The Doctor Meets Santa Claus in "Last Christmas"

[Shjade]

Nick Frost was born to play Santa and holy hell did he nail it.

That was my primary reaction to this episode as well.

Yeah sure there were other things going on that were nice and blah blah blah but SANTA

Also have to admit the saccharine dream-Danny talking Clara out of her dream was probably near my LEAST favorite part of the episode, mainly because it made twice in a row that Danny saves the day because "the power of love is stronger," basically. Just...no. Give that a rest, Moffat, please. :|

 

[ms_sunlight]

Also have to admit the saccharine dream-Danny talking Clara out of her dream was probably near my LEAST favorite part of the episode, mainly because it made twice in a row that Danny saves the day because "the power of love is stronger," basically. Just...no. Give that a rest, Moffat, please. :|

Danny didn't save the day. Danny is dead. It was a projection of Danny from Clara's unconscious reflecting her own thought processes. All that happened was that Clara was shunted into another dream.

Likewise the saccharine ending. Not so saccharine. Didn't everyone notice the tangerine? They're not saved, and because of that there's no way to be sure that the other three from the base are either. Dark, dark, dark.

My prediction - and it might be a bad one - is that Clara is leaving after all, and the ending is a fake-out. After all there are strong hints within this episode that Clara is actually suicidal, that she does not actually want to live.

 

[Shjade]

Danny didn't save the day. Danny is dead. It was a projection of Danny from Clara's unconscious reflecting her own thought processes.

In other words: Danny, as Clara imagines him, saved the day. Yes.

I didn't say saccharine ending, I said that bit is saccharine, and it is.

Clara's clearly unhappy, but suicidal is stretching. Suggesting they're not saved is REALLY stretching; if the tangerine is yet another dreamsign then they're all dead and Doctor Who is over, which seems unlikely at best. It's just the classic "gotcha" ending tacked onto 99% of horror-themed movies/shows. See also: pretty much any X-files episode. It's throwing out an "oh no are they REALLY saved" for you to think about but will likely never come up again.

 

[Roxor]

Yep, and that's one of the great things about Doctor Who. Spinoffs like Torchwood: Miracle Day are just exploring in detail the sort of stuff which ends up as Fridge Horror in the main show.

One thing sticks in my mind from Torchwood, there's a scene where they're talking about everyone on Earth and mention a number, the number in question being considerably lower than the actual population. Looks like the repeated invasions have made quite the dent.

Yeah, as I recall it was something like 300 million less than the actual population at the time the episode was set.

On another note I really liked the facehugger joke in this episode. I like that Doctor Who cribs from other sci-fi and I love that they admit to it every so often. I also liked the jab about the insensitive name.

Yeah, the jab about the movie called "Alien" was just so fitting for the 12th Doctor. I think he's become my favourite from the revival. I still doubt anyone is going to unseat the First Doctor as my overall favourite, though.