Description and Review:

Following on from Time Crash, or Last of the Timelords, depending on what you're up with, the bow of the Titanic crashes through one of the walls of the TARDIS. The Doctor moves the TARDIS away from the bow and we see the wall reassemble. He then lands the TARDIS on the Titanic to have a look around.

He quickly finds that it's not the Titanic of Earth but an intergalactic cruise liner in the form of the Titanic.

He walks through a dining room that contains Golden Angel shaped robots and a view of stars.

After the new Doctor Who theme with a stronger beat, the Doctor turns up in the dining room wearing a tuxedo.

On the bridge the captain sends off the rest of the crew for a tot of rum. Midshipman Frame doesn't leave and the Captain tries to conceal his dismay.

Max Capricorn ads are displaced on screens throughout the ship.

A Heavenly Host gives the Doctor information about the Casadonian Belt and the planet Stowe. Just before it finishes it falls apart, making noises akin to those from damaged robots in the Doctor Who story Robots of Death. In fact the head of the Robot is very reminiscent of the Robots in this story.

It's so similar to Robots of Death, when they took the Robot down to be repaired I was expecting to see Corpse Markers.

Astrid Peth (played by Kylie Minogue) runs into a businessman named Rickston and drops and breaks the glasses she was carrying (she's a waitress) The Doctor helps her pick up the pieces and chats her up, his expression showing that he felt that there was something interesting about her. (Maybe she reminded him of someone he saw in a Neighbours episode, or maybe Kath and Kim, considering he later asks her to "look at me") She goes off to get him a drink.

The Doctor goes and talks to a couple of people at a table that people are laughing at. They're called Foon and Morvin. He finds that they've been convinced to wear fancy dress when it isn't a fancy dress party so he uses his sonic screwdriver to set off a champagne bottle. 

Red 6 7 is called and the Doctor drags Astrid for a quick teleport trip to Earth. As a homage to Blake's 7, they use teleport bracelets. They're guided by Mr Copper who has a degree in Earthonomics which later turns out to be fake. His stories of Earth sound absolutely ludicrous. (Any day now they start Boxing!) 

Balakafalata appears. He's known as a Porg which is another name for Cyborg (Person Borg?) He's bright red and covered in spikes. The Doctor comments that he looks like a "talking conker" and would "cause a riot" but they materialise on a deserted street.

Frame notices power is diverted to deck 31 and that a nearby meteor shower is heading their way.

A newsagent next to the Web of Fear sign "London Deserted" named Wilf is played by Bernard Cribbins who appeared as a comic relief companion in the Doctor Who movies in the 60s. He will have a recurring role in season 4.

The streets are deserted because everyone has left as every Christmas something bad happens. "and last year, that star electrocuting all over the place..."

The Doctor agrees with him but says "this year, nothing to worry about" then is promptly teleported away!

Captain Hardaker reveals he's magnetised the hull and that he plans to smash the meteors into the ship. He shoots Frame.

The Doctor tries to alert the bridge and the people eating to no avail. He's captured by one of the Robots and several of the crew drag him towards a holding area.

Rickston heeds the Doctor's advice to look out the windows and sees the meteors rushing towards him. He turns to one of the hosts and asks what is going on and gets the reply: "Information: You are all going to die."

So many cuts between scenes before the meteors strike, then massive explosions throughout the ship.

On Deck 31 the technicians are slaughtered by the Hosts of Death.

In one of the corridors a Poseidon Adventure scene is unfolding.

"Bad name for a ship. Either that or this suit is really unlucky" - The Doctor

The characters we were introduced to at the beginning of the movie end up together, fighting for oxygen as one of the stewards opens a door onto vacuum. The Doctor fixes the oxygen shield, saving most of them.

The Doctor sees his Police Box drift away from the ship and head to Earth.

"We're going to climb through the ship". - The Doctor (Shouldn't it be upside down first?)

"I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old and I'm going to save your lives and 6.5 billion people on the planet Earth. Got a problem with that?"

They find a host and try to restart it, not being aware that The Hosts are going through the ship killing everyone. (Rickston got that death message from the Host. Why didn't he warn anyone?)

Bannakaffalatta admits to Astrid that he's a cyborg and she helps him recharge.

Frame gets in contact with the kitchen crew and hear them all get killed by Hosts. He alerts the Doctor as Foon and Morvin restart the Host. Morvin is attacked by the Host and they have to fight it off. "kill...kill...kill...kill"

Frame has a group of Hosts get to the door of the bridge but he deadlocks the door, snapping off a host hand in the process (trivia: it hits the ground with a similar sound to the Robot hand that was hacked off when it attacked Toos in Robots of Death)

The Doctor and team kill the Host then try to get away. The plan is to head down to Deck 31 to find out why power has been diverted there.

Astrid: "What's this Christmas thing all about?"
Doctor: "Long story. I should know. I was there."

A quick break for a midnight snack then it's across the engine bridge being chased by Hosts. Morvin falls into the engines and dies. As Foon is distraught she's left to grieve while the others try to cross.

They continue trying to cross the narrow bridge of metal accompanied by the sounds of Hosts trying to smash through the doors to get to them. Suddenly the noise stops and the Hosts appear from above.

The Angel robots try to kill them with their flying halos and the Doctor gets injured but Bannakaffalatta knocks out the killer angels with an electromagnetic pulse. He dies but Mr Copper explains how nice cyborgs are and how Bannakaffalatta would have wanted them to have his EMP transmitter to fight the Robots. He pulls out the pipe shaped equipment and they head off to find a place to recharge it.

A host wakes up, grants 3 wishes under protocol 1 to the Doctor and he finds out what he needs to know before it begins to attack the group again. Foon ropes the Host from behind and jumps into the engines, taking the Robot with her. (Where did the rope come from?)

They're able to escape the engines and head through to the other side with the EMP device.

The Doctor goes back and gets trapped but manages to use directive 1 to get the hosts to scan him as a stowaway and take him to Deck 31.

Astrid begs Frame to give her a bit of power to teleport her to deck 31.

The Doctor finds the ultimate authority was in an impact chamber. Max Capricorn is a head in a box - a bit like arcturus and Davros combined - 176 years of running the company. He plans to crash the ship and cause the board of directors to be thrown in jail for mass murder.

Astrid appears in a forklift truck, grabs Max's box and drives them both off into the engines which are in the process of shutting down.

Reprogramming the robots, the Doctor grabs a couple of them and gets them to fly him up the inside of the engine and through the floor of the bridge.

The Doctor grabs the wheel and tries to stop the Titanic from hitting London. The Doctor realises that they may hit Buckingham Palace so calls the Queen. The Titanic misses the Palace by inches with the Queen saying "thank you Doctor"

The Doctor suddenly remembers that Astrid was wearing a teleport bracelet with an emergency setting. He tries to bring her from emergency status but there isn't enough left of her to save. Her stardust drifts out of the portal into space as a stream of blue particles.

"If you could decide who lives and dies, that would make you a monster" - Mr Copper

Mr Copper decides to stay on Earth with a credit card of about a million pounds after the Doctor takes him for a tour.

The Doctor heads off by himself to pastures unknown and after the coda we get a great trailer containing the first 5 or 6 episodes of the next season of Doctor Who.

It was a fun story and a nice end to the year. The only real problem is that Minogue didn't get enough direction. She's capable of a lot more than her performance here but it seems that the Kylie fans in the crew were being a bit too polite and weren't pushing her hard enough. Otherwise it was a great adventure reminiscent of all those boat disaster movies we've seen with a bit of Love Boat thrown in for good measure. 8 out of 10

Here's the BBC blurb:
Kylie Minogue steps back in time this festive season, as she joins Time Lord David Tennant for a spectacular Doctor Who Christmas Special set on board The Titanic.

At the end of the last series, viewers witnessed the The Titanic crash through the Tardis walls in spectacular style, and tonight's action continues from that moment.

Images copyright BBC.

Kylie, who plays Astrid, a waitress on The Titanic, says: "It is an incredible thrill to be joining David and the entire Dr Who production for this year's Christmas special. Dr Who enjoys a unique history and it is going to be very exciting to be a part of that."

Two of Britain's best-loved sitcom actors, Geoffrey Palmer and Clive Swift, also feature in this Christmas episode.

Palmer, perhaps most famous for his roles in the long-running BBC series Butterflies and As Time Goes By, plays the role of Captain of The Titanic.

Kylie Minogue stars as Astrid, alongside David Tennant as The Doctor.

Voyage Of The Damned also features Gray O'Brien, who recently appeared in the Oscar-winning film The Queen; Debbie Chazen, star of the BBC comedy series The Smoking Room; Olivier Award-winner Clive Rowe; Russell Tovey, from the smash-hit film The History Boys; Jimmy Vee, who previously appeared in Doctor Who as the Moxx of Balhoon; and George Costigan, who starred in The Long Firm and the acclaimed film Rita, Sue And Bob Too.