Last Christmas (TV story)
Last Christmas was the 2014 Doctor Who Christmas special. It was the 813th episode of the series and the first full Christmas special with Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. It brought back Nick Frost as Santa Claus, who was last seen at the end of Death in Heaven.
Casting-wise, it was notable for featuring the first on-screen appearance of Michael Troughton, son of Second Doctor actor Patrick Troughton. It also allowed recurring actor Dan Starkey, best known for portraying various Sontaran characters, to appear with minimal make-up as an elf.
The Christmas special saw the return of Danny Pink, Clara Oswald's boyfriend and former Coal Hill School Maths teacher — albeit only in Clara's dream state.
Synopsis
The Doctor and Clara face their Last Christmas. Trapped on an Arctic base and under attack from terrifying creatures, who are you going to call? Santa Claus!
Plot
On a frosty night before Christmas, Clara Oswald awakens to the sound of an object crashing on her rooftop. Putting on her dressing gown, she leaves her room to investigate and discovers Santa Claus, his elves Ian and Wolf, reindeer and sleigh upon her roof, having crashed after an accident. Ian quickly informs Santa that they've been sighted. They attempt to pass themselves off as ordinary people, but after Clara sees the reindeer flying loose in the sky, they reveal their true identities. Clara though, tries to deny his existence as a fairytale when she is spotted, Santa questions if she still believes in fairy-tales, before being interrupted by the Doctor who, upon arguing that no-one loves tangerines, takes her into the TARDIS. Once inside, he questions her on her belief of Santa, to which she answers that she still does as he whisks her away.
At a base in the North Pole, a group of scientists are tracking Shona as she enters an infirmary. One of the scientist called Ashley tells Shona not to think about "them" and to concentrate on something else. She enters the infirmary, and begins dancing to Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" which appears to take her mind off the victims. She reaches the end of the infirmary, by which point the Doctor and Clara appear. As Clara wonders what's happened to the victims, they wake up and begin moving. Shona warns them not to think about what they can see, and the Doctor deduces that the creatures attached to the victim's faces are both deaf and blind, but they use telepathy to keep a constant image of themselves in someone's memory, allowing them to 'see'. As the victims close in, the scientists appear with guns ready to attack, and then several crab-like creatures appear from the ceiling and attack the group. They're then seemingly saved by Santa, who is able to send the victims back to bed. He then bring in a captured creature, which the Doctor recognises as a Kantrofarri or "dream crab".
More to be added...
Cast
- The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
- Clara - Jenna Coleman
- Santa Claus - Nick Frost
- Danny - Samuel Anderson
- Ian - Dan Starkey
- Wolf - Nathan McMullen
- Shona - Faye Marsay
- Ashley - Natalie Gumede
- Bellows - Maureen Beattie
- Professor Albert - Michael Troughton
Crew
| Executive Producers Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin |
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| Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources. |
References
- The Doctor exclaims that "nobody likes the tangerines." Santa is visibly offended.
- The song Merry Xmas Everybody by "Slade" is played in the background in the North Pole military station to distract Shona from thinking about the dream crabs, where she dances to it.
- Professor Albert compares the dream crabs to the facehuggers from the 1979 sci-fi/horror movie Alien. The Doctor has not heard of the facehuggers, nor the film, and is visibly appalled that a horror movie is named Alien, commenting, "No wonder everyone keeps invading you!"
- The Doctor tells Clara not to get too attached to the people at the arctic base because it "isn't Facebook."
- Santa mentions My Little Pony when proving to Shona that he is real.
- In Shona's Christmas Day Itinerary are referenced the movies Alien, The Thing from Another World and Miracle on 34th Street, along with "Thrones". The first three films are very clearly sources for the episode (the facehuggers, a group of scientists trapped in an isolated Arctic base, and a man who believes he is Santa, respectively).
- The Doctor states that time appears accelerated in dreams, which is a concept introduced in Inception.
Story notes
- This episode saw a one-off modification to the title sequence. The clockfaces the TARDIS flies through are blue and icy, and the TARDIS is covered in snow. The names of the lead actors dissolve into particles, and the closing time vortex has flying snowflakes.
- For the first time for this title sequence, more than two people are credited. Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman's names appear normally, then Nick Frost's name appears between the Doctor Who logo and the episode title credit.
- This is the third consecutive Christmas special to feature Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald, with this number making her the companion actor with the most appearances on Christmas. Karen Gillan's cameo in The Time of the Doctor as a hallucination of former companion, Amy Pond, could arguably be called a third appearance, albeit not a full one.
- This is also the third consecutive Christmas special to feature Dan Starkey. He had previously appeared in his recurring Sontaran role, Strax, in TV: The Snowmen, then as Commander Skarr and his unnamed subordinate in The Time of the Doctor.
- Jenna Coleman allegedly had a "change of heart" on whether she wanted to stay on Doctor Who and is going to appear in the ninth series. This change required the Christmas special to be rewritten; "When it came to Clara, they had to tear them up and start again," the source said. "In the original draft of the script, she became an old woman who then died with the Doctor at her side. But after they were rewritten, she will now be seen returning to the Tardis, hand in hand with the Doctor."[1] That source said she would appear in the first half of the series, however a newer source confirm her for the full series 9.[2]
- The announcement 'The Doctor and Clara will return in - The Magician's Apprentice' appears at the end of this episode. The title of the series 9 premiere was confirmed by Steven Moffat a week prior to this special's broadcast. [3] Shona likened the Doctor to a magician several times during the episode, and Santa made a passing mention of the very same nature.
- To keep the appearance of Danny Pink a surprise, Samuel Anderson was uncredited in Radio Times and on the BBC website.
Ratings
9.63 million (overnight)
Production errors
to be added
Continuity
- This is the second time where almost the entire episode is a dream, as was the case in Amy's Choice.
- The Doctor is likened to a magician because of his appearance. He previously noted this about himself. (TV: Time Heist)
- Both Clara and the Doctor reveal that they previously lied to each other to stop the other from worrying: (TV: Death in Heaven)
- Clara lets it slip that Danny Pink is still dead, something she'd withheld from the Doctor. Danny appears in a crab-induced dream she's later in, in a Santa suit and slightly taller.
- The Doctor admit that he didn't find Gallifrey.
- During his dream of elderly Clara, the Doctor helps her pull a cracker. Clara had previously done the same for the elderly Eleventh Doctor. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
- A nightie-clad Clara leaves in the TARDIS in the dead of night. Amy Pond's travels with the Doctor began in similar fashion. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
- Clara is wearing a nightie for the entire episode. Amy wore one (without a dressing-gown on top, though) in her first trip in the TARDIS. (TV: The Beast Below)
- The Doctor has Clara concentrate on doing sums to distract her from the crabs, something she later does when trying to avoid the escaped crab in the lab. The Third Doctor used the same technique - albeit with simpler sums - to force Jo Grant to focus on something except the brainstorm being experienced by Axos. (TV: The Claws of Axos)
- Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody, which Shona is listening and dancing to in order to distract herself from the crabs, was playing in the garage where Mickey worked when the newly-regenerated Tenth Doctor crashed back into the Powell Estate. (TV: The Christmas Invasion) It was also playing at Donna Noble's first wedding reception (The Runaway Bride) and was later on the radio. (Turn Left, The Power of Three)
- This isn't the first time the Doctor has had to differentiate dreams from reality in life-threatening situations. It previously happened in Amy's Choice where the dreams were induced by psychic pollen.
- The Doctor states that all the people affected by the dream crabs could very well be from different times and places, as time travel is possible within dreams. Madame Vastra once told Clara something similar when explaining the psychic conference call. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) When Clara asked how they were communicating across time, Vastra stated that time travel was possible in dreams. Indeed the Doctor himself at least could've been at a different place in time - he appears to be on the "volcano planet, which he led Clara to believe she was on via a dream patch (Dark Water), when he wakes up.
- The First Doctor previously met Santa Claus (COMIC: A Christmas Story), though it was later insinuated that the encounter was all in his head. (COMIC: The Land of Happy Endings) The Second Doctor also prevented him from inadvertently tearing the fabric of space. (PROSE: The Man Who (Nearly) Killed Christmas) The Eleventh Doctor showed a child in Sardicktown a photograph of himself with Santa Claus and Albert Einstein, and claimed that Santa's real name was Jeff. (TV: A Christmas Carol)
Home video releases
DVD releases
to be added
Blu-ray releases
to be added
References
- ↑ http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-11-28/is-jenna-coleman-coming-back-for-another-series-of-doctor-who?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
- ↑ http://www.cultbox.co.uk/news/headlines/jenna-coleman-confirmed-to-return-for-all-of-season-9
- ↑ http://www.kasterborous.com/2014/12/series-9-episode-title-revealed/
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