10 Most Underrated Doctor Who Episodes
5. Last Christmas
From The Christmas Invasion to Twice Upon A Time, the Doctor Who Christmas specials have usually provided good to great stories of the Doctor fighting some sort of holiday-themed menace.
One that doesn't get discussed nearly enough is 2014's Last Christmas, which paired the Time Lord up with Santa Claus himself.
Played by Nick Frost, this Santa is actually a subconscious creation used by our heroes to escape the Dream Crabs, a race of telepathic, copyright-skirting facehuggers who eat their victims' brains while they're in an induced sleep.
Cue a story that takes place across multiple different dreams, as the Doctor and Clara must question what is real, what isn't real, and if they even want to know.
While this story has some of that Moffat overcomplicated stink on it, it's a runaway success all things considered. It's probably the most ambitious Christmas special storyline-wise, which really must've confused people who were just tucking into their turkey and sprouts.
Frost's Banter Claus is hilarious, the facehuggers - sorry, Dream Crabs - are nightmare fuel, and the emotional wallops come thick and fast, from Clara's goodbye to Danny, to the Doctor pulling a Christmas cracker with a much older version of his beloved Impossible Girl.