Doctor Who
Doctor Who: Last Christmas (2014 Christmas Special)
So remember how Santa just happen to show up in the last few minute of the season finale? I knew something was off after this episode. Well, it begins on Christmas Eve, when Clara is woken up by the sound of something crashing on her rooftop. Investigating nearby voices, she is astonished to find Santa Claus, two elves, a sleigh and flying reindeer stranded on her roof. Not long after, The Doctor arrives to take Clara away.
At the North Pole, a group of scientists attempt to save their fellow base personnel, who have been taken over by crab-like creatures. Their effort is interrupted as the Doctor and Clara arrive on the scene. While introductions are being made, however, they come under attack from the crabs, only to be rescued by Santa, who also provides a specimen of one of the creatures. The Doctor identifies the creatures as Dream Crabs whoa induce pleasant, euphoric dreams on their intended victims as a distraction whilst the crabs devour their brains. The first time I heard it I thought Capaldi was saying Dream (insert four letter bad word) but it gave me a few tries to get it. So both the Doctor and Clara reveal that they had lied to each other during their last meeting. Clara lied about her dead boyfriend, Danny Pink, having returned from the Nethersphere, while the Doctor falsely claimed to have found Gallifrey. While investigating the Dream Crabs, the Doctor sends Clara to recover Santa’s specimen, only for him to remember that they use telepathic connections to their intended victims to see their surroundings, but only when they are being thought about. This causes the specimen in the lab to come alive and attack Clara.
She is sent into a dream world where she is reunited with Danny, but also discovers chalkboards with messages warning her that she is dying. However, Clara deliberately ignores them, continuing to focus on Danny. The Doctor willingly falls victim to another Dream Crab in order to enter her dream world and confront her. She still resists willing herself to wake up, until Danny tells her to move on with her life. As Clara accepts the reality of his death, she and the Doctor both wake up, discovering that the creatures die and turn into dust if removed from a host prematurely.
Upon waking up back in the research station, however, the Doctor realizes that they haven’t truly woken up as they are simply in a different layer of a multi-faceted dream and have been since the initial attack when they arrived. In reality, none of them actually escaped it. The Doctor proves this by having the scientists individually read copies of the base’s manual that each had been issued. They find that the first word of any chosen page is different for each of them, rather than identical as it should be. The Doctor further deduces that the Dream Crabs could not stop their subconscious from fighting back, which came in the form of Santa Claus. Santa explains the entire situation to the group and aids them in waking up.
Photo Credit: BBC/Doctor Who
As the Doctor prepares to abandon the base, Clara reminds him that they met Santa before arriving, proving that the entire scenario thus far has also been a dream. The reality is, all of the scientists are strangers from different times and places whose dreams are linked with the Doctor and Clara through the Dream Crabs. One of the scientists soon falls victim to the infected personnel, revealed to be manifestations of the “crew’s” minds that have already surrendered to their fate. Infected visages of the Doctor and Clara also emerge from the TARDIS, and the group find themselves surrounded. Facing defeat, the Doctor reminds everyone that Santa helped them survive the previous attack and has them dream of Santa, who arrives just in time on his sleigh and flies them to safety. The scientists soon realize that they are, in fact, ordinary people: Fiona is a wheelchair-bound grandmother, Ashley only an account manager for a perfumer, and Shona just a lonely shop girl. They and the Doctor soon wake up to their real lives, one by one, until only Clara is left.
The Doctor, wakes up and traces the psychic signal linking their dreams back to Clara and is able to pull the crab off, only to learn that Clara is now an elderly woman. 62 years have apparently elapsed since they last met. As they become reacquainted, Clara tells the Doctor she’s received lots of marriage proposals but declined them all, as no one could ever measure up to Danny, or the Doctor. The Doctor regrets not coming back for her sooner. Their reunion is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Santa, who bids the Doctor to act on his regret before it’s too late. The Doctor, realizing he’s still dreaming, wakes up for real and rushes to the real Clara, waking her and finding, to their mutual relief, that she is still a young adult. Wanting no regrets and offering her all of time and space, the Doctor implores Clara to join him again. Clara happily accepts. As the pair depart, they are unaware of a tangerine having been left on Clara’s windowsill.
So call it an inception Doctor Who episode. So many dreams within dreams it just makes thing amazing. Not a bad Christmas episode for Capadi’s first. However Whovians will have to wait to see a new season till later this year. In the meantime, you can catch up on season 8 now on Blu-Ray and DVD.
It’s beginning to look a lot like the holidays.
And that can only mean one thing — a special holiday episode of Doctor Who.
BBC America announced the episode “Revolution of the Daleks” will air at 8 p.m. ET on New Year’s Day.
The announcement was accompanied by a trailer that includes Chris Noth, John Barrowman, and Jodie Whittaker’s Time Lord coming to you from behind a high-security alien prison.
Oh, there’s also flying Daleks.
“We’ve crammed this year’s Doctor Who special with an explosion of extraordinary acting talent,” said showrunner Chris Chibnall in a statement. “Where else would you get British acting royalty, a globally renowned US screen star, an (inter)national treasure of stage and screen and one of Britain’s hottest young actors — just in the guest cast! Put those together with Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, and Tosin Cole (and Daleks! Did I mention Daleks!) — and you get a cast to be exterminated for. And things will explode. Promise.”
So, mark your calendar’s and check out the trailer below:
This episode takes place after the events of Last Christmas. Plus if you need a refresher on who the players are involved then I suggest you re-watch Death In Heaven (8X12) and The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End (4X12 & 13).
The episode begins on an extra-terrestrial battle ground where a boy is trapped by “hand mines”, creatures which are hands with eyes, and kill by dragging the victim underground. The Doctor arrives and tries to save the boy, but after the boy says that his name is Davros, the Doctor, shocked, abandons him.
On present day Earth, Clara was in the middle of teaching class when she notices a plane frozen in the sky. She is then summoned to the Tower of London by UNIT to help them contact the Doctor. UNIT reveal that every plane that is currently airborne has frozen and no-one knows why. While trying to work out who it is freezing the planes and what their motive is, UNIT receive a message on a channel specifically created by UNIT for the Doctor should he ever need to contact. The sender of this message is revealed to be Missy, who confirms that she was the one that froze the planes and she needs Clara’s help in finding the Doctor. Missy also reveals that the Doctor’s confession dial, or ‘Last Will and Testament’, has been presented to her, meaning that the Doctor believes he only has one more day to live.
Also looking for the Doctor is Colony Sarff, who has been appointed by an elderly, dying Davros. Clara and Missy track the Doctor down to Essex in the year 1138, where the Doctor has spent three weeks “partying” introducing a number of anachronistic items. The three’s reunion is quickly cut short as Sarff takes them to what appears to be a space station. The Doctor is taken to Davros, who tells the Doctor that he remembers what he did when he was a little boy and reveals that he intends to destroy everything the Doctor loves before finally killing him. In the meantime, Missy notices that the space station’s gravity does not feel artificial, as would be expected on a space station. She opens the air lock and steps out into what looks like space, before realising that they are actually standing on a planet. The planet becomes visible and, much to Missy’s horror, is revealed to be Skaro, the homeworld of the Daleks. The two are then captured by the Daleks who, while the Doctor watches, exterminate both Clara and Missy and destroy the TARDIS, which they had procured from Essex earlier, leaving the Doctor alone and powerless.
The Doctor returns to the hand mine field. Davros asks if the Doctor’s come to save him, but the Doctor, pointing a Dalek gun at Davros, says he’s going to save his friends, and shouts ‘exterminate!’.
Cut to black…TO BE CONTINUED!!!!
This episode marks the return of Davros, the creator of the Dalek’s. His last appearance was with the 10th Doctor in Season 4. This episode also marks the return of Kate Stewart head of UNIT after a short stint in last season’s finale. Also Missy returns after her demise in the season finale but this time helping the Doctor instead of harming him. What will become of the Doctor with everything now taken away from him? What has become of Missy and Clara?
It’s been 10 years to the day since the return of the Time Lord with the blue box time machine the TARDIS. So many fantastic memories that make us want to jump in and say Alons’y or Geronimo! I have my top 10 favorite episode of the last 10 years.
10. The Wedding of River Song: Starting off the list is the finale from season 6 where the time dimensions hold at a specific time. April 22, 2011 at 5:02 PM is the time of death of the Doctor…or is it?
Video Credit: BBC/Doctor Who
9. Rose: This is the episode that brought the show back. As a newly regenerated Doctor emerges from the Time War to help a new companion Rose Tyler stop the Auton’s from invading London.
Video Credit: BBC/Doctor Who
8. The Shakespeare Code: In season 3 following the events of a stolen hospital, the Doctor and a new companion Martha Jones take to the time of Shakespeare and uncover dark magic.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
7. The Eleventh Hour: Following the 2009 Christmas/New Year special a new face takes on the role of the Time Lord as Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor joins Amy Pond in a race to stop Prisoner Zero from invading Earth.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
6. The Power of Three: In season 7 the Doctor gets a first hand account of life on Earth for a long period of time when an invasion of cube like creatures make an impact on daily life.
Video Credit: Doctor Who/BBC
5. Journey’s End: The Season 4 finale brings all the Doctors’s companions since the 2005 return as the Dalek’s take 27 planets from around the universe including Earth.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
4. The Big Bang: The Season 5 finale takes us to a time where the stars go out and the Pandorica opens with the ultimate enemy of of the universe.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
3. The End of Time: The 2009 Christmas/New Years brought the end of David Tennant’s 10th Doctor as the Time Lord’s return and an enemy grows more insane taking over every human on Earth.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
2. The Day of the Doctor: The 50th Anniversary Special brings the Doctor’s together as the Zygons take offer the planet. But it comes during a time when even Gallifrey can’t hold on in the final days of the Time War.
1. World War Three: This was the first episode I got exposed to. In Season 1 the Slitheen have taken over London and plan to take over the Earth, but not without igniting World War Three.
You can grab your copies of the last 8 seasons or watch on Hulu and Netflix. Catch the return this fall on BBC America.
Video Credit: VG934
Featured Photo Credit: BBC/Doctor Who
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