What a mess. I'm sorry, but that was really bad. It felt... heartless. There were individual moments that worked alright, but the cohesiveness just wasn't there. I'm sorry, but I just didn't feel the Christmas-y energy in this episode. I tend to come out of episodes of Doctor Who nowadays with such a sense of dejection. Even in the decent episodes, I just get no real pleasure out of them anymore. It's sad, but true. And we all know who I blame for this.
In any case, let's go over the convoluted and unnecessarily twisty plot of this episode.
On Christmas Eve, Clara goes out on her roof to find Santa Claus. She is obviously confused. Then, the TARDIS shows up, and the Doctor tells Clara to get inside, obviously concerned about this whole Santa thing. The two of them show up at the North Pole, where they find a group of scientists who are investigating the "Sleepers," a group of creatures that are completely blind and deaf, and can only sense people when they are being actively thought about. Just as they are all about to be attacked, Santa shows up and saves them from the Sleepers.
However, a bit later, Clara gets caught by a Sleeper and put into a dream state where she will slowly die. In the dream, it's Christmas morning, and Clara is with Danny Pink. They spend a lovely Christmas day together and exchange gifts. The Doctor, meanwhile, purposefully lets one of the Sleeprs get to him so that he too can enter the dream world and get Clara out. With Danny's help, Clara is ready to admit that this is all a dream, and wake up from it. She says a sad goodbye to Danny. With the Doctor and Clara safe, it seems like all is well... that is, until the Doctor realizes that all of them have been dreaming this whole time.
They try to wake up several times, and there are about four fake-outs where you think they've woken up but it turns out it's just another dream within a dream. In the end, Santa has everybody ride in his sleigh as he drops them all off back home and helps them to wake up to their real lives. All of these people are not really scientists - in fact, none of them actually know each other in the real world. As they each disappear from Santa's sleigh and go back to their old lives, they will likely not remember any of this. They could be from different times as well as places. This dream world was just a brief moment of connection.
The Doctor wakes up and rushes to see Clara, who it turns out is now a very old woman. She tells the Doctor she never married, but she traveled and taught in every country in Europe. She had a good life. The Doctor is upset that he didn't come back sooner, and he tells her that he's sorry. Turns out, it was yet another fake-out. The Doctor wakes up again and rushes to Clara, who is her young self. The Doctor and Clara, now aware that Clara lied about Danny and the Doctor lied about Gallifrey, decide to travel together once again.
Okay. Wow. Let's just go through some of my many complaints about this episode.
Too twisty-turny! I swear to God, they did the fake-out dream-within-a-dream thing like five times. Too much. Really silly. I hated it so much. I was literally rolling my eyes.
Secondly, what the heck was the point of Santa? No, seriously. Think about how easy it would have been to remove him from the story and still have it make sense. This was the cheapest way of making the story Christmas-themed. This was not a Christmas episode. It didn't feel like one at all.
Then there's the really annoying repeated joke about racism - like, Clara says something about "elves" and then an elf accuses Clara of racism. And then later the Doctor learns that there's a horror film called Alien and he says it's incredibly offensive. This was pretty blatantly a way to make fun of people who are "oversensitive" to issues of bigotry. It felt like a slap in the face to people who actually give a damn about bettering themselves and learning about racism and these types of issues. Moffat is such an ass.
There were individual elements that I enjoyed alright... we should talk about some of those.
The guest characters were pretty nice. I felt like they all had distinctive personalities and were fairly memorable. (Santa and his elves are the exception. They were bland and uninteresting).
Clara and the Doctor's relationship was actually pretty well-portrayed here. I saw a softening of the Doctor that was badly needed. The way he held Clara's hand when she was in danger from the "Sleepers" was really sweet, and it was echoed later, when Clara was an old lady and they were trying to pull the Christmas cracker. He apologized to her and didn't belittle her for her simple life. I really liked the portrayal of the Doctor for the most part in this episode, so that was nice.
I'm a broken record when it comes to Danny Pink, but I'll say again that while the romance between Clara and Danny is badly written, it is quite well-acted. I was genuinely touched to see their little Christmas celebration together, knowing that it wasn't real. That was one of the only times in the whole episode I felt a bit of the Christmas spirit.
The other Christmas-y moment was on the sleigh at the end. I liked to see the Doctor smiling and feeling real joy. I also liked the idea of a connection among strangers, one which is fleeting but poignant. It almost feels like a metaphor for how the Doctor is with some of his companions. He touches people so deeply, and yet for him, life will always move on and he will always have to meet someone new.
I loved seeing Clara as an old lady. I liked that she never married, but that she was so, so happy with the way her life had turned out. I really thought this could have been a proper goodbye to Clara's character. This could have been the end for her and the Doctor, and I would have been satisfied with that. Unfortunately, it ended up being yet another one of the dozens of pointless twists. Sigh.
I think that's all I'm going to write. I just... ugh. I wish I could be done with this show. I remember when I used to feel such a sense of excitement and wonder whenever I watched Doctor Who, and now that feeling is gone. It's a real bummer. I'm not really sure what to do about it at this point.
5/10
Then there's the really annoying repeated joke about racism - like, Clara says something about "elves" and then an elf accuses Clara of racism. And then later the Doctor learns that there's a horror film called Alien and he says it's incredibly offensive. This was pretty blatantly a way to make fun of people who are "oversensitive" to issues of bigotry. It felt like a slap in the face to people who actually give a damn about bettering themselves and learning about racism and these types of issues. Moffat is such an ass.
There were individual elements that I enjoyed alright... we should talk about some of those.
The guest characters were pretty nice. I felt like they all had distinctive personalities and were fairly memorable. (Santa and his elves are the exception. They were bland and uninteresting).
Clara and the Doctor's relationship was actually pretty well-portrayed here. I saw a softening of the Doctor that was badly needed. The way he held Clara's hand when she was in danger from the "Sleepers" was really sweet, and it was echoed later, when Clara was an old lady and they were trying to pull the Christmas cracker. He apologized to her and didn't belittle her for her simple life. I really liked the portrayal of the Doctor for the most part in this episode, so that was nice.
I'm a broken record when it comes to Danny Pink, but I'll say again that while the romance between Clara and Danny is badly written, it is quite well-acted. I was genuinely touched to see their little Christmas celebration together, knowing that it wasn't real. That was one of the only times in the whole episode I felt a bit of the Christmas spirit.
The other Christmas-y moment was on the sleigh at the end. I liked to see the Doctor smiling and feeling real joy. I also liked the idea of a connection among strangers, one which is fleeting but poignant. It almost feels like a metaphor for how the Doctor is with some of his companions. He touches people so deeply, and yet for him, life will always move on and he will always have to meet someone new.
I loved seeing Clara as an old lady. I liked that she never married, but that she was so, so happy with the way her life had turned out. I really thought this could have been a proper goodbye to Clara's character. This could have been the end for her and the Doctor, and I would have been satisfied with that. Unfortunately, it ended up being yet another one of the dozens of pointless twists. Sigh.
I think that's all I'm going to write. I just... ugh. I wish I could be done with this show. I remember when I used to feel such a sense of excitement and wonder whenever I watched Doctor Who, and now that feeling is gone. It's a real bummer. I'm not really sure what to do about it at this point.
5/10
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