Last Christmas
Jan. 18th, 2015 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatI really liked this. I think it is my favourite Christmas special. It is possible this is because a) I was really irritated by The Matrix, b) I've tended to consider Christmas specials rather disappointing and c) I've become somewhat tired of the various iterations of Victorian Christmas planet.
The reason I was irritated with The Matrix was that it seemed to think it was being deep and original when its basic premise was one that has been known to philosophy since at least Descartes, if not before. Also, humans do not make good batteries. I liked the fact that, in being something of a blatant rip-off of Inception with a light sprinkling of Aliens, Last Christmas wasn't actually under any illusions that it was profound, ground-breaking or mind-blowing and basically settled in to have some fun with the premise.
And it was a lot of fun, if a little mawkish in places, but this was Christmas so I was prepared to make some allowances for extended soft focus scenes of people being happy and christmassy with a hint of bittersweet. Obviously it was also doing the legwork to bridge the gap between where the Doctor and Clara's relationship ended last season, and where presumably, the Powers That Be want it to start next season. It was a little heavy-handed at this (both the Danny sequence and the Clara as an old woman sequence) but it did the job and, in many ways, Clara is shaping up to be a very interesting companion - at least insofar as the programme is prepared to be fairly openly critical of her in a way it is normally only critical of the Doctor.
Interestingly, having spent most of last season feeling I didn't really know or warm to the 12th Doctor, I was quite happy to accept him as the Doctor here. I'm not sure if that was simply familiarity doing its work, or whether the story, being less concerned with the question of who the 12th Doctor actually is, presented a much more accessible character.
As for the great Doctor Who tangerine debate. I agree with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bunn that it should have been satsumas and that, personally, I rather like satsumas. NLSS Child, on the other hand, will have nothing to do with them and I have regretfully ceased putting them in the stocking when tame layman suggested he thought it was ridiculous to give her fruit she wouldn't eat on Christmas morning in the name of tradition.
There is also, I understand, a great Doctor Who "Santa Claus or Father Christmas" debate which may be a Scottish vs English thing. I intend to keep out of that one.
Once the reveal, that everyone was dreaming, had been made, the progress of the story was fairly obvious as the dreamers popped up through the layers. I did wonder if the layers were going to stop at the one where Clara was an old woman and I had a slight doubt about the fact that the layers for the non-Doctor and Clara characters seemed to stop one before the Doctor and Clara's did. I didn't mind the ambiguous ending, in fact I'm not sure how the story could have ended without some ambiguity. Mostly, I was just happy that it didn't spend too much time pointing at the central conceit and pretending it was profound in some way.
This wasn't a particularly deep story (and thankfully didn't consider itself one), but it was a lot of fun, judged the tone about right for Christmas day and didn't give us yet another Victorian Christmas planet for which I, at least, was very grateful.
The reason I was irritated with The Matrix was that it seemed to think it was being deep and original when its basic premise was one that has been known to philosophy since at least Descartes, if not before. Also, humans do not make good batteries. I liked the fact that, in being something of a blatant rip-off of Inception with a light sprinkling of Aliens, Last Christmas wasn't actually under any illusions that it was profound, ground-breaking or mind-blowing and basically settled in to have some fun with the premise.
And it was a lot of fun, if a little mawkish in places, but this was Christmas so I was prepared to make some allowances for extended soft focus scenes of people being happy and christmassy with a hint of bittersweet. Obviously it was also doing the legwork to bridge the gap between where the Doctor and Clara's relationship ended last season, and where presumably, the Powers That Be want it to start next season. It was a little heavy-handed at this (both the Danny sequence and the Clara as an old woman sequence) but it did the job and, in many ways, Clara is shaping up to be a very interesting companion - at least insofar as the programme is prepared to be fairly openly critical of her in a way it is normally only critical of the Doctor.
Interestingly, having spent most of last season feeling I didn't really know or warm to the 12th Doctor, I was quite happy to accept him as the Doctor here. I'm not sure if that was simply familiarity doing its work, or whether the story, being less concerned with the question of who the 12th Doctor actually is, presented a much more accessible character.
As for the great Doctor Who tangerine debate. I agree with
bunn that it should have been satsumas and that, personally, I rather like satsumas. NLSS Child, on the other hand, will have nothing to do with them and I have regretfully ceased putting them in the stocking when tame layman suggested he thought it was ridiculous to give her fruit she wouldn't eat on Christmas morning in the name of tradition.There is also, I understand, a great Doctor Who "Santa Claus or Father Christmas" debate which may be a Scottish vs English thing. I intend to keep out of that one.
Once the reveal, that everyone was dreaming, had been made, the progress of the story was fairly obvious as the dreamers popped up through the layers. I did wonder if the layers were going to stop at the one where Clara was an old woman and I had a slight doubt about the fact that the layers for the non-Doctor and Clara characters seemed to stop one before the Doctor and Clara's did. I didn't mind the ambiguous ending, in fact I'm not sure how the story could have ended without some ambiguity. Mostly, I was just happy that it didn't spend too much time pointing at the central conceit and pretending it was profound in some way.
This wasn't a particularly deep story (and thankfully didn't consider itself one), but it was a lot of fun, judged the tone about right for Christmas day and didn't give us yet another Victorian Christmas planet for which I, at least, was very grateful.