What is your most controversial opinion?

I’d be good with specials for other holidays. How about a Halloween special?

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A real halloween special would be right down my alley

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Gallifreyan Life-day Special?

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I believe Lungbarrow calls it Otherstide

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Midsummer special!

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I really enjoyed ‘Something Inside’ - the 8th doctor story from the Monthly Range. Just mentioning it because I read some bad reviews after listening to it :joy: This is as controversial as I can get right now hahah. Let’s see when I’ve been on this forum a bit longer.

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Or we could continue with the specials on Christmas Day and simply call them Tian’s Birthday Specials instead. Each of them would feature Tennant as the Doctor.

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Here’s my controversial opinion brought on by all the Christmas special discussions lately: I think they’re better if they’re barely about Christmas. The specials that are explicitly about Christmas (Last Christmas, A Christmas Carol, the Christmas Invasion, DWW, Time of the Doctor, and of course, Church on Ruby Road) tend to be much less enjoyable for me than the ones that just happen to be set suring the festive season (The Snowmen, Doctor Mysterio, Husbands of River Song, the Runaway Bride, Twice Upon a Time). This isn’t a 100% thing (I like DWW more than most people, and TUaT is quite probably my least favourite special ever), but it is a general trend. I don’t think they’re necessarily worse, I just don’t like them as much myself.

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I would like that!

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Of course you would, it’s all for you, after all!

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I mean, Moffat did say in the Unleashed that he feels most Doctor Who episodes could be ‘Christmas Episodes’ if you slap some snow and christmas trees in there, and honestly I’m with him on that

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I think this is probably more influenced by BBC Commissioning than anything else. Christmas Day is one of the biggest TV watching days in the UK and the BBC wants those eyes on their channels. For now they think Doctor Who will help with that goal so Bad Wolf gets a call and they’re not likely to say no to getting to make another episode even if they have to add some festive elements.

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I would LOVE a Halloween special! I think Doctor Who is often at its best when it’s creepy.

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I came to write this but @joerack beat me to it.

Christmas Day is such a huge TV event for the BBC, that is also why a lot of the regeneration episodes were during Christmas.

It’s a bit like asking why don’t Eastenders (a huge soap we have) do their special on Halloween. Well, it would be interesting I guess (I haven’t watched Eastenders in years), but it’s just about the time slot and the publicity.

I 100% agree that they could, and probably should, just do a normal episode and add a bit of snow to it. Shoehorning in Christmas is getting more and more difficult.

However I don’t think they should lose the publicity of Christmas Day again and make it go out on New Years or Easter or Halloween… it just doesn’t get the same impact for our favourite show.

If they had infinite money I’d say do a special on every holiday for every religion! Plus Halloween of course. We could have a return of the kebab salad man.

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And Tim Shaw! I miss Tim Shaw!

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I do kind of want to see aliens masquerading as trick-or-treaters.

Mind you, there are still Christmas episodes we could do. Have we had a time war on Christmas yet, where someone’s trying to wipe the holiday out? Maybe we could bring back racist time traveler guy?

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Sounds like a BF spin-off, right there, in one boxset!

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Yeah, I’d be perfectly happy just getting a Doctor Who special that happens to air on Christmas to get that Christmas Day publicity, even if it has nothing to do with Christmas at all. I think it would also help to not make non-celebrators feel alienated or left out, something you can get full enjoyment out of even if you don’t celebrate Christmas. Say what you will about the New Year’s Day specials, the new year is a very neutral thing that anyone can get behind.

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Well, we say this but when they start making Christmas Day specials that have nothing to do with Christmas, we are going to see a lot of complaints about the Christmas Special lacking Christmas elements. Because if you air something on Christmas, it’s an unwritten rule that it has to contain Christmas in some way, apparently :grin:

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…especially for Doctor Who Fans. Seriously, I rarely see complaints made for other Shows or Programs in that regard. Perhaps I am not looking hard enough for those :sob:

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