Doctor Who Christmas specials have certainly been a mixed bag over the years. Few have truly been bad, but almost all have been mediocre to 'just about bearable'. I was uncertain about this special. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised, I was expecting something disappointing and I also was promised something surprising...I was really underwhelmed overall.
I can't call Last Christmas bad at all, but its flaws are plain to see, making it difficult to just love it despite its flaws (as I can for such episodes as Asylum of the Daleks), and I just feel so underwhelmed and little fed up at the end of the episode.
The big selling point of the episode was whether Clara would stay into Series 9, and I feel that this episode was re-written in some way so that she did. Clara's role felt rather small in the story as a whole, and the character of Shona felt like perfect companion material. In fact, I actually thought Shona would join the TARDIS at the end! It would be nice to have a normal companion (haven't had one since Martha really, for female companions). Maybe she was the one-off companion in one draft without Clara.
There was also the scene with old Clara, which did at first seemed to hint that Clara had gotten too old to travel in the TARDIS, leaving The Doctor alone, and so at the end they had a second chance with the 62 years missed back to them! The line about second chances is present, but nothing is mentioned about this dream future being bad, as Clara complains about getting old and The Doctor says "you look the same to me", implying he was OK with Clara being older, and it didn't matter to him. However, this wasn't actually in the scene at all, so the whole scene ended up feeling...well, pointless and not worth even filming. The episode could easily have been re-written so that The Doctor woke up and rescued younger Clara from the Dream Crab, and they both went off to travel in the TARDIS at the end. Or maybe they could stop the invasion of the Dream Crabs (they were taking over the world according to Santa, although quite why The Doctor, Clara and co all had the same dream wasn't explained, let alone where The Doctor was sleeping).
Talking of The Doctor and Clara, boy did the brilliant ending to Death in Heaven just get shoved aside. It was a simple "Danny Pink died, I lied" and "I lied too - I didn't find Gallifrey, I just wanted you to be happy with Danny", which just seemed to be both characters walking up to the camera and explaining their obvious motivations. I was expecting a big dramatic scene, but even Clara's choice between death and seeing Danny and life travelling with The Doctor seemed to have little impact, even though that dilemma was pretty much the same as Amy's at the end of The Angels Take Manhattan, of a different life but with Rory or travelling with The Doctor. Yeah, Moffat's originality has been lacking of late, especially as dreams have been done better in Amy's Choice!
The dream twists seemed to lose their impact each time they were used and felt like they were used to satisfy the miserable watsits who hated Father Christmas and Elves being in Doctor Who, so they weren't real (or might have been, with the tangerine), or to drag out the episode. The story had such a clunky pace, and poor old Michael Troughton got forgotten about once he died.
Seeing Father Christmas and Elves in Doctor Who was great, and the jokes were fantastic (even if Santa being called Geoff didn't get mentioned), with gags like the North Pole being a pole being great additions. Such a shame they were wasted.
The Dream Crabs were great enemies, even if they looked like hand puppets in most scenes, and didn't get defeated, and the additional cast were great, along with the as-usual fantastic Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman, and Nick Frost was a great Santa. Samuel Anderson still seemed a bit wooden as Danny, but oh well.
Overall, Last Christmas is another mediocre Christmas special that felt utterly pointless, ruined the brilliant ending to Series 8 and left us with a wonderful tease for 'The Magician's Apprentice'. I am glad Jenna Coleman will be staying through Series 9, as she is a brilliant actress and Clara is becoming one of my favourite companions since developing her character.
6/10
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