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Last_Christmas

Shaun Rosado is recapping and reviewing The Flash this season. Follow him on Twitter @pneumaz!

“Dreamy Weamy”

It’s time to talk about  The Doctor Who Christmas Special 2014: “Last Christmas”! Since Doctor Who’s return ten years ago, the Christmas Special has become a delightful tradition to wrap up the holiday season each year. In some cases the stories presented are fun holiday romps that bring smiles to our faces. In others we are given major changes to the show such as 2013’s “Time of the Doctor” where Matt Smith officially stepped down as the titular character. In either instance, the Christmas Special has become an event that cannot be missed and “Last Christmas” keeps that tradition going. As always…

** SPOILERS BELOW**

I’ll be the first one to admit I have a love/hate relationship with current show runner Steven Moffat. I tend to find his plots too predictable or (in quite a few instances) so convoluted the only way to solve them is to introduce an impossible deus ex machina. That said, I feel he gets a bum wrap. Yes, the plots can get pretty haywire and need some help, but Moffat is a master of one thing that brings me back week to week: characters. He possesses a master’s voice when writing characters, their motivations and conveying those feelings on screen. While we may get lost in the technobabble, we’re always crystal clear why someone chooses to die or make an impossible decision. So color me delightful when I sat down to watch “Last Christmas”. Not only did we get the amazing Moffat character moments, we also had a vehicle that allowed him to play around with reality as much as he wanted to and have it make perfect sense.

santa_doctor

Of course, I’m talking about Dream Crabs but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

“Last Christmas” draws you in with Clara discovering Santa (Nick Frost) on her rooftop. The conversation that follows is hilarious as Santa tries to convince her he is a standard every day rooftop person and she shouldn’t be alarmed. Of course, as soon as she tries to disprove his existence, Santa’s elves chime in twisting standard logic into something so paper thin you can’t help but laugh. At the peak of silly, the Doctor appears to whisk Clara away for a new adventure while adamantly denying the existence of what he sees directly in front of his face: Santa is real.

Upon first viewing, I was a bit confused as the punchy dialogue kept me guessing what was going on, trying to get a handle on the plot. Despite this apparent drawback, in hindsight it makes perfect sense as The Doctor and Clara wind up in the North Pole assisting a group of scientists as they are attacked by (I kid you not) Dream Crabs. The conceit of these creatures is that they are completely blind but have the ability to pick up on thoughts. Specifically thoughts about Dream Crabs. So when you see them or think about them, they can see through your eyes. It’s a clever notion that makes for a great comedy moment as one of the reaserchers does her best flash dance impression to pass through a room full of these little critters. Design wise they have a passing familiarity with the Alien Facehugger and the head crabs from Half Life. Translation? These things are nasty looking and you don’t want them anywhere near your face which is, of course, where they want to live so they can eat your brain. You don’t mind though. While your brain is getting dissolved by a giant crab from space, you get to have a perfect dream that lets you pass out of this world in a state of bliss. Freaking. Scary. But at least they’re polite aliens.

dream_crabs

How does Santa fit into all of this though you ask? Well he saves the Doctor and the scientists from the Dream Crabs of course. Seriously. Santa rolls in with his army of elves with slinkies, explosive ornaments and robots whilst riding Rudolph like Napoleon charging the front lines. This. Happened. Afterwards our heroes try to figure out how to escape when Clara gets attacked and slips into a dream state where she finds Danny Pink. This is hanky territory people, as soon as he appears on screen you know it’s all a lie and you hope, somehow, that Moffat is hinting at a way that Danny might come back. It’s such a wonderful moment witnessing the return of Clara’s lost love and heartbreaking that its all just a dream. One Clara would gladly spend the rest of her life in so long as she was able to spend more time with Danny. It’s brutal and heart wrenching and totally worth the pain. It’s revealed that anyone attacked by the Dream Crabs share a psychic connection, so the Doctor willingly puts a Crab on in order to snap Clara out of the fantasy. Of course, in the end the Doctor can’t convince her to wake up, but Danny can. Even as a dead dream man, Dany Pink saves the day. Bravo Moffat, Bravo.

Santa_Rudolph

Upon waking, the clues start to fall into place. Everyone at the North Pole is dreaming. It’s a clever reveal and pretty obvious in hindsight, but the Inception like dream within a dream really worked in the Moffat’s favor. The beauty of all this is the show had convinced us to accept completely ridiculous concepts like Santa, Elves with inferiority problems, and a Rudolph the Red Nosed War Reindeer. It’s so cleaver because of how these facts are presented you can’t help but go with it. Why Santa? Why the North Pole? Well, that would be telling, but its summed up with this exchange:

Shona: “You’re a Dream that’s trying to save us…”

Santa: “Shona, you just described Santa perfectly!”

It’s true and that’s what makes this episode so much fun to watch. Yes it’s silly and yes it can have a lot of deus ex machina moments in the narrative, but so what? It’s a dream! Dreams don’t make sense. They aren’t linear and they don’t even have to make sense. Dreams are, by their very nature intense feelings meant to convey primal thoughts and Moffat nails that beautifully. Which brings us to the end of the episode.

doctor_tangerine

It’s fairly well known “Last Christmas” was meant to be Jenna Coleman’s last episode before leaving the show and you can see the blueprints of her goodbye all over the final moments. When she announced she wanted to stay on for a while longer, the show had a simple way to get her back into the show: “it was a dream.” It’s a clever escape hatch for Clara but ultimately felt tacked on because the power of her (what I assume was meant to be) her final goodbye drips with regret, love, and time well spent. By resetting that with the dream escape hatch we lose all of that built up energy. All said though, it made me appreciate how much I enjoy the chemistry between Capaldi and Coleman. I don’t know how long we get to keep Clara, I just hope that when we get her real curtain call we can recapture the feels from this moment.

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