making it the most-watched Doctor Who episode of the modern era), picture the scene.

The special was already being set up in June that year when, at the end of the dramatic three-parter that saw out season 3, the Tenth Doctor experienced the bow of a ship called the Titanic busting through the TARDIS wall (prompting a classic David Tennant "What? What? WHAT?!").

So, when Christmas rolled around, we were all ready, and the episode certainly didn't disappoint. It followed the Doctor as he steps aboard a spaceship called the Titanic, only to discover that someone has purposefully set it on a collision course with Earth and that robots dressed up like angels are going about killing people.

The Doctor has to, somehow, save humanity and everyone on board with just his sonic screwdriver and a ragtag group of misfits who he's befriended along the way. Merry Christmas!

As you might be able to tell, there's a big nostalgia factor here for me. I had just turned 11 when Voyage of the Damned aired, David Tennant was two years into his iconic run as the Tenth Doctor, and it's easy to look back on that time as a golden age of the show.

But it's more than that too, and, having revisited it in the Year of Our Lord 2024, I feel qualified to say that Voyage of the Damned has every element of what a modern Doctor Who Christmas special needs.

First off? A starry guest companion. As Steven Moffat, who wrote this year's Christmas special, Joy to the World, recently explained, the specials often need to fill a gap between full-time companions - so why not do that with an epic guest star?

Actors from Catherine Tate to Michael Gambon to Nicola Coughlan have starred in Doctor Who Christmas specials - but 2007 knocked all of them out of the park with actual Kylie Minogue.

Although reviews at the time were divided on Minogue's performance, there's no denying she gave the special that ethereal quality it needed. As waitress Astrid Peth, she easily went toe-to-toe with Tennant, becoming the audience's eyes and ears for the episode and providing laughs, romance, and, crucially, a healthy dose of heartbreak.

Yes, in my mind, the Doctor Who Christmas special also needs to be a bit sad. Despite all the festivity, there's something also a bit melancholy about the festive season - and Doctor Who's at its best when it reflects this.

Voyage of the Damned went above and beyond when it came to heartbreak, actually becoming quite a bloodbath as characters including Morvin (Clive Rowe) and Foon Van Hoff (Debbie Chazen) plunged to their deaths in a fiery abyss, before Minogue's Astrid got behind the wheel of a forklift, chucking the episode's villain and herself into the fiery depths of the Titanic to save humanity.

Speaking of which, yes, I have gone this long without mentioning the elephant in the room and the main divisive part of the episode - villain Max Capricorn, the cyborg businessman who's on a mission to send everyone on the Titanic and on Earth to their deaths as part of an insurance scam so he can have a lovely retirement.

I'm sorry, I can't hate him. George Costigan camps it up for a hilarious performance and it's utterly joyful. There's no way I can pretend Max Capricorn will go down in Doctor Who history as one of the best villains, but he does something else crucial - he gives Voyage of the Damned its silliness.

After all, there are many moments in the special that prove why it shouldn't be taken so seriously.

There's the brilliant first appearance from Wilf (Bernard Cribbins) in his reindeer antlers, cursing the aliens who manage to ruin Christmas in London every year. There's "allons-y, Alonso", a spiky red cyborg called Bannakaffalatta, and a surreal depiction of the queen and her corgis, but Max Capricorn's fake tooth actually glinting in the light takes the cake.

Somehow, though, amid the silliness and the laughs, Voyage of the Damned also provides us a genuine sense of danger. You can't overlook Geoffrey Palmer's chilling performance as Captain Hardaker, the man tasked with setting the ship on course for its fiery oblivion, or the genuinely captivating exchanges between Russell Tovey's Midshipman Frame and the Doctor as they desperately try to set things right.

On top of all of that, Voyage of the Damned gives us one of Tennant's most iconic speeches as the Doctor - a moment that every Doctor Who fan will recognise.

As electrics spark behind him, he tells Astrid and co: "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old and I'm the man who is gonna save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?"

Forgive me if I'm getting hyperbolic here, but I think that moment might have altered my brain chemistry forevermore.

Since Voyage of the Damned, 16 Doctor Who Christmas and New Year specials have aired (with Joy to the World being the 17th), and everyone will have their own list of what they think makes a perfect one. Some of those things will be tangible, like a starry companion, and others will be a little harder to put your finger on.

But the main thing is that, for so many of us, the Doctor Who Christmas special still holds a bit of magic, and hopefully always will. This year, it's over to Steven Moffat, Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan to bring it home. Allons-y!

Doctor Who: Joy to the World will air on Wednesday 25th December on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 5:10pm. Previous seasons are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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