The 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special that’s supposed to reunite Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor with Ruby Sunday is just around the corner — scheduled to air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Christmas Day (December 25) at 5:10 pm GMT. This is a slight departure from last season, during which all episodes became available to stream at midnight. In true Christmas spirit, this year’s special (written by Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat) will be released just in time for the holiday celebrations, allowing fans around the world to watch the episode at the same time.
And with the special only week(s) away from streaming release, we’ll take this opportunity to remember the previous Doctor Who special episodes and rank them from best to deadlock sealed at the rank of worst. Also, we’d like to point out that this isn’t an all-inclusive list; there are 13 Doctor Who special episodes — not including the upcoming Joy to the World. The episodes selected for this list will run the full spectrum from the very best to the more disappointing, offering a wide and diverse range of storylines and fan reactions, thus ensuring a thorough look at both the highs and lows of Doctor Who‘s festive offerings.
So, without further ado, let’s take a trip through time and relative dimensions in space in descending order…
1. “Last Christmas”
What do you get when a mix of Ridley Scott’s Alien, Cristopher Nolan’s Inception, and John Carpenter’s The Thing cross paths with an IP such as Doctor Who? You get “Last Christmas“, a 2014 Christmas special episode during which Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald face Dream Crabs. Also known as Kantrofarri, dream crabs are predatory creatures that resemble misshapen-clawed hands that feed on humanoid brain matter.
It’s a rather interesting episode with plenty of Christmas elements. Though the entire episode deals with repairing the bond between the Doctor and Clara after they previously parted ways, a good portion of it takes place at the North Pole Base; Santa makes an appearance and entertainingly bickers with the Doctor, who ends up driving Santa’s sleigh drawing genuinely childlike wonder from the Time Lord.
2. “The Runaway Bride”
The episode that introduced us to one of the best companions ever, Donna Noble, also features a car chase, evil Santa killer robots, and deadly Christmas ornaments, among all other things. Just like that, Donna teleports from her Christmas wedding onto the TARDIS, loud and understandably confused regarding her whereabouts.
Right off the bat, Catherine Tate and David Tennant’s on-screen chemistry obviously needs a bigger chart from the get-go as they embark on an adventure that ends up saving Donna from becoming food for a giant alien spider. The entire episode is a perfect mixture of adventure and Christmas iconography, which also contains plenty of comedy and some tragic elements. All of this makes it one of the best Christmas specials of all time, showing off everything that Doctor Who is capable of.
3. “The Husbands of River Song”
“The Husbands of River Song” is a legendary episode Steven Moffat intended as his final episode as Doctor Who‘s showrunner, and goes on to show Moffat’s soft spot for the character of River Song; he wrote all of her dialogue himself. And it’s not an epic story centered on some universal jeopardy, but a comedy episode following River pulling something akin to a heist/con job in an attempt to retrieve a Halassi diamond.
Long story short, River doesn’t recognize the Twelfth Doctor, delivers a rather long and rambling speech that reveals her insecurities about their relationship, and delivers a stellar ending to the episode with both of them standing before the Singing Towers of Darillium. The best of all, the Doctor is actually the guest in River’s adventure, and not the other way around. Of course, there’s also everything the audiences might want from a Christmas special: adventure, romance, comedy, and ludicrous villains.
4. “A Christmas Carol”
Often hailed as the ultimate Christmas special due to its very loose adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and its many Christmasy elements, the truth is that the episode’s logic and the execution are both off-target.
For a show about a time-traveling alien who also happens to be a Time Lord, the Doctor rearranges someone’s personality and also shows them their own future. Each can have disastrous outcomes, especially with having two instances of the same person within one timeline. While the episode has Christmas carols, flying sharks, and plenty of Christmas Eves, the story is a bit lackluster compared to other Specials.
5. “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe”
“The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe” is Matt Smith’s weakest Special, despite its charming and festive premise. The episode tracks the Doctor as he pays back a favor by spreading some Christmas magic for the Arwell widow, who still hasn’t told her kids that their father died in WWII. However, the Doctor’s mysterious Christmas gift transports them into a forest that’s soon to be doused in acid and turned into fuel. Sadly, while the emotional heart of the episode is there, it severely lacks any real dramatic stakes to make a good story.
Final Thoughts
Doctor Who Christmas specials have been a festive tradition since the series’ revival in 2005, and they’re filled with a particular blend of sci-fi, adventure, and heartfelt moments that fit nicely into the holiday season. Admittedly, some episodes, like “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe,” may fall short of fan expectations. But it’s important to note that this is Doctor Who, even the most criticized specials have their own charm and are incredibly fun, making all of them, the good and the not-so-good, worth revisiting over the holidays. Â