Christmas Past. The previous stories are set in mid-summer, but it was coming up to Christmas in real time so this story has the TARDIS set off from August 2216 and arrive in December 2016. Jackie popping home to her flat in her own time. Or at least what WAS her time. Now she is beginning to feel she belongs in the 23rd century with Christopher, her fiancé, and with Rose and her grandchildren.

It being Christmas, a certain amount of reminiscing was going on. People tend to do that at Christmas. And Jackie’s thoughts were bound to turn on the past. Her best Christmas was the one she remembered from before Rose was born, when she and Pete were newly weds and life was full of promise. The worst was a year later when Pete was dead.

And so begins a Doctor Who style play on A Christmas Carol as they set out to teach the Scrooge of Christmas 1986 a lesson. As with Father’s Day the trick was to remember what life was like in 1986 as opposed to now. It doesn’t seem so long ago, but a lot was different. Football shirts with names on the back was a new trend. The Sinclair Spectrum WAS the must have Christmas present, and the Muppet’s Christmas Carol hadn’t been made, so people without literature degrees were a lot less familiar with the story. And of course “That one about the aliens with reptile bodies inside Human skin” was the big blockbuster on TV. For anyone who can’t place it, I meant ‘V’.

The same estate in 1962, would have been a desert of demolished houses, terraced streets that used to be communities that saw through the blitz making way for the new style of social housing that the Powell Estate was going to be.

Yes, the portrayal of Brian as the child of a drunken bully who would beat him for little or no reason is a little stereotypical of working class London. Or perhaps not. Plenty of people live just that sort of life in every generation. And others live quiet, decent lives like Pete Tyler and his mum. Anyway it serves as a reminder to Brian that he owed Pete and his widow more than just money and sets him on his way to redemption. As for the glimpse into his future, it was as cruel and shocking as it was in Dickens’ version except that Brian had a little more compassion from his Ghost of Christmas yet to come.

A sentimental story, maybe? But after all Christmas is a time for sentimentality.

http://www.literature.org/authors/dickens-charles/christmas-carol/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104940/