Kazran Sardick

Recently married Amy Pond and Rory Williams are celebrating their honeymoon aboard a space liner, with 4001 other passengers, when it becomes disabled by an odd cloud system shrouding a human-inhabited planet. Unbeknown to Amy, Rory, or the crew of the stricken space liner, the clouds surrounding the planet are controlled through an antenna-like spire by the bitter, peevish, old Kazran Sardick.

The Doctor, alerted by Amy’s distress call, lands the TARDIS in Kazran’s spire and tries to convince him to turn off the cloud controls, as The Doctor is unable to operate the controls himself as they are isomorphically locked so that only respond to Kazran, but the miser refuses as Kazran, like his late father, considers the rest of the population of the planet little more than cattle and so does not care for the lives aboard the space liner. He even refuses, for no apparent reason, to release a young woman, Abigail, from cryogenic storage to her sister’s family.

While talking to Kazran, The Doctor recognises that Kazran’s father has had a significant effect on Kazran’s life. While communicating with Amy, and on learning that the space liner only has an hour before it crashes, The Doctor also realises that the population of the planet is celebrating its form of the Christmas holiday. This gives The Doctor an idea and so he devises a scheme inspired by Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol", the idea being to influence Kazran in his past and present to become more compassionate, and turn off the spire, allowing the space liner to land safely - so preventing the death of over four thousand innocent lives.

Rory and Amy Arrive on the Bridge

The Doctor visits the young Kazran shortly after his father had struck him for trying to experiment with a unique phenomenon of the planet: the ability of all manner of fish to ‘swim’ in the foggy air. The Doctor discovers the ice in the clouds contain a weak electrical charge; this is what allows the fish to swim, but is also what is disrupting the space liner. While experiment with the fish, by using his sonic screwdriver as bait, The Doctor is surprised when a large shark attacks them and swallows The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor is able to recover half of his sonic screwdriver but inadvertently harms the shark in the process preventing it to return to swimming in the clouds. The Doctor realises that only if he had some sort of life support container then he could transport the shark safely to the clouds. Young Kazran shows The Doctor a system of cryogenic chambers beneath the spire, where Kazran’s father stores family members, as ‘security’, for those people he has lent money too.

The Doctor Talking to Amy and Rory

While in the cryogenic chamber The Doctor discovers the cryogenic chamber containing Abigail and introduces her to Kazran. The Doctor and Kazran are then chased by the shark which has been enticed to the chamber by the second half of The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. Both are saved by the recently revived Abigail whose singing resonates with the ice crystals so calming the shark. This allows The Doctor to return the shark to the clouds.

Before putting Abigail back into her chamber, Kazran promises that he and The Doctor will return every Christmas Eve to celebrate it with Abigail. The Doctor keeps this promise, travelling forward every year to reunite Kazran and Abigail, taking them across time and space, and watching them develop a romance after he is introduced to her family. However, after several Christmas Eves, Abigail reveals to Kazran a secret that leads to Kazran deciding to end the tradition and to leave Abigail in cryogenic storage indefinitely. Realising that he is unable to change history, The Doctor gives the broken half of the sonic screwdriver to Kazran to use when he needs it. Meanwhile, in the present, older Kazran enjoys his many new memories, but, heartbroken at Abigail’s fate, he still refuses to disable the spire.

From the space liner, Amy then appears to present-time Kazran as a hologram. She shows Kazran the crew of the doomed liner, singing Christmas carols, using the musical vibrations to partially stabilize the space liner within the cloud system, just as Abigail calmed the shark. Kazran though waves away the holograms, continuing to refuse to release the controls.

Communicating with The Doctor

Having failed again to get Kazran to change his mind The Doctor reappears and tries to show Kazran his future. It is then that Kazran reveals Abigail’s secret, that she was dying before she was frozen and that with each day, she spends out of the cryogenic chamber, is one day closer to that event. Now, because of all the Christmas Eve’s she has spent with the young Kazran and The Doctor she can live only one more day outside of the chamber. Fully admitting that he will die alone, Kazran values the one day left he has with Abigail over the thousands on the liner or the population of the planet.

For one final attempt to get Kazran to change his mind The Doctor brings the young Kazran into the present; he is shocked by his elder self’s revelation. This change is reflected in the newly compassionate older Kazran, and he agrees at last to release the spire controls. But they find, however, that The Doctor’s interference has changed Kazran’s bio-signature enough that the controls no longer recognise him.

The Doctor, seemingly thwarted after all his efforts, concocts a new plan. By unfreezing Abigail he gets her to sing through the broken half of his sonic screwdriver. While the other half, that is still inside the shark, resonates the ice crystals so disrupting the cloud field enough for the space liner to land safely. Aware that Abigail will die after only one day, Karzan releases her. As she comforts Karzan, reminding him they have had many Christmas Eves together, she informs him that it is time for Christmas Day to come.

With The Doctor’s plan a success the space liner lands safely on the planet. As a consequence of the breakup of the clouds it starts to snow across the city. After returning the young Kazran back to his past, The Doctor, Amy and Rory are reunited. As they leave in the TARDIS the old Kazran and Abigail celebrate a shark-driven carriage ride together.