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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