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Short Trips: The History of Christmas
"The Gift"
Written by Robert Dick
Published: 26th November 2005
Read: 1st March 2016
BUY: Amazon UK
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Another first in the marathon and I certainly wasn't expecting this one as we have an appearance from Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. However, this isn't a young Brigadier very early on in his career prior to
The Web of Fear, this is the Brig in his 70's, still married to Doris, and pining for some adventure or action long after his retirement from U.N.I.T. To this end, he has brow-beaten his second wife into buying him a boat for Christmas, though she's really not happy about it. Taking the boat out on Christmas Eve, Alistair discovers a young girl drowning in a river, and successfully rescues her and takes her back to the house to rest and recover. It is then that the Stewart's receive the girl's grandfather: the Doctor.
It really is interesting to watch Alistair on the back foot as he has to deal with a Doctor who hasn't met him yet in his personal timeline. However, the Doctor knows exactly who Alistair is and, indeed, it was because he knows who Alistair and Doris are that is the reason for him coming here. After an argument resulting from the Doctor strongly hinting at Alistair to get sell the boat, Alistair walks out. The Doctor then reveals his purpose to Doris, telling her that
every single Doctor will be at Alistair's funeral. That those Doctors who knew him best carried the casket and how he has the special reserved place as being the Doctor's best friend. Of course, she presses him about how he dies and how it relates to the boat, but the Doctor refuses to say, his purpose is to just warn and that is his gift to them.
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| A Christmas-y TARDIS. |
It's impossible not to be moved by this story, which certainly has a lot more impact following Nicholas Courtney's death and the Brig's demise in "The Wedding of River Song" (Cyber-Brig not withstanding). It's good to see some good old Moffat-brand "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimeyness going on in the Classic Series and the old faithful of having one character meeting another out of order, one at the beginning of their long life and career, the other approaching the end. Despite the nostalgia and the general good feeling generated with this story, the whole drowning Susan thing is all rather unexplained. Initially, I thought that the TARDIS had materialized at the bottom of the lake, but the Doctor was absolutely fine. We're just going to have to live with that little mystery.
7/10
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