Pity the Peth - poor Astrid (an excellent and very alluring Kylie Minogue) might have been atomised by an understrength transmat, but her spirit lives on, and perhaps one day she might even return.
But what of the anagram? With fandom expecting the Astrid/TARDIS play to be significant - a move that would hardly have excluded the general public - Russell T Davies seemed more intent on giving the viewing public a big, brash rollercoaster of a ride in which the Earth itself was once again threatened.
And yet... ever heard the phrase "less is more"? While the production values cannot be questioned, Voyage of the Damned left me feeling a little empty.
With a template of stock Christmas special items to cram in (iconic Christmas symbolism gone bad, OTT master villain dispatched far too easily...) Davies might well have given us a set of touching characters (in particular Clive Swift's aging faux-Earth historian) and set events in place for Series 4 (Bernard Cribbins, no less, appears in the trailer) but there was little warmth, with Astrid's death being a little meaningless now that she's floating around the universe as particles.
The Christmas Invasion might have been less ambitious, but it benefitted from a warm, family atmosphere that The Runaway Bride and Voyage of the Damned just couldn't achieve.
And Christmas is a time for warmth and families.
Still, 13.8 million viewers tuned in - Doctor Who's highest viewing figures since its return, and since 1979's City of Death...
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