Last Christmas

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@barbaralefty

On the other hand, what *are* we going to do now till after summer?

We are going to come up with completely bonkers theories about what will happen in series 9, of course!

In fact, I’m brewing up a double-yolker right now.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@janetteb

 I actually thought open fires in the UK were a thing of the past,

Only in metropolitan areas. They are pretty commonplace once you get out into the small towns and shires (and are seen as a selling point by estate agents). Where I live is 22 miles from Charing Cross, but there is no ban of open fires (although they are rare around me since the council put central heating in at the arse-end of the 80s – you don’t see the coal man doing his rounds anymore).

[JimboMcMaster @jimbomcmaster]

Bit late to the Christmas party, but here are my thoughts for the hell of it.

Main reaction is gladness that Clara didn’t leave in this episode! She’s become probably my favourite companion, so that’s nice. Although I wonder if we’ll get another companion next series as well. No reason, I just think it would be cool – we haven’t really had a full time second companion that isn’t directly connected to the other companion (like Rory or Mickey).

Other than that, found it a bit of a mediocre episode. Which isn’t to say it was bad, just that it was in the lowest tier of goodness that’s still within my expectations.

I feel maybe Santa was underused. Although there is the hint that he’s real, I feel like it sort of a shame he was dream-Santa all the way through. Normally I wouldn’t want him to be real, as that pushes credibility a bit, but since its Christmas I say ‘why not?’ (although I appreciate the hint that he may be ‘real’ in the Whoniverse at the end).

I think Shona (if that’s the blonde one?) was a bit more lively as a character than the normal one-off characters we get in the show – maybe there’s more for her in the future (a new companion?), or maybe she was just a good actress.

The plot itself: I never seem to follow the Christmas ones as closely as the normal ones for some reason, so it feels like some bits don’t make sense (eg the ‘food has teeth’ justification for the monsters crumbling away after waking. Also, why don’t they have wounds in their foreheads when they wake up for real at the end? (Or maybe they’re still dreaming (!), as some have already suggested here.)) .

Still trying to get my head round the new Doctor’s complex attitudes eg when he leaves halfway through and says (paraphrase): ‘the remaining people with things on their faces are in danger? Never mind. There’s polar bears here too, the planet’s full of dangerous things’  – how does that match up with his ‘I help where I can’ attitude (universal to all Doctors) – surely helping people in immediate danger is the difference between the polar bears and the things on the remaining people’s faces. Surely he’d try something to save them. Confusing.

I liked this though: ‘Are you the same people as before? Sorry, I deleted you.’

Anyway. Clara’s back! Yay!

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@bluesqueakpip Yes, agree that emotionally Twelve treats Clara as a parent does.

I just hope there is some tie-in. I’m still remembering:

1.  Clara coming across the Doctor’s cot in Eleven’s TARDIS

2.  River’s enigmatic implication that she and Clara were linked in some way

3.  The fact that Clara “blew in on a leaf” just as River’s identity was revealed on an embroidered leaf to her parents Amy and Rory

4. Clara knew that the magic word to get the Doctor to descend from his cloud of despond was “Pond”

@jimbomcmaster – the “Sorry, I deleted you” is sort of deliciously shocking, as Capaldi’s Doc has been on many occasions, because he appears far more callous on the surface than his recent previous incarnations (he’s not a hugger). Nine and Ten were particularly keen on talking about the importance of ordinary people. Of course, Twelve cares underneath. His brusque-ness is a often a self-defence mechanism.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@juniperfish – I agree it’s still possible – and Missy would certainly find it incredibly funny to use the Doctor’s own daughter against him. If there is such a plotline, I’d expect Alex Kingston to be booked for a return; I don’t imagine they could explain it without her. There would probably be a perception filter on the Oswald family, so that they’d all forgotten that Ellie or Dave couldn’t have children and that Clara is actually adopted.

However, the thing that makes me doubtful is the point that the TARDIS does not like Clara. Obviously, that’s because Clara was invited on board by Missy, and Missy is the person who turned the TARDIS into a paradox machine – the TARDIS probably hates Missy. But there’s another possible reason for the TARDIS’ resentment, as well. She loves River; but the Doctor’s ‘daughter’ is by his Mistress, not his wife.

Question: does Missy ever seriously try to kill Clara in Death in Heaven? Or does she treat Clara like the Doctor throughout; leaving her in dangerous situations to escape if she can?

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip @juniperfish  Yes, I too thought that Clara isn’t possibly the Doctor’s daughter or an actual relative, but a space dad.

I think Missy would have been happy to kill Clara, had plenty of opportunities to do so…yet she didn’t. The countdown with Osgood was indicative of that possibility. She likes to torment ‘her people’ -the Doctor and Clara. How is Clara ‘Missy’s people’? Clara is close to the Doctor in this incarnation and the previous one during which we never saw The Master.

It’s a great plot development and timely.

@jimbomcmaster I think that ‘food has teeth’ worked quite well. Also, the wounds in their foreheads -as suggested by others here, indicates a typical Doctorism -ensuring they listen or else. Shona, as Alien fan, would be sufficiently grossed out to ‘bloody well do it right’.

Did you enjoy the differences in the characters? Shona compared to the remaining female crew? The return of Danny Pink and his 2 inches of height – I liked that.

@pedant The Open Fires. Cripes I thought you was talking about the possibility of having open fires in your yards for a sec. I recall none in the London area excepting Guy Fawkes many years ago. Again, boiling with thickness.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@nerys    I completely agree about Midnight. It was probably my favourite episode of what was definitely my favourite AG series (until Series 8, which may be sitting on top of the pile now!). And as you say, the caring about these fictional characters is what makes the show resonate for us, and makes the messages matter.

@purofilion   Having a lovely Christmas, thanks! Not had time to properly rewatch the special, but Mr. Arbutus and I have been “vacationing” in local coffee houses on a daily basis, and now the sun has come out! Many cookies and tarts have been consumed, post-supper whisky and port, and a ridiculous amount of chocolate. Arbutus Jr. received a wok for Christmas, so the Arbutus men cooked mee goreng last night while I sat in a comfy chair and read Alexander McCall Smith. It doesn’t get better than this.

@rob   “MoiMoi.”   🙂   🙂    🙂

@mudlark   Our cat does the same thing, but as my husband is quite tall, it is his shoulder that provides the extension to the back of the sofa.

@bluesqueakpip     Lovely description of the Doctor’s “space dad” relationship with Clara!

@juniperfish @jimbomcmaster    I haven’t watched since Boxing Day, but I seem to believe that, although dismissive at first of the remaining danger, he did perform a fairly urgent about-face when he realized the immediacy of that danger? (I also loved the “deleted” line!)

[Arbutus @arbutus]

Oh, @purofilion, I also meant to say that we have always had tangerines (mandarins, we call them) in the stockings, but it was a new tradition for Mr. Arbutus when we were first married. Like the Doctor, he doesn’t care for them, so this year, he received a red Anjou pear in his stocking instead. (I wasn’t sure why it took Santa so many years to figure that one out, but now of course, I understand that he is pretty attached to the tangerine tradition!)

[janetteB @janetteb]

@bluesqueakpip @juniperfish and @purofilion

I also am in the Doctor as “space Dad” not actual DNA Dad camp. I suspect that Moffat and PC are aiming to establish a father/daughter type relationship for the Doctor and companion in the upcoming series. Acutally I think they should model the Doctor/Clara relationship on that of Hartnell and Lambert in “An Adventure in Time and Space” which was in turns, caring, supportive, paternal and maternal.

Cheers

Janette

[Mudlark @mudlark]

At last, five days later and very late to the party, I find myself with time to sit down and analyse, or try to analyse, why I found Last Christmas so very enjoyable and all-round satisfying.  Although I have read through all the comments to date, it has been at snatched intervals and at speed. I jotted down a few notes, but I apologise in advance for any failure on my part to recognise or acknowledge points already made and discussed.

It was pretty much all I could have wished for in a Christmas offering: seasonal without schmaltz, and with a hint of acerbity to cut the genuine emotional content;  nicely gruesome monsters, and the drama of an insidious threat to all life on earth which was played out and resolved on a compact, almost intimate scale, in contrast to the extravagance and pyrotechnics which, to my mind, have marred so many of the Christmas Specials.  The narrative was as neat as a set of intricately fashioned, nesting Chinese boxes, ornamented with delightful little details, surprises and jokes.

The themes of dreams versus waking life, illusion and fantasy versus reality, stories, legends and myths were explored in a thought-provoking way which cast some of the more debateable aspects of Series 8 in a new light, and this was signposted early on.

Santa Claus:  …believer until the age of nine. Why did you stop?

Clara:  Because you’re a fairy tale; I grew out of fairy tales.

Santa Claus:  Did you, Clara? Did you really?

…. cue sound of Tardis materialising.

Then there was the (lack of) explanation offered by everyone, including Clara, asked how they came to be on a scientific base at the North Pole:  ‘It’s a long story‘

The idea of the dreams within dreams was used to very good effect. It also raised questions, amongst which was, how come a group of people who, with the exception of the Doctor and Clara, turned out apparently to have no connection with one another,  were in the same dream(s)?  (I think it was @macphisto96  who referred to ‘community dreaming’). The explanation which occurred to me was that while they were under the influence of the dream crabs, which operated through telepathy,  they were linked telepathically – the dream desires of each feeding into one another, reinforced by the Santa Claus myth/archetype.  But whereas all but the Doctor were initially unaware that they were dreaming, the Doctor himself was a lucid dreamer: that is, he was aware all along that he was dreaming and was, to some extent able to direct the course of the dream.  Perhaps it was he who first summoned Santa Claus because, as  @dimchall (SallySparrow)  observed, Santa is his dream counterpart in many respects; a manipulator of space and time, travelling in a vehicle which is bigger on the inside and, in this case, the person who acts as the catalyst in resolving the problem.

It was a very clever way of incorporating Santa which allowed belief while not committing to a too-literal representation. Because Santa can be completely real within the dream and, in this case, it was essential that people accepted him as such, as underlined in the ‘Tinkerbell’ moment  ‘Do you believe in Santa?’

Some of the stories are resolved and the stories (lies) which Clara and the Doctor had told one another were soon dealt with.  In her dream of Christmas at home with Danny, Clara was enabled to come to terms with Danny’s death and, I think, acknowledged subconsciously her changed relationship with the Doctor.  This was signalled for me when there was the knock at the door and she said it was probably her Dad – and it was, of course, the Doctor, her ‘space dad’ (I am among those who think that there is no biological relationship: the link with River is/was probably the result of Clara’s involvement with the Doctor’s time-line).

I suspect that it is one of those episodes which will repay many more viewings, because it contains so many goodies, like the silver sixpences and charms in an old-fashioned Christmas pudding, and I am sure I haven’t spotted them all.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

Postscript:  Did anyone else spot, among the throw away lines and little jokes, that Santa, having just entered the polar base, turned  towards Rudolf, visible and fidgeting in the open doorway, to quiet him. He pointed,  there was a beep and Rudolf’s nosed flashed and went dark. The logic of a dream!

And on the subject of dreamscapes, was my imagination working overtime, or did the exterior of the polar base bear a certain resemblance to the layout of the rooftop where Clara first encountered Santa?  That, too, would be consistent with the logic of a dream.

 

 

[Barbara Lefty @barbaralefty]

Ooh, yes @mudlark, totally thought the roof/ polar base layout mapped.

Which does get us back to, that house ain’t real…

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@mudlark

Great comment.  (I liked the Rudolph’s nose bit). I hadn’t noticed the similarities between the polar base and Clara’s rooftop. Interesting. But also – the door on to the roof also looks very like the TARDIS door. I thought the TARDIS was right behind her at first, then realised it was the house door.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

I’m a bit grumpy at the moment as Last Christmas STILL hasn’t appeared on Catch Up TV or iplayer on my TV, so limited options to rewatch. Grr! (how do they expect the ratings to go up if they don’t have it avaialble for rewatch?! 😉 )

[lisa @lisa]

Don’t recall if this was mentioned but my friend reminded me that the professor that died {Troughton]
still had a dream crab on his head so there is still 1 crab unaccounted for

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@scaryb
If you have recording facilities, it’s on in the wee hours of Wednesday morning on BBC2 at 03:35. That is, in about six hours.

Yes, 3.35 am. Dunno if that’s the one with somebody doing the BSL translation, or something.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@bluesqueakpip Thank you for that 🙂

@lisa There would indeed appear to be one dream crab still out there. That we know of!  Who’s to say there aren’t more. Or that we (and this board) aren’t all asleep and deeply dreaming? 😈 (in which case I thank you all for being excellent telepathic/dream companions)

[Anonymous @]

@mudlark  @barbaralefty

Indeed, Santa locked Rudolph using the key fob. Of course it would go red: mine does too. I loved those little hints and modern allusions “turned right around” as in the old hymn redone majestically by Victor Davies in his symphony to the Mennonites (this episode featured a lot of turning right around!).

I also loved your description of nesting boxes: I saw it as little Czech dolls fitting perfectly into each other; a twist, a click and they open. But with age, water, misery or over-use, they break. I thought this especially fitting both at Christmas and as part of the motivation and story of the dream crabs.

I believe those individuals, particularly Shona, but also the others, were susceptible to the monsters: they conjured up and fabricated a far more satisfying history: colourful, enviable and picturesque.  The characters could be considered expendable; disposable almost. The way in which Clara and the Doctor were evacuated to that position suggests a lot about how ordinary they were at that moment. That isn’t a bad thing: the Doctor as Oncoming Storm with his Doctors Donna, Martha and the Impossible Girl needed a rest from the unconquerable confederation mystique.

I enjoyed how the illogic of the circumstances frightened these ‘scientists’ out of their wits: they almost wanted to crush such illogic and yet, squirming about, listening to the Doctor and then barking “that’s not reality” actually attracted them. That’s why they were so susceptible in the beginning: those nesting boxes of mudlarks were patterned throughout.

Clara, happily vacant in the sleigh with Santa, was nearly seduced by that terrible fire of attraction. It was an almost destructive passion and I suppose humans must work these out through more vulgar methods and with greater efficiency (but not in the universe of The Doctor 🙂 ).

I was interested in the solidarity of the ‘scientists’: the crisp air of superiority such small groups often create did not exist. This was our first clue that these people weren’t quite ‘real’ in context. Brows were furrowed, lips pursed, screens habitually watched and yet the normal focussed sobriety we often recognise was missing -or quickly dismissed. There was a tangle of hints and emotions: the enormous turkey leg, perfume accountant’s business-correct coiffure, Shona’s ear worm of Christmas songs and her goofball behaviour – and of course the arrival of Santa.

I love goof ball!

Quite epic: and yet as deft and light as a soufflé or a Sylvia Plath poem.

Kindest, puro.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@intesar

Well, to start with, you probably want to avoid cross-posting.

[CyberScrewdriver @cyberscrewdriver]

Capaldi reminds me of William Hartnell a bit. Tetchy, won’t hold hands for the life of him, but still the man we expect the Doctor to be. Almost. Well…

I wonder just how many people, after watching Last Christmas, questioned reality there. Checking for an ice-cream pain in their temple and then trying to wake up. I know I was one of them!

 

[Anonymous @]

@intesar oh, there are grumps out in force today 🙂 It was lovely, thank you. Keep on doing…that…

Kindest, purofilion

[acciotardis @acciotardis]

I think I may need to re watch this one. I was a bit disappointed to be honest. Clara has been grating on me recently and I was happy she seemed to have ‘come back’ to the Doctor but then we had to have more Danny. I just didn’t enjoy their storyline I’m sorry.  I’m hoping series 9 will be better in terms of great stories between Clara and the Doctor and not too much faffing on earth!

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

@purofilion  Re your last (longer) post – beautifully observed and beautifully expressed.  Esp liked this:

Quite epic: and yet as deft and light as a soufflé or a Sylvia Plath poem.

 

 

[Random Help @intesar]

@purofilion Thank You

[nerys @nerys]

@purofilion I’ve been lurking. But until we had a new episode to talk about, I haven’t had much to say, LOL! I guess I need that inspiration to get on a roll. I’ve also been busy with work leading up to Christmas, and also taking part in the seasonal overindulgence.

@Barbara Lefty Which does get us back to, that house ain’t real…

Which reminds me of my earlier faulty logic. I was thinking that at the very least, Clara was dreaming her father’s house because of Danny asking Clara if it was her dad knocking. But, of course, if it were her father’s house, why would he knock at his own front door? Duh.

[TheCubingWhovian @thecubingwhovian]

 

[Anonymous @]

@cathannabel thank you so much.  I hope you had a great Christmas and also a funky new Year -Kindest to you, puro.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

A random little thing no no-one seems to have remarked on.

At the start, on the roof:

Clara: No, Hang on. Stop. Shut up.

100% pure distilled Doctor.

Even in a dream, she’s still Being The Doctor.

Until he turns up.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@barbaralefty   Glad it wasn’t just me!

Which does get us back to, that house ain’t real…

Well, it struck me from the first as a bit unreal, particularly as we had last seen Clara in a flat in a multi-storey block; and once it became clear that this was a dream scenario the matter was settled as far as I was concerned: it was part of the dream, though it may well have incorporated elements of houses she had known.  It reminded me of a recurrent dream I used to have (and variants of which I still have from time to time).  In the dream I would find myself in a house which I identified with one my family had lived in when I was in my teens.  The real house was late Georgian in date, modestly elegant and spacious, but in the dream it was much larger, grander and more richly furnished and, in walking around it, I kept finding rooms and treasures that I had previously been unaware of.

@purofilion   Russian matryoshka dolls (and I assume that the Czech dolls you refer to are similar) was indeed another image that came to mind, but it seemed to me too straightforward.  The one which occurred to me first of all was that of one of those virtuoso carvings of filigree balls, freely revolving one inside the other, fashioned from a single piece of turned ivory or boxwood.  I settled for Chinese boxes as a more widely recognized simile.

Strange that you should refer to the people caught up in the dream as ‘expendable; disposable almost’.  They were ordinary people, certainly, albeit in extraordinary circumstances, but I did not see them as expendable; certainly not ‘red shirts’, to use the Star Trek analogy.  The real difference here – which I alluded to – was the scale of the drama which, though tense, was domestic, not  epic. The Doctor was not a super-hero, not the ‘oncoming storm’,  flying in to save the world and terrify the monsters at the very utterance of his name; he was the ‘idiot in a box, passing through, helping out’ – as in the past he most often has been (and as, on the whole, I prefer him to be).

You mentioned Shona in particular, and she was certainly the most fully realised personality of the four individuals at the polar base: the girl who, in the end, was most anxious for everyone to keep in touch and who, as we discovered, was facing a Christmas alone and lonely (and there is a big difference there) in her messy flat, with nothing but a rather depressing ‘to-do’ list to help her through.  The fact that her list consisted largely of watching  horror sf movies and fantasy does suggest, though, that she might have been a major element in driving the dream .  It would not surprise me if she made another appearance.

The ‘scientists’ did not, of course, convince as real scientists.  Their behaviour and their setting looked to me more like the imaginative construct of people whose knowledge was based on film and television scenarios, and perhaps the occasional popular documentary.  If they were reluctant to accept the irrationality of the intrusion of Santa Claus and of a ‘skeleton man and a girl in a nightie’ who had arrived in a police telephone box , it was not so much that they were rational scientists, as that they were dreamers trying to assert the logic of their communal dream.

As for Clara, lingering on the sleigh with Santa as they flew above London – who has not tried to cling on to a particularly seductive fading dream as they awaken?  And Santa was, in this instance, the Doctor’s alter ego.

 

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@pedant

Even in a dream, she’s still Being The Doctor.

Yes, she is. It’s probably part of being such a good liar; she learns by pretending – until the pretence becomes the truth. She admires the Doctor, copies him, pretends she is him …

… and becomes somebody who can take his place. The Magician’s Apprentice indeed.

That, of course, is how an apprentice learns. They observe, imitate, attempt, and finally reach a point where knowledge of their craft is part of them, and they can use it to create new things (rather than just imitating what’s gone before).

I wonder where Moffat’s going with Clara? Is her ‘leaving the Doctor’ arc going to be a case of her acquiring her own means of time-travel? Or is she going to be one of those companions who leave because they’ve found a place and time that needs them to stay and be the Doctor?

[Whisht @whisht]

nice point @bluesqueakpip as to Clara’s arc now (almost certainly) being one of leaving one way or another.

Out of staying put in a time and place that need her or becoming an idiot in a box… hm, I don’t really see her as an idiot in a box (though maybe more like Jenny).

Maybe she’ll find her Christmas to stay and defend. Or somehow go to Gallifrey to show them how to care.

Or maybe she’ll sacrifice herself one last time for the Doctor {gulp}

As for The Magician’s Apprentice, I actually thought of TH White’s book The Sword in the Stone (can’t remember much about it now, but which apparently even references Robin Hood /Wood).

Those darn Myths again… apprentices destined for greater things….

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@bluesqueakpip

To travel alone or to stay….

Another reason for staying could be the one implied by River’s last tease.

[Barbara Lefty @barbaralefty]

Wow! Away for a for a few hours and toooo much to take in

Particularly loved

@purofilion

Unconquerable confederation mystique

Just Lovely!!

@pedant

100% pure distilled Doctor

And that bloody house! Keep coming back to it. @scaryb agree about the ‘Tardis’ door. Of course Dave wouldn’t knock at his own house door (@nerys). I would love to give it a ‘Christmas Special’ /nice set dressing aesthetic pass, but am struggling.

@bluesqueakpip

By his Mistress..

OK so hadn’t thought of that piece of ‘the clue is in the name’! I had wondered about her decision to change biological sex, and the whole boyfriend thing. I wonder if there will be a romantic trip to a clone bank in the Doctor’s near future… So is Missy trying save the Gallifreyan race, in her own completely icky way?!

Still not on the Clara as daughter bandwagon, seems disrespectful to Ellie and Dave. I’m still not completely giving up on my child abandoned in temporal backwater, also known as Gloucester, no known family, has the sort of hostile relationship with potential parent which would utterly throw audience off the scent if they were on the lookout for potential kids, and which while other explanations are available, would not suffer from further explanation. Which all seems a bit disrespectful to Clara, and would require a major retrofit. Oh wait, this is Doctor Who.
But still…

@bluesqueakpip, argh insufficient information re River’s last tease. Must. Trawl. Internet. Or get a life. Y’know.

[lisa @lisa]

Clara was aspects of all those characters not just the Doctor but another clue for me was
the dream crabs as they were surely some aspect of the dream patches. Our dreams are often cries
out to be rescued from our real lives and this Christmas episode was for me sadly a glimpse into
Clara’s trauma of how part of her feels about traveling with the Doctor.
She has been gradually twisting inside her mind and maybe starting to loose her “wits”?
She puts up a strong face against everything she has been thru but we all can suddenly
crack. I hope that Clara’s dreams serve to help her avoid breaking down from the pressure
I think she’s feeling. I wonder if we get a new breakdown in series 9?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@lisa

Given that the classic path of an addiction (in Clara’s case, to lying) is that you can’t break free until you’ve reached the rock bottom moment where you know it’s change or die, I’d say it’s unlikely that Clara’s arc is continuing downwards. Her ‘rock bottom’ was the dream-within-a-dream, when she chose to stay with Danny knowing that it would kill her.

That’s the liar’s rock bottom; the point when they are even lying to themselves. Not just to her parents (Time of the Doctor), not just to her various employers, not just to her boyfriend(s), not just to the Doctor. The the dream-within-a-dream is the point where Clara decides to live in the fantasy. There’s nothing real left; not her boyfriend (he’s dead), not her own flat, no mention of her job. Everything’s a fantasy.

There is, especially, no mention of the Doctor – she quite firmly rejects his attempts to break into her dream, until he finds a method that she can’t ignore.

Once the Doctor breaks in, reality starts creeping back – represented by Danny. Whether Danny is ‘real’, or a near-perfect memory doesn’t matter. He died trying to save her. Dying now would be a final betrayal. Failing to live would be a final betrayal.

The final scenes, where she’s still sleeping and can’t wake up until the Doctor wakes her, are full circle from Time of the Doctor. There, Clara saves the Doctor (again) by doing something he can’t do – asking for help from the Time Lords. Here, the Doctor saves Clara (again) by doing something she can’t do – by herself, she can’t wake up from the fairy tale.

Incidentally, it’s entirely consistent with the various legends and fairy tales (notably Brunnhilde and Sleeping Beauty) that Clara can’t wake herself up, but needs her ‘prince’ to do it for her. 🙂

[Cyberlord @cyberlord]

CYBER-REPORT: I really wish they would stop using the jock about making things like a car. The TARDIS, Vastra’s carriage, Rudolph…It was funny the first time. Also, something I do not understand: If Santa Claus was a dream character, how did he see the Doctor in the TARDIS?

[Anonymous @]

@mudlark  Oh dear: I did write that in less than 10 mins and so if I offended you or didn’t seem to understand your points then I apologise.

strange how you alluded to the drama as domestic and not epic 🙂 I too haven’t been thrilled by past Christmas specials involving pyrotechnics and yet Boy Ilion loved them! Certainly, tTofD had ’em in spades.

Anyway, I believe (puro says now!) I said “quite epic”. To me, people taken from different places and re-formed into scientists represents an allusion to epic just as these same people, whilst ordinary, were described by me as characters who could be “considered expendable”. I didn’t wish to communicate that they were entirely expendable. Though it’s obvious one could read that into it!

To elaborate, we didn’t really get to know them completely and yet we sympathised with them; ultimately they had occupations which, in certain areas, could be judged as disposable – are they disposable? No (Do we associate certain occupations with certain people and therefore judge them? Some do. Does that make certain groups disposable? It shouldn’t but in peoples’ eyes it unfortunately does: I blame Plato, of course!).

But it could be interpreted in such a way: they created “satisfying”, “enviable”, more ‘cool’ constructs than their actual lives (if they held such a belief about themselves then in the end there existed resolution). They wanted something more…and they got it…

Have we tried to hang on to a vivid dream, a “particularly seductive fading dream”? Absolutely. I guess I was making comment about the nature of that particular destructive passion: it was a Classical passion firstly (though there are arguments for it being a Romantic one: introspective, solitary), and secondly, the consequences could, or would, have been destructive.

Indeed, “The Doctor was not a super-hero, not the oncoming storm”, I also hinted at that. This does not take away the epic feeling of the story -at least for me. Although one could argue that Father Christmas’ “alter ego”, The Doctor (which I also understood to be the case) elicits more than whimsy as a touch of ‘epic’ exists in all Last Christmas’ 😉

Call it an adjunct to the story and not its point, certainly  -just as alone and lonely are two different things, as you stated.

Kindest and happy New Year, purofilion.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Oh, and one minor thing: I love the running gag about this Doctor’s clothing choices always ending up making him look like he’s a stage magician.

Even when the poor bloke tries wearing a hoodie. It just changes the look to ‘street magician’. 😉

[lisa @lisa]

@bluesqueakpip Totally agree with 99% of your thoughts but not on board with the rock bottom part
[maybe]? This is because Clara sets high standards for herself. Remember the scene where she
looks in the mirror and says “I can do this!”. Its the paradox of being less about success and
more about avoiding failure. She reminds me of those folks that exude self confidence from every
pore but inside they feel failure. She needs to hear the Doctor’s approval- “Was I a good Doctor”
and she is emotionally shaky still IMHO and continues to carry around a lot of baggage
So I still think that she feels caught between a rock and a hard place and its complicated and
it can be very uncomfortable and very challenging but she is hooked on traveling with the
Doctor and ‘she can do this’
All I’m saying is if series 9 continues to push her into situations then I wonder if Clara can
sustain it?

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@cyberlord

Also, something I do not understand: If Santa Claus was a dream character, how did he see the Doctor in the TARDIS?

The Doctor was dozing when Santa first knocked. He had already been crabbed.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@bluesqueakpip     I think it’s probably down to Capaldi’s gaunt bone structure and intense expressions. There is just a look about him that screams “conjurer”!

@mudlark   @purofilion    Yes, I think we have left the “Oncoming Storm” well behind. I’m not sad about that. Much as I always enjoyed Matt Smith, the Doctor as superhero never sat well with me. I much prefer the idiot in a box!

[Anonymous @]

@arbutus indeed.  He’s rather marvellous, no?

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@purofilion     Oh my goodness, yes! I have a mental image of a manic grin as he suddenly challenges Santa: “How do you fit all the presents in the sleigh?” As though he thought he could catch Father Christmas off his guard!  🙂

[Brewski @brewski]

Oh my! Due to a vacation and a mis-scheduled tivo, I am way WAY behind in viewing, reading, and responding. Still… here goes:

You have a horror movie called “Alien”?! That’s offensive. No wonder they keep invading you!

Santa took everyone “home”. Was really hoping the Doctor would wake up on Gallifrey. Even if only to find it was still a dream.

The sleigh riding started to feel a bit time-filler. Just a bit.

The reference to “Alien”: If only the remark had been made by the War Doctor. 😀

It’s a wonder that no one’s ever walked in and said “Grandma! What a big sucker you have on your face!” 😛

Am I dreaming? As someone who tries to tinker with lucid dreams, I have found one thing that helps me answer that question: Try closing your eyes! For me anyway, when I’m dreaming, I can’t!

More later! Off to digest the Wonderful Pages of Bonkers before me.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@brewski

It’s a wonder that no one’s ever walked in and said “Grandma! What a big sucker you have on your face!”

Explained in-story. Just a few moments of sucker-face passed (except apparently for Clara, where it lasted however long ti took the Doc to Tardis his way to her).

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@purofilion  You certainly did not offend me in any way, and I’m very sorry if I gave that impression in my response.  It looks like a classic case of crossed wires;  easy enough on an internet forum – even one as polite and forgiving as this one 🙂

When I used the term ‘epic’ I was thinking in particular of the Christmas Specials and finales produced by RTD, which tended to go OTT as far as I was concerned – the kind of episode where the cast of (CGI) thousands and the overblown scale of the action threaten to overwhelm the real drama at the heart of the story.  TDotD was epic in the right way (IMO), but it all comes down in the end to how you define the terms.

[ichabod @ichabod]

Yes, whoever said it 2-3 pages ago (I can’t get the hang of posting an answer at the end of the list for something interesting someone else posted back in the middle, so please bear with), the episode, with its Significant Tangerine at the end, invites us to reconnect a bit, with and through our kids (and for some, grandkids) with our childhood belief in Santa.  Moreover, Peter Capaldi embodies that action right before our eyes, while flying the sleigh — If ever I’ve seen a grown man re-connect with childhood joy, that was him in that scene.  You’d expect in in the others on the sleigh, but our newly dour Doctor?  Especially since he knows they’re all still dreaming?  Well — what the Hell,  YEAH!

[elbalk-kev @elbalk-kev]

Doctor Who – Prettier on the outside – Stupider on the inside

The 2014 Christmas special was the last straw. I do not normally join forums or post comments but after reading reviews of this episode from sentimental apologists, I felt I had to speak up. I have been watching Doctor Who almost my entire life from the first episode with the first Doctor (William Hartnell – 1963). The original concept of the show was to be a children’s’ science show. As it matured, Doctor Who became the thinking person’s sci-fi show. It had almost no budget and no special effects but it did have incredibly good writing with meticulous internal logic. This is what saved the show from its reliance of tinfoil and toilet plungers.

Now the show appears to be in the opposite situation. The reboot of Doctor Who (2005 to present) has all the resources of modern CGI technology, a decent budget and enough time for the actors to establish and perfect their performances. However, the writing for the past four years has been desperately in need of a toilet plunger. Episode after episode, logic is thrown out into the vortex leaving massive plot holes in the fabric of space and time. Situations that could be explained logically in one or two lines are simply left unexplained or attributed to vague miracles, mysteries or happenstance. Characters repeatedly die and come back as if they were soap opera stars. Why the absence of coherent plots? Why the lazy short cuts? Why write the show into crazy corners in the first place? One needs only to go back and watch a few episodes of the Troughton or Pertwee or Tom Baker or Tennant series to appreciate how the writing was mostly consistent with the show’s canon and the characters.

Under Moffat’s leadership there hasn’t been a single episode that has been free of logical gaps, implausible twists and unbelievable resolutions. The key to good fantasy/science fiction is helping your audience suspend their disbelief. I’ve tried really hard to be carried along by the story and the superb acting performances but the clumsy writing and jarring plot holes keep throwing buckets of water on my suspended disbelief bringing it crashing to the ground. In contrast, the seasons helmed by Russell T. Davies (2005-2010), though not without flaws, were consistently logical. The 9th and 10th Doctors (Christoper Eccelston and David Tennant) explained the science (or imagined science) behind even the most complex and bizarre situations – often at lightening speed. Belief was not only easy to suspend it was positively buoyed up by the combination of well-crafted scripts and brilliant performances. Then Davies left and took his beautiful, logical, lightening prose and gave it to Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes (2010 – 2014). Doctor Who has been a tongue-tied, fumble-footed shadow of its former self ever since.

Most recent case in point – the 2014 Christmas special. The mash-up of Alien/the Thing/Inception/Miracle on 34th Street – self-consciously acknowledged in the leaden dialogue – featured face-hugging dream crabs that drink your brain while placing you in a dream state within a dream state within a dream state. There was no effort made to explain the basic premise of the episode: there are dream crabs – only six of them – on earth – on Christmas day. What are these dream crabs? Where did they come from? Why did they suddenly show up on earth and why did they attack only these six people? None of this is ever explained. The season finale before this special saw the grand villain, Missy, revealed as the Master – in the form of a woman (a sop to those disappointed in the casting of yet another white male Doctor) transferring the consciousness of the newly dead into cybermen (wow – that never gets old, does it?). How the Master survived his/her apparent destruction several seasons back was never explained. He/she apparently was destroyed this time but who knows – maybe it was all a dream-crab induced fantasy.

After the end of this episode I was curious to know what others thought. I read review after review of the Christmas special pointing out the problems with the plot and yet saying they liked it anyway for the sentiments it expressed. The cognitive dissonance was deafening! Is it that people have simply given up expecting any logic from Doctor Who or from any media in general? Is it that people are so easily impressed by rich visual content that they are willing to overlook the sloppy writing? Or are people so distracted by their various devices and their need to tweet and blog and FB their every waking moment that they simply don’t notice the disjointedness of poorly thought-out plots. I suspect that they assumed they missed something while texting during the show and didn’t want to admit it.

Well, I’m here to say that some of us are paying attention. Some of us are just plain offended by the sub-standard writing and by the waste of the talents of Capaldi and Coleman and the many excellent guest stars and supporting cast. The question is why has the show been allowed to disintegrate to this point? The reason Doctor Who became relevant was because the plots were so strong and the premises were airtight. It stood the test of time because the internal logic was respected. What the show has gained in techno-wizardry it has lost in essential good sense and plausible scientific foundations. It is coasting on the fumes of bizarrely uncritical fan adulation.

Moffat has offered good scripts in the past under the direction of Davies. Is he stretched too thin as the director and show-runner? Is he farming the scripts out? Or has the show been purposely dumbed down to appeal to a more mainstream (i.e. North American) audience? Perhaps Moffat has been attacked by mysterious dream crabs and is incapable of writing himself out of the dream state.

Here’s a new year’s resolution for Steven Moffat that I hope he will take to heart: Hire a serious writing team and bring back the science and logic of Doctor Who.

[PaperMoon @papermoon]

Russell T Davies and Sherlock Holmes?

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@papermoon

Russell T Davies and Sherlock Holmes?

Indeed.

@ebalk-kev

Then Davies left and took his beautiful, logical, lightening prose and gave it to Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes

I don’t know how to break the news to you, but RTD has nothing to do with Sherlock. It is, in fact, written by…Steven Moffat. In other words, that “beautiful, logical, lightening prose” is written by the person who..oh, why bother?

@pedant

One for you, I think.

[Author]

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