Much of the story’s movement hinges on the presence of Santa Claus (ultimately, perhaps all of it does), here played by Nick Frost with a gangster-ish relish that might give Tony Soprano the warm fuzzies. The Doctor: “There’s a horror movie called Alien?! That’s really offensive. Such a gimmick could easily be death to a piece of drama, yet Moffat makes it work by constructing the script around the fears and desires of its cast, particularly the Doctor and Clara, whose dreams indicate that all they really want is to return to adventuring with one another. Indeed, it seems the point of the exercise is to disorient the viewer so that they never quite know what’s real and what isn’t. It’s easy to lose count of how many times characters wake up from dreams brought on by the alien Dream Crabs, which, as the script rightly points out, are visual riffs on the Alien facehuggers (though at times they also resembled Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors). The Doctor: “Do you know what I hate about the obvious? Missing it.”Īs you are surely aware, aside from just a couple of short scenes, the bulk of “Last Christmas” is a dream … within a dream within a dream within a dream. Anyone who read my recaps for season eight undoubtedly knows that I am giddily delirious at the prospect of another full season of Clara Oswald, which itself is a pretty special Christmas present … but boy, did Moffat make me work for it. Well, now we know the score: Not only is Clara sticking around, but she’ll be traveling alongside the Time Lord for the duration of season nine. This latest outing is a proper dramatic coda to season eight, which back in November left us emotionally hanging (not to mention drained) as to the fate of the intense, complex friendship between the Doctor and Clara - a pairing that seemed in jeopardy of dissolving due to rumors that Jenna Coleman was leaving the show. A single Who holiday outing might be something for a fan to pull out and view every year, but ten of them!? To the newbie binge-watching the entire run in the middle of the summer, the fixation must seem absurd (for instance, there are only five regular episodes between 2011’s “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe” and 2012’s “The Snowmen”).īut for the diehards, they’ve become more and more a big part of our yearly celebrations, and under Steven Moffat’s guidance, the Christmas specials are increasingly integral to the continuing story line. The ongoing Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” aside, holiday TV has surely never seen anything quite like it. Davies’s and Steven Moffat’s annual systematic warping of holiday traditions and iconography. “Last Christmas” is the tenth Doctor Who Christmas special in as many Christmases - a decade of Russell T.

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