Alien, The Thing and
Inception. Being self-aware of where you’re getting your ideas is ok, but I’m
not sure about this one.
So, I liked this episode…kind
of…I liked the claustrophobic sets, I liked Nick Frost’s Santa and I liked he
self-aware references to all the films that were making a more than significant
contribution to the story. The problem is that if you’ve seen one of those
films, the big twist of the episode isn’t really a twist. In fact, if you’ve
seen “Amy’s Choice” then the third act twist won’t be a surprise at all.
But that aside, this is pretty
fun to watch, Santa is a pretty good addition and watching Nick Frost run
through the logistics of Christmas Eve is quite fun.
Capaldi is on top form as
always. He seems to be toning down his Scottish accent and using a Tom Baker
voice for some parts, which is an interesting choice.
Coleman is on similar form,
though she doesn’t seem to be able to do a old-person voice.
The rest of the cast are all
fine, but seem to fade into the background a little bit, one of them being a
red-shirt.
But the purpose of the episode
becomes more evident as it goes on. This is about resetting things to the way
they were before the events of “Death in Heaven”. That’s slightly
disappointing, since Moffat crafts a pretty good and suitably emotional way to
write Clara out in this very episode. In fact you get the impression that he
was among those who didn’t know whether Coleman would sign on for another
series.
But anyway, everything’s back
to normal aboard the TARDIS and back in place for series 9.
