Keeping It Real (short story)

Keeping It Real was the twenty-third short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas. It was written by Joseph Lidster. It featured the Fifth Doctor and Tegan.

Summary
Responding to a distress call, Tegan and the Doctor land on Salient Point in the middle of a snow storm — only the snow is made of paper. The town is in the old English style. The townspeople go around wishing each other "joy" and singing Christmas carols.

They soon realise that nothing there is real, except for one man, Vivash O'Connell. The Doctor goes to inspect the village while Tegan talks to Vivash. Every time she tries to tell him nothing here is real, she is interrupted. She finds the Doctor inside a paper snowman, having been put there by the villagers when he tried to state that nothing here was real. The Doctor and Tegan learn that Vivash thinks they aren't real either.

Vivash tells them that he was on a colony ship that crashed on the planet. He was the only survivor. He programmed the food replicator to make Christmas every day, but since none of it is real, he is starving to death.

The Doctor and Tegan take him on board the TARDIS, where they have Christmas dinner.

Characters

 * Fifth Doctor
 * Tegan
 * Vivash O'Connell

Worldbuilding

 * Tegan and the Doctor are headed back to Frontios.
 * Tegan mentions Sherlock Holmes.
 * The people's clothes come from many eras: Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian, Elizabethan and Martian.
 * "Ding Dong Merrily on High" plays.
 * The Doctor, Tegan and Vivash have Christmas pudding, mince pies and brandy butter.

Continuity

 * Tegan mentions that she and the Doctor had been trying to take the Gravis to Kolkokron, but on the way they stopped on Queth. (PROSE: Life After Queth)
 * Tegan mentions that they left Vislor Turlough behind on Frontios. (TV: Frontios)