A brilliant episode….but am I dreaming?

On a linguistic note moron in Welsh means Carrots.

Absolute load if rubbish. Bottom if the barrel stuff

The special seemed like quite a bit of a retread to me. Not only of previous DW episodes (Amy’s Choice) but also of movies, one of which the special actually went ahead and identified by name.

There was also no explanation as to why these people were all connected by the same dream. And why did the dream take place in a north pole scientific facility. Why not Santa’s workshop? And how was the Doctor connected? Was he on Earth while having his dream? He seemed to be in the area where Clara was having her “dream” in the beginning moments of “Dark Water”. The place where she was challenging the Doctor with the TARDIS keys.

At least the inclusion of Santa ended up making sense. I’m also not clear on where the Crabs came from, how they got where they got to (where ever those places actually were) and why they allowed(?) their victims to connect to one another. You would think the Crabs wouldn’t want their victims getting together to work with one another on an escape. And considering that those victims were (I think) spread across the planet (possibly the Universe in the case of the Doctor) and time, it seems even more unlikely that the victims would connect with one another.

It would have been interesting if GUS (from “Mummy on the Orient Express”) was revealed to be behind how the Crabs ended up where and when they ended up. (Hoping GUS returns in Series 9 to tempt the Doctor!)

At this point, I can only give “Last Christmas” a 4/10.

Well, it was passable, but nothing special.

As Moffat admitted himself in the episode, the alien threat were Doctor Who versions of facehuggers from Alien. Also, they join the ranks of the Weeping Angels not moving when you look at them, forgetting the Silence when you look away and now the aliens that exist when you think about them.

To be honest, I don’t know what else to say.

I thought it was decent it wasn’t great but not bad either. The episode felt fairly similar to Amy’s Choice as they were induced into a dream state and had to decide if it was a dream or if it was real. I was slightly disappointed with Nick Frost for some reason and the 2 Elves. Also near the end when Capaldi had fell in that volcano it looked quite similar to the place at the end of Name of the Doctor when we first saw John Hurt.

So Moffatt has his Christmas wish of the next series of The Clara Show – once again dominating the episode, it is a great shame that Peter C is given poor lines. He makes an excellent Doctor. I have to admit I am sick to death of the dominating bosy and boring Clara.
The episode itself shows how easy it is for Moffatt to turn a good idea into a poor script. The concept itself is nothing new, however it could have been done so well. I like the “Christmas Carol” episode for Matt Smith, it took him away from Amy and I hoped that Peter C may have been given a chance to shine, no luck. Moffatt has run out of ideas and is going to give us a new series for his ego. He is gifted, I grant you, he is great at creating complicate issues but has not the imagination in resolving them!

I cried the whole way through! The thought of Clara being old really got me! And yeah I miss Danny Pink!

For me, it was okay, even if for the whole time my mind was screaming The Outer Limits’ “Tempests” episode. It’d be better, if there was a connection to the Dream Lord, though.

On a side, most of the Doctor’s most memorable adventures happen within a small group of people. Not the whole planet, not the whole town. A few people, for us, viewers, to see how they react to the Doctor. So much better, if in the group there is someone who likes Slade!

What a load of tosh! This was Steven Moffat at his lasiest, it felt a lot like “Oh heck it is the day before shooting and I have nothing to write, pass me that fag packet and I’ll jot something on the back”!! When he is good he is brilliant but I think sometimes he tries too hard!

Nice to see Clara staying though, I like the impossible girl.

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 Troughton or Pertwee or 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 put in the mouth of 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 – many of which involve a smart mouth Santa Claus. 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 and its several fake endings 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 scripts. 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 Russell 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.

Moffat’s Doctor Who is Prettier on the Outside but Stupider on the Inside.

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 on 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 and a decent budget but 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 (the go-to re-hash threat for the uninspired). 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.

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 the 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.

el_balk&kev, I couldn’t have said it better.
Like you, I’ve been watching the Doctor since the first episode and made sure I never missed it.
Since Moffat took over, the series has gone downhill so much that I really don’t care If I see another one.
Capaldi is a GREAT actor and makes for a fantastic Doctor (at least he would if he had a half decent script)

Thank you, el_balk&kev and Valcoor, that’s exactly how I feel. I, too, watched from the very beginning and I can remember the awe and excitement of those first William Hartnell episodes. We’d seen nothing like it before. It was an educational show where we absorbed knowledge with no effort. The ’special effects’ were pretty rubbish and the tinfoil and rubber costumes risible but we overlooked all that because of the superb writing. Now, alas, I rarely watch Doctor Who. It all changed when Mr Moffat took over and having struggled through Matt’s first season I gave up. I tried again when Peter Capaldi took over the role because he is a damn fine actor but alas, he has such very poor scripts to work with I have given up again. I am very sad that such a fine programme has been allowed to deteriorate so much from what it was. Hopefully when Mr M finally steps down a new showrunner will breathe life back into the show and we can pass off the Moffat era as ‘all a dream/nightmare!

Well personally, I loved it. But I like stuff like this. There were a lot of hidden gems inside of it — like the stuff about tangerines, which calls back to the very first Christmas special, with David Tennant and the satsuma. I didn’t find it confusing, and I felt the Dream Crabs were as well explained as they needed to be. There’s lots more room for exploring them, but an episode doesn’t have to be a documentary on an alien species. It can leave bits unexplored, for other writers to play with. And they *did* explain how everyone came to be sharing the same dream. Everybody who had been attacked was in the same dream, so logically, there must have been only six Dream Crabs involved in the invasion.

And I don’t know what other folks were watching, but I heard some great lines for the 12th Doctor, which Capaldi delivered perfectly. My favorite was definitely that bit about “You have a horror movie called ‘Alien’? That’s really offensive! No wonder you’re always getting invaded!” It followed comedy’s Rule of Three; prior to it there were two scenes where there were mild jokes about racism pertaining to the elves, and then this came as the third iteration with a twist. (Always have a twist in the third one.) And following the rule faithfully, that was the end of the joke.

Try not to go into it expecting to hate it. If you do, you are almost certain to have your expectations met, regardless of the quality of the work because one crucial piece of any bit of art is what you the viewer brings to it. The cast and production team have no control over that, which is the most terrifying and the most exciting part about art. But it’s why no work can be objectively awful. It can only be *subjectively* so, and people can come away with wildly different opinions despite none of them being morons or sycophants or haters or fanbois or anything like that.

Perhaps the biggest strength of Doctor Who is its versatility. It can tell damn near any kind of story successfully. The upshot of that is that it has enormous staying power — and also, you are guaranteed to not like every episode, because if there’s something for everyone, sooner or later there’ll be something that’s not for you. I’m not sure it’s possible to avoid that.

That was so amazing! I must be dreaming! It had the perfect balance of sci-fi and fantasy, but i think Steven forgot that the show has moved on and is no longer for five year olds, but more for children of 8 or 9 and above, all throughout the season he got that message across but he slightly failed with this episode, to be honest the childish element in Robot of Sherwood would have been enough. or at least make Father Christmas a monster, don’t just leave him t be the mystical and typical tale that he was (with a modernized twist). I am thankful he brought Danny back one last time because, lets face it, his ending in Death in Heaven wasn’t the best. But overall i am happy with episode! And congrats to Peter on his first special, and thank god Jenna is staying! I must be dreaming!

Loved that episode, especially at the end where, when they fly off in the TARDIS you see the tangerine on Clara’s window sill. Just the other night, I had a dream where I was at the mall and people with the “face huggers” on their head were chasing me but the twist was, instead of Peter Capaldi being the doctor, Matt Smith was. WHAT DOES THIS DREAM MEAN?!

That was awesome. I loved the complex of the episode. AMAZZZZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can’t wait till new season starts.

I’m late to the party here, but I stumbled onto this website and enjoyed reading it. I loved Last Christmas. I’m an older fan and I go back as far as William Hartnell. I think it was the best Christmas Special to date and it actually felt like a mainstream episode, sort of part 3 after Dark Water and Death in Heaven. My friend and I, who viewed it together, were grinning like idiots at the end.

the math that Clara says is wrong! 304-17+20 is not 507, its 307, all the other math in the episode is correct, but that really bugged me! so i sent in a letter to DWM asking Moffat if he did that on purpose…