One of Doctor Who's more controversial Christmas specials is the 2014 episode, "Last Christmas." This is because it is simultaneously a deep exploration of grief and a zany parody of movies like Alien and Inception. The two aspects seem to be at odds with each other for much of the episode's runtime, so fans have to pick which one they care about the most.
For those who decide that the character dynamics are the most important part, it does a great job. Series 8 ended with the Doctor and Clara both lying to each other about a crushing loss so that the other one could supposedly find their own happiness. The episode pulls them back together, reveals their secrets, and gets inside Clara's head. She spent most of the previous season torn between Danny and the Doctor, and she is a different person after spending time without either of them.
However, those who want to really explore the plot quickly find that it falls apart. There are many elements that simply don't make any sense, and even those that are explained are inconsistent. It's possible to make all the pieces fit, but it requires accepting things about the episode that were never properly established.
With that in mind, this article will explore the different dream layers in this episode, discussing plot holes and possible solutions that make it function more effectively. We'll start with the deepest layer of dreams, expanding out until all the characters are theoretically awake in the real world.
Clara's dream world with Danny
Residents: Clara, The Doctor
The best example of what this episode was trying to do takes place in Clara's dream world, where she woke up on Christmas to a world where Danny never died and they seemed to be in perfect sync. While she might have been content there, the Doctor repeatedly intervened, first with chalkboard warnings and then by joining the dream space.
Both the narrative and in-world purposes of the Dream Crabs work best in this layer. Narratively speaking, this fits into the trope of the sci-fi/fantasy hero experiencing an alternate world where their life was objectively better and then having to choose to reject it. It's intended to make Clara confront her grief and choose life anyway, which is both a lesson for the audience and a way to justify her travels with the Doctor in Series 9.
In-world, this is the only dream layer that easily fits the explanation of how Dream Crabs work. The Doctor explained, "The Dream Crab induces a dream state. Keeps you happy and relaxed, in a perfectly realized dream world, as you dissolve." It's easy for audiences to see why Clara would want to stay in this particular dream, even if it kills her.
By and large, this layer makes sense. It also gives us some evidence of how dream constructs work. When Clara first arrived, 'Danny' was trying to keep her there. He called after her when she got distracted and seemed completely invested in the narrative. When the Doctor showed up, his dialogue became more stilted, but he still wanted to keep Clara there. That's because this was Clara's version of Danny, who she built based on her memories and her vaguely suicidal attitude.
But Danny began acting differently once the Doctor asserted his memory of him: that he died saving the world. Danny's response to that sounded like something the Doctor might say, and he then started pushing for Clara to wake up. That's because this version of Danny was made up of both Clara and the Doctor's desires and memories. He even told Clara to "Do as you're told," which is a line that was repeatedly used between Clara and the Doctor, not Clara and Danny.
What this means is that the dream constructs are a collaboration between the residents of that dream (and presumably the Dream Crabs). They are built from the victims' memories, their own desire to stay in the dream, and the Crabs' desire for them to stay. But, if the victim has the awareness and intent, they can also be used to help break the victim out of the dream.
Escaping the Dream Crabs
Residents: Shona, Ashley, Bellows, Albert, The Doctor, and Clara
The next layer began when Santa and his elves broke into the Arctic facility. At this point, the Doctor, Clara, and all four North Pole residents were theoretically being fed on, but they believed that they had escaped. This is also the first layer where a Dream Crab died, after the Doctor and Clara broke out of her dream world.
Although it may seem like an incredibly dangerous ideal dream world compared to Clara's happy Christmas, it does actually work with the concept of dreams keeping the victims distracted. Although the overall situation might have been frightening, there was no active threat. The Dream Crabs generally weren't attacking, Santa Claus could control the Sleepers, and everything could be defeated by simply willing yourself to wake up. With all of this in mind, nobody was actively trying to wake up—until the truth was revealed.
However, the details become questionable at this point. On the broadest scale, it's worth asking why the Dream Crabs would create a world where the victims even knew they existed. My best explanation is that the Doctor already knew about them, so his subconscious filled in the details. But more importantly, this level complicates how the dream constructs work.
Per Clara's dream, Danny was being controlled by both her memories and the Dream Crabs' plot until the Doctor was able to shift his motivations. In this level, the dream constructs in question were Santa and his elves. They all stayed in character until the Doctor was able to convince enough of the others that they were still dreaming. Only then did Santa and his elves start talking directly about the dreams and their role in it. Thus, it seems as though the dream constructs operate via a system of majority rules.
Most of this makes sense, although it begs the question of how much relative power the Dream Crabs have, compared to their victims. Santa seemed to be a hostile force in the beginning, lulling them into a false sense of security, but that stopped once the victims knew that they were dreaming and therefore dying. But after that, the Dream Crabs didn't bother creating new constructs or otherwise attempting to keep them in their dream state.
It seems like the best explanation is that the Dream Crabs create the dream world, but they then only have as much power over it as any one resident. When only the Doctor believed it was a dream, they could keep things under control. Once more than half of the occupants believed it, there was no way for them to stop the escape.
The adventure at the North Pole
Residents: Shona, Ashley, Bellows, Albert, The Doctor, and Clara
The dream level that the majority of the episode was set in was the Arctic adventure as a whole. This included Clara finding Santa and the Doctor on the roof, traveling to the North Pole in the TARDIS, and getting attacked by the Dream Crabs as they tried to flee. It then picked back up when they broke out of the previous dream, up to and including the ride on Santa's sleigh when they were sent home.
This dream also included all four crew members. Most of their prior knowledge about the Dream Crabs came from their time spent in this level of the dreams, and this was the one that most of them ultimately woke up from. But it is also where the logical consistency of the episode really starts falling apart.
First, why would these six people (and their respective Dream Crabs) have come up with this dream world to begin with? It's hardly a calm, enjoyable dream for them to be content to stay in. The episode does give a few clues about the non-time travelers that help explain it:
- It was Christmas in the real world (Setting at the North Pole; presence of Santa)
- Shona was watching or planning to watch Alien and The Thing from Another World (General set-up of the adventure, appearance of the Dream Crabs)
- Albert's knowledge of Alien (Ditto to Shona's)
- Ashley's interest in science (Her role at the Arctic base)
Those details help explain how this set-up would have started. When the Doctor and Clara arrived, their memories and ideas would have been added, explaining why it went from a research mission to a full-scale attack.
The specific details about how the Dream Crabs work seem to be guided by the Doctor, either through his actual knowledge of the species or because of his expectations for such a situation. Some of this information was also transferred to the dream constructs, explaining both how Santa knew what to do and why he and the Doctor were frequently bickering—it's a manifestation of the Doctor's own self-hatred.
Santa was described as a common symbol for everyone, as someone who knows them and will help them no matter what, but he showed up first for Clara. She was the one who created that image, because the Doctor is Santa Claus for her. The others may have added details along the way, but he first appeared as a manifestation of Clara's desire for the Doctor to come back into her life.
Those initial details actually fit what we know about the characters fairly well, but the subsequent trajectory of the story doesn't. They weren't actively under attack in the Escape layer, but they were here. Even if the others were longing for adventure in their real lives, they wouldn't have created a world where they could get killed, and the Dream Crabs wouldn't have wanted them looking for a way out. So how did Albert end up dying?
The Doctor claimed that it was the aliens "sensing the endgame." Essentially, they killed Albert quickly so they wouldn't die when he and the others escaped. But that doesn't line up with how they operated in any other layer of the dream worlds. The only thing that makes this element make sense is that everybody else's nightmare is actually one person's dream: Clara.
The crew were safe at the beginning of this dream layer until the Doctor and Clara arrived, at which point they came under attack. In the Escape layer, everybody was safe because Santa could control the Dream Crabs... until Clara asked if it would wake up when she thought about it. Even so, it didn't attack anyone until she went into the room alone. Near the end of this dream layer, she's the one who noticed that the Sleepers were waking up.
Every time the Dream Crabs attacked, it was right after Clara said or did something to trigger them. Because what was a nightmare for everybody else was actually her dream. She loves the thrill, the rush, and it doesn't work properly if there's not any danger. If you want to be really cynical, it doesn't work properly unless somebody has died.
Unless we accept that the Dream Crabs were acting completely counter to how they normally do, somebody's mind must have been suggesting that they attack. They had no reason to do so on their own because the victims seemed content to talk and theorize without further incidents. But Clara's subconscious may have noticed that things were a little too safe, forcing them to shake things up a bit.
This section ended with Santa taking everyone on a sleigh ride, where they eventually woke up. Given how the previous layers worked, the act of waking up must have also been dependent on the shared interests of the dream residents. Bellows and Ashley both wanted to wake up, so they were able to leave without much struggle. Shona wanted to make friends but got kicked out, presumably by Clara and the Doctor.
Once the innocents were saved, only Clara, the Doctor, and the Dream Crabs could influence the dream. The Doctor warned that they needed to leave and Clara complained that he was a downer, which pushed him out. Both of them wanted him to wake up. But then, it was just Clara and her Dream Crab. Santa nagged her that she should wake up, but she rejected it. Both she and the Dream Crab wanted her to stay, so she couldn't leave until forced awake from the outside.
Real world (Old Clara)
Residents: Clara and the Doctor
Once everybody escaped the Arctic dream layer, the narrative cut to just the Doctor and Clara. Notably, the Doctor broke out on his own, but he had to force Clara to wake up, suggesting that Clara truly would have stayed until her death if left to her own devices. However, when the Doctor removed the Dream Crab, the Doctor learned that Clara was now an elderly woman.
This was a fun way of playing with the idea of the Doctor always returning too late, but it was relatively obvious that they weren't actually going to write Clara off through old age. Even so, it highlighted how much the Doctor cared for her and gave the audience the opportunity to imagine what Clara's life might have been like if the Doctor truly had left. It seems like a mostly fulfilling life, but it was just as critical to the audience as it was to the Doctor to be able to change it.
While this works well on the narrative level, it really doesn't make sense from the perspective of the Dream Crabs. Neither Clara nor the Doctor would have wanted to stay in that version of reality, which is why it was so easy for the Doctor to break free. It's possible to argue that the Doctor might have stayed in that reality too long because of his guilt, but that doesn't fit with how he's responded to the pain or loss of a companion in the past.
Ultimately, this feels like a fake-out for the audience, not a realistic dream that these characters might have been trapped in. It makes no sense for the Dream Crabs to have made this layer, and there's nothing clearly drawn from the Doctor or Clara within it until the Doctor's wish to "come back earlier" was granted by the manifestation of Santa Claus.
Co-Real world (Old Clara)
Residents: Shona, Ashley, Bellows
Every layer up to this point suggested that a person could only share a dream with others if they were at the same level of dream depth. That's why the crew members weren't there when the Doctor let a Dream Crab have him so he could break into Clara's dream world with Danny. But that creates a really big structural problem for the story.
Clara and the Doctor woke up from the ride with Santa to the layer discussed above, which turned out to still be a dream. But Shona, Ashley, and Bellows also woke up from the sleigh ride to a version of the real world. So, if we accept that they were on the same level as the Doctor and Clara, then them 'waking up' wasn't real either.
This seems much more likely to be a plot hole than an intentional choice, so a casual viewing of the episode can probably ignore it. But if you've gotten this far in this article, then you probably want to learn more about what this means. In-world, there are only three options that make any sense.
Option 1: The crew members woke up in what appeared to be the real world. Content that they were free from the Dream Crabs, they acted normally and ended up being fully consumed.
Option 2: The crew members woke up in what appeared to be the real world, but they didn't trust it. They either saw something that didn't make sense or felt the "ice cream pain" that indicated that they were in a dream. With that awareness, they were able to break back into the real world, despite the audience not getting to see it.
Option 3: The crew members were actually dream constructs all along. In the episode's final layer, only Clara and the Doctor woke up. Assuming they were the only ones actually targeted by the Dream Crabs, then the rest of the crew members were made up by them to fill out the ensemble of their usual adventures, providing mysteries to follow, people to protect, and a possible body count to keep the stakes high.
This is a bit of a morbid thought, but it seems like these are the only logical conclusions that can be drawn, given the way that dream layers were established throughout the episode. That being said, it's a forgivable plot hole and one that most fans probably won't struggle to accept.
Real world (Young Clara)
Residents: Clara and the Doctor
The final level is set in what appears to be the real world. It's at least the reality that the rest of the show is going to claim was the real world. The Doctor escaped the previous dream layer and broke Clara out of hers. A relatively short time had passed between the end of Series 8 and this episode, and the adventure prompted Clara to return to the TARDIS.
However. The episode ended with a shot of a tangerine on Clara's windowsill. The implication here is that Santa left her a tangerine, which complicates things. Perhaps it's simply trying to say that Santa is real, at which point he either left Clara a tangerine entirely distinct from this particular adventure, or he was actually inside the dream world himself, either willingly or unwillingly being fed on by a Dream Crab.
The alternative is that this is a nod to the end of Inception, where the audience is left to wonder whether the characters actually escaped the final dream state or not. Notably, the jump between the 'real world' with an elderly Clara and the 'real world' of this layer features the only time in the episode where characters break out of a dream the same way they did before. Since every other wake-up was done differently, this is a suspicious choice.
Given that it's been over ten years since that episode aired, Clara and the Doctor probably made it out. But there's always the possibility that all of Doctor Who since then has been part of this dream state, courtesy of the warped time differences between dreams and reality. Maybe that's what's been going on with Mrs. Flood all along.
A full investigation of this episode requires fans to either accept that there are a lot of plot holes or make convoluted explanations for why certain plot points just don't line up correctly. Any story that relies so heavily on the uncertainty of reality is guaranteed to have some confusing parts, but this one goes a bit too far.
While it's still a strong Christmas episode, admirably juggling the emotional dynamics of the characters while explaining how Clara ended up back with the Doctor in Series 9, it's probably best not to think about it too deeply. Doing so requires a lot of extra work and doesn't add too much... unless you want to dive deep into fan theories that Clara is secretly a bit of a psychopath.