Doctor Who: All 40 Steven Moffat Episodes Ranked From Worst To Best

This yuletide offering pretty much ticks all the boxes on your Doctor Who Christmas Day episode wish list.

Plenty of reviews have written about the obvious nods to the Alien film franchise and movie masterpiece Inception, which Moffat does with panache when it could've easily turned into a disappointing parody.

These are so fabulously unashamed that they grab you by the face like a Dream Crab. A petrified Clara hiding under the table from an escaped Dream Crab recalls the claustrophobic terror of Ripley and Newt being locked in the med lab with a loose facehugger in Aliens. The grainy camera footage of a side expedition is akin to the intermittent video feed we see of Dallas, Kane and Lambert as they go off exploring in Alien. There's even a clever reference to the actual film, to which the Doctor reacts in an unimpressed way

Moffat blends the nightmarish scuttling, drooling creatures with the dream within a dream scenario. Even though Clara is merrily told via blackboards that's she's "dying", it gives her the opportunity to say a more heartfelt goodbye to Danny.

Nick Frost provides a warm and engaging turn as the ultimate Christmas figure of Santa Claus, who is adroitly utilised as a sort of Mr Charles from Inception, but without the gambit of deceiving everyone's subconscious. Got that?

Oh and thank you Doctor, for percolating mild paranoid thoughts when you said that "No one knows they're not dreaming. Not one of us. Not ever. Not for one single moment of our lives." That shot of a tangerine at the end makes it worse!