Here comes your Sunday Who review two days early, and color me quite satisfied. Not only is this one of the better Christmas specials Who has ever had and one of my favorite Twelfth Doctor stories so far (“Mummy on the Orient Express” and “Flatline” are still on top,) but it’s also probably the best Moffat-penned episode I’ve seen literally in years.
Santa is the second most-surprising figure to turn up on Clara’s roof late at night on Christmas Eve – the Doctor is back, and there’s an alien threat he’s anxious to protect her from/enlist her help to stop. Soon, the pair are at the North Pole, where a scientific expedition has been set upon by dream crabs, creepy/gross alien parasites that look like the facehuggers from Alien and bore holes in your skull to eat your brain. Yep, merry Christmas, everybody! The dream crabs are so named because they induce a dream state in their victims while they’re busy digesting, and much of the episode is spent trying to determine what’s real and what isn’t.
Add another to the list of supremely Moffat monsters – the dream crabs fit right in with the Silence, the Weeping Angels, and their ilk, especially thanks to an odd and frightening trait of theirs: they feed off the image of themselves in your mind, so the more you think about them, the stronger they grow. There’s still more attention paid to cool moments and Shocking! Twists! than consistency and internal logic, and there’s one particular thread that gets completely dropped in favor of bigger fake-outs, but they’re still pretty decent monsters. The story keeps you guessing in that old Inception way, and it plays nicely with classic dream tropes. Plus, it’s really and truly scary in place, which is always a good thing for Doctor Who.
I was dubious about honest-to-goodness Santa, but he’s done pretty well. There’s just enough irony, bite, and unpredictability to keep him from being too silly, and Nick Frost does a great job in the role (that makes three Spaced regulars who’ve guest-starred on Who, along with several of their recurring cast – gotta love that!) I like his interactions with the Doctor, and I love the scenes where one of the expedition crew interrogates him about the plausibility of his existence.
Best of all, I’m feeling optimistic about the future of Twelve and Clara. Granted, Clara has made breakthroughs before and fallen back into old patterns, but even apart from the big moments, their interactions are so much better here than in most of series 8. You can see how they care about each other, and for the most part, you can see Clara really looking at him as the Doctor – the real Doctor, not just a consolation prize after Eleven. They bicker a little, but that’s fine. It feels fitting for both of them, but the affection is there as well, on both sides. Can we keep them like this? I want to love Clara, and I think I could with this version. The Doctor himself is probing, clever, ornery, caring, funny (everything he ought to be,) no one goes on about what a terrible person he is, and he never slides into unlikeable dick Doctor. (He’s still his usual not-a-ball-of-sunshine self, though; I love that about him. One of my favorite moments is when Santa’s trying to rally the troops in a rather touchy-feely way, and the Doctor isn’t down with the hand-holding. He agrees a bit begrudgingly to hold Clara’s, but no one else’s! Too fun.)
Warnings
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