The title card that preceded the Queen's message in approximately the 2000s.[nb 1] (TV: The End of Time)
The Queen's Christmas speech, Christmas message or the Queen's speech, was an annual speech (PROSE: Loose Wire) given by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on Christmas Day during the 20th (AUDIO: Relative Dimensions) and 21st centuries. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, The End of Time; PROSE: Loose Wire)
History[]
While his granddaughter Susan Campbell and great-grandson Alex Campbell were celebrating Christmas in the TARDIS with him and Lucie Miller, the Eighth Doctor wanted to watch the Queen's 1953 Christmas speech using the Time-Space Visualiser, as that was a "great year". (AUDIO: Relative Dimensions)
On Christmas Day 2006, the Queen's speech was cancelled after an invasion by the Sycorax resulted in the entire Royal Family standing on the edge of the roof of Buckingham Palace. It was replaced by a broadcast from Prime Minister Harriet Jones, pleading to the Doctor to help. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)
Wilfred Mott sat down to watch the Queen's speech in approximately the 2000s,[nb 1] but was instead contacted by a mysterious woman. He asked if anyone else could see the woman, but his granddaughter Donna Noble replied that she thought the Queen should switch to trouser suits. (TV: The End of Time)
Upon arriving in 2010 on Christmas Day, Fitz Kreiner wondered whether he had missed the speech. (PROSE: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
Alice Wu slipped upstairs to try out her new mobile phone, which she received for Christmas, as her mother, father, and grandmother sat down to watch the speech. (PROSE: Loose Wire)
When the Eleventh Doctor stayed with Amy and Rory for Christmas, they all fell asleep in front of the television as the Queen's message began on BBC One. (COMIC: Who Who Who, Merry Christmas)
Behind the scenes[]
In the real world, the 1953 Christmas speech could not be watched as the 1957 speech was the first to be televised. The tradition had began on BBC radio with George V in 1932 before continuing with George VI. The Queen's Christmas speech was typically recorded a few days in an advance before being broadcast on Christmas Day at 3:00PM on both the BBC and ITV, and thus its recording would not be disrupted by Sycorax blood control. In 2006, the Queen issued her Christmas speech as scheduled. As the Queen died in 2022, that year marked the first Christmas speech by Charles III. Naturally, the preceding and succeeding speeches by King George V, George VI, and Charles III, were known as the King's Christmas speech.
Footnotes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Both Planet of the Dead and The End of Time are referred to in dialogue as taking place after the end of Journey's End, which is set in either 2008, according to TV: The Fires of Pompeii, TV: The Waters of Mars, and AUDIO: SOS, or six weeks after the middle of May 2009, circa June, according to PROSE: Beautiful Chaos. However, the year of The End of Time is unspecified, as is whether or not it is intended to be the Christmas immediately after Journey's End.
