[I] watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special earlier this evening. Verdict? Mmmm… not bad, actually.
I must admit that when I first heard that the title of the Christmas Special was going to be Last Christmas, and saw the trailer with Santa Claus in it, I let out a huge groan, fearing the worst. Oh please, not another piece of silly, irrelevant Christmas fluff! I had images of a soppy, saccharine, Christmas-sy pile of old tosh, with Santa and strains of Wham! permeating the background music. The very thought of it filled me with dread.
Thankfully my worst fears didn\’t materialize. There was a perfectly good and logical reason for Santa, and a reasonably intelligent story, which was even pretty dark and ominous in parts. Most unChristmas-sy. 🙂 Even the aliens were pretty good, and although derivative, Moffat managed to work a joking reference into the script as an acknowledgement of the original source. I won\’t say anything more, in case I give away spoilers for anyone who hasn\’t seen it yet.
It was nice to see Clara\’s place confirmed as continuing companion in the series, after all the speculation about \”will she or won\’t she?\” (stay or leave). I know that the character has taken a lot of criticism from fans, but I think that she has come into her own during Season 8, after an initial beginning as more of a plot device than a real character. In my opinion, she is fitting in better now with Peter Capaldi than she ever did during Matt Smith\’s era. Jenna Coleman is a good little actress, so I\’m quite glad that she\’s staying with the show for a while yet.
Overall, Steven Moffat has produced a reasonably good Christmas Special for 2014. Sure, it may not have been the best Doctor Who episode of all time, but it was definitely worth an hour of my time.