Last Christmas

"You're a dream who's trying to save us?"

Writer: Steven Moffat 

Format: TV 

Broadcast: 25th December 2014

Series: 2014 Christmas Special

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara

Synopsis

Clara is in for one Christmas Eve that she's never going to forget. Reunited with the Doctor, she faces what could possibly be her last Christmas. 

Something sinister lurks in an arctic base at the North Pole and it's beyond even the most terrible, nightmarish creatures the Doctor has faced before. Who ya gonna call? Santa Claus!

Verdict 

Last Christmas is a pretty good episode but it definitely has its flaws. With the return of Doctor Who to our television screens only a couple of weeks away now, I thought it would be a good idea to give the latest Christmas special a rewatch for the first time since its broadcast. I can't believe it's been 9 months since Christmas Day and we've just had the wonderful news that Alex Kingston will be back as River Song in this year's special so I think it's already going to top last year's. Following Death in Heaven's heartbreaking conclusion with both the Doctor and Clara lying to each other to benefit the other, they angrily blurted out the truth. It wasn't quite the emotional reunion one might have expected which was a shame in my opinion. For a Christmas story, which for some reason BBC seem to instead has a heavy Christmas theme, this was quite dark despite the Christmassy elements. The Dream Crabs were intriguing enemies and I liked the idea until they went as far as having dreams within dreams. That just takes things a little far and can make things hugely confusing. Let's try and talk about some positives because despite my criticism there definitely was a lot of good! Peter Capaldi was once again simply magnificent as the Twelfth Doctor and I really do love his incarnation. I can't wait for his second series to be added to our availability of televised stories for this Doctor. Jenna Coleman was fantastic also, as always, and she simply looked stunning. I think she's just such a good companion and following this story I think her relationship with the Doctor is going to be so much more positive. We'll have lost Danny thankfully, whose appearance in this story I loathed, and Clara can just be independent. I'm not sure about Santa Claus appearing in a Doctor Who story the way he did. The question of whether he was real or not should not have even been mentioned in this programme in my opinion as there are so many young fans who will of course be believers. Once the seed of doubt is in a child's mind, it won't be long before they realise the truth. Nick Frost played a good Santa though in my opinion and I liked how he gave a different slant to what we might have expected. It was great to see Dan Starkey get to appear outside of the Sontaran gear and as an elf! The banter and comments about being racist between the elves were brilliant. The foursome of trapped scientists were very good and I liked how Michael Troughton finally got his appearance in Doctor Who following in the footsteps of his father and brother. I liked Shona's reaction to Santa's arrival and I thought before that she showed some interesting dance moves to say the least. The Doctor not being happy with missing the obvious was superb although he seemed to know more than he was letting on. He could see when they had just awoken into another dream. Despite not being a fan of a lot of the plot, the concluding scene is what gets this story the rating it does comfortably. When the Doctor goes to Clara apparently 62 years since they last met, the emotion is just magical. The Doctor realises how much he cares for Clara. He'd be willing to come back every Christmas. The moment he said she didn't look any different aged was beautiful. The scene was gorgeously played out by Capaldi and Coleman and I was thrilled she stayed on as companion. Overall, it could have been a lot better but it wasn't bad at all. 

Rating: 7/10