Last Christmas, he broke our hearts but the very next year, he’ll mend them again.

Steven Moffat has revealed to the New York Times that this year’s Yuletide special A Christmas Carol was deliberately designed to lighten our spirits – balancing out the darkness of  The End of Time which waved a long goodbye to the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant.

Moffat also took time to praise the Dickens classic that the episode takes its impetus from:

“It’s a fantastic story,” he said. “Time travel at Christmas says A Christmas Carol and it says Doctor Who. The moment you think of it, if you have the Doctor as the Ghost of Christmas Past, it sort of makes sense.”

How this particular take on the wonderful Charles Dickens story will measure up to the original – or indeed any of the cinematic versions – is generally unknown. However we’ll know by the time we all head to bed on Christmas Day.

You probably know this already: Doctor Who‘s A Christmas Carol airs on Christmas Day at 6pm on BBC 1.