Last Christmas
Story 253, Episode 813, 2014 Christmas Special
Doctor: The Twelfth Doctor
Companion: Clara Oswald
Santa Claus, eleves, facehuggers, a polar base populated with four frightened explorers, a wily magician, and a grieving schoolteacher. Merry Christmas!
The Review
This Christmas special is a crazy one, and it starts with Santa re-uniting Clara and the Doctor. They all head to a polar base where dreamcrabs are terrorizing the explorers. Before long, Clara’s in a dream where she’s alive living in a perfect life with Danny. The Doctor rescues her, and then starts to realize that they are all dreaming from when Santa first showed up, as he can’t be real. Out of that dream, the Doctor starts to head out, until Clara reminds him that they saw Santa at her house. So, they’re still dreaming.
One of the explorers dies, but the other three escape into their real world. Soon, the Doctor and Clara do as well, and the Doctor finds an elderly Clara. It looks like the end for Clara, but there was one last layer, and soon the Doctor and Clara are off on more adventures. There’s some really good ideas in the episode, but something seemed missing the entire time. The whole episode felt dreamy, which I guess was the point.
Some episodes just have the spark that makes it exciting, but this episode just didn’t do it for me. It’s a clever premise, but I never truly felt worried. The ending as Clara joins the Doctor again had infectious excitement, and has be excited for the future. It was a decent episode, but only that. Can’t wait for Series 9 though, and very happy Clara’s staying. To adventure!
An Inception/Alien mash-up provides new life for the Doctor and for Clara. Not a bad way to spend Christmas day, but it isn’t a classic.
7.5/10 Am I still dreaming?
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 