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Every year, the BBC gets festive and puts out a handful of Christmas specials, one or two sparkling chapters of some of their most popular shows to celebrate the holiday and bring families together. If you're a Doctor Who fan, you've long known about these special holiday editions of your favorite scifi show, and may even be tempted to think that the Time Lord has dominated the BBC's mistletoe programming.

Well, nerd, you'd be wrong. This year belongs to Wallace & Gromit, and the numbers it's pulled in are better than any that The Doctor has in the modern history of Christmas specials.

Now hold on, you might be thinking, the new Wallace & Gromit movie, Vengeance Most Fowl, didn't come out until January 3 - how could it be raking in viewers on Christmas Day? Great question - the reason for the possible confusion is that while Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl was a Netflix exclusive in the US, it was released over a week before in the UK.

I know, lucky them.

And pretty much as soon as it released, the BBC started seeing numbers even the Wallace-created gnome army couldn't match. 28 days after the record-keeping started, The Radio Times reports that Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl earned 21.6 million viewers, the most a Christmas special has seen since 2002. Coming in right behind the animated duo is the James Corden starring Gavin & Stacey, special, which reunited the cast of a sitcom that originally ended in 2008.

"These two quintessentially British shows couldn’t be more different," said Charlotte Moore, chief content officer of the BBC "but what unites them is their undeniable quality and the fact they are best in class. [...] I am in awe of the creative genius that is Aardman, Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham, Ruth Jones and James Corden, and I’m very proud of the long-standing relationship we have with them. It’s been a privilege to support their exceptional creative talents over decades."

Guess you'll have to step up your game for next Christmas, Doctor Who. Have you considered doing battle with a jewel-thieving penguin?

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is streaming on Netflix now.

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