"Last Christmas" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on 25 December 2014. It is the tenth Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. It was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Paul Wilmshurst.
In the special, the alien time traveller the Doctor is reunited with his companionClara Oswald as they try to save a North Pole science base from creatures called dream crabs that induce dream states whilst killing their victims, with the help of Santa Claus.
"Last Christmas" was viewed by 8.28 million in the United Kingdom and received positive reviews from critics, particularly for Capaldi and Coleman's performances, and for the "clever" spin on the usual Christmas atmosphere.
Plot
On Christmas Eve, Clara finds Santa Claus stranded on her roof. The Doctor arrives to take Clara away. Santa tells the Doctor that he will need his help before the night is over. The Doctor and Clara arrive at a North Pole base where four of the crew in the infirmary are being devoured by Dream Crabs – blind aliens which induce dreams on their intended victims as a distraction whilst devouring the victims' brains and which use telepathy to see the surroundings of people thinking about a crab. More crabs attack the Doctor, Clara, and the unaffected crew, only for Santa to rescue them. Clara reveals that during their last meeting,[N 1] she lied to the Doctor about Clara's boyfriend Danny Pink coming back from the dead. The Doctor says that he lied about finding Gallifrey. The Doctor sends Clara to recover Santa's crab specimen, but Clara, thinking about the crab, makes it come alive and attack her.
The Dream Crabs, shown here at the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular.
Clara reunites with Danny in a dream. The Doctor willingly falls victim to another crab to enter the dream. Clara still resists willing herself to wake up, until Danny tells her that she can miss him while also moving on with her life. Clara and the Doctor wake up, which kills the crabs devouring them. The Doctor deduces that they are not awake, but in a different layer of a multi-faceted dream and have been since the initial crab attack. He explains that Santa is the manifestation of their subconscious minds fighting back. Santa wakes the group up.
Clara reminds the Doctor that they met Santa before arriving, proving that everything else has also been a dream and that none of the scientists are scientists. The affected personnel – manifestations of the Doctor, Clara, and the "scientists'" minds – attack and kill Professor Albert. The Doctor, Clara, and the "scientists" dream of Santa, who wakes them up to their real lives, one by one, until only Clara is left.
Upon waking, the Doctor traces the psychic signal linking their dreams back to Clara. He pulls the crab off, and learns that Clara is now an elderly woman. The Doctor regrets not coming back sooner, when Santa appears. Realising that he is still dreaming, the Doctor wakes up again. He frees Clara, still a young adult, from the crab. Offering her all of time and space, the Doctor implores Clara to join him. Clara accepts.
Production
The scene where the Doctor visits the elderly Clara and helps her open a Christmas cracker mirrors a scene from "The Time of the Doctor", when he was too weak to pull a cracker open by himself, at the end of life of his previous incarnation.[1]
There were numerous rumours circulating that the special would be Jenna Coleman's last on the show.[2][3] Coleman and lead writer Steven Moffat remained quiet on the issue and insisted that people watch the episode to see whether she would be continuing into the ninth series. During the episode's climax, Clara decides to continue travelling with the Doctor, and Moffat revealed following the episode's airing that Coleman would appear in all of the ninth series.[4][5] According to Moffat, Coleman was "to-ing and fro-ing" over her future in the series before ultimately deciding to continue.[6]
In a 2015 interview, Moffat confirmed that he had initially written two endings for "Last Christmas". One of them would be Clara's exit from the show, and in the other she would stay for the next series. After Coleman decided to stay, Moffat kept the latter version of the script.[7] Marsay's character of Shona was considered by Moffat to be Coleman's replacement as the companion for the ninth series, though nothing was fully formed. With Coleman electing to stay on the show, this would mark Marsay's only appearance. Elements of Shona were later reworked into the character of Bill Potts, who was the companion when Coleman left after series nine.[8][9]
Filming
Filming on "Last Christmas" was scheduled to start two weeks after the Series 8 World Tour Promotion.[10] Paul Wilmshurst, who had directed two episodes in the previous series, directed the special.[11] The read-through for the episode took place on 3 September 2014, and filming began on 8 September in the BBC Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff.[12][13] Scenes set at Clara's house were filmed at Vaendre Hall, a late nineteenth century house in the Cardiff suburb of St Mellons.[14] The scenes involving ice plains were filmed in a constructed set in RAF St Athan.[15] Filming took approximately four weeks, ending on 3 October.[16]
The episode was watched by 8.28 million viewers, the lowest Christmas Day rating since the show's return in 2005, and was the sixth most watched programme on BBC One for Christmas Day 2014.[19] The early figures for overnight viewing estimated that the episode was watched by 6.34 million viewers, making it the eighth most watched event on television for Christmas Day 2014.[20] However, it received a total of 2.62 million viewers on BBC America, beating the previous record established by "The Time of the Doctor", and became the most watched episode of the revived series in the channel's history.[21] It also got 1.07 million requests on BBC iPlayer for the nine-day period over Christmas.[22]The episode received an Audience Appreciation Index of 82.[23]
"Last Christmas" received positive reviews. 92% of 13 critics gave the special a positive review, and an average rating of 8.8/10, according to Rotten Tomatoes.[24] Particular praise was given to the Christmassy atmosphere,[25][29][33] as well as Capaldi and Coleman's performance and the script.[25][34]
Alasdair Wilkins from The A.V. Club awarded the episode the highest grade of the site, finding the script "inordinately clever" in making a at-first-glance "fluffy, silly Christmas special" scary. He also praised Capaldi's performance" for depicting "the unabashed joy" common to the previous Doctors, "never really" seen in series 8.[25] Michael Hogan of The Daily Telegraph stated that it "had heart as well as head" with a festive special feel of "cockle-warming cosy glow".[33] Writing for Digital Spy, Morgan Jeffery found the episode an "absolute cracker" that refused to be "light on substance". He believed the influences of Alien and Inception provided viewers with "both food for thought and fuel for our nightmares".[32]
Simon Brew of Den of Geek heavily praised the episode and considered it an improvement over the previous Christmas special "The Time of the Doctor". He felt that "Last Christmas" capped off what he felt was "one of Doctor Who's strongest years in recent times".[34] Matt Risley of IGN deemed the episode "Excellent", calling the episode "entertaining and satisfying" which combines "face-huggers with a Christmas miracle".[29]Radio Times's Patrick Mulkern thought the storytelling clever, but guessable. He stated he was "peculiarly touched by Clara's sentiment of 'Every Christmas is last Christmas' and her admission that the Time Lord is her very own Father Christmas".[31]
"Last Christmas" was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on 26 January 2015,[35] in Australia on 28 January 2015,[36] and in the United States on 17 February 2015.[37] The ten Christmas specials between "The Christmas Invasion" and "Last Christmas" inclusive were released in a boxset titled Doctor Who – The Christmas Specials on 19 October 2015.[38]
Selected pieces of score from "Last Christmas", as composed by Murray Gold, were released on 18 May 2015 by Silva Screen Records as the third disc of the soundtrack covering series 8.[39]
Ainsworth, John, ed. (2018). "Last Christmas and The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar". Doctor Who: The Complete History. 80. Panini Comics, Hachette Partworks.
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