Ever since Doctor Who returned to our screens way back in 2005, it’s had a Christmas special every year, even when the full seasons were on hiatus. As such, fans were fully expecting one to air this December as well. But then in some rather shocking news, we heard that the BBC had cancelled it.
Rumors said that the writers simply didn’t have anymore ideas for Christmas-themed episodes after putting together so many, which made sense as ex-showrunner Steven Moffat had even voiced some concerns with the specials in the past, saying:
“I sort of think we might have mined, and possibly over mined, every single thing we could about Christmas in Doctor Who and the last time we more or less ignored it.”
But with the network keeping quiet on the matter, many held out hope that maybe the rumors were wrong and we’d still get a holiday special after all. Well, we hate to be the bearers of bad news, but it seems that those earlier reports were indeed correct, with Doctor Who Magazine confirming in its latest issue that the show will not be getting a Christmas episode and will instead have a New Year’s special.
Unfortunately, further details on what this installment of the hit sci-fi series will involve remain under wraps, and no official reason was given for the change, but this is definitely a big deal. After all, it’ll be the first occasion where Doctor Who hasn’t aired a regular holiday episode after 13 years of coming up with some true classics and a ton of really fantastic, Christmas-themed adventures.
Then again, this is a brand new era for the show, as has been made very apparent by now, and it seems the Christmas specials are now yet another long tradition that we can wave goodbye to – along with fan favorite monsters like Daleks and Cybermen.