Hey, remember that 60s Christmas special no one really liked or cared about? Wanna give it a direct sequel?

I have no idea why anyone would’ve uttered those 2 sentences, yet here we are. “Little Drummer boy” is a direct follow-up to the feast of Steven. In fact, it uses “Feast” as a direct jumping on point.

We start at the end of Feast, where the party of Doctor, Steven and Sara enter the Tardis and celebrate Christmas with all of you at home. After the celebrations, the Doctor puts the tardis in random destination mode to shake off the Daleks and keep the Terranium safe.

Except something is wrong. Their destinations are not random. Sure, the place and time are different. But they keep arriving on Christmas day. Every single location is a Christmas, whether it be 1982, 2069 or the famous 1914. This is too much of a coincidence.

Another oddity arrives when a young boy shows up at the different Christmases. Always the same age. Always the same boy. It turns out the young boy is a time machine in disguise. Inside him is a 30-year-old man in a comatose state, wired up to the time machine. He has been spending his entire life experiencing Christmases from within the time machine.

The man, Robert, lost his twin brother to leukemia when he was young. People around him had a hard time with the loss, making his current life absolutely miserable. By pure chance, Robert found the time machine and decided to travel to the only time everyone was happy: Christmas. Every Christmas.

But of course, the Doctor can’t just leave a young child travelling through time willy-nilly. Suddenly, Robert takes the Terranium from the Doctor, and turns back into his 8-year-old self. This offers a solution, as he can now take the place of his twin brother and become the twin, making everything allright.

It's a great bit of storytelling. Bittersweet. It uses what came before and adds layers and layers to it, while also hitting that emotional core. All in 30 minutes. But while pacing is tight and snappy, it does come a bit short in the conclusion. The sudden use of the Terranium to de-age Robert is pure magic without an established base. And the sudden solution from the doctor also feels a bit too unnatural from a man who still very clearly wants to keep time in check to some degree. It’s the only part of the story that’s a bit flimsy, though.

Character wise, there isn’t much. There’s a fun scene with Sara having a hard time talking to children, which is fun. But that’s about all we’re really giving. Could’ve been a bit more, especially considering how new Sara is.

But besides those 2 points, it’s really well written and a joy to listen to. This belongs to one of the better Christmas specials within the show. I just wish it had gotten 10 more minutes or so to flesh out the ending and maybe the origin of the found time machine. Still, definitely one I will put back on next Christmas, and I recommend you do too.