 This is the tenth consecutive Christmas Special since the show returned in 2005, the fifth Christmas Special written by Steven Moffat and the first full Christmas Special to feature Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. It is also the third Christmas Special in a row starring Jenna Coleman as Clara.
This story also stars Nick Frost, Natalie Gumede, Michael Troughton and Dan Starkey.
This is the third consecutive Christmas Special in a row to feature Dan Starkey although he has played different characters in each festive story. He had previously appeared in his recurring Sontaran role, Strax, in the 2012 story "The Snowmen", then as Commander Skarr, and his unnamed subordinate, in the 2013 story "The Time of The Doctor". In "Last Christmas" he plays the part of Ian - the slightly belligerent elf. This is his first appearance with minimal make-up.
Nick Frost, who plays the part of Santa Claus, was last seen at the end of "Dark Water/Death in Heaven". Nick Frost is better known for his frequent collaborations with Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright on hit films such as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End, Cuban Fury and Paul (which he also wrote). On television he was the star of the sitcom Hyperdrive and his most recent role was in the comedy drama Mr Sloane.
Nick has revealed: ' I'm so thrilled to have been asked to guest in the Doctor Who Christmas Special, I'm such a fan of the show. The read-through was very difficult for me; I wanted to keep stuffing my fingers into my ears and scream "No spoilers!" Every day on set I’ve had to silence my internal fan-boy squeals!'.
Steven Moffat, lead writer and Executive Producer, has stated: 'Frost at Christmas - it just makes sense! I worked with Nick on the Tintin movie many years ago and it's a real pleasure to lure him back to television for a ride in the TARDIS'.
Michael Troughton, who plays the part of Professor Albert, was a familiar face on television throughout the 1980s and 1990s with regular roles in the sitcom The New Statesman (as Piers Fletcher-Dervish) and Minder. In 2013 he appeared in Breathless and earlier in 2014 he appeared as a guest star in an episode of Jonathan Creek. Michael Troughton is the younger son of Patrick Troughton, who played the Second Doctor from 1966 to 1969. His older brother David Troughton has appeared in several Doctor Who stories, most notably as King Peladon in the 1972 Third Doctor story "The Curse of Peladon" and Professor Hobbes in the 2008 Eleventh Doctor story "Midnight". David Troughton also appeared in the 1969 Second Doctor story "The War Games".
Also starring are Natalie Gumede (Kirsty Soames in ITV's Coronation Street, Ideal and Strictly Come Dancing) and Faye Marsay (Anne Neville in BBC One's The White Queen, Candice in Channel 4's Fresh Meat and Pride) and Nathan McMullen (Misfits, Casualty and The Driver).
Being the third consecutive Christmas special to feature Jenna Coleman, as Clara Oswald, this makes her companion with the most appearances on Christmas Day. Catherine Tate, Bernard Cribbins, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are the only other companion actors to have appeared in more than one Christmas special. Although, 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.
It was reported that Jenna Coleman allegedly had a ‘change of heart’ on whether she wanted to stay in the show and appear in Season Thirty Five (New Series 9). This change required the ending of this story to be rewritten. In the original draft of the script, she became an old woman who then died with The Doctor at her side. But this was rewritten with The Doctor awakening a second time and then Clara returning to the TARDIS with The Doctor.
To keep the appearance of Danny Pink a surprise, Samuel Anderson was uncredited in the Radio Times and on the BBC website.
This story has been directed by Paul Wilmshurst (Strike Back and Combat Kids). Paul Wilmshurst also directed the 2014 stories "Kill the Moon" and "Mummy on the Orient Express".
The read through for this story took place on the 3rd September 2014 with recording starting less than a week later in Cardiff on the 8th September 2014.
The Doctor is heard to exclaim that ‘nobody likes the tangerines’. Santa Claus is visibly offended by this.
Santa Claus is heard to mention My Little Pony when proving to Shona that he is real.
The name Santa Claus is derived from Saint Nicholas, a 4th Century bishop who, it is said, liked to give gifts secretly.
Santa Claus uses a device similar to a car's remote-locking system to calm Rudolph and ‘turn off’ his shiny red nose. The Tenth Doctor locks and unlocks the TARDIS remotely using the same method in "The End of Time".
The terms ‘dreamy-weamy’ and ‘beardy-weirdy’ are used. These are variations on the phrase ‘timey-wimey’ first used by the Tenth Doctor in the 2007 story "Blink".
The First Doctor previously met Santa Claus in the comic strip story "A Christmas Story", though in the comic strip story "The Land of Happy Endings" it was insinuated that this encounter was all in his head. The Doctor also prevented him from inadvertently tearing the fabric of space in the Second Doctor story "The Man Who (Nearly) Killed Christmas" (published in the Big Finish Productions book "Short Trips 11: A Christmas Treasury"). In "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 Claus' real name was Jeff.
One of the random two-digit page numbers Clara gives The Doctor is ‘12’ - a reference to The Doctor being in his twelfth incarnation.
Clara lets it slip to The Doctor that Danny Pink is still dead, something she had withheld from The Doctor at the end of "Dark Water/Death in Heaven". Danny Pink then appears wearing a Santa suit, in the crab-induced dream she is later in.
During Clara's Christmas Day-dream, while standing in the hallway, she becomes suspicious about something not being right and sees blackboards all over the hallway telling her that she's dying. Previously The Doctor used chalk and blackboards to write notes (see "Deep Breath", "Into the Dalek", "Robot of Sherwood" and "Listen").
The Doctor also reveals that he previously lied to Clara, at the end of "Dark Water/Death in Heaven", when he admits that he did not find Gallifrey.
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 "The Name of The Doctor". When Clara asked how they were communicating across time, Vastra stated that time travel was possible in dreams. Indeed The Doctor himself at least could have been at a different place in time because when he wakes up he appears to be on the ‘volcano planet’ which he led Clara to believe she was on via a dream patch in "Dark Water/Death in Heaven".
This is not the first time that The Doctor has had to differentiate dreams from reality in life-threatening situations. It previously happened when the dreams were induced by psychic pollen in the 2010 Eleventh Doctor story "Amy's Choice".
The Doctor, in Clara's dream, tells her that Danny died saving the world, but Danny states that he died saving her.
When The Doctor gained himself access to Clara's dream and meets Danny, The Doctor greats him with ‘Merry Christmas PE’. He had previously mockingly called Danny by PE.
Clara is wearing a nightdress for the entire story. Amy wore one (without a dressing-gown on top, though) in her first trip in the TARDIS (see "The Beast Below").
The Doctor has Clara concentrate on doing sums to distract her from the Dream Crabs, something she later does when trying to avoid the escaped Dream Crab in the lab. The Third Doctor used a same technique - albeit with simpler sums - to force Jo Grant to focus on something except the brainstorm being experienced by Axos in the 1971 story "The Claws of Axos".
Clara is seen giving The Doctor a hug, to which The Doctor is annoyed. The Doctor previously told her that this self does not like hugging. He does not seem to like joining hands, too (see "Deep Breath", "Listen" and "Dark Water/Death in Heaven").
The song we see Shona dancing to, in order to distract herself from the Dream Crabs, is Merry Xmas Everybody was originally a hit for Slade. It was written by band members Noddy Holder and Jim Lea and reached number one in the UK singles chart on the 15th December 1973 (incidentally the same day Sarah Jane Smith made her debut and the Sontarans first appeared during the first episode of the Third Doctor story "The Time Warrior"). This song can also be heard playing in the garage where Mickey Smith worked when the newly-regenerated Tenth Doctor crashed back into the Powell Estate in the 2005 Christmas special "The Christmas Invasion". It can also be heard playing at Donna Noble's first wedding reception in the 2006 Christmas special "The Runaway Bride" and was later heard on the radio in "Turn Left" and "The Power of Three".
When The Doctor leaves Santa Claus on the roof-top he tells Santa, in a mocking way, ‘Happy Easter’.
When The Doctor asks how Santa Claus can have all those presents in his bag, Santa Claus claims that it is ‘bigger on the inside’ – a reference to the TARDIS.
Santa was able to tell the Dream-infected people to get back in their beds, telling them it was Christmas Eve and they should go early to bed. In the 2005 Ninth Doctor story "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" The Doctor was previously able to tell all the Empty-people to go to bed by acting as their requested 'Mummy' and grounding them.
When Ashley declares ‘God bless us, every one!’ she’s quoting Tiny Tim, one of the main characters in Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic story A Christmas Carol.
Professor Albert is heard to compare the Dream Crabs to the Facehuggers from the movie Alien. The Doctor replies that he finds it offensive that a horror movie is named Alien, commenting ‘No wonder everyone keeps invading you!’.
Alien, the 1979 science-fiction classic directed by Ridley Scott, featured John Hurt who over thirty years later played the part of the War Doctor in the 2013 Fiftieth Anniversary Special "Day of The Doctor".
Other films referenced in this story are the 1951 film The Thing From Another World (more commonly known as The Thing), in which a group of scientists in the Arctic are menaced by an alien creature, and Miracle on 34th Street, where a man claims to actually be Santa Claus. Along with Alien both movies appear on Shona's Christmas Day film list along with Game of Thrones. The first three films are very clearly sources for this story.
The 1984 film Ghostbusters is also referenced when the famous question is asked: ‘Who you gonna call?’ The Tenth Doctor quoted that exact line in the 2006 Tenth Doctor story "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday" and in the 2013 Eleventh Doctor story "Hide" in which Clara claimed that she and The Doctor were ghostbusters!
When The Doctor visits the elderly Clara, he helps her to open a Christmas cracker, returning the favour she did for the Eleventh Doctor in "The Time of The Doctor" when he was too weak to pull a cracker by himself.
At the end of this story, a nightdress-clad Clara is seen leaving her home, with The Doctor, in the TARDIS in the dead of night. Amy Pond's travels with The Eleventh Doctor began in similar fashion at the end of the 2010 story "The Eleventh Hour".
This is the eleventh episode to premiere on the 25th December. Only one episode during the original run of the show has debuted on Christmas Day - "The Feast of Steven", which was the seventh part of the 1965/66 First Doctor story "The Daleks' Master Plan". At the close of that episode the First Doctor is heard to say, ‘Incidentally, a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!’ The audio to this greeting was used in a BBC trailer that was broadcast on the run up to "Last Christmas".
The opening titles for this story have been given a festive tweak. 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. This means that the three most recent stories have each featured slightly different versions of the title sequence.
For the first time more than two people are credited during the opening titles. Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman's names appear normally, then Nick Frost's name appears between the Doctor Who logo and the story title credit.
A preview of this story was shown during the 2014 edition of Children in Need which featured The Doctor, Clara, Nick Frost as Santa Claus, and Dan Starkey and Nathan McMullen as elves.
On the 11th December 2014 the BBC released a 30 second trailer for this story on YouTube.
It was announced, in a caption shown just before the end titles, that The Doctor and Clara would return in 2015 in a story called "The Magician's Apprentice".
The title of the next story was confirmed by Steven Moffat a week prior to this special's broadcast. Interestingly Shona is heard several times during this story likening The Doctor to a magician and Santa Claus is also heard to make a passing mention of the very same nature. The Doctor also previously noted this about himself in "Time Heist".
Upon airing "Last Christmas" received highly positive reviews from television critics, with many praising the fun, scary nature of the story and noting the influences of both Inception and Alien. Many critics also expressed praise for the confirmation that Jenna Coleman was not leaving the show as had previously been rumoured.
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The Firsts:
Though not technically part of Season Thirty Five (New Series 9) this is the first real story of this season.
The first full Christmas Special to feature Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor.
The first Doctor Who story starring Dan Starkey playing a non-Sontaran role.
The first time more than two people are credited during the opening titles.
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(Position = 4 out of 12)
