Saturday, July 25, 2015

The Time Lord 1.13 - A Very Smeggy Xmas



After the most cynical, hopeless, dark, gritty, depressing and nihilistic seasons of Doctor Who ever, it's time for a yuletide episode! Yay!
Nigel: And suddenly having a disfunctional antisocial fuckwit of a Doctor has a drawback - he's the last person anyone would want to spend Christmas with. He has no friends, he doesn't want friends, he doesn't have fun, plus after 900 years of Christmas he'd never want to see another damn holiday special ever!
Andrew: Maybe that's why it's called Last Christmas. Maybe Moffat can't see any future in these eps.
Dave: Yeah, what is Christmas but a materialistic pagan festival reminding you you're one year older, fatter, uglier and closer to death with some unwanted stocking fillers in place of spiritual fulfilment?
Andrew: You know, Dave, maybe you should watch some Parks and Rec or something...
Nigel: Yeah, Moffat seems to have set the tone meeting for each ep on "Make Dave Restal Self-Harm."
Dave: You just wait! It'll be set in a terminal children's ward where all the underage cancer patients are being sexually molested by Father Christmas so he can gain the power to drown kittens and if the Doctor even gives a damn he won't actually do anything because it's not his problem...
Andrew: Maybe we should watch something more cheerful. Like Children of Earth...

It's the night before Christmas and it's snowing. Somewhat unrealistically.
D: Is that snow dead Cyber-pollen? I mean, it never snows on 21st Century Earth otherwise...

A: This is obviously a dream. She lives in a poky flat on the Powell Estate, not Wayne Manor.Maybe Danny left a fortune in his will.
N: Yeah, because English teachers make so much money.
A: He was a Maths teacher.
N: Yes, but he was teaching in England! God you're pedantic.
A: Odd Clara dreams of being alone in a big house with a stairlift. Maybe she inherited from her gran?
D: You mean Etta died? Oh god! NOO!!


Anyway, moving on. Clara wakes up to find Santa and some wisecracking elves are on the roof.
N: Ah, yes. Clara's gone criminally insane. She's probably in a padded cell somewhere, drooling.

A: On the bright side, I love Santa and his loser mates. They mange to be realistically bitchy, but not nasty. I mean, it's not Tim fucking Allan piss-farting about in a Santa suit, but it's not a dark parody either. Santa's cynical about how it all works, but not why. That's very clever.
N: Is it me, or does Dan Starkey look wierder without Sontaran makeup?
A: The colliding reindeer in the background are very Family Guy, aren't they? And the elves remind me of Stewie and Bryan as well...
D: Wait, the idea parents love their kids is more ridiculous than Santa Claus being real? Jesus...

The Doctor arrives in the TARDIS and leaves with Clara for some reason.
N: So... no, I have no idea what's going on. Why doesn't he ask about Danny?
D: I thought he was friends with Santa!
A: Mind you, this Doctor would be much happier throwing coal at pensioners instead.
N: So, Clara believes in Santa and this is going to save the world? What?!


There are special opening credits. With snow.
A: Sweet merciful zarathustra, that is tacky!
D: They've shoved "Nick Frost" after the logo! It looks like that's the episode title!
N: Frost on the eyebrows? Wow, you can feel the animators going "You know what? Fuck this!" and trying to lighten this miserable shitstorm. I admire this.
D: Why not add sleighbells as well while they're at it?

Meanwhile, in a very unconvincing CGI polar base...
N: Wow, it makes the model from Seeds of Doom look like found footage!
A: Do you get arora borealis in the Antarctic summer?
D: Do you get all those rocky outcrops of ice? I always thought it was more or less flat...

...a blonde bimbo scientist is sent into a sealed-off medibay full of sleeping monsters.
N: Wow, just like The Empty Child. Or any other "don't wake up the monsters" story by Moffat. Like the immediately previous episode. Anyone think Moff's running on empty after five years?
A: These things are just like the Teller from Time Hiest. "Whatever you do, don't think!"
D: Hrm. Industrial setting, Alien riffs, unsexy neurotic older man with huge nostrils who thinks he's lady man, younger moron character more interested in fashion than danger, trying to groove their way past telepathic monsters... This is a bit Red Dwarf, really. The whole "Don't think" is like Rimmer being told not to fantasize about a giant spider crawling up his leg.
A: It's so bloody dark, though. Why haven't they turned on the lights?

As traditional, Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody is played for some reason.
N: Did Murray Gold give up writing Christmas songs altogether now?
A: Shona's in a real Cat-groove. I bet the monsters will start dancing along with her too.
D: Holy crap! A friendly, happy character who isn't a neurotic angst-written borderline nutjob!
N: Dead meat.
D: Pity. I think a Scouse Slade-grooving companion would make a nice change from all the mentally-unbalanced superheroes we've had since 2010...

The Doctor and Clara turn up. Shit immediately goes down.
D: Typical, this Doctor barely says a word before ruining everything and nearly getting everyone killed.
A: Shona thinks of him as a skeleton in a hoodie. Even strangers recoil from this bloke. I tell you, Capaldi's very self-confident to appear in two shows where every single character dreads and hates him on sight.
N: Wow. According to my caculator, Clara's two hundred off on that first answer and eight hundred off on the second. Exactly. In the hundreds. Wierd.
A: Even more, wow, Clara's slapped the Doctor and he's deserved it! You know, say what you like about what's happened since Matt Smith's left, the unnecessary female-on-male domestic violence has really died down since Capaldi joined up!
D: Well, the Doctor didn't deserve it. He was deliberately provoking her to take her mind off the monsters - Danny wouldn't have minded, given the context.
N: And it's not like he's disrespecting the dead - Clara told him he survived!

Facehugger monsters drop from the ceiling before you can say "Holy Ridley Scott!" 
D: Yeah... why do arctic scientific bases have all these guns?
A: And if the monsters only chase you when you think about it, how did all the facehuggers attack when no one knew they were there?
N: Compared to actual HR Gieger facehuggers, these things are snail pace. Step out of the damn way!

Then Santa Claus arrives, with elves. And machine guns.
A: Oh yes. The Red Dwarf levels were dropping. Will the Dalai Lama and Noel Coward also turn up?
D: It's not just Meltdown! They're even doing the living-slinkies from Emohawk!
N: Rudolf is very butch... almost cow-like. Is that what real reindeer look like?
A: Look, Santa just told the monsters to go away. Isn't that what the Doctor is supposed to do whenever Moff can't think of a decent way out of a cliffhanger?
D: No wonder the Doctor's in a foul mood. Santa's been a better hero in ten minutes than he has for an entire season of episodes! YOU USELESS PRICK!!!
A: Happy place, Dave. Happy place.

The scientists have some trouble coping with this.
D: Christ, are they all stupid? At the very least they should have twigged the guy THINKS he's Santa.
A: It's like one of those crappy pre-titles where no one can say "You're the Doctor" for drammatic effect.
N: Shona's ashamed of being a brony? Good for her.
D: Oooh, the Doctor thinks she's vaguely intelligent. Kiss of death.
A: She's got to be the new companion. She's the one actually investigating who Santa is while Clara sulks in the shadows and the Doctor talks boring about the facehuggers.
N: Ashley's actually doing more companion stuff with the Doctor than Clara. Miss Oswald's really lost her mojo in this - maybe they should kill her off and get a different Clara splinter to participate. She's gone from psychotic to apathetic. She's effectively wasting screen time.
A: Yeah, why did the Doctor go back for her? Why are he and Santa not recognizing each other?
N: "Dream Crabs"? The Public Lice of Your Imagination!!!
D: Oh look, now we don't know if it's reality or not. They'll be finding DVDs and computer games for Doctor Who next and it'll turn out they're sadacts pretending to be fictional characters...
N: Surprised none of the scientists have buck teeth and are called Duane.
D: Hang on, the Doctor's calling the TARDIS a telephone kiosk and not a police box? He's evil!
A: Look at that Nosferatu grin - he's obviously a Dream Lord or something causing trouble. It's the natural evolution from a Doctor crap at being a hero to a Doctor brilliant at being a villain! He's rude to Clara, refuses to save anyone, makes Ashley do all the work...

The Doctor and Clara are honest with each other. That's a first.
D: That's got to be a wake-up call that all these white-lies are causing each other nothing but misery.
A: Yeah, I thought this new Doctor was supposed to be brutally honest at all times.
N: ...and they immediately change the subject. Oh, for fuck's sake. Get some closure for once. Is this going to be the new story arc, with five years of these two lying to each other?

Turns out even the main characters think it's cliched.
D: Actually referencing source material as Alien? Red Dwarf did that too.
A: It's a reminder that the nameless xenomorph franchise is hard to describe. Maybe if they'd stuck with the working title StarBeast it would be better.
N: Nah, then we'd have a film series about Ellen Ripley fighting Beep the Meep.
A: So, we've seen Patrick Troughton and now John Hurt is canonized as well! I bet the Doctor's new face is based on that guy from The Hour and not Caecilius at all...
D: Hang on, if the Dream Crabs are copied from Alien, that means they are a dream. So... if the crabs themselves are the dream, then what is really causing the dream? It's more psychic pollen, I bet.
N: This running gag about racism better be leading somewhere...

The dream crabs eat your brains while you're in a dreamworld.
D: Oh come on! They're Psirens now! With Despair Squid thrown in!
N: They just need to shapeshift and we've got a trifecta! Moff, puh-please!

Clara is told to get off her bitching arse and do something.
N: Fuck off, Clara! She asks the Doctor to give her something to do, then threatens to punch him when he gives her something to do - crazy bitch. Didn't she use to be likable once?
A: She was really happy in the pre-credits sequence, but now she's a miserable sulking loser. You think an existential crisis and danger would lighten her up!
D: I bet she lost her job at Coal Hill. No pupil would cooperate with her if she's behaving like that.
A: Plus, Maeve telling everyone how she tried to leave the whole class to die wouldn't have helped.
D: I liked Maeve. She'd be way more useful than Clara.
N: Handles' rusting skull would be more useful than Clara. I get trying to make her dark and untrustworthy but all she's offering the series is depriving Michael Troughton of screentime. I bet they cut a lot of his scenes so we could have her huffing on camera.
A: In fairness, JLC is way cuter huffing on camera than Michael Troughton.

Oh yeah, the Doctor finally realizes it's really stupid to leave Dream Crabs on the loose and then send a sulky Clara to collect one so she's even more likely to wake it up.
A: That's really very creepy. In that respect, Moff's mojo is as strong as ever.
D: Clara's finally turned into a screaming companion. That control freak thing is gone for good.
N: They had to get Amy mind-raped, locked in an iron long and about to give birth before she let out a scream like that. But Amy got better. Not sure if Clara will.
D: Oh, come on, Clara! Don't look up at the thing! Are you trying to get killed?

Clara is put into a fantasy world where Danny is alive and every day is Christmas Day.
N: You could almost say it's... better than life?

D: Look, there's even mysterious grafiti saying "You're dying!" "This isn't real!" Grant Naylor should sue!
A: In fairness, that "wipe away the words" trick is epic.
N: Look at how wobbly that bed-headboard is. I bet Clara made it that way so it made the maximum banging every time she went reverse cowgirl on Danny. She even braggs they have kinky role-playing shit because Danny's too inhibited and physically underendowed to satisfy her...
A: I would say you're disgusting and obsessed, Nige, but you're not wrong. I mean, this isn't even subtext!
D: Gah, look, Clara's fantasy involves Danny doing absolutely everything she says with no free will while she insults him. And even in her dream world... she has no friends. No one spends any time with her apart from her chocolate-covered sex slave. It's pitifully shallow...
N: She's still lying to Danny. Even in her perfect world SHE LIES TO HIM! Psychologically-speaking, there's no way round this: Clara, you are fucked. At this point, even Ace and C'rizz are pointing at her and saying "Phew, what a looney!"

The Doctor finds Clara face-hugged and seriously freaks out.
D: Wow. He's practically hysterical. Obviously he's not the real Capaldi, who would've shrugged and whined about how he can't fix everything.
N: Or maybe he's better adjusted now Missy's not screwing him over. Either way, you notice they need the facehugger symbolism to justify the Doctor's worry. No one survives face-hugging.
A: Apart from Ripley.
D: No, Ripley was cloned.
A: So... a Ripley-splinter? See, the Doctor's going to have to get a better Clara now this one's used up.
D: It's really wierd seeing this Doctor actually CARE about someone. He's finally walking the walk.

Santa gets the Doctor his own dream-crab so he can join Clara's nauseating fantasy.
N: Just like Better Than Life. Or Gunmen of the Apocalypse. Or Back in the Red. Or Back to Reality. Or Back to Earth. Or...
D: Did someone give Moffat the Red Dwarf box set as a Christmas Present? And Moff didn't want it and this is his way of taking revenge?
N: How long before Clara's self-loathing beast appears? And will she be stripped to her underwear, chained to a stone bloke, oiled and then tortured with hot pokers? Because that sounds exactly the sort of filthy sex she's into...

Get this: Clara knows it's a dream and it's fatal. She still wants to stay there.
N: Holy shit. She wants to die. She's going to kill herself.
A: Dear Christ, did no one get her some counselling after Danny died? I mean, even Granny Etta could see she was on the verge of a complete breakdown! Or did all the psychiatrists give up on her as a lost cause?

D: This. Just this, people. "Hrm, Doctor Who episode for Christmas. I know, let's have Clara kill herself!" Thanks a lot, Moffat! Did Children In Need reject the prequel where she slashes her wrists in the bath?
N: I guess after Danny, and discovering she was manipulated by a psychopath into ruining the life of her best friend was too much for her. Especially as she has no other friends...

But what's this? Fantasy Danny tells her to man the fuck up.
A: Um. OK. Didn't expect to see that, but it's nice for the ghost of a character to be good for a change. No way would Joss Whedon have ever written a scene like this?
N: You can tell this isn't the real Danny - he's so calm and confident. Mind you, maybe that's how he would be now he doesn't have that kid's death on his conscience. And it's no surprise they didn't leave Clara to look after him, since she's officially on suicide watch.
D: Danny's argument on how to work through grief is very good.
N: Yeah, Dave. You should listen to the fantasy-face-hugging-hallucination-wank-dream person.
D: Of course, Danny had to die a hideous and revolting death and oblivion first. Thanks, Moff.

Clara chooses to wake up. Or does she?
A: Oh, a dream within a dream within a dream. When's Toby Jones turning up?
N: If Piers Fletcher Dervish can sum up the plot with Alien, why don't they reference Inception?
D: Because Alien is a good film. Inception is not.
A: I love Shona trying to sweep up the dead crabs while the others take samples.
D: I know it's not the time or place, but, sorry CLARA TRIED TO FUCKING KILL HERSELF! The fricken elephant is in the room, look how the Doctor's so uncomfortable around her. Has he ever had a companion who might just commit suicide at any moment?
A: Thomas Brewster?
N: No, we just wanted him to kill himself at any moment. But yeah, this is some seriously dark shit. It's gone from Clara trying to help the Doctor recover from his regeneration to the Doctor trying to stop Clara from taking an overdose. It's amazing she lasted till Christmas, really.
A: Obviously he'll need Shona to help keep Clara from self-harm.
N: Clara swings both ways. Maybe Ashley will be her replacement bitch?

Definitely still dreaming.
A: The wonder of a new Doctor - passing off old material as new. It's the same way Season 12 was full of giant maggots but no one noticed because Tom Baker was in place.
D: Oh no, the Doctor's finally being properly Doctory and now Santa's strutting around telling everyone he's stupid and being the one who will save the day! This is kicking a guy while he's down, especially since the Doctor was on the verge of finding the truth anyway.
A: Hang on, if this is the dream, does that mean all the stuff with Danny was a waste of time?
N: Nah, I wouldn't call it padding.
A: No, but it could be a waste of time. I mean, can you wake up from a dream if the crab is holding you in another dream? Huh?
D: And I was sure El Papa Crimbo was going to turn out to be the Dream Lord. Instead he's Cheese Guy!

Everyone holds hands to escape the dream.
A: Seriously, why is the Doctor so autistic nowadays he can't bear physical contact?
D: Ooh, Clara picks Shona to hold the Doctor's hand. That's like when Emma Peel gets whoever her replacement was to look after Steed. Come on, Shona!
A: The Doctor even says she's not an idiot! That's a borderline snog!
N: Dead meat. Poor Shona.
D: Awesome music as Santa saves them. Been a while since Murray Gold's lightened the mood!
A: Why, precisely, isn't Ashley shooting the crab-zombies? I think we can safely say they're beyond help...

Case solved, and the Doctor is outta here. Don't like it? Tough shit.
D: Typical, couldn't go a whole episode without being an irredeemable fuckwit. The Dream Crabs are a threat to all mankind, but it's not his problem! It's like imagining the Fourth Doctor leaving the Krynoids to kill everyone saying "Well, it sure sucks to be you!"
N: He actually says "Am I supposed to do something about the polar bears as well"? Um, you mean you don't do this out of the goodness of your hearts?
A: The Eleventh Doctor helped people out of instinct. He couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't. Even at his most utterly depressed and broken, he still wanted to help. But now the Doctor gets in a huff when the entire human race is in danger?
N: Wasn't Missy supposed to sort this shit out? Why does the Doctor do anything? "Oh, the Daleks are exterminating people? That's what they're built for. Am I supposed to do something about that?"
D: Sweet fuck, he's actually MORE of an asshole in one line than the whole previous series.
A: Unless he's the Dream Lord all along...

Clara is suspicious about the pre-title sequence.
A: Yeah, I was suspicious too. It makes absolutely no sense.
N: Oh it was another dream? There was I thinking it was retarded pre-credit clickbait like all the other times.

The Doctor realizes they're all still in a dream.
A: OK. So did he go back to save Shona and her pals or just to save himself?
D: And now he's deleted all memories of Shona and her pals. Miserable shit.
N: And he doesn't even have an insulting nickname for Piers. How rude.
D: Right, so when is Capaldi quitting again? There's only another, what, four more series of this asshole before we get something better? Oh Moff, you gave us hope and then you took it away.
A: Yeah, suicidal companion and a proved-beyond-all-doubt-iredeemable-shithead Doctor. We can find something else to watch until 2020. Catch up with Big Finish maybe.
N: There are still some Doctor Who Project stories to take the piss out of.
D: Apparently Niel Cross is bringing back Sapphire & Steel.
A: Oooh. Interesting. I wonder if Alice will play Sapphire...

Yeah, turns out the monsters were the crew all along or somesuch shit. Piers gets swallowed by his reflection, but no one cares. More monsters turn up. Stuff like that.
D: I literally cannot care about this any more. It'll just be even more dreams. The Doctor's become so stupid and useless he can't even tell if he's awake! Clara is only there to self-harm! Why should we give a flying fuck if any of them die or not? Moffat has crossed the line where the idea of further adventures with these horrible people no longer appeal. At all.
A: I'll say the fact their evil selves are trying to kill them is right out of Demons and Angels.
D: Or Out of Time.
N: Or Stasis Leak, if you think about it...

Since it's still a dream, Santa turns up and saves them.
A: Well, it makes more sense than an imaginary fire extinguisher.
D: Oh look, another character pauses the story to tell the Doctor off for being a cunt. I wonder how long it will take for him to ignore him. It's like Eric Saward on acid, trying to make everyone hate the character as much as he does until they beg for more adventures.

The Doctor flies the reindeer and might actually be enjoying himself.
D: Meh. Whatever. Am I supposed to find this endearing?
N: It's just padding.
A: Matt Smith did it with a shark. A flying shark. Rudolf doesn't match.
N: Capaldi looks like he really wants to hate doing this.
D: Am I supposed to be impressed? He had his chance and he threw it away. In fact, this whole thing is a mockery of previous Doctors - the London Eye, Big Ben, flying over Parliament... You know, proper adventures where they actually didn't get angry when asked to save people's lives.
A: I bet you he doesn't do anything about the crab that's eaten Piers. Why should he? It's not his problem.
N: Yeah. I think Marc Platt said it best when he said you could change everything about the Doctor and turn him from a drunk to a woman, but as soon as you get someone who isn't interested in other people's problems, he stops being the Doctor.
D: Maybe next season will just be like Britain's Got Talent with the Doctor judging people to see if they're worth his effort. Just a heap of bloody corpses with him grumbling "I'm not cleaning THAT up."

Sexy Scot Bellows wakes up in a wheelchair.
D: Aw. She dreamed she could walk. That actually touches me.
N: So no one at home noticed Granny's screams when she was face-hugged in broad daylight by the Christmas Tree?
A: Hang on, so the dream crabs are real? And they aren't just a metaphor from Alien?

Perfume Perveyor Ashley wakes up not in a wheelchair but in a double bed.
N: So, um, is she single? Or has a crab eaten her boyfriend?
A: The Doctor said they were all from different times. They don't seem to be very different.

And Clearly-Companion-Material Shona wakes up on a couch after all night movies.
D: She watches 80s sci-fi gore on Christmas Eve and then Game of Thrones on Christmas Day? I... I think I'm in love. She's awesome. Please give her a spin-off.
A: I love her list. She agrees to forgive Dave!
N: You're in there, dude.
A: But she doesn't need to be told to forgive him on Christmas. She can work that out on her own.
D: It's clear she had to write "Thing From Another World" rather than "The Thing" which is what she was actually watching. It's because Moffat can't think of another verb.
A: She does look so lonely there. She'd be better off in the TARDIS, scratching some sense into the main character. Maybe she could get him to regenerate into a less-hideous enfleshment.

The Doctor wakes up... two episodes ago.
A: At the volcano? Which was a dream as well? What the...
D: I'm sorry, so this was a dream of a dream in Clara's head? Missy, the Cybermen never happened?
N: I... I... I got nothing. What the hell? What the fucking hell? This is like Dallas on acid.
D: Oooh, maybe this whole season will turn out to be a dream and Matt Smith is back!

Whatever the hell is going on, Clara still wants to die horribly than return to reality.
D: The Christmas spirit really running strong tonight.
A: It's good to see her take Danny's advice to get on with her life so seriously by immediately trying to kill herself.
N: And she calls a Doctor a "downer" for not wanting to join her in a suicide pact.

The Doctor arrives at Clara's place to sonic the face-hugger and save her life.
N: Hang on, his clothes are different.
A: And he's got that specimen jar from the arctic base. Which was a dream. Twice!
N: So this is another dream. Obviously he'll wake up and realize while he was dreaming, she died.
D: Bye, Clara. It wasn't pleasant.

But it turns out Clara was face-hugged when she was 89, not 27!!!
N: Oh. She's, uh... not aged well. Unless she had plastic surgery or stood near the fire.
A: Obviously a dream then.Why would Clara be dreaming she was sixty years younger and recently bereaved and suicidal? Huh? Is there any logic to this? Any at all?
D: Props to JLC for acting, as always. She's convincing as an old lady. As long as you don't see all the latex they've piled on her face. It's like Joanna Lumbley in that Titanic spoof where she has the rubber mask on pretending to be an old Kate Winslet. If there's a difference.
N: The Doctor looks mildly suspicious about her prosthetics, too. He's twigged it's a dream.

The Doctor, however, sees a Clara with convincing makeup.
A: So his face-blindness is genuine after all. He reads people by their auras.
N: It puts a new perspective on him with Amy. No wonder he freaked out when she tried to bonk him - he saw a 7-year-old girl trying to get into his pants!
D: Mind you, he had plenty of bitchiness when he saw how old Jo Grant had got.
A: Hang on, so he sees Clara as the same beautiful girl he met in Bells of St. John... but he thinks of her as an old slapper anyway? I mean, he's said that so often it's quite clear he believes it. Does he just not fancy her because she's not ginger?
N: Still, seems Clara wasn't actually suicidal then. Because she actually lived her life and got on with it.
D: But she still ended up a lonely spinster with no friends.

Symbolism's everywhere.

A: It's a neat turnaround, with the Doctor relatively young and healthy helping withered Clara with the cracker.
D: And she learned how to fly a plane. Obviously that one time she didn't instantly have the upper hand over the Doctor was a driving force in her life.
N: And she admits she really wanted to bang Matt Smith. Well, who wouldn't? Apart from me.

D: Nor me.
A: I dunno. As long as we didn't have to talk afterwards.
N: Remember, he had like a dozen Brazillian supermodels as girlfriends. His bar would be set high.
A: I should hope so! I'm not some trollop!
N: In your dreams.
D: Wow, that's vaguely witty considering what we're watching.

The Doctor realizes he's dreaming. AGAIN! This time, Clara's still 27.
N: So... did Danny and the Cybermen thing happen? This makes even less sense than before!
A: On the bright side, the Doctor's clearly not hiding the fact he loves Clara and Clara isn't going to do this stupid on-off thing any more. Without the stress of modern life and all the lies, she can become a proper companion instead of some hideous tumor of plot contrivance.
D: Oh, yeah, sure. We'll be back in Coal Hill and pathological lying in no time. She'll probably get another boyfriend and it'll all be the same. The whole season has been built on people refusing to learn their lessons or ignoring their epiphinies. Look at the Doctor's "Am I supposed to care?"
N: Yeah, well, that was three layers of dreams down. Should we forgive him?
D: Oh, why not? That way he can dash our hopes again! Let joy be unconfined!
A: Another four years of this.
D: Capaldi being an arse?
N: You complaining about Capaldi being an arse.

Hang on, is it a dream?
N: Oh, for crying out loud. Unless you're saying that your main characters are brain-dead zombies hallucinating, no. No it is not a dream.
A: The Doctor repeatedly said Santa was real. He never actually said that Nick Frost was a fake, at least in the sense that he was based on a non-existent character.
D: Or, you know, it's just a random tangerine. What a stupid twist.
A: Unless we're supposed to believe the real Santa planted the dream crabs and caused all this mess.
D: So, Father Christmas killed Michael Troughton. Ho fucking ho.


3/5

But wait! There's more!
D: Wet tunnels. Zombies. Caves. Daleks. Any chance of daylight? Or fun?
N: Hey! Missy's back, despite all the snipers! There's "fun" supplied, right there.
A: And the Doctor seems more ruffled and casual instead of the Pertwee control freak. His hair's longer, curlier, and he's wearing a hoodie and Troughton's pants. You know, clothes that look comfortable. And he's hugging people without vomiting in disgust.
N: Oh, Zygons. Again.
A: Dude, he's turned into Roy Orbison! Funky!
D: "I'm the Doctor and I save people!" Well, that's very different to him whinging about it. Assuming it's him and not some body-snatcher taking the piss, because I could totally see him letting all those underwater dudes die horribly. Is he supposed to do something about that?
N: Arya Stark is Dick Turpin!
D: Hang on, they're not letting Gatiss adapt Phantasmagoria, are they?
A: Remember when we thought he'd do Nightshade for Season Fnarg?
N: Next season doesn't look too bad.
D: Pity we had to go through this one first.

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