Last Christmas

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  • #36433
    markymoomoo @markymoomoo

    Well, that was a bit of a whirl wind of an episode – all in all, I enjoyed it. I will be watching it again late though: in my mind, an episode of Doctor Who is always  better after the second viewing 🙂

    #36434
    Anonymous @

    Perhaps this has been discussed already… I remember reading something from Michelle Gomez saying in an interview that “Nothing is as it seems” for the last two episodes of the series 8.

    The scenes where the Doctor wakes up TWICE from the volcano — I’m going to go with the assumption its the same volcano where Clara through the keys while in the dream state…

    This could open up the thought that the last two episodes of the show — never really happened…and the Master never came back?

     

    #36435
    SailorGallifrey92 @sailorgallifrey92

    What I thought was really funny was the pop culture references (MLP, Alien etc), I mean I never thought my little pony would get mentioned in Doctor Who

    #36436
    Spider @spider

    Merry Christmas to all. Hope Santa was good to you all – I got my (very much demanded) series 8 blu ray and also a Tardis T-shirt which I am very chuffed with!

    Just got round to seeing the Christmas special this afternoon and really enjoyed it. Think I saw the ‘dream within a dream’ reasonably early on but was still very good. And I really thought that old Clara was going to be the end and her exit and was SO pleased it wasn’t! Loved the reference to Alien as well.

    I had hoped it wouldn’t be the end for Clara as I think she and the Capaldi Doctor really work well together. As others have said, looking forward to next series with them having (mostly) resolved their issues with one another. Also that the Danny thread is very much dealt with – and done very well I thought.

    Actually watched back the last 3 episodes earlier this week, and seeing Forest Of The Night and Dark Water back to back it made it much more obvious Clara’s phone call is ‘coming clean’ to Danny rather than it being something timey wimey or  3 months pregnant.  Ah..thats what a weeks worth of filling your head with bonkers theory’s will do!

    But yes, WHAT planet was that the Doctor woke up on! My immediate thought was the volcano from Dark Water – as others seem to think too. Perhaps the explanation is just using a set-up when you have one: ‘Ok, lie down over there again Peter, we’ll get a shot in for the Christmas special while we’re here’.  Of course bonkers theorising is much more fun XD

    Anyway, better go, got a bit of a pain on my temple and there’s a strange man with attack looking eyebrows at the door shouting something…

    (\(\;;/)/)

    #36437
    ScaryB @scaryb

    Oh my giddy aunt!

    Finally caught up – deferred gratification, but not too long, and completely gratified!

    In fact, I’m just a big bowl of gooey, happy, Who-ey mushy heaven 😀

    Off to catch up with everyone’s thoughts then I’ll come back if* I’ve anything to add.

    Merry Christmas and a hearty Ho Ho Ho! to you all

    😉

    *if… well it’s always possible (in your wildest dreams) that I might not!!

     

    #36438
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @spider – yes, I think they were just reusing the set.

    Probable sequence of events: the Doctor lies successfully to Clara, goes off in gloom, decides he’s going to go and sit and sulk. The best place for sulking will be the volcano he based the dream on, because then he can sit and think how Clara betrayed him and, you know, really sulk. Because he’s just lied through his teeth so that she can be happy and now he’s miserable and she doesn’t deserve it because she was willing to let them both die and …

    … yeah, really sulk. By the volcano. It matches his mood.

    At which point the dream crab gets him. Perhaps he thought about them, in a ‘I’d rather be living a fantasy life than this’ sort of way. 😉

    #36439

    @nerys

    As @macphisto96 said, it was the Mirror who reported as Absolute Actual FACT that JC was leaving at Christmas. Methinks they were stitched up, either deliberately or as part of a ruse to flush out a leaker.

    Useful tip (which I am sure @jimthefish will confirm) when reading news: if a major outlet runs a story and absolutely no other major outlet follows it up (other then web-based recycling with no added stuff) it is very probably a load of bovine effluvia.

     

    #36440
    Cath Annabel @cathannabel

    Some pompous idiot [actually it was me] said on one thread or another here that ‘and then I woke up’ endings were tedious cop-outs.  Moffatt just subverted what can indeed be a lazy narrative device, often used when a writer has simply exhausted their inventive powers, and turned it into something truly unsettling.

    And overall it was a delightful episode. The Christmas specials work to different rules, we allow them a level of whimsy that we would perhaps find irritating if it was sustained throughout the series, and a degree of sentiment too.  Having said that, if I rate this on my personal sob-ometer, it’s below the season 8 finale, and most of the recent Christmas shows.  That’s not a criticism – I cried at John-Paul and Ste’s wedding in a recent Hollyoaks, so my tears are not an indicator of depth or quality.

    What’s exercising my somewhat Xmas befuddled brain is how much of series 8 we now need to question – there have been indications that things happened in a different sequence to that in which they were shown (eg Forest, 2016), and there have been many instances where things happened that seem dreamlike rather than even fantasy, let alone sci-fi.  Not to mention the recurring theme of fairy tales.

    The Doctor: You know what the big problem is in telling fantasy and reality apart?
    Ashley: What?
    The Doctor: They’re both ridiculous.

    Whilst the ‘are we still dreaming or are we awake’ conundrum is the one that unsettles – and may shape season 9 – this:

    Do you know why people get together at Christmas? Because every time they do it might be the last time.

    definitely had an effect on the remainder of our Boxing Day family get-together.  The photo of my 87-year old father (who had snored through Doctor Who) that I took just before they left could have had that as a caption…

    Hope all you excellent people have had a grand time, and I look forward to lots of bonkers theorising and lots of Who in 2015.

    #36441
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    Well, that was really good. I’m glad that SM is continuing his tradition of the last few years of using the Christmas episode as a continuation of the narrative rather than a ‘time out, it’s Chrisssstmasss!’ episode. Lots to love in this episode too and setting up the Doctor and Clara nicely too.

    I think I have to agree that we haven’t yet seen the end of the ‘dream crab’ story too. Think this may be revisited. I’m very glad Danny stayed dead though.

    Best Christmas special since A Christmas Carol and quite probably bests it.

    RE. JC leaving. Yep, I think @pedant is right and The Mirror got played like grandma’s old pianola. Or they thought that running the story might force the Beeb to blink and rush out an announcement and get them an exclusive. As it is , all it’s done is made them look like eedjits.

    #36442
    ScaryB @scaryb

    Haven’t got past page 1 yet!

    Brilliant comments as ever everyone!

    @bluesqueakpippost 36383 – genius summing up of how the Doctor “sees” people, and why.

    @phaseshift I agree, this episode really defined Clara/Capaldi Dr relationship.  Great chemistry (kudos to JLC’s acting skills in making it work in 2 different ways with 2 different Doctors). But I think the key to it is in Capaldi’s line in Dark Water when he challenges Clara – “Did you really think I cared so little that betraying me would make a difference?”

    That’s not a lover or a friend’s attitude. That’s a parent’s attitude. (@Juniperfish or a (great great… etc) grandparent)

    I find it hard to decide my fave Christmas episode between Christmas Carol and the Snowmen, but I think my fave 2  list has now become a top 3!

    That was so emotional. The brilliant scene, including the massive pause, as the Doctor and Clara digest how much they’ve lied to each other and how stupid that is *gulp*.  Broken by “So we’re going to die then” – what a line for the role of light relief! And they both pounce on it rather than deal with the emotional implications of what they’ve just been talking about! 🙂 .  I was in floods of tears (matts the fur something awful 😥 ) when Clara has the choice of staying in a world with a perfect fantasy Danny or waking up to a world where he’s dead. (With reminders of Amy’s Choice and Donna in Forest of the Dead).

    And scary. Monsters that only exist when you think about them! We’ve had don’t breathe, don’t blink… now don’t think! MOFFAT!!!!!! 😯 😉

    So… if the Doctor is (presumably) awake at the volcano where Clara chucked away the TARDIS keys… does that mean Master as Missy is also part of the Doctor’s dream?  Where do the dream crabs start from? All of series 8…?!!  Oooh, all very Philip K Dick 😀

    So… what’s the concensus on whether they’ve wakened up yet…?!!!

    #36443
    Barbara Lefty @barbaralefty

    Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!!!

    Why do I have “Everything is awesome!” on a loop in my head? Probably just the dream crabs…

    Totally agree with the “Just going to have a sulk by this handy volcano, what’s that under this stone here, looks like a big spider, wonder if this planet is a giant egg.. oh hai Santa.” However I’ll need to go back and watch the DiH coda obsessively till I am as sure as I can be of the timing of the last few events. Not sure I want the drama to go back or forward now than that, but I am starting to come round to the unfashionable belief that Moff knows best.

    Love the callback to young Clara/old Doctor on Trenzalore. Also, Danny!!!

    The dreamer trying to save the other dreamers is just the Doctor, right? Able to draw everyone one out of their individual dreams into a dark, isolated place where they can get on with being analytical and scared, featuring Santa as a constant background alarm. Nice!

    I know Shona was great but a perfume company account manager who can theorise under pressure (perhaps with a wee bit of a telepathic link to help) is surely interesting…

    #36444
    ScaryB @scaryb

    It also strikes me that this episode is the resolution to the Doctor’s story so far, the end of Twelve’s regeneration trauma. As @juniperfish and @bluesqueakpip (and others) have theorised many times on these boards, Eleven in Time of the Doctor is expecting to die (properly) by the slow road when he is unexpectedly, and literally, given a new lease of life… well, lives. But by whom, and does he deserve it? The end of this episode I think calls back to that – When the Doctor acknowledges that you/he doesn’t usually get second chances and doesn’t know who to thank.  But this time he accepts that actually, he’s OK, even an “idiot with a box” deserves a second chance sometimes.

    And there’s still Santa’s dangling line about his sleigh “it’s bigger on the inside…”

    Is that just the Doctor’s dream-logic/wishful thinking, or is Santa a timelord of some sort?

    #36445
    macphisto96 @macphisto96

    My mind has often come back to this episode and series 8 today.  I just think of the Doctor’s cynicism towards the existence of Robin Hood and how that cynicism permeated Clara as she became like the Doctor – having seen so many fantastical things, she actually stopped believing in fantastical things.  Has Moffatt been examining the loss of innocence and wonder that we so often experience as we grow up?  This was the fantasy series of Doctor Who, if ever there was one.  Yet Clara discovers that the Doctor is the most fantastic thing of them all – and in the midst of a dream, the Doctor literally takes the reins and rediscovers his own childlike sense of joy.

    It is when that cynicism and darkness is rejected that joy returns and real adventure begins, not just obligatory adventure.  I got the sense so often that the journeys this year felt obligatory for the Doctor and Clara, that they had lost their sense of purpose behind it all.  Danny actually ended up giving them both purpose towards the end of the season in different ways.  It’s fitting that his death caused a morose in both.  It’s equally fitting that Santa Claus found them both and pulled a Dickens on both of them.  Unlike A Christmas Carol, it was the Doctor and Clara that were the Scrooges this time around.  The genius is that Moffatt pulled that off without retelling the same story and did something different.

    Moffatt has been gifted in regards to these Christmas specials.  The worst is The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe – and that one had some good ideas, but it fell flat except for the emotional resonance at the end.  Yet I’d put all other Moffatt Christmas stories ahead of their counterparts from the RTD era.  I also loved Time of the Doctor, though that didn’t strike me as a pure Christmas special because it had another purpose.

    I am interested to see what happens going forward.  I still think there are things about this past series that we don’t fully understand, yet Last Christmas made the entire series better because of the resolution it offered.  Moffatt clearly intended this.  He also knew #12 was going to have a rough time adapting to his new regeneration, but now he seems to have found himself.  He’s gotten progressively less grumpy, but I think he and Clara are now free in a way they were not a year ago.  Clara was nothing more than the impossible girl and then got stuck with Captain Crotchety and the Doctor went from youthful and exuberant to old, pessimistic, and weary.  I don’t think the circumstances of Trenzalore, etc allowed for either to truly be themselves quite yet.

    The amazing thing is tracking reactions.  So many that have said they now loathe Moffatt have done a 180 since seeing Last Christmas.  I know there are those that didn’t like it, yet it seems like the majority really liked it quite a bit.

    The only negative I see is the wait until we get to see new Doctor Who, but that just makes me savor it all the more.

    #36446
    macphisto96 @macphisto96

    @scaryb Santa may at least have some means of using Time Lord tech.  If 11 is to be believed, he knows Santa and hung with him.  Why is 12 so leery when he sees him?  There may be a backstory there – and I would not be averse to exploring it because I would LOVE to see Nick Frost in that role once more.  He was superb.  Of course he could just be the Dream Lord.  When Frost used the Scottish accent to mock him and say it was all a bit “dreamy weamy”, it made me think of a less harsh version of the Dream Lord.  Loved the Doctor having a problem with Santa giving a scientific explanation, but that certainly could mean the real St. Nick has some kind of extraterrestrial or otherwise origin.

    #36447
    cubefox @cubefox

    are youkidding me?

    I mean it is nice to have that little inception thingy BUT WHYY WHYYY let clara oswalt stay one more season plsss ;___; idk why she has to freaking stay that long i mean i don’t like her acting, the personallity she’s been given is terrible and she looks stupid. Does anybody like her? maan that just ruined my christmas. Pls give us a better friend for the doctor the season after next season I just cant stand clara oswalt.

    #36448
    Anonymous @

    @scaryb

    indeed, where do dreams begin: I’m reminded of TE Lawrence, “All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of the mind wake in the day to find it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible.”

    Certainly it suggested some of the episodes of Season 8 were dreams – but..

    @TheDoctor1963

    but if Danny isn’t dead then why is he dead? For if the Master didn’t return then Danny never died, yeah?

    @scaryb -have you dried off the matted fur and added sparkle to the sofa? 🙂  I would think that, just me mind, that the wonderful line in S 8: “Did you really think I cared so little that betraying me would make a difference?could be attributed to a terrific friend or a lover. One with great patience?  Though leaning toward some familial connection myself, too. I think!

    @bluesqueakpip loved your paragraph about ‘really sulking’. Almost certainly a ‘thing’ 🙂

    Kindest and good morning to you -fellow Ozzies, and g’night to the rest! Puro

    #36449
    Spider @spider

    @bluesqueakpip Ohhh! spot on about the sulking. Loved that thought that he goes to the actual volcano place!

    @cathannabel I have to admit I probably also was also one saying on another thread that ‘it was all a dream’ was a terrible cop out. I’m glad to have been proved wrong by Moffat.

    @cubefox yeah that clara oswalt, can’t bloody stand her oh she’s so shallow and looks awful, her eyes are too far apart, inflate (how DO they do that!?) and her face is FAR too wide. Clara Oswald on the other hand is fan-bloody-tastic (in my opinion). It’s a pity that a little TV show ruined your Christmas, what’s great is that you didn’t over-react.

    Hmm, it would appear Santa brought me some extra sarcasm this Christmas! Splendid. *rubs hands together, awaits next troll*

    Ok, obviously took advantage of a ‘rage-typo’ there, really couldn’t help myself 😉

    (\(\;;/)/)

    #36450
    Anonymous @

    @macphisto96  that was interesting. I think, for me, the Doctor dropped into the role straight away -right from Deep Breath. Yes, he had regen trauma and this Special heralded its healing but I don’t know if the adventures themselves were as you said: “….so often [that] the journeys this year felt obligatory for the Doctor and Clara, that they had lost their sense of purpose behind it all.”

    I didn’t see that myself in Listen, Deep Breath, Time Heist or Into The Dalek. I can understand Clara having to “care so the Doctor doesn’t have to” and I can both sympathise with this completely crotchety Doctor and his take on the multiverse and Clara’s bemused confusion at his ‘altered state.’ Still, her vehemence & anger in the next to last scene in Kill the Moon wasn’t a sign of obligation, not a symptom of her weariness: nor do I feel it was subsequent to Danny’s general vicinity.

    I do wholeheartedly support this and love the way you wrote it: “I think of the Doctor’s cynicism towards the existence of Robin Hood and how that cynicism permeated Clara as she became like the Doctor – having seen so many fantastical things, she actually stopped believing in fantastical things.  Has Moffatt been examining the loss of innocence and wonder that we so often experience as we grow up?”

    I think he has but I wonder if Clara continued to believe in fantasy after many a trip with the Doctor? Maybe so, as it wasn’t until the finale that she changed.

    Was she just “nothing more” than Impossible Girl? No, not this past season and certainly not during the 50th anniversary and The Time of The Doctor -Clara was stunning in my opinion.

    This Christmas Special with head held high and old eyes burning bright, she was accepting and mischievous – particularly when Twelve held her aged hand just as she had done for Eleven. In both scenes, a mere year apart, she also brought gentleness; a gift like an unexpected pleasure and the difficult truth of love in all its facets.

    Kindest, purofilion.

    #36451
    Anonymous @

    @spider you and me both -with the sarcasm  (well done and you should be gleeful, I love a good come back)- although I got “snotty stick up my ass” in the stocking. I need to return that one or redeem another voucher called “Listening and Patience”

    Kindest, puro

    PS: I hadn’t seen you round in a while?  Busy at work? Great to have you back anyways.

    #36452
    Anonymous @

    @macphisto96  I’ve been checking the rounds of the Oz papers, and here at least, the reactions and reviews have been positive. Amazing isn’t it, that fickle people have little faith 🙂 But, it’s Christmas after all.  As to the “backstory” you mentioned -the leery behaviour, I agree with you: something’s up! Unless the beginning was the end? The Doctor said to Clara: “don’t talk just get in the TARDIS”.

    #36453

    @cubefox

    Does anybody like her?

    *Checks*

    *Takes note you registered just to make a trollish comment.*

    *Predicts short duration for your account.*

    Yep, you’re new here, aren’t you?

    #36454
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @pedant @spider

    😆

    *falls off the sofa. Again*

    @purofilion Hope you had a great Christmas – was Mr I home? And that 2015 brings you proper karmic balance for 2014

    Cheers… hic!

    😳

    Cheers everyone… off for a re-watch

    #36455
    Spider @spider

    @purofilion Cheers 🙂 Know anywhere they sell ‘listening and patience’ cheap? I probably need to stock up myself 😉

    Yeah, quite right I haven’t been around for a bit. After Series 8 finished I kept meaning to pop back in and say hello in the forums, and also join in with the watching old episodes thread but it all just got a bit hectic – not with work actually finished up there waaaay back on the 12th Dec. Has just been Christmas and family things keeping me busy and distracted.

    Each year one of the things I do is sort through all the photographs I’ve taken that year and put them together as a big slideshow on a DVD for my Granny. And I take a LOT of photographs so is quite a big job to pull that all together (~1300 photos this year – and that’s the sorted lot). Each year I say…THIS time I shall sort thing out earlier. and EACH year, I have an epic fail and a hectic week of photo sorting (not to mention fighting with the stupid software!). XD

    But, pulling it back to Who topics, the theme of ‘last Christmas’ in the episode was both sad and good. Everytime I do my photographs for my Granny I do wonder if  next year I will be doing them for her (she is 93 and going strong but you just never know). I try not to dwell on the ‘oh this time next year…’ because I should be appreciating what i have NOW, not worrying about the inevitable, but it just is something I can’t help thinking about. I thought the scenes with Clara and Danny really were good on this – how we always wish we could have just five more minutes, but how difficult that would actually be. And how whatever, you at some point have to accept things no matter how difficult.

    Think I may have to go and watch the episode again now, getting a tangerine and a whisky for this one 😉

    (\(\;;/)/)

     

    #36456
    Barbara Lefty @barbaralefty

    @macphisto96, @purofilion, re leery behaviour, I put it down to a sense something wasn’t right, although i was wondering if there would be an exchange along the following lines…

    Santa: So…. Marilyn was really upset when she found out you’d run out on her…

    Doctor: Shut up

    #36457
    nerys @nerys

    @cubefox Does anybody like her?

    I daresay if you bother to read through some of the posts on this forum – heck, just this thread, alone – you might find a few people who like her.

    @bluesqueakpip … yeah, really sulk. By the volcano. It matches his mood.

    I like that. It fits.

    @jimthefish Well, that was really good. I’m glad that SM is continuing his tradition of the last few years of using the Christmas episode as a continuation of the narrative rather than a ‘time out, it’s Chrisssstmasss!’ episode. Lots to love in this episode too and setting up the Doctor and Clara nicely too.

    Amen!

    @macphisto96 Yet Clara discovers that the Doctor is the most fantastic thing of them all – and in the midst of a dream, the Doctor literally takes the reins and rediscovers his own childlike sense of joy.

    I was so happy to see this Doctor finally having fun! It brought me a surprisingly strong feeling of joy.

    #36458
    macphisto96 @macphisto96

    @purofilion I tend to look at the Doctor in Series 8 as a long reboot.  He was always the Doctor and was at his most tenuous in Deep Breath before meeting Clara at the “restaurant”, yet many of the warm personality traits disappeared.  To me, he most resembled Hartnell and early Tom Baker.  Deep Breath was a fine example of 12 in this series – he has a plan, but he’s not sharing it with anyone.  He left Clara hanging.  He did that to the extreme in Kill the Moon – an episode where I actually thought Clara was the most imbalanced.  Yet warmer aspects of his character did gradually return and he was confronted with the harder edge of himself in Flatline when he basically got to take a look at himself as Clara played him.  Flatline and Mummy on the Orient Express were the places where the Doctor’s hard veneer began to break.  The audience and Clara began to see that he didn’t fail to save people because he was cold or he saw people as nothing more than moving cogs in a larger machine, he just acted like that to hide the pain of being the Doctor and not being able to save everyone.

    This series presented numerous character arcs and challenged the viewers with them.  Last Christmas was no different.  I’m one that loved Series 8 and found upon rewatch that I like it even more than I thought.  I’m a relative newcomer.  I saw the 50th and then power watched the revived series before Time of the Doctor and have been watching what is available of Classic Who on Hulu.  I grew to adore Smith’s Doctor, but Capaldi quickly won me over.  There’s so much depth to 12, just as I see so much depth with Clara.  Moffatt has been digging deeper with her than I think we’ve ever gone with modern companions.  That’s why I’m thrilled Jenna Coleman is returning.  The difficult dynamic of Series 8 that was shaped by the Machiavellian impulses of the Doctor, Clara, and the Master appears to be shifting into something completely different – maybe just a bunch of adventures that happen when you travel in a Blue Box with a madman.

    I also must say that I agree on Clara.  Her character shift occurred in Day of the Doctor, as you said.  I love how she asks 11 above the promise he made – and I love how she cares for him in his dotage during Time of the Doctor when all seems last; no more regenerations.  Yet her character shifted once again with his regeneration.  Couple that in with the implication that Series 8 occurred over a couple of years.  Danny appears to be a new hire at Coal Hill in Into the Dalek but has been there for at least one year by the time we get to The Caretaker.  There were many adventures that happened between Deep Breath and Dark Water that we did not see (and I think the names of each episode implies a relation between the two) for Clara – and those adventures involved the Doctor and Danny as she lived a double life.  Visual media does not do a good job of relating the passage of time.  The prime example I think of in this is the journey of the Fellowship in Lord of the Rings.  In the film, many wondered why members of the fellowship were so upset at the loss of Gandalf, a man they had only known for about an hour in film time.  Yet they had been journeying for weeks together and many had a history with him that film could not convey without a lot of dialogue.  There are many things in Series 8 that we did not see that we must imply – and I’m a fan of writers who trust the audience enough so that they don’t force feed them every little item.  Instead they leave bread crumbs so you can figure things out for yourself.

    Last Christmas managed to close a chapter and signals another change for Clara and the Doctor.  I think we’ll see the Doctor trust Clara more with his thoughts and I expect them to be much more honest and open with one another.

    One thing I do wonder is if we’ll see Clara actually travel with him.  It’s been awhile since we had a companion that travelled with him and didn’t get dropped off at home after every adventure.  Amy did it for a time, but the “drop the companion off at home” stuff began with Series 7.  I’d like to see Clara be a travelling companion next series instead of just an occasional passenger that is picked up in a broom cupboard.

    #36459
    janetteB @janetteb

    Woke up thinking about the episode and was struck by the obvious the Dave on the list is Lister. Shona is the girl whom at one stage Rimmer tells his is “his type” as opposed to Kochanski. Apologies if someone else has posted this. I couldn’t wait to read through the work of the night shift. Now have got that out, time to drink coffee and catch us. 🙂

    Cheers

    Janette

    #36460
    Arbutus @arbutus

    Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a happy time yesterday. Just got the Christmas special watched and read all your brilliant comments. I really enjoyed this and can’t wait for a chance to watch it again. It left me feeling altogether happy.

    I loved what @bluesqueakpip, @miapatrick, and @pedant had to say about how the Doctor sees people. When he said, “You… the sexy one,” I was cheering. I love this Doctor! Particularly liking the idea that the Doctor just sees Clara, because to me this reinforces the idea of the “parental” relationship. No matter how much our kids grow and change, we see them from the inside.

    @juniperfish    And did we really need it spelled out for us in words that the dream crabs were face-hugger tributes?  True, but we did then get the Doctor’s great line about “that’s really offensive”.

    I agree with @spider that the old Clara ending felt very believable to me. I liked the notion that, although she never found another Danny, she lived a full and marvelous life. On the other hand, it would have limited her return in future anniversary specials had they left us with that ending!

    @cathannabel (and others) on “it was all a dream”: The difference here of course is that the “it was all a dream” was set up for us as a key plot point before the halfway mark, not tagged on at the end as a way to allow really bad things to just go away. As for tears, I cried during Clara’s farewell to Danny, and again during the whole scene with old Clara; I’m not sure that any other Christmas special has elicited so much from me. (Not counting last year’s special as that was also a Doctor’s swansong, so not a fair comparison in my view!)

    @jimthefish    While this story definitely wrapped up some things for Clara and continued her story with the Doctor, for me it still contained an element of “time out it’s Christmas”. Maybe it was just as @cathannabel said, that the rules are a bit relaxed for Christmas. I haven’t read comments elsewhere yet, but I’m betting that people who were very unhappy with Robin Hood had no problem with Santa!

    Agree with @purofilion about Clara, she has been wonderful since the 50th (I hope Christmas was kind to you, Puro?) and I am quite happy that she is staying on. Not sure I would have said that immediately following Series 7. I was particularly pleased that the fact that they were dreaming throughout explained the moment from the trailer that never felt right to me, when Clara obediently walked into the TARDIS on Doctor’s orders when they had just been reunited on the roof.

    Enjoyed, enjoyed, enjoyed! Off to find some more Christmas junk to eat.   🙂

    #36461

    Couple of thoughts:

    @juniperfish – the Professor is a trope – he was the lawyer from Jurassic Park or all the corporate types Loki killed in Dogma, Professor Quirrel in Potter; and every irascible or pompous supporting character who’s got their comeuppance in some way. A low cost victim.

    @all – I think the point of lampshading the Alien reference wasn’t just for the ‘tribute’, but a honking great clue-stick that people were construction a world from the familiar through the lens of aspiration.

    Also, @bluesqueakpip,  Clara’s new gaff is clearly not in Cumbria – the rooftop shows an expansive city in the background and I think we are to assume it is London. But I think it most likely that she moved pdq after Danny’s death, from the nice place in Roehampton (;)) to an Edwardian place handy for the school, with a little suspension of disbelief for the size of house a teacher could afford (or that Clara had craftily invested in The Anglo-Persian Oil Company while passing through 1908 London with the Doctor).

    #36462
    Anonymous @

    @macphisto96  yes,  I see clearly now what you’re getting at. You have a wonderful way of expressing exactly what you mean, and I appreciate the catch up -bit tired of late!

    “The audience and Clara began to see that he didn’t fail to save people because he was cold or he saw people as nothing more than moving cogs in a larger machine, he just acted like that to hide the pain of being the Doctor and not being able to save everyone”.

    Yeah, it was how others saw him -not just Uncle Grumpy (different from Mr Grumpy)  but ailing Doctor. To me, that moment of excitement where he ‘found himself’ (again) was seen in the Finale too: the quick step and turn and grin, tongue poking out…”I am an idiot in a box!”

    Nailed it for me.

    @arbutus yes, thank you, very hectic: not much real relaxing. Life has seen to that. But for a few moments last night I forgot The Troubles and laughed and cried (but with a heapful of joy). There was one phrase and another forum member might understand my reaction:

    The Doctor says: “texting women of low moral character” (in ref to Danny whereupon Clara slaps the Doctor).

    I laughed. Then I stopped and gulped and said “Oh s***”

    I’m sure it’s not Christmas junk at all -cake, pudding, jelly, trifle?  Cookies? 🙂

    @janetteb Have you watched it again already? Or do you also have an amazing brain for names? I recall Shona but not Rimmer. Dear oh dear, my mind!  I have it on DVR so I should check it out. There’s a b’day in the family today so I need to bake and make a reservation at a local. Please, please, no more cooking. Although it’s a pleasant 26 degrees and only 80% humidity. Yaaaay!

    Puro.

     

     

    #36463
    Anonymous @

    @pedant I assumed at first the house was Dream House -must re-watch. But I also think some grand homes are disgusting with dead under -flooring, rising damp and rat s*** behind the velvet. I didn’t understand the comments about Alien Tribute reference. Surely, everyone else wants to board a badass ship, carry super heavy ammo and fight cool demon creatures which you don’t always see? I wanted to be Sigourney when youth had me wrapped in swaddling,

    #36464
    Anonymous @

    We lost another wicket so it’s re-watch Last Christmas or Breaking Bad (chrimb present).  I need to find this Rimmer character and find the ‘you, sexy’ line. I missed that. Probably snot crying, laughing or doing a Happy Dance (for once).

    @pedant – strictly not allowed to watch The Buff without presence of Boy Ilion. Season 2 ep 5.

    #36465
    Anonymous @

    oops @pedant Season 3, not 2. Sorry, mods, I’m taking up space again. Apologies and disappears.

    #36466
    macphisto96 @macphisto96

    @purofilion I agree there.  I loved his “idiot in a box” line.  It was one of those moments where I actually clapped with joy.  I did that too at the end of Mummy on the Orient Express where he transfers Maisie’s grief and torment to himself so he can see the mummy.  Those are reasons why I’ve never understood those who claim that Moffatt does not understand the Doctor.  Personally, I think he has written the Doctor about as well as anyone since 2005 while also crafting some of the best episodes of the series.  The difficulty is always in matching up what you’re given with what you wanted or expected.  I doubt any of us expected Series 8 to be what it was nor did any of us perceive that that is what we wanted.  For some, it’ll take longer to reconcile.  I feel fortunate because I have less baggage and less expectation due to my own newbie status, though I don’t want to attack those that found issue.  Ultimately these things are subjective and we all can have different tastes, etc.  Yet those moments revealed clearly that Moffatt didn’t just suddenly lose his ability.  Though, like you, I saw quite a but in Deep Breath as the Doctor was figuring himself out, beginning with him realizing that leaving by the door to talk to the T-Rex was “not me”.

    @janetteb When was this in Red Dwarf?  I’m afraid I have a lot of catching up to do there.  I think I’ve gotten through to Series VII, but we in the States have often gotten spotty releases on Red Dwarf.  I can still catch up through Back to Earth on Netflix, but I don’t think I’ve seen Series X turn up in the US yet.  I may just begin at the beginning to refresh myself.  It was one of my favorites to watch on PBS when I was in high school.  At least I was able to purchase my other favorite, Blackadder, for posterity.  Red Dwarf has always been a tougher one to crack.

    @all I do wonder how much time has passed between the Doctor’s parting with Clara.  I’ve said that I think Series 8 takes place over 1-2 years.  Clara may have moved from her flat into more of a house.  Is it only a few months later for her or a year later?  Moffatt made it a point to again stress the possibility of traveling in time in dreams, likely due to the fake at the end.  Yet the Doctor travels in all of time and space himself.  How long has Clara been grieving for?

    #36467
    kianorion88 @kianorion88

    So here’s my theory: They’re still dreaming.

    I don’t think that Clara waking up that time was her final wake up into real time/life. Remember the first time The Doctor realized they were still dreaming and that it was a dream within a dream? Clara said, “There doesn’t seem to be any wound” and The Doctor agrees and goes on to explain that they’re obviously still dreaming. So where’s the wound when she wakes up this last time, and when The Doctor woke up? I mean The Doctor explained how the dream crabs work. He explained how the pain in your temple is from where the crab has punctured your head and is tapped directly into your brain. So there would HAVE to be a wound.

    Also, when she wakes up this time, she’s not in her apartment where she has been shown to live ALL SEASON. Since when does she live in a huge house?! I have never seen her in that house before this episode. And it is clearly the same house that she woke up in the first time Danny woke her up, when she woke up old, and when she woke up this last time. The window that the TARDIS is shown through is the same from the time she woke up old to this “last” time she woke up. Also, the same fireplace is there with Danny that is there with the old Clara. If it was a dream with Danny and a dream with old clara, then it HAS to be a dream this time too.

    Also, if Santa was only in their minds because they were still dreaming, then why the tangerine on the windowsill at the end? If Santa left a tangerine, then he’s still around…which means they’re still dreaming.

    I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought that volcano scene looked familiar!! I actually went back and watched Dark Water again to see if I was going crazy. But it does look SO SIMILAR. And in re-watching the episode, it wasn’t just the setting that was familiar. The whole scene of The Doctor waking up there, Clara throwing the keys, and the dream patch. It’s like it could have been pulled from Last Christmas. The way everything was disjointed it was so similar. And the fact that the dream patch and the dream crabs have the same effect…inducing a dream-like state…it’s all too familiar.

    So what if the last two episodes never happened?! The “last” time we see The Doctor wake up takes him back to the same setting as Dark Water. What if everything from that point on is a dream. Or even before that?

    I thought it was interesting that when The Doctor was communicating with Clara in the Danny dream sequence, his words showed up on a chalkboard. Does anyone remember The Doctor writing on a chalkboard previously in this season? How about in “Listen”? There’s the part where he’s writing on the chalkboard as he’s thinking about his theory of perfect hiding. He then sets his chalk down in the crease of a book, walks around talking to himself, then goes back to get the chalk. But it’s gone. And on the chalkboard, written in his own handwriting, is the word, “Listen”. But he doesn’t remember writing it! So what if he’s even dream as far back as then?! What if, somehow, when he does wake up for real, he goes back in time and tries to warn himself. And the writing appeared on the chalkboard because the future him wrote it to warn him. Not sure why he’d write “Listen”, but that’s one of the crazy theories my mind cooked up, haha.

    I also think it’s weird in “Listen” that we never find out who or what was on the bed under the blanket. What if it was someone with a dream crab on their face or something that has to do with all of that?

    Thoughts on all of this?

    #36468
    janetteB @janetteb

    Sorry @Purofilion Rimmer is a Red Dwarf character. I probably wasn’t very clear in my post. Trouble with posting before coffee.

    @macphisto sorry don’t recall exactly when Rimmer makes that remark to Dave.  My SO once watched an entire series of Red Dwarf in a night when in the U.S. The reason for the, (suspected) Red Dwarf reference was because the episode featuring the despair squid also nests dreams within dreams so all those comments in other places of Dr Who ripping the idea from Inception are rather behind the times. Red Dwarf and numerous other stories did it before. No idea is entirely original it is what one does with the idea that matters.

    Also some excellent posts.

    I suspect that some time has passed between the Doctor and Clara’s last parting and the reunion in this episode. I also think if Clara was pregnant as someone (sorry I have forgotten whom) suggested then she would not have wanted to stay in the sleigh with Santa. Fun though it would be to have a single mum and child travelling in the Tardis I don’t think it would be feasible from a production view point. I think there fore that we can now safely assume that Orson is not Danny and Clara’s descendant.

    Cheers

    Janette

    #36469
    kianorion88 @kianorion88

    @scaryb – post#36442 “So… if the Doctor is (presumably) awake at the volcano where Clara chucked away the TARDIS keys… does that mean Master as Missy is also part of the Doctor’s dream?  Where do the dream crabs start from? All of series 8…?!!  Oooh, all very Philip K Dick :-D

    So… what’s the concensus on whether they’ve wakened up yet…?!!!”

    Exactly!!! I don’t think they’re awake yet…I think they’re still dreaming!

    #36470
    kianorion88 @kianorion88

    spider “But yes, WHAT planet was that the Doctor woke up on! My immediate thought was the volcano from Dark Water – as others seem to think too. Perhaps the explanation is just using a set-up when you have one: ‘Ok, lie down over there again Peter, we’ll get a shot in for the Christmas special while we’re here’.  Of course bonkers theorising is much more fun XD”

    I had the same thought! I don’t think it’s a simple coincidence though…I really think they’re still dreaming!

    #36471
    kianorion88 @kianorion88

    @fatmaninabox – post36405

    I agree. The house is totally different from the apartment she’s been pictured in all season. Also, it’s the same house in the dream with Danny AND the dream with old Clara. I really don’t think they’re awake yet either!

    And the question of when they were first attacked by dream crabs is HUGE! I don’t think that The Doctor would just wake up himself and Clara and then be like “Awesome! Let’s just go travel together again like nothing happened!” He would want to know where the dream crabs came from, why they were there, and he would ABSOLUTELY still be worried about the rest of the world! I mean he already knows that the dream crabs effected other people from other places and possibly across time! I don’t think he’d just walk away and leave that mystery unsolved.

    #36473
    macphisto96 @macphisto96

    @janetteb There are many who aren’t aware that others did it before Inception.  I think the innovation from Inception was the time differences as you progress through the dream layers.  You don’t really fully get that in Last Christmas, just the idea that dream time passes far more quickly than real time.   Though it is implied when the Doctor jumps into the Danny and Clara dream that she has been there all day on Christmas – it starts in the morning and the Doctor visits in the evening.  That Danny Pink dream is five layers deep.

    I do remember the Despair Squid, though I hadn’t thought of it until you brought Red Dwarf up.  The Dave reference makes a lot of sense, especially as a nod to some of the inspiration for Moffatt here.

    Another thought.  In Inception there is the architect of the dream.  Someone ultimately is the chief dreamer the creates the structure for the dream that all the dreamers inhabit.  Shona’s the one with the list the features Alien, Miracle on 34th Street, and others.  I wonder if the entire dream was her construct due to what she was watching.  She made it all the way down to #7 on her list, Forgive Dave?????, and checked it.  That also interests me because 7, at least looking through a Biblical lens, is the number of completion.  Seeing as this was Christmas, Moffatt is a pretty smart guy, and that list probably didn’t have seven items on accident, I wonder if checking off 7 symbolizes a completion of something as well.  It could just impact Shona, but it may impact the Doctor and/or Clara as well.

    I must also say I like the idea I’ve read in a few places that some would like to see Shona as a companion in the future.  She could be quite good, though I’m not sure how much everyone would want two companions in a row from Northern England.  She and Santa are two characters I would love to see again.

    #36474
    lisa @lisa

    @kianorion88 – I also think the same as you about the dream patches and dream crabs as well as
    the choice to use the volcano place for the Doctor to wake in- its as though it goes back to
    that whole sequence in Dark Water. So unless SM is tossing us another big distraction
    {and the season has been full of that} then I agree something is amiss. Its been bugging me too.
    I’ve been wondering a lot about when they all got infected by these creatures. Everyone infected
    is suffering from grief over some situation or loss. Missy was bringing her dead to a place
    that was like the Matrix. This is really a bonkers theory but could she be behind the dreaming
    and maybe everyone is trapped inside her Matrix having these dreams? Some one please tell me
    that’s crazy talk – although I think it was mentioned somewhere that things aren’t what they
    seem. OMGosh please say that Missy doesn’t win- although the Doctor did say to her that she did.
    I’m worried -very worried !!

    #36475
    SallySparrow @dimchall

    Trying to ask the right questions:) Maybe the Doctor knew he was dreaming because he recognized Santa as a dream version of himself (the Doctor, I mean).  So when Santa appears at the end of last season he knows his subconscious is calling for help.  Who better than a time lord and his bigger on the inside sleigh to get all those gifts delivered?

    As the Dream Lord he dreamnt the nightmare of himself. As Santa he is dreaming how he’d like to be–kindly traveler delivering presents to everyone. Clara (Santa looks different to me) sees him that way–or he’d like her to.

    And he could leave th tangerine (apples being rubbish) as he gives himself permission to have a second chance when Clara finally decides she does believe in fairy tales.

    #36476
    lisa @lisa

    @macphisto96 -Seven is also the number for creation – the world created in 7 days and all that- Miracle
    on ’34th’ St {3+4=7]- so then I just wonder about what the relevance of that might be too. Also in Kabala
    nothing can exist without 7 attributes etc and so on. I guess I’m wondering if Missy could maybe be the
    architect of these dreams?
    But I’m probably overthinking all of this

    #36477
    Barbara Lefty @barbaralefty

    Oh @lisa, say it ain’t so about the dreamy dreaming dreamers. I can see one good ‘And it was all a dream’ episode, but yeah the dream patches are too big a deal, unless there is a simple explanation like the sedative in them is derived from dream crabs, although it is strongly implied they are the stuff of legend, even for the Doctor. Anyway, I want to see them run into a bookshop and pick up two copies of the same book at least once in series 9!

    @dimchall, I like the reasoning re the dream architecture, and yes the ‘bigger on the inside’ thing does seem to imply that Santa specifically represents the Doctor, but I guess that from what @macphisto96 and others have said the actual dream architecture is Shona’s (bang goes my theory) but the fact that Alien was on her DVD list… She surely didn’t needed that to inform her dream as the dream crabs already look like facehuggers, so.. do they not actually look like that…?

    Nah,  it’s just Moffat being clever

    #36481
    Juniperfish @juniperfish

    @geoffers @Purofilion @pedant Thanks for all the replies on “knee fondling Prof”. I just found it distasteful. Moff always likes to poke things with a stick though and inappropriate touching has certainly been a phantom haunting the BBC.

    @all I hope we are going to get a bit more of a search for Gallifrey in the next season!

    It was indeed great to see the Doc crack a smile driving Santa’s sleigh but I also hope he continues to clash with Clara, it’s one of the things which works about their dynamic.

     

    #36482
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @pedant

    Clara’s new gaff is clearly not in Cumbria – the rooftop shows an expansive city in the background and I think we are to assume it is London.

    The rooftop view is part of the dream. I base this theory on the evidence that Santa, Ian and Wolf have just crashed into the chimney. 😀

    Also, the city looks like something out of a Dickens movie. Dream London, I’d say.

    We don’t really see the outside of the real house; it’s obviously not Clara’s flat, because we do travel up the stairs and see a downstairs sitting room. I’d still go with the family insisting on Clara spending Christmas with them; they’re clearly close enough that her Dad phones regularly (Bells of St John), emails her (Time of the Doctor), Dad and Grandma will travel to London to have Christmas Dinner with her (ditto) and Gran (at a minimum) comes down to comfort her when Danny dies (Dark Water).

    The bed’s also different, and the set dressing is different. In fact, the set dressing at the end is subtly different to the set dressing at the beginning – it looks like the same bed throughout, but the lamp on the bedside table in the dream-bedroom looks like the one from Clara’s flat. I could be wrong about this, though, because for some mysterious reason the director chose not to give us many close-ups of the bedside table lamp. 😉

    Clara’s clearly mixing times and places in her dreams (as you do), because when she’s having a Christmas with Danny, in their house, she thinks her Dad lives close enough to drop round unexpectedly.

    #36483
    Milliemaerose @milliemaerose

    @kianorion88 and @lisa

    I share your thoughts entirely (which has lead me to join the forum…. Hi!)

    in in my eye, we know Danny Pink had a relative, and it was alluded to that the 3 months post it meant that Clara was three months pregnant- however, would she not be showing by now? Also the baby storyline was done recently with Pond so I have a feeling that won’t be the story here.

    So there must be another way Danny Pink comes back.

    As said, the chalk board writing happens in Listen, that was my immediate reaction to that Christmas scene. Doctor tells Clara that Robin Hood isnt real (similar to his words on Santa).

    I’ve felt like this season has been rather disjointed and bitty, rather like a dream now I think of it, so I’m guessing that the whole season has been a dream, therefore Danny Pink hasn’t died (or rather been around so Clara doesn’t have to face that she lied to him) and The Master/Missy never came back (how the master came back confused me anyway so this makes logical In my brain)

     

    thanks for reading

    #36484
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @kianorion88

    I mean The Doctor explained how the dream crabs work.

    Yeah. In the dream. To be precise, in the nightmare. That’s very much a nightmare description, don’t you think? That teeny tiny pain is the result of a big hole in your head (half an inch? It’d be messy), and an alien creature slurping on a straw at your brain.

    Yet we’ve seen from the Teller that some alien creatures don’t need a physical wound to turn your brains into soup. And in the final scenes of everyone waking up in real life, no-one has a massive hole in their head.

    So I reckon the dream description is the Doctor making it up as a sort of nightmare-explanation for the slight pain he can sense.

    #36485

    @bluesqueakpip

    the director chose not to give us many close-ups of the bedside table lamp

    I blame Moffat. He’s such a hack.

    I paid close attention to the set dressing – the room is, indeed, dressed very differently for Old!Clara vs Awake!Clara, but it is the same room – there’s a tree outside the window (not too common in tower blocks)  and the Tardis is in the same place – but the doors are a giveaway: those ain’t tower block doors.

    Of course, the real clue that Old!Clara is a dream is that there is none -not even a hint – of the sense of loss exhibited by Sarah Jane in School Reunion.

     

    #36487
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    By the way, did anyone get the sneaky Titanic reference in the ‘old Clara’ dream?

    And I learned how to fly a plane.

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