Doctor Who: Last Christmas

"So that's 22 million children per hour. That's impossible! So, obviously, I've got a second sled?"

Could this be the best Christmas episode ever? It really could be, although I'm glad that an episode questioning the existence of Father Christmas happens before my daughter is born. We combine the real strengths of Moffat's storytelling- an imaginatively conceptual monster that revolves around our perception of it and intricate plotting- with real heart, wit and fun. Naysayers beware: this blog post will consist of 100% gushing.

I love the whole concept of dreams within dreams, and the dream crabs themselves, which look like face huggers from Alien (as we're told, by Michael Troughton's Albert!) and always attack you when you think about them (that is sooo Moffat), anaesthetising you with nice dreams as they melt your face off. Lovely.

Oh, and Santa is in it. With all the best lines. Nick Frost is perfect casting, and all the scenes with Santa and the elves are hilarious, leavening what could otherwise be the grimness of the base under siege format.

The plot is a marvel to behold and, wonderfully, any conceivable plot hole can be justified that the whole thing (including the very end of Death in Heaven) is a dream except the last few minutes. It's not a dream without dramatic consequences, though; the Doctor and Clara finally admit that they lied to each other and parted for absolutely no good reason. Oh, and we seem to get to know Shona suspiciously well for a one off character. Could we be seeing her again?

(Shona, incidentally, gets the best metatextual moment of the episode as she wakes up in her drab flat; her Christmas to-do list includes three DVDs- Alien, The Thing from Another World and Miracle on 34th Street- which are the clear influences for the episode. Nicely done.)

Obviously, Clara dreams about Danny (will he stay dead?) in a lovely character scene in which Danny, wonderfully, insists that he didn't die saving the world; he died saving Clara. The rest of us were just along for the ride. And Moffat cruelly wrong-foots is at the end, showing the Doctor returning to an elderly Clara (nice age make-up for once), having squandered the chance forever to travel with her again. But this is all a dream; the Doctor and Clara get a second chance, and we end with them travelling together again.

A really nice touch here, incidentally, is the fact that the Doctor can't tell the difference between old and new Clara. Another nice touch is the description we get of the Memory Crabs: "We're getting hacked. The visual input from your optic nerve is being streamed to their brains". I have to marvel at how Moffat, as he did in The Bells of St John, describes an alien threat perfectly in terms of very contemporary technology. The only death (Albert) is shown figuratively by having him pulled into a screen, some excellent nightmare logic. And the Doctor has a line in the sand: "Santa Claus does not do the scientific explanation."

Best Christmas episode ever!!!

Doctor Who: Mummy on the Orient Express

"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. But you still have to choose."

What a brilliant episode. This script from newcomer Jamie Mathieson has everything: a brilliant scary premise; a solid plot with a satisfying resolution; and some satisfying character development for both the Doctor and Clara.

The whole thing looks good, too. The Mummy looks amazing, by far the scariest monster we've seen for ages, and it looks as though this was done by good use of prosthetics, rather than the recent overuse of CGI. Good. The 1920s sets and costumes are fantastic, of course, but you expect that with the BBC. The cast is, again, superb, with Frank Skinner standing out (and I noticed, as Mrs Pitt in the pre-credits sequence, Janet Halfrey from The Curse of Fenric). And the nice metatextual touch of having the 66 seconds countdown appear stylishly onscreen as the Foretold bears down upon its victim is not only brilliant but enhances the fear factor hugely.

Every beat of the plot is perfect, with revelation after revelation. The overall shape of the plot is satisfying and, for me, far from predictable. Even the fact that the premise of the story was mentioned by Matt Smith at the end of The Big Bang is satisfactorily explained, and simultaneously fulfils a nice little character point between the Doctor and Clara.

I noticed, though, that the ultimate identity of "Gus" is left as a mystery...

Clara is still upset with the Doctor, and intends this to be her last trip with him. The first scene between them has them speaking to each other but, McLuhan-like, not communicating, and this is reflected in their phone conversation later in the episode.

The Doctor's cleverness is well and truly highlighted here, but insensitive bedside manner, his alien Aspergers tendencies meaning he just doesn't "get" feelings or small talk, is foregrounded here as never before. Several times this season we've seen him calmly telling people that he can't save them but he wants them to do something for him while they're dying so he can save others later. Here we have a premise where he does that again and again and again.

And yet...just when he's about to do the same to Maisie he does something different, behaving like a true hero and taking her place, defeating the monster in 66 seconds ("Are you my mummy?") while being incredibly Doctorish. Clara warms to this, and chooses to believe that the Doctor was only choosing to seem heartless for Gus' sake. And she sees, interestingly, that he's probably addicted to peril. 

For the moment, Clara is mollified enough (and Danny understanding enough) for her to keep travelling with the Doctor. I don't think the rift is even close to permanently healed, though. And I'm sure that the Doctor's insensitivity is something set up to be slowly developed in the way Colin Baker's Doctor was originally supposed to.

The future looks interesting. But, here and now, this is an outstanding piece of television.

Doctor Who: Kill the Moon

"That's what you do with aliens, isn't it? Blow them up?"

Hmm. I didn't much like this one, and yet it got all the big things right. I loved the plot, I loved the beats of the story- and yet it didn't quite come off. The problem, I think, is that both the setting and central conceit with the fixed point in time just feel like a retread of The Waters of Mars. It must be said, too, that, yes, I quite like the more slowly paced style of this season, but this episode dragged.

It's the Moon (played by Lanzarote) in 2049 and not, as some reading pre-publicity would have up believe, Sarn (played by Lanzarote). People have stopped going into space because they can't be arsed, a bit like The Seeds of Death. Things have been getting desperate, the moon had been getting heavier and disrupting gravity, and all humanity has to play with is one antique space shuttle, the last few nukes and some piss-or astronauts. It's a very unglamorous future. 

Meanwhile, at Coal Hill School, the Doctor decides to take young Courtney Woods to the Moon to cheer her up, as you do. Clara is not entirely sure this is wise. The Doctor advises Courtney that there's to be "no hanky-panky", as JN-T once famously declared. Oh, and later on the Doctor gives us a Troughtonesque "When I say run, run." And Courtney became President of the USA and "met this bloke called Blonovitch". Lots of references to old stories, and the reason I mention them is to point out that they are not particularly from missing episodes, contrary to many current online theorists who suppose that this season is full of clues to a forthcoming announcement of missing episodes by Philip Morris later this year. That may or may not happen, but im very sceptical about any clues being inserted into the season's scripts. It just ain't happening, folks.

On a more contemporary note, Capafdi's Doctor is forever being asked "Who made you the boss?". And the bacteria-spiders look good, although in close-up it's a shame they used CGI instead of a model. 

The central moral dilemma- the moon is an egg, and humanity has the moral dilemma of actually killing the innocent baby or risking extinction, is not one I can identify with, though. What parallel with any real world dilemma is there here, exactly? And arguably Clara is wrong: surely the extinction of billions of humans and an entire planet justifies the unfortunate sacrifice of one life. 

I don't blame Clara for lashing out at the Doctor and storming out of the TARDIS. She confides in Danny Pink, with his warning from last episode about the Doctor being a dangerously charismatic officer coming home to roost much sooner than expected. But, as Danny points out, she's angry now. How will she feel when she calms down? I don't think this is the end of her arc. This feels like unfinished business. And the scene also hints at unexplained depths to Danny Pink- again.

Jenna Coleman, incidentally, is amazing here.

This is probably my least favourite episode of the season so far, then- derivative, and based on a moral dilemma too far removed from anything that could possibly happen to possibly bear the dramatic weight that's been placed upon it. That's a problem.