His Claus is too passive-aggressive and Wernham Hogg managerial in his interaction with everyone and his banter elves (Dan ‘Strax’ Starkey and Nathan ‘ Misfits‘ McMullen). Though he looks the part, Nick Frost as Old Saint Nick is a case of casting over character, feeling less like Santa Claus and more like Nick Frost with jingle bells on. As Moffat keeps winking at, why should a man who delivers presents to every child on earth in one night be any less believable than a man in a time-travelling bigger-on-the-inside box? But his incongruity is the point: in this nightmare on Christmas he’s the fantasy that you’re meant to take seriously.

Strutting through the frozen corridors of the mind, the ‘real’ Santa’s presence continually removes us from the immediate tension. Poor guy can’t get a break even when he’s imaginary. Samuel Anderson’s presence as dreamy dead Danny Pink is a lovely surprise but even his Santa is tinged with foreboding. The Matryoshka Doll structure of dreams-within-dreams lends itself to a darker and more claustrophobic Christmas special than we’re used to a sensation compounded by the panic of the small and talented cast. Like a dream it’s hard to pin down, and like a nightmare it’s simultaneously scary and silly. ‘Last Christmas’ is one big sherry trifle of a dream: an Inception on 34 th Street.

That’s dreams for you, isn’t it? Mad, colourful, dark, disconnected, vaguely confusing. But before your cynicism is unwrapped we’re suddenly in an un-festive Polar Base that’s infested with crustacean catcher’s mitts called Dream Crabs, and watching the brilliant Faye Marsay dance to Slade (what, no Wham!?), and it’s all gone very The Thing. There’s Santa (or Jeff, as Eleven knew him), elves, reindeer, and a nagging worry that this is a Christmas Special which has jumped the flying shark. Noddy yells us, it’s Christmaaaaas! It’s a crazy/camp time of year, why shouldn’t our favourite sci-fi show be the same?īefore the snowy titles roll, ‘Last Christmas’ seems to be taking that idea to a ludicrous degree.

So our TVs are decorated with flying sharks dragging sleighs, presents containing portals to winter wonderlands, and snowmen defeated by crying, and while it may be a bit flabby, it just about works because, as St. They’re both mad events which people love and which many take seriously, no matter how absurd they get. Time Lord and Christmas time match perfectly. Much like ourselves, Doctor Who is expected to overindulge and go a bit crazy on December 25th.

Doctor who last christmas special