(813) Last Christmas

Now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain. Well that’s enough Frank Sinatra lyrics for now but it is the end and the moment has been prepared for. After 812 days, I get ready to watch the most recent episode of Doctor Who to air on British TV. Episode 813 is another Christmas episode and it’s the 10th Christmas Special. This is the 34th episode to be credited to Steven Moffat, taking him above Russell T Davies and ties him with David Whittaker and Dave Martin. He is at the moment the fourth most prolific writer in the shows history. Also this is the 57th episode for Steven Moffat as Executive Producer and he is three behind Russell T Davies. The episode starts with Nick Frost’s Santa encountering Clara and there is no explanation as to what happened at the end of the previous episode. This episode sees Michael Troughton appear. Michael is the other son of former Doctor Patrick Troughton and its nice to his other son in the show. He plays Albert Smithe who does come across as a bit of a dirty old man. In a way its not the greatest role for Troughton to play as all he does really is eat a chicken leg and gets sucked into a TV screen. That is quite a good way to die and effects wise its well done but I think that the character could have been better served with some better stuff to do. During the scene with Doctor Who’s answer to the facehuggers, the Doctor learns that Danny Pink is dead and that Clara was lying. Clara lied so that the Doctor would leave her and the Doctor lied about finding Gallifrey so that Clara would stay with Danny. They both deserve each other. The facehuggers are called Dreamcrabs which is a cool name for a cool looking monster. Even Smithe calls them facehuggers and references Alien and I like how the Doctor gets annoyed with this. When Clara gets covered with a Dreamcrab, the Doctor decides to be attached to a Dreamcrab to convince Clara that she is in a dream and that Danny is the antidote to stop Clara from screaming. When the Doctor and Clara think they have woken up it was quite obvious that they were all still asleep. There is a line that Clara gives when she says that you cant believe what you see which means that this is an episode where things will happen and there is always going to be a question and to whether they are really awake or still asleep. It does get a bit tiresome after a while as all it seems to do is fill a bit of time. This was due to be Jenna Coleman’s last episode and most people think that she is one of the longest serving companions but in reality she the fourth longest serving companion in terms of episodes. She is two behind Arthur Darvill, seven behind Billie Piper and 10 behind Karen Gillan. This wasn’t the greatest episode for Clara and had it been the last one for her then it would have been a disappointing end for the character. As it isn’t then its possible to be kinder to her and I hope that when she does leave that her departure is better thought out. Her best scene comes at the end when she has aged about sixty years and the prosthetics used to make her look old doesn’t work as well as it could have done. Her performance was good though and it was a nice scene between her and Capaldi. I like how it looks like its real and then Santa comes in a shows that they were dreaming and when the Doctor sees Clara again she is young. I suspect this is the part that got re-written when Coleman decided to stay. Speaking of Peter Capaldi, he was on fine form in this episode despite the story not being as good as it could have been. It’s nice that the Doctor is allowed to smile and be positive and I did smile when the Doctor took control of Santa’s sledge and hopefully the future will see a lighter side to Capaldi’s Doctor. I don’t want a Matt Smith version of the twelfth Doctor but something in between. The problem with this episode is that the show spends an hour saying that nothing is what it seems and whilst I like the idea of doing a Christmas Special with a very dark tone to it, I would rather have a Christmassy plot rather than a nice tone to it. Also I really don’t know what to make of Santa because I can’t quite make my mind up whether Santa was supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy. This might be down to Nick Frost but the confusion is something that did bother me a bit. Well that is the marathon over which ends at 8:48pm on Thursday August 6th. The marathon which started on May 16th 2013 is now over and I am tempted at the moment to regenerate this marathon into a Torchwood marathon. I don’t know at the moment but I am happy now to have completed the marathon and to have watched and listened to every single episode of Doctor Who that has been transmitted. I will post a ending statement tomorrow but at the moment I will say that this wasn’t the best episode to end the marathon but I am convinced that Capaldi is a very good Doctor and the new series starts in just over a month so there is something to look forward to.