2011/2012 Christmas Special Soundtrack Out Now

The soundtrack for The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and The Snowmen is available now in the UK. It won't be released on in the US until November 5th, however.

Buy on Amazon UK here

Pre-order on iTunes US here

Christmas Special Soundtrack

So in case you're like me and were wondering where the The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and The Snowmen were in the Series 7 soundtrack, fear not! Silva Screen is releasing them on their own special set.

At one time Christmas Day on the BBC meant The Morecambe & Wise Show for families to gather around the TV but in the modern era that mantle has now been taken by the Doctor Who Christmas Special. This release brings together the music of the last two Christmas specials broadcast on Christmas Day 2011 and 2012 and watched by a joint audience of close to 20m. This ninth release in the series brings the full canon of Murray Gold's prolific output up to date, eight years of elaborately created scores for one of the BBC's most popular shows worldwide. The booklet for this release is reverse printed to allow the purchaser to display either of two covers for both soundtracks.

 Tracks

1. Geronimo
2. Dressed In a Hurry
3. Bumps
4. Ditched At Sea
5. Madge’s Theme
6. Armchair Waltz
7. I Know
8. Quite a Tree
9. Into the Present
10. Baubles
11. The King
12. The Queen
13. Interrogation
14. Lifeboat
15. You’re Fired
16. Flying Home for Christmas
17. Safe Landing
18. Never Alone At Christmas
19. Friendship
20. A Voice In the Snow
21. What’s Wrong With Silly
22. Psychotic Potato Dwarf
23. Remember the Worm
24. Clara Who?
25. Clara In the Tardis
26. Governess Clara
27. Hello Mate
28. One Word
29. Sherlock Who
30. Antifreeze
31. Clara Lives
32. Whose Enigma 

The set will be released on October 21st priced £9.99. You can pre-order it here.

Caroline Skinner Leaving Doctor Who

It has been announced that executive producer Caroline Skinner is leaving Doctor Who. Caro has been one of the executive producers for the show since the 2011 Christmas Special The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe. She will return to BBC Drama London to be an executive producer there. BBC Wales Head of Drama, Faith Penhale, will be replacing her for the 50th Anniversary alongside Steven Moffat.

Countdown to Christmas - The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe Review

The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe is perhaps the more Christmasy of the Matt Smith Christmas Specials. It has all the elements of a Christmas story: life, family togetherness, goodwill, love, and even a winter wonderland. The sentient Christmas tree forest whispering to itself has a rather magical feel to it, the sort of feel any good Christmas story should produce.

There's a very interesting parallel in the story. I've never read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, so I'm not sure how much of it comes from there, but both the Arwells and the forest are evacuating from things falling from the sky. Madge, Lily, and Cyril and evacuating the city to escape from the bombing, and the forest is evacuating the planet to escape from the acid rain. I'm not sure if this is supposed to have any meaning, but it is a very nice bit of subtlety.

The episode also contains a very nice reference to the classic series. The three people in the harvester were from the planet Androzani Major, while the events of The Caves of Androzani took place on the planet Androzani Minor. These two planets constitute a dual planet system, where they orbit each other around their mutual center of mass while simultaneously orbiting around their sun (much like the Earth and the Moon). It is never actually stated what planet The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe takes place on, but the trees there are Androzani trees, suggesting they were imported for harvesting from Androzani Major/Minor.

iTunes Season for The Snowmen Now Available

Obviously, it would be amazing if the actual episode were available for purchase. Right now, it's just The Great Detective in there. You can just purchase that for free right now, but the Purchase Season button is greyed out, and if you download just the free episode now, when the Purchase Season button becomes available, it will throw an error message. iTunes won't let you buy an entire season (or at least what it refers to as a season) if you've already purchased at least one element in it.

So basically, don't get overexcited, this probably just means that us iTunes users won't have to wait three days to get the episode like we did last year. Last year the Christmas Special wasn't on iTunes until the 27th or 28th.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/doctor-who-the-snowmen/id583644226