Last Christmas (TV story)

9.63

 was the 2014 Doctor Who Christmas special. It was the 813th episode of the series and the first full Christmas special with Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. It brought back Nick Frost as Santa who was last seen at the end of Death in Heaven.

Casting-wise, it was notable for featuring the first on-screen appearance of Michael Troughton, son of Second Doctor actor Patrick Troughton. It also allowed recurring actor Dan Starkey, best known for portraying various Sontaran characters, to appear with minimal make-up as an elf.

The Christmas special saw the return of Danny Pink, Clara Oswald's boyfriend and former Coal Hill School Maths teacher — albeit only in Clara's dream state.

Synopsis
The Doctor and Clara face their Last Christmas. Trapped on an Arctic base and under attack from terrifying creatures, who are you going to call? Santa Claus!

Plot
On a frosty night before Christmas, Clara Oswald awakens to the sound of an object crashing on her rooftop. Putting on her dressing gown, she leaves her room to investigate and discovers Santa Claus, his elves, reindeer and sleigh upon her roof, having crashed after an accident. Ian quickly informs Santa that they've been sighted. They attempt to pass themselves off as ordinary people, but after Clara sees the reindeer flying loose in the sky, they reveal their true identities. Clara though, tries to deny his existence as a fairytale when she is spotted, Santa questions if she still believes in fairy-tales, before being interrupted by the Doctor who, upon arguing that no-one loves tangerines, takes her into the TARDIS. Once inside, he questions her on her belief of Santa, to which she answers that she still does as he whisks her away.

At a base in the North Pole, a group of scientists are tracking Shona as she enters an infirmary. One of the scientist called Ashley tells Shona not to think about "them" and to concentrate on something else. She enters the infirmary, and begins dancing to Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" which appears to take her mind off the victims. She reaches the end of the infirmary, by which point the Doctor and Clara appear. As Clara wonders what's happened to the victims, they wake up and begin moving. Shona warns them not to think about what they can see, and the Doctor deduces that the creatures attached to the victim's faces are both deaf and blind, but they use telepathy to keep a constant image of themselves in someone's memory, allowing them to 'see'. As the victims close in, the scientists appear with guns ready to attack, and then several crab-like creatures appear from the ceiling and attack the group. They're then seemily saved by Santa, who is able to send the victims back to sleep. He then bring in a captured creature, which the Doctor recognises as a Kantrofarri or "dream crab".

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Cast

 * The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
 * Clara - Jenna Coleman
 * Santa Claus - Nick Frost
 * Danny - Samuel Anderson
 * Ian - Dan Starkey
 * Wolf - Nathan McMullen
 * Shona - Faye Marsay
 * Ashley - Natalie Gumede
 * Bellows - Maureen Beattie
 * Professor Albert - Michael Troughton

Story notes

 * This episode saw a one-off modification to the title sequence. The clockfaces the TARDIS flies through are blue and icy, and the TARDIS is covered in snow. The names of the lead actors dissolve into particles, and the closing time vortex has flying snowflakes.
 * For the first time for this title sequence, more than two people are credited. Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman's names appear normally, then Nick Frost's name appears between the Doctor Who logo and the episode title credit.
 * This is the third consecutive Christmas special to feature Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald, with this number making her the companion actor with the most appearances on Christmas. Karen Gillan's cameo in The Time of the Doctor as a hallucination of former companion, Amy Pond, could arguably be called a third appearance, albeit not a full one.
 * This is also the third consecutive Christmas special to feature Dan Starkey. He had previously appeared in his recurring Sontaran role, Strax, in TV: The Snowmen, then as Commander Skarr and his unnamed subordinate in The Time of the Doctor.
 * Jenna Coleman allegedly had a "change of heart" on whether she wanted to stay on Doctor Who and is going to appear in the ninth series. This change required the Christmas special to be rewritten; "When it came to Clara, they had to tear them up and start again," the source said. "In the original draft of the script, she became an old woman who then died with the Doctor at her side. But after they were rewritten, she will now be seen returning to the Tardis, hand in hand with the Doctor." That source said she would appear in the first half of the series, however a newer source confirm her for the full series 9.
 * The announcement 'The Doctor and Clara will return in - The Magician's Apprentice' appears at the end of this episode. The title of the series 9 premiere was confirmed by Steven Moffat a week prior to this special's broadcast. Shona likened the Doctor to a magician several times during the episode, and Santa made a passing mention of the very same nature.
 * To keep the appearance of Danny Pink a surprise, Samuel Anderson was uncredited in Radio Times and on the BBC website.

Rating
9.63 million

Filming locations
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Production errors
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Continuity

 * The Doctor is likened to a magician because of his appearance. He previously noted this about himself in TV: Time Heist.
 * Clara lets it slip that Danny Pink is still dead, something she'd withheld from the Doctor in TV: Death in Heaven. Danny appears in a crab-induced dream she's later in, in a Santa suit and slightly taller.
 * During his dream of elderly Clara, the Doctor helps her pull a cracker. Clara had previously done the same for the elderly Eleventh Doctor in TV: The Time of the Doctor.
 * At the end of the episode, a nightie-clad Clara leaves in the TARDIS in the dead of night. Amy Pond's travels with the Doctor began in similar fashion at the end of TV: The Eleventh Hour.
 * The Doctor states that all the people affected by the dream crabs could very well be from different times and places, as time travel is possible within dreams. Madame Vastra once told Clara something similar when explaining the psychic conference call in TV: The Name of the Doctor: when Clara asked how they were communicating across time, Vastra stated that time travel was possible in dreams.
 * The First Doctor previously met Santa Claus in COMIC: A Christmas Story, though COMIC: The Land of Happy Endings insinuated that the encounter was all in his head. The Second Doctor also prevented him from inadvertently tearing the fabric of space in PROSE: The Man Who (Nearly) Killed Christmas. In TV: A Christmas Carol, the Eleventh Doctor showed a child in Sardicktown a photograph of himself with Santa Claus and Albert Einstein, and claimed that Santa's real name was Jeff.

DVD releases
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Blu-ray releases
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