Paul Evans Clara wakes up on Christmas eve and finds Santa and his elves dropping presents off on her roof top, The TARDIS materialises and the Doctor makes Clara go inside, Santa tells the Doctor he'll soon need his help. They land at a base on the North Pole, where they encounter a group of scientists under siege from Dream crabs. At no point can they be sure they are fully awake, that they're not being devoured and anaesthetised by the crabs.Fans of Inception will get the vibe I mean, they're in a dream, in a dream. It's a traditional format really, base under siege from monster.I loved the Christmassy opening credits, they looked rather good.Lots of real silliness throughout, mainly provided by Santa and his elves, but it was Christmas I guess. The joke about the face huggers and Alien was great.Danny Pink is back once again, proving that it's very difficult to leave a character go, can you imagine if he did an Agatha Christie? The corpses would all be up and at 'em.I can see why there's still talk of Shona joining the Doctor, she was good. I always wanted Sally Sparrow to become a regular. Shona could be such an interesting character.It's not my favourite Christmas outing, but it's definitely inside the top 3, excellent in parts, and I am loving Peter Capaldi. 8/10'Every Christmas is last Christmas.'

jc-osms The first scenes of the annual Dr Who Christmas Special introduce the viewer to Nick Frost's guest turn as Santa Claus, complete with sledge, reindeer and two lippy elves but from there the story gets progressively darker, exploring the darker psyche of humanity as the Doctor, pleasingly reunited with Clara, lands at an Arctic scientific outpost where along with its four inhabitants, they find themselves in a waking dream scenario which threatens to kill them all.Writer Steven Moffat nods at various sci-fi / horror classic films of yesteryear, notably "Alien", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Inception" even "Ghostbusters" as well as Christmas films "A Christmas Carol" and "The Santa Clause" and weaves a densely layered tale which takes a bit of following, but like Santa on Christmas Eve, gets there in the end.As one would imagine Santa Frost and his two impish assistants get the majority of the funny lines (when asked how he can deliver so many Christmas presents from a single sled, he knowingly counters "Bigger on the inside" and otherwise becomes the seasonal focus of the group's thought processes to thwart the Dream Crab's life-threatening menace. There were some neat touches in the story like Clara's death-prophesying blackboard and the way the Doctor uses random book-reading to alert them to their danger although some other devices were unnecessary in my opinion, most notably the "return" of Danny Pink into Clara's life and the once too often used collective resistance to break the monsters' spell.With barely any day-light shots and being even more set-bound than usual, this Dr Who tale effectively builds up its claustrophobic atmosphere of life-threatening dread until the bearded weirdie in red comes along to save the day. There's an interesting diversion near the end as the Doctor visits a much older Clara from 60 years in the future to play out a blame-and-redemption tete-a-tete before he saves the (Christmas) day and hooks up again with Clara in the TARDIS, just in time for the next series.This wasn't the best Dr Who Christmas special I've seen but had its moments and definitely deserved its prime-time slot on the Christmas schedules.

yvonneshusband Let me start by stating that I cannot understand what some Doctor Who viewers had against Matt Smith. As someone who has watched the show since the midpoint of Jon Pertwee's tenure as the Time Lord, I found Smith's 'wisdom of a 900 year old, emotional development of a twelve year old' incarnation of the Doctor as an inspired take on the character, particularly in view of David Tennant's more grounded, self-assured version. The debut season of Moffat and Smith is, to me, the best season of 'New Who' ever, the capper being the sublime 'Christmas Carol' that we now watch in our house as part of our Christmas ritual every year (those who bemoan the loss of the cardboard and bacofoil days of Pertwee and Baker should really go watch those episodes with a more critical eye; apart from a few stand-out stories, most of the 'classic series' is as bad as any of the sci-fi from the 70s and 80s). Unfortunately, Moffat couldn't replicate the quality of that first Smith season, the plots and stories getting more and more ridiculous until by 'The Time of the Doctor' last Christmas, it was quite obvious that Matt Smith had decided he wasn't going to suffer the same fate as Sylvester McCoy by being at the controls of the Tardis when the show was cancelled. However, despite some pretty dire episodes in Peter Capaldi's first season (not helped by the fact that some of them had been quite obviously written for the 11th Doctor), the show has regained some ground, this year's Christmas special probably being the best since 'Carol'. The highlights were Nick Frost's Santa, obviously, played almost as another Time Lord (which in itself makes perfect sense), the (hopefully final) appearance of Danny Pink, who's confidence and sense of command now that he's dead make him a far more convincing soldier than almost anything his character did while he was alive and not forgetting the elves, Dan Starkey getting a chance to act without the potato head for a change. Capaldi's Doctor still needs some work though, the shifts from world saving hero to grumpy git and back are still too abrupt and jarring, but I'm looking forward to next season, if it builds on this successful Christmas outing. Maybe St Nick could return next year?

SpoodermanDerp "Last Christmas" is an intriguing episode with great performances with a rather dark Christmas theme.As the final special to wrap up Series 8 starts, it seemed like another mediocre Doctor Who episode. But as it progressed, it gained attention and mystery. The concept for the episode is not the one you would expect compared to the past specials. It has a rather dark atmosphere (which the 12th doctor is known for) and the new monsters were terrifying than ever. The episode's plot revolves around a group of people including Clara and the Doctor stuck in North Polo with a bunch of dream crabs trying to get them. But what they don't know is that they might all be in a dream, within a dream and so on. Nick Frost surprisingly delivers an excellent portrayal of Santa Claus and didn't go all childish and cheesy. Capaldi remains intact as he gives yet another fantastic performance as the dark and rude Doctor in which fans should be able to get used to this by now after one whole series and a special. Clara had some definitive and emotional moments, yet some felt a little bit useless and drawn-out. There are a ton of great and well executed shocking moments in this special which is bound to glue audiences to their seats. Certainly the highlights of this episode were the concept and shocking moments. There were also a ton of references in the episode which will give you a smile or at least make you laugh. Of course, the Christmas theme was present in the episode as well. However, the Christmas Theme did not balance kind of didn't balance with the dark atmosphere of the episode at start. It felt like at the end they remembered that all they did was add Santa so they squeezed right in some Christmas spirit in which it did work for the most part. To put it in one sentence, the Christmas special felt like Inception, but with Santa in it. Nonetheless, it is certainly one of the best Christmas specials Doctor Who has had so far.-Slow start, +the dark atmosphere and mystery throughout the episode, +the new monsters were terrifying, +nice concept (which seemed to be a little like Inception) +great performances, -some drawn-out scenes -the balance of the Dark atmosphere and Christmas spirit didn't blend well.Verdict: 8.5/10