Firstly let me start off by saying I thought Last Christmas was brilliant. It is now my favourite 12 and Clara episode and and one of the rare ep's where I found Clara likeable. That being said, There were a few minor things I wondered about which I have listed here. None are particularly big, episode ruining things, but if anyone has any answers/insights to these things it would help me appreciate even more this episode which is already great to me.

1)If the real existence of Santa was supposed to be left ambiguous then how can the scene with him in at the end of death in heaven be explained?

2)When the Doctor and Clara were fully awake, how did they remember any events in the dream when no one else seemed to?.

3) why did the Doctor and Clara seem to be in one layer of dream more than anyone else? (given that when they all woke up from the sleigh, the others were back home, but the doctor and Clara were still dreaming)

And now just two questions based your opinion

4) Adding together the events of the dream where 12 missed out on Clara's life and Clara never found anyone again but became a traveller herself anyway and the very last scene, is it suggested that Clara will now become a permanent traveller? (personally I hope so, because, if we have to continue with her, i'd rather have her permanent travelling than him having to keep going and picking her up all the time)

5) Finally, Just to ask for fun, when they were on the sleigh talking about how they might or probably wouldn't even know each other in real life, I thought maybe for a second, they were somehow going to show that the doctor and Clara didn't actually know each other in real life. Was just wondering, in the heat of the episode, did that thought cross anyone else's mind?

The Doctors brain works different?
The TARDIS
Or what I think is that as they are already aware of the existence of aliens ect they can remember and know it happened where as the others will either forget like most people do their dreams or if they remember put it down to a dream

I see what your getting at, almost as though, if anyone else had even a residual memory it would stay in the the subconscious and the conscious mind wouldn't ever consider it as reality as it was too bizarre, but the Doctor and Clara know the world really is that bizarre and things like that happen to them all the time so there conscious minds would accept the events. Makes sense. I like this idea as it also ties in with the little joke about the others doubting the real life existence of the 'time travelling scientist dressed as a magician' as they were about Santa.

Maybe the Dream Crabs had already caught them at that point (it was a mid-credits sequence and there was no obvious indication of how long had passed) and Santa did say something like "she's not alright and neither are you" so this could have been the first attempt my his subconscious to warn him of the danger,


The Dream Crabs are capable of somehow psychically linking a number of people into a shared dream. It's not too much of a leap to accept that the second level of one person's dream could be the first level of someone else's, especially if they joined the dream later. All we really know is that The Doctor's and Clara's dream had already started at the beginning of the episode but we don't really know when the others' dreams started.

Both RTD and Moffat addressed the idea that it's unrealistic to expect a companion to travel for months/years in the TARDIS and never go home. This was very explicitly covered when Rose was presumed dead and Mickey investigated for her murder. Clara still has her dad, grandmother and her job. Of course she's going to go home. After all, it's a relationship that worked quite cheerfully for a couple of years with her and 11 between 7x13 and the 50th.

I'll be honest here - when the Doctor woke up, he seemed to be on some rocky/fiery terrain (set reused maybe?) and I suddenly rather stupidly thought we were back in the dream state he and Clara were in in "Dark Water" where she threw the TARDIS keys into that volcano Don't ask me how that would have made sense!

People try to argue that he can take you back to the moment you left but that doesn't work for me as even if in your families eyes you were only gone for a few minutes you would still miss them unless you have a really bad relationship with them I don't see how you could be gone for months or years without missing them or getting home sick.

The Clara way to me is the best way The Doctor picks her up and drops her off she still gets to see her family friends and job.

Plus when she finally has to leave it will be easier as it wouldn't be such a big jump from 24/7 adventure to a normal life.

I meant a permanent traveller in the way that rose and donna were, as in not never going home again, just living on the TARDIS and occasionally visiting home rather than the other way around.Rose and Donna are still the best 2 companions to me and I think their having as much of a commitment to embrace the life of travel as the doctor was a big element of why they were good.

Clara as we've had her so far just seems like she dosen't really care about the whole of time and space except when it occasionally suits her, and most of the time acts like it's an inconvience that the doctor has bothered to show up to whisk off on an adventure in time in space, which at best shows a dull character, and at worst seems unbelievable that could be anyone's attitude.

So what would happen if Clara just turned up when the Doctor is least expecting her?

The Doctor- Clara, what are you doing here?
Clara- I'm on an adventure, like the good old days
The Doctor- But, you shouldn't be here, stuff and that
Next companion- Who's she?
Clara- I'm the Doctor's friend, he knows me, been a while but we go way back
The Doctor- I get that a lot, people seem to know me
Clara- Really?

1) Doctor left Clara at the cafe, then got attacked by Dream crabs in or on his way to the TARDIS. The last scene in Death in Heaven was the Doctor in a dreamstate (spec). It looked like he was back at the volcano where Clara did (didn't) throw the TARDIS keys away. Maybe after he left her in the cafe, all depressed, he actually went there, and kind of contemplated what he was going to do next, moping around - and while there the crabs attacked him (which is why we twice saw him waking up from sleep outside the TARDIS)

2) Maybe because they were the first two affected, the impact was less on them (see 3.)

3) I think there was a suggestion that the Doctor was infected first, then the dream crabs searched his memory and this led them to Clara. See dialogue Doctor makes when he walks into old Claras' bedroom not knowing it is old Clara. Assuming my speculation in 1) above is reasonable, then - Doctor lans on volcano planet - they attack Doctor, he is lying ont he fllor outside TARDIS, meanwhile crabs then latch onto Clara, infect her, then crabs realise she doesn't have many other people close to her but hey whats this, a planet of humans, awesome - lets eat them .... or something like that ... Doctor was therefore int he deepest levels of dreamstate, Clara second, humans less - but once there Clara didn't really want to escape ... (Massive speculation and just imaginiative ideas here ...)

4) You mean permanent vs having a life on earth/temp life on the TARDIS right? I can see that happening to refresh the script (and her (Jenna's) feelings on the show, she's been there for some time now). So what do they do to her character now? They have cleared up the story of how she handles the new face of the Doctor (and vice versa how 12 handles his current face), they have fleshed out her character, given her more background, a love story etc (i.e. satisfied the real human itches). There doesn't seem to be any sense in giving her a boyfriend again in the next series, or suddenly introducing a new reason for her to get planted back in earth semi-permanently. (She no longer nanny's those annoying kids, she was not THAT close to her dad to want to come back and visit him frequently (the odd phone call will suffice her), and we've already seen regular companion/parent interactions with Rose, Donna and Rory - So only real reason for her character to repeatedly return to earth could/would be to check in on that girl who is going to be the future president of the US - sorry forget her name - kills 99.9% of all germs girl ). There will no doubt be some other new twist to her story next season - err like mentoring a new companion on the TARDIS perhaps ! (speculation peeps, don't know yet if this will happen)

5) Yikes, didn't cross my mind, interesting idea - but seeing Donna have to forget all about the Doctor, the TARDIS etc was such a tragic end to her character. I think I may have cried if that happened to Clara - she woke up never having really know the Doctor ... (a big manly something stuck in my eye kind of cry)

Moffat isn't a fan of that. He believes it's unrealistic. It also meant the Doctor's life span ended up rather shortened - because 10 had a companion with him most of the time it meant that he only lived for 7 years. Not very impressive for a man over 2000 years old!


Rubbish! She obviously loves travelling - that was in fact a huge part of her plot last series; that she couldn't give it or the Doctor up no matter how arsey he was being or how problematic it became. If she didn't really care then that plot wouldn't have existed. What she doesn't want is the Doctor wrecking her earth bound life because a) she's smart enough to know she'll have to live that when her time with him ends and b) she's a control freak and needs to feel like she is in charge of her own life (something which ties in quite nicely with the idea of her mother having a sudden death and things going out of her control).

Somebody Else's Problem

What about the surviving dream crab? The one that succeeded in killing Troughton's character? There's at least one at large on Earth.

Thanks for taking the time to write out such detailed answers judge, much obliged