Doctor Who ’s point writer , Steven Moffat , has sometimes been accusedof having a few primary tale ideas that he trots out again and again . Today ’s doc Who Christmas exceptional , “ Last Christmas , ” finger like a uproarious , gamey defense : A story made altogether out of quondam stories , which just has playfulness with it . Spoilers ahead …
The moment I decide I was on board with “ Last Christmas ” came pretty early on , when Moffat pulled out his most best-loved twist of all — the “ do n’t count at the goliath / you must keep looking at the devil ” trick . And then he turn it into a sweet dance episode !
At that full point , the substance became clear : We ’re either poking fun at ourselves for recycle the same mind , or we ’re prod fun at the citizenry who complain about it . One or the other .
As the story essentially admit towards the end , “ Last Christmas ” is Alien see The affair meet Miracle on 34th Street and a few other things , all wrap up in a bad bundle of Inception . Plus the Superman tarradiddle “ For The Man Who Has Everything . ” Plus mo of “ Amy ’s Choice ” and “ Journey to the Center of the TARDIS . ” As an homage to classic science fiction and fantasy story , it ’s a blast , even if the twists do n’t entirely make horse sense . ( Dream logic , but also Who logic . )
In “ Last Christmas , ” the Doctor get himself attacked by a pipe dream Cancer on some alien satellite — and because the dream crabs are telepathic , they track down his companion Clara through his memories and attacked her on Earth . Then a few other hoi polloi who find to be nearby also get assault as “ corroboratory damage , ” and of them in reality dies in the remnant . ( make his decease purely the Doctor ’s faulting , apropos . ) The Doctor , Clara , and the other four people get sucked into a dreaming where they ’re in an Arctic substructure push the dream Cancer the Crab , and Santa Claus is randomly there . They “ escape ” the dreaming crabs — although they do n’t , it ’s actually another dream inside the pipe dream — and then Clara gets round and gets suck into a third pipe dream , where the Doctor has to attract her out , leading to lots of creepy imagery :
And in the end , everybody is saved because their imagery make the dreaming variant of Santa Claus real enough to deliver them from the Arctic base , and thus from the horrible aspiration they ’re locked inside . Along the manner , we hear that stories can salve us even if they ’re not unfeigned , and that in fact the most overused stories are often the single with the most power to rescue us .
Which is reasonable enough — and this story succeed marvelously in one area : making the mash - up of old narrative plus Santa Claus uproariously entertaining .
The greatest team - up ever
It ’s a protection to Nick Frost , as Santa , that this sequence is such a blast . His somewhat self - aware adaptation of Santa , with genuine warmth that ’s edge with a bit of menace , is the perfect complement to Peter Capaldi ’s briary MD , and the interplay between the two of them is great .
This episode misses no prospect to make a fun Santa joke , or get tidy sum of gas mileage out of the Santa - Doctor repartee . From the elves debating anti - elf “ racism ” to Santa constantly explain how he can visit one thousand thousand of children in one nighttime , to one - liner like “ follow the Northern Lights . Yes , I remember to turn them on , ” this episode is full of comedy amber .
The two clowning imp are especially great , like the scene where one of them threatens people with a balloon fauna and the other one aims a scary toy dog gun that has “ part unsuitable for the great unwashed under four . ” Meanwhile , Santa has a plenty of fun with the notion that he knows all about people ’s childhood thanks to his spicy / courteous listing , and he can whip out embarrassing secrets like Shoana ’s past dear of My slight Pony .
And Santa and the medico team up up is also bally terrific . They have the common sort of rivalry that the Doctor always has with other heroic figures , but also the Doctor seems a chip embarrassed and a bit excited to be run with Father Christmas . The best bit is probably when Santa comes out with a fancy line of gab about partake mental DoS and gestalt top executive , and the Doctor bark , “ Line in the sand : Santa Claus does not do the scientific explanations . ”
The inevitable comparison between Santa and the Dr.
We already stupefy the Doctor being compared to the mythic Robin Hood earlier this class , and now he ’s stack up against Santa Claus , another “ fairytale ” character . They ’re both jolly absurd — delivering presents in a sleigh , versus travel the universe in a telephone booth — and they ’re both cheerfully unmindful .
As the Doctor mention at one point , “ That ’s the trouble telling fantasy and reality apart : They ’re both ridiculous . ” The installment put down it on pretty loggerheaded about how the Doctor is just as silly as Santa Claus , but also manage to make some pretty interesting point about our want for imaginary heroes .
At the beginning of the story , Clara ’s faith in the Doctor is held up as proof that she never really stopped believing in fairytales , and at the end she says to the Doctor that she never really stopped believing in Santa Claus — he just looks a bit different to her . A little more Time Lord - y. Plus Santa ’s sleigh is apparently bigger on the inside as well .
As Santa says , “ a dreaming that ’s seek to save you ” is the best plus of him ever . And the fact that he ’s not existent has never stopped him from being there for people . So it sort of comes back to Matt Smith ’s obiter dictum that “ we ’re all stories in the destruction , ” and Santa ’s power comes from being a particularly good news report .
The adult problem with this episode , incidentally , is : Why do the ambition pediculosis pubis father a shared dream in which all of the citizenry in the dreaming are fighting dream crab louse ? Why would n’t they just snare all of the multitude inside freestanding felicitous dreams , the way Clara catch a life with Danny in her aspiration - inside - a - dreaming - inside - a - dream ? Is it because the Doctor know he ’s been attack by a dreaming crabmeat and is mold the dream into one where he can fight them ? ( If so , that still would n’t answer why the others are sharing the Doctor ’s pipe dream . )
What if this had been Clara ’s terminate ?
There were a heap of rumor / reports going around that this was give out to be Clara ’s final episode , and that it was going to finish with Clara being “ age to demise ” with the Doctor unable to pull through the elderly Clara . But then ( rumour had it ) Jenna Coleman decided she ’d had too much fun playing Clara polar Peter Capaldi to quit just yet , and so the ending was changed at the last minute .
Was there any truth to those chronicle ? We may never live — but the net end to this episode certainly look a chip tacked - on to me . It seemed as though the original ending was the Doctor escaping his dreaming Cancer , then rushing to Clara , who is in no hurriedness to wake up from her own dreaming — and then when she does , it turn out to be decades after . The dream reading of Clara was see herself as a young woman again — or maybe the Doctor was date her that style — but really , she was an previous fair sex all along .
But then , in the aired version , the Doctor gets a “ 2d fortune , ” and he amaze to wake up from his ambition a 2nd fourth dimension ( because the “ aged Clara ” matter was one last superfluous dreamsicle ) and rush to Clara — who this time is vernal and zippy again .
So if this had been Clara ’s last episode , and she had been elderly and at death ’s room access , what would the substance of this conclusion have been ?
I guess it ’s sort of a sad story of missed chance — the Doctor lie down to Clara and sound out he found Gallifrey , and she in turn lie to him and say that Danny had follow back from the bushed . They O. Henry - ed their way out of getting to be together . And then decades passed , and Clara never beat over Danny — and she also never got over the Doctor , who never came back for her .
In Clara ’s deepest dream , the one where she ’s happy with Danny , she has another chance to say goodbye to him — and the dream Danny urges her to “ get on with ” her life , and just seriously miss him for five minutes per day . That scene plays very otherwise if Clara is an sometime woman , who is still trap for Danny after all this time , than if his passing is still sweet to her . Clara has such a hard time escaping from her dream because she want to be with Danny , even if it ’s not real — and in the “ real ” world , she has nothing to survive for .
Would this have been a satisfying ending for Clara ? It would have been atrociously close to Amy Pond ’s exit — develop old in a normal way , and being beyond the Doctor ’s reach . ( Because , I guess , having had this much interaction with the old version of her , he could n’t go back for the younger version . Unless he could . ) And it would have been kind of a downer .
To be reliable , whether this was ever planned to be Clara ’s swansong or not , I trust she gets a respectable ending when the time comes . After all the growth she ’s had this past class , she really deserves well .
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