Saint Nicholas?

There's a horror movie named Alien? That's really offensive. No wonder everybody keeps invading you. 

The Doctor, Last Christmas

Christmas is a time of traditions, and as such I feel obliged to follow the Infinite Revolution tradition of posting a brief review of the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

Over time (no pun intended) I've found the holiday episodes of Doctor Who to be a bit uneven, with last year's offering quite definitely scoring as one of the less impressive samples. However, this year's special redeemed the shortcomings of Matt Smith's disappointing final episode.

Last Christmas offers a well-written scenario which prominently features Santa Claus, elves, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and alien monsters, and then cleverly integrates them all into the story in a logical, reasonable fashion which makes perfect sense in the context of the plot.*  This qualifies as good science fiction by my definition, in that it creates what seems to be an irrational situation and then explains it in a completely rational manner** without ever breaking the rules created by the storyline.

Last Christmas pays homage to several classic films, to the point of even listing them on screen for the less observant or knowledgeable members of the audience.  (If you're curious, yes, apparently Dave is forgiven.) To be fair, number five on that list should probably be Inception, but it may be that they were less eager to point out that particular influence.***

The episode also resolves the question of Clara Oswald's continued involvement (or not) with the Doctor, and manages to gracefully break the barriers to that involvement that were created in the final episode of Season 8.  Ultimately though, the episode's greatest achievement is in casting.  I mean, seriously, how can you go wrong by choosing an actor named Nick Frost to play Santa Claus?

Merry Christmas to all - once again, we're half way out of the dark.

- Sid

* In acknowledgement of previous complaints by my sister Dorothy, no spoilers here.

** Well, to be truthful, that's a bit strong.  It's not completely logical, but by Doctor Who standards it's pretty good.

*** That being said, series producer and writer Steven Moffat had damn well better not end the next season by announcing that it was all a dream, that will NOT go well for him.