StuOz A spacecraft called the Titanic runs into problems.I remember attempting to watch this episode or TV movie back in 2007 but giving up after five minutes because the idea of a Titanic in space just seemed too silly and back then I was having issues with David Tennant's comical take on Doctor Who.However, last night, eleven years later, I reluctantly gave Voyage Of The Damned another go and, surprisingly, found myself thrilled with this show...but then I am one of IMDb's biggest disaster movie-lovers (this is The Poseidon Adventure-2007 style).I liked the familiar faces (mainly the young guy on the bridge that I have seen in other non-Who shows) and as an Australian myself I guess I should be proud as hell to see Kylie Minogue...I thought she was okay in this.The angels were creepy, the deaths were sad, it all looked rather epic and Tennant's sometimes annoying beady eyes did not bother me this time...so this tale gets the thumbs up from StuOz!

James Hitchcock During the "Classic" era (1963-89), Doctor Who did not seem to celebrate Christmas, but since the show's revival in 2005 Christmas specials, of which this was the third, have been a noted feature. (The doctor's earlier lack of interest in the festival seems curious, given that we learn here that he was present in person at certain events in Bethlehem 2000-odd years ago and even took the last room at the inn). "Voyage of the Damned" borrows its title from a 1976 movie about a shipload of Jewish refugees from Nazism and its plot is an equally obvious piece of borrowing from various seagoing disaster movies, notably "Titanic" and "The Poseidon Adventure".The Doctor finds himself on board a luxury space liner called the "Titanic" which has not only been named after the notorious ocean liner of that name but has also been designed to resemble it. Aboard the ship are people from the planet Sto who are on a cruise to observe the Earth, which they regard as a primitive culture. When you call a fictitious ship "Titanic", of course, you know exactly what is going to happen to it, and it is not long before the ship is severely damaged in a collision. Even a writer as resourceful as Russell T Davies could not conjure up an iceberg in outer space, however, so in this case the damage is done by a meteor. The Doctor and an assorted group of survivors have to fight to save the stricken ship and to prevent it from plummeting towards the Earth. The Doctor also has to find out who was responsible for sabotaging the ship, and why. (And it was indeed sabotage. Purely natural disasters are rare in "Doctor Who"; whenever disaster threatens it has normally been caused, either deliberately or inadvertently, by the acts of some conscious being or group of beings).This being a Christmas special, there have to be some specifically festive features. It is Christmas down on Earth, and Mr. Copper, the ship's resident historian, is lecturing the passengers upon the salient features of the festival. (Although the passengers are supposed to be from an alien planet, they all, apart from the cyborg Bannakaffalatta, look recognisably human and even bear obvious Earthling names. Besides Mr Copper there are also characters named Max, Astrid, Captain Hardaker and Alonso Frame). Another, rather odd, Christmas-themed detail is the Heavenly Host, robots in the form of angels, who are supposed to assist the passengers and crew but who after the collision run amuck and start killing anyone they see. (The idea of killer robots struck me as a direct plagiarism from the Fourth Doctor adventure, "The Robots of Death", where the robots bore a certain resemblance to those featured here).Kylie Minogue has had such a long and successful career as a singer that younger viewers might not realise that she actually started off in showbiz as an actress in the Australian soap opera "Neighbours". "Voyage of the Damned" represents one of her occasional forays back into acting; she plays Astrid Peth, a waitress who becomes one of the Doctor's allies. Kylie was never a great actress- she was probably well-advised to concentrate on her singing more than her acting- but here she does enough to make Astrid a sweet and likable heroine. (There has been speculation that Astrid was given her name because it is an anagram of TARDIS).In the original script for the show, Astrid survives, but in the version that was actually broadcast she is killed off, apparently because Davies preferred Kylie in a one-off role rather than as a regular companion. For a programme that was originally broadcast during the season of goodwill, there is a surprisingly high death toll among the more sympathetic characters, which means that the tone can at times be rather mawkishly sentimental. This sentimentality does not always sit well with the episode's more comic interludes, generally centred upon Mr Copper, whose knowledge of the Earth and the customs of its inhabitants turns out to be ludicrously inadequate- we learn, for example, that the British worship a god named Santa and his wife Mary. Nevertheless, David Tennant's rather quirky Tenth Doctor personality works well enough to hold the whole thing together and make it enjoyable Christmas viewing. I for one enjoyed it when I first saw it with my then teenaged niece and nephew on 25 December 2007, and they certainly did too.

bob the moo Heading out by himself, the Doctor finds himself on board the Titanic again, but this time it is filled with strange creatures and aliens. Quickly he realises that this is a tourist space cruiser currently approaching Earth as part of its tour. The Doctor decides to relax and enjoy the cruise ship but naturally this wouldn't be Christmas if something didn't go wrong. The Captain of the ship deliberately impacts with meteors, killing most of the passengers and starting the ship on a downward trajectory towards Earth. With the robotic assistance on the ship now killing any survivors, the Doctor and his group try to get to safety and stop the collision with Earth.For the past few years the new Christmas fixture for the BBC has been Doctor Who. Understandably given the loss of Wallace & Gromit and the fact that everyone has seen the "big" film on DVD, cinema, download and Sky by the time it washes up on terrestrial this days. Anyway, this is one of those things that really should be seen in the context of the holidays, where we are all bloated and sitting around television and just looking for something to feed our eyes without really taxing. For that reason it seems unfair to critique the Doctor Who special in any way that goes beyond explosions and excitement; it may seen unfair but of course I cannot help doing it.In regards spectacle though the special is quite entertaining with plenty of good effects and big moments but it is the substance that I felt let it down. The plot is very much The Poseidon Adventure in space and this tends to be the focus and the idea of corporate greed destroying life is not used as well as I think it wanted to. Outside of this we get some solid excitement in the action scenes but the emulation of the 1970's disaster movie is carried through too much. You see in those, any group of survivors will die off one by one after we have gotten to know a little about them and, where this is done over two or so hours then it maybe doesn't overwhelm. However with this we have the same thing happening but in a very short period of time. So we get death after heroic death and it does get a bit tiresome after a while as it becomes meaningless. I know that the nature of the special requires spectacle rather than reflection but it is worth noting that the episodes that are considered best from season three did not rely on spectacle and big effects but rather story or simple thrills. Here it is all quite exciting but the lack of real meat is a problem.The cast are all reasonably good though. Of course Tennant dominates and I genuinely wonder how they will manage to fill his shoes when he eventually does stand down from the role. Kyle can't act and doesn't bring much wonder to the role; the female companion bright-eyed with wonder is not a new act but both Piper and Agyeman did it much better than her – she just seems to bring her name to the role, although in fairness the script gives her little. The support cast are mostly quite unmemorable but I did like Palmer as the captain, Swift and Vee as the small alien.Overall then a special episode in the series that delivers what the majority of Christmas viewers would have expected in a big story with lots of action. The disaster movie genre elements feel rushed and tiresome though and I would have liked less action if more substance had been delivered.

Magda I have been saddened by watching this episode. First of all, "Voyage" contains no new ideas: it is a rip-off of "the End of the World": aliens watching us from afar; and a female heroine that is willing to give her life for Doctor. But let us not forget there are bits and pieces from other previous episodes, "42" and "the Girl in the Fireplace".Secondly, I hated Kylie's character. I genuinely like Kylie and I know she CAN act, but there is no actor (or actress) that is able to overcome difficulties brought about by the script. And yes, she did look "matronly" (the Herald).Sorry folks, this is truly the worst episode of the new Doctor Who. Waste of time, waste of tape and, most of all, waste of such great potential of actors.