Doctor Who – The Eighth Doctor Adventures: In the Bleak Midwinter

#4.01. Twenty-Four Doors in December ~ 8/10

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◆ An Introduction

Christmas has always been one of my favourite holidays. Spending time with the people you love; exchanging presents; gorging yourself on a massive dinner with creamed cabbage, honey roast carrots, and some stunning pigs in blankets. Then you can fall asleep on the settee whilst watching the EastEnders festive special!

Christmas 2023 was extremely difficult. My mother had just been discharged from a week in the hospital and felt pretty fragile. The atmosphere at home was tense, because both myself and my step-dad were so worried about her. I’m writing this review in the early hours of Valentine’s Day, and my mother has only recently went back to work. Listening to this story made me wish I’d pre-ordered the whole set. That way I could’ve had some escapism when things got really difficult in December.

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◆ Publisher’s Summary

When the TARDIS lands in London on the first of December the Doctor decides to treat his companions to a proper Christmas holiday… even down to dragging out the Baker Street Advent Calendar.

But elsewhere in the city a department store Santa is starting to have a very unnerving month. He's on a collision course with the time travellers. Is it going to be a Happy Christmas?

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◆ The Eighth Doctor

Does anyone else feel like this could have been written for ‘Stranded’? Our travellers are hunkered down at 107 Baker Street during the build-up to Christmas, putting up decorations and making puddings. It’s all wonderfully cosy. John Dorney has given the Eighth Doctor some truly excellent material in this adventure. The charitable soul has a lot of contacts during this era and offers to throw a party for one of the nearby children’s hospitals, which honestly feels like a Christmas miracle moment.

Christmas adventures with the Eighth Doctor are something to be treasured. Whether they be spent battling the genuine Krampus, or solving murder mysteries at an Edwardian town-house, their quality is unmatched. It’s clear from his excellent performances that Paul McGann enjoys doing these festive specials, and that remains the case for ‘Twenty-Four Doors in December’.

He’s not entirely certain whether they’ve landed in 2003 or 2004: it all blends into one in the early noughties. According to the Doctor, if there’s one thing that unites humanity, it’s the love of a cheap double-entendre; Peter Rogers got thirty films out of it. Landing directly at the start of the holiday season happens so rarely, he feels they’ve got to embrace it when it happens.

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◆ Charley Pollard

I think we all collectively squealed when it was announced our favourite Edwardian Adventuress would be returning, especially when it was revealed her first story back would be a festive special. Talk about getting to have your plum pudding and eat it… because, as all good Whovians know, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without one of Mrs Baddeley’s plum puddings!

Charley hasn’t been travelling with the Doctor for long at this point, meaning that the wonder of seeing different times is still a novel experience. The early noughties are still far enough in her future that she can bond with Audacity over their shared culture shock… and those are some of my favourite scenes. India Fisher has slipped back into her role like it’s a comfortable pair of old loafers, whilst also developing instant chemistry with her new co-star.

It’s been so long since Charley has had a proper Christmas, with all the build-up and anticipation. Department stores were quite the novel conceit back in her day; the one her and Audacity enter is the same age as her.

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◆ Lady Audacity Montague

‘Twenty-Four Doors in December’ features some wonderfully cosy scenes between our two companions, as they explore early noughties London and experience some major culture shock. I was particularly fascinated by Audacity’s reaction to advent calendars, which were invented four decades after her own time.

Having spent the past two adventures fending off possessive entities and squadrons of Cybermen, Audacity hasn’t really had the opportunity to just enjoy travelling through time and space. This episode changed all that by giving Griffiths some more light-hearted material, allowing her to play up the jovial side of her ladyship.

This whole experience still veers towards a culture shock, even before she has reached tellys, films and double-entendre. Audacity is sure she’ll catch up soon enough, but believes that historical settings would prove a shade easier to adapt to, at least to begin with. She thinks there is something thrilling in seeing how a different era celebrates its festivities. In the last two days, Audacity has heard such an unusual collection of carols. The words make little sense, for example: who in their right wits would truly wish for it to be Christmas every day? The cost alone would surely be prohibitive, and a great deal of the holiday’s appeal lies in its novelty. She does not believe these “Wizards” have truly thought through the idea. Audacity is truly grateful that the Doctor insisted they remain in the noughties for the whole month. All the sights they’ve seen quite take her breath away; the illuminations, so pretty; the intricacies of the window displays.

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◆ Story Recap

When the TARDIS lands in London on the first of December the Doctor decides to treat his companions to a proper Christmas holiday… even dragging out the Baker Street Advent Calendar.

Over the coming days, the trio decide to throw a party for the patients at the local children’s hospitals, for which Charley and Audacity believe they should hire a Santa.

Al Norton is a failed actor and an alcoholic. He’s currently working as a department store Santa Claus, but keeps experiencing the strangest of hallucinations; a ghostly voice singing Silent Night, a woman crying over a dead girl, and the screeching sound of a car slamming on the breaks…

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◆ Advent Chocolates

A common criticism I level at modern BigFinish is that they never really experiment with story structures anymore. Then I realise how appalling my memory is since John Dorney did just that only a few years ago.

‘What Just Happened?’ flipped its own chronology, with events playing out in reverse order. The first scene was actually the conclusion, leaving the audience gobsmacked to discover that Andy had seemingly been killed, and that Liv was utterly broken.

‘Twenty-Four Doors in December’ also features a rather unique structure, which the title itself hints towards: each scene represents a snippet from a day in December, much like an Advent calendar. It’s an interesting framing device, though nothing groundbreaking.

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◆ Music

I absolutely despise Christmas music. It might have something to do with working in retail for the past four years, and hearing the same CD of festive tunes during every December shift: there is only so much Mariah Carey one can take before they wish to remove their ears with an industrial sized cheese grater!

Thankfully, ‘Twenty-Four Doors in December’ features no licenced music. Twinkling renditions of traditional Christmas carols are sprinkled throughout this episode, mainly Silent Night. I’ve always associated Howard Carter with cinematic action scores, but this proves how good he is at delivering something more understated and elegant.

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◆ Conclusion

“It isn’t a Baker Street Christmas without the Baker Street Advent calendar!”

I think we can all agree that the unrelentingly morbid Christmas specials have become somewhat traditional for BigFinish – since one of them featured Lucie Miller being knocked down by a car, whilst another focused on Ianto being terrorised by the genuine Mari Lwyd – but that doesn’t mean the writers wont do something light and fluffy one year.

‘Twenty-Four Doors’ spends the majority of its runtime crafting exquisite moments between our three regulars, like listening to Charley and Audacity strolling around London; witnessing the grand window displays and twinkling Christmas lights. Those wonderful moments – combined with some excellent performances from McGann, Fisher and Griffiths – are what make this episode such a delight!

The plot has about as much depth as a paddling pool, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you solved the mystery within minutes of the first hallucination, but story really isn’t the focus here.