Doctor Who is a time and space and genre and retelling of classic stories machine. The show has a proud history of adapting well known stories, and A Christmas Carol is a gem in terms of source material for Christmas Day. Add in a flying shark, time travel and a psychopathic loan shark, and you have the perfect mixture of the new and familiar, the tantalizing and the comforting.

Michael Gambon is marvelous as Kazan Sardic, an excellent piece of casting that brings an endearing mixture of cruelty and vulnerability to this stories’ Scrooge. Katherine Jenkins sings beautifully, and adds some extra star power to those freezer scenes, which could have been dull in someone else hands. Although on a large, crisp, modern TV the fringing of her wig was a lot more obvious than I had remembered.

Amy and Rory take a backseat, slipping into a comedy duo role. No complaints for, me as Matt Smith’s Doctor gets to rule Christmas Day, in what is most likely the best Xmas special ever.