‘Doctor Who’ Christmas countdown Day 6: ‘The End of Time’

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First things first: why the heck is Martha married to Mickey?

As far as swan songs go, ‘The End of Time’ certainly is one. Doctor Who bids farewell to the Tenth Doctor over two episodes that run the emotional range from zany to heartbreaking to downright ridiculous (often within the same scene), concluding with a series of pre-regeneration codas which run only slightly shorter than the goodbye sequence at the end of Return Of The King.

While I will say that this isn’t my favourite festive Doctor Who special by a long stretch, seeing as it’s Christmas, it seems only fair to focus on the things about it that are good.

Doctor Who Wilf End of Time

Here are six such things:

The best thing about the episode is obviously Wilfred Mott, played with such heart by the legendary Bernard Cribbins – so much so, that I’d have quite liked to see a two-part special devoted to the exploits of Wilf and his chums, especially the magnificent Minnie (played by the equally magnificent June Whitfield).

Every emotionally-charged scene between the Doctor and John Simm’s decidedly unstable Master – albeit with apologies to the significant corner of fandom bemoaning the wasted opportunity to get those two to finally kiss.

Donna’s new husband seems like a lovely gentleman. Every heartbreaking memory wipe should have a silver lining. (I’m looking at you, ‘Hell Bent’. And, for that matter, I’m still not over ‘The War Games’.

John Simm’s many, many costume changes. He looked especially fetching in that disconcertingly incest-y evil daughter’s posh pink ensemble.

Verity Newman. We see what they did there.

Everybody’s favourite James Bond, Timothy Dalton, spitting all over the place and making the Master look quite rational really.

Next Christmas, the Doctor is tweedier, his hair is floppier and he’s lost his eyebrows.

It’s been fun revisiting Christmas with Tennant. If nothing else, go back and listen to the way he says the word “shimmer”. Trust me.

> Buy the Christmas specials box set on DVD on Amazon.

> Buy the Christmas specials box set on Blu-ray on Amazon.

What’s your favourite moment in ‘The End of Time’? Let us know below…

> Read more by Sami Kelsh on her website.