I never liked this one. It wasn't particularly memorable to me, and as such I didn't revisit it often. I decided to take another chance on it this Christmas day, and while it wasn't as bad as I remembered, I still found it somewhat middling.

For a special as long as this, I felt that it really struggled to give all the side characters the time they deserved. Having three characters all die in the same scene within minutes of one another with very little time to mourn any of them was a bad choice, compounded by the fact that the first one to go was a Black man who simply slipped, while the other two at least got to sacrifice themselves to save the others.

The few moments we got with the side cast, however, they did a fantastic job with. All the actors were in top form, and I especially liked the Van Hoff couple; I thought they were charming. And of course, I would be remiss not to mention Wilf's first appearance.

There are plenty of little moments that I like: the captain's lament that he should have only gotten older crew, the Van Hoff's quiet moment while fixing the Host, Mr. Cooper's excitement at having money, and Bannakaffalatta's proposal to Astrid, just to name a few.

Unfortunately, there are many moments which I disliked just as much, if not more: Astrid and the Doctor kissing (because of course they do), the aforementioned death of Marvin Van Hoff, Rickston's whole deal, and, of course, the Doctor getting lifted to the bridge on the wings of angels.

I'd actually like to take a moment to elaborate on that last one, because that scene was the only part of this special I remembered, and it was so incredible groan-worthy it completely overshadowed everything else for me. This special was labelled in my mind as "overly Christian" purely because of that (up there with the Tinkerbell/Jesus moment in Last of the Time Lords). It wasn't as bad as I remembered, but it's still pretty bad.

All the good and all the bad mixed together with a plot that was stretched a little too much while nothing really happened and almost everyone dies makes for a mediocre episode, in my eyes. It's not as egregious as some other Christmas specials, but I firmly stand by the saying that "the worst thing Doctor Who can be is boring" and Voyage of the Damned is, unfortunately, pretty dull.