The Flash Season 1, Episode 13: The Nuclear Man

This week The Flash takes a break from its usual "Barry vs a supervillain" format and focuses mainly on Firestorm.

I don't mind them adding Firestorm to the show, but it still seems odd to devote so much screen time to him and his origin this early in the life of the series. Believe it or not we're only thirteen episodes in so far. They should still be concentrating on world building and establishing Barry. Adding a superhero pal for him to play with is the kind of thing that should happen in the second or third season, once the status quo needs a good shaking up.

Since there's no real villain for Barry to clash with, we get quite a lot of character moments as he goes on his first (and second) date with Linda Park, Joe and Cisco team up, and we find out just what makes Firestorm tick.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

Barry goes on a date with Linda Park, who he met last week. They eat spicy food, which will become a plot point later on, so remember it. Barry keeps getting called away on Flash business, but due to his super speed he can thwart bank robberies while Linda's in the ladies room powdering her nose.

Meanwhile, Ronnie Raymond, aka Firestorm, is having a bit of an identity crisis as his body is now controlled by Professor Martin Stein. He confronts Quentin Quayle, an old colleague (of Stein's, not Ronnie's. Confusing!) and asks him for help. He then uncontrollably flames on, which kills Quayle and seems counterproductive to getting help.

Since this is a The CW series, there needs to be some relationship drama, so Barry tells Iris about his date with Linda. She pretends not to mind, but is obviously hurt and jealous that Barry's found someone and is seemingly happy. Barry gets called away during his second date with Linda, and she seemingly writes him off, until he wins her back by eating a hot pepper. Callback!

Joe recruits Cisco to help him reexamine Barry's old house, to try and find a clue in Nora Allen's death. The STAR Labs Gang deduces that Prof. Stein is in control of Ronnie's body. Barry remembers meeting Prof. Stein on the day of the particle accelerator explosion. They visit Stein's wife and show her a photo of Ronnie. Surprisingly she recognizes him, and says he's been stalking her the past few months. The Gang tracks down Firestorm, and Mrs. Stein is able to convince him to come to STAR Labs for testing.

Dr. Wells pumps Firestorm full of drugs to calm his shattered mind, and discovers that Ronnie's body is rejecting Stein, and they're gonna blow— literally. He suggests killing them both, but luckily Caitlin talks him out of that. He uses his top secret Reverse Flash tachyon suit to cobble together a containment unit for Firestorm, which will prevent him from exploding. 

Ronnie/Stein knows about the whole exploding thing, and flies off to the Badlands, wherever the hell that is. Barry and Caitlin arrive just in time. Caitlin places the technobabble device on Ronnie's chest, which kind of makes him look like Firestorm if you squint really hard, but he seemingly explodes anyway. Barry speeds Caitlin out of the blast radius in the nick of time. General Eiling, who's apparently been hunting Firestorm, detects the blast, rubs his hands together and hisses, "Excellent."

Meanwhile, Cisco uses magic to reconstruct the fifteen year old murder scene in Barry's old house. Joe finds a big splatter of blood on the wall, and has Cisco analyze it. He's expecting it to belong to Creepy Dr. Wells, but instead it belongs to Barry. Adult Barry. Time travel!

Thoughts:

• The writers really want us to feel bad for Prof. Stein and his wife, but it's hard to work up much sympathy since this is the first time we've ever seen either of them (OK, so we saw Stein in a video monitor last week, but you know what I mean). We're also supposed to be weirded out because Stein is in control of Ronnie Raymond's body, but again, our sole exposure to Stein was in Barry's flashback— which happened in this very same episode. Makes it kind of tough to tell if Ronnie's doing a good Stein impression or not.

Introducing the characters so long after Firestorm is created is a very odd way to structure this subplot. It would have worked a lot better if we'd met both Ronnie and Stein way back in the first episode, and had the occasional flashback to them throughout the season. 

• The comic book Firestorm is a bit different from the TV version, natch. In the comics, Professor Stein was a Nobel winning scientist who designed a new atomic power facility. Ronnie Raymond was a high school student who was protesting the facility in order to impress a girl. Stein's jealous assistant Danton Black sabotaged the nuclear plant, causing it to explode. The explosion fused Ronnie and Stein together into the being known as Firestorm, while Black became the super villain Multiplex (a version of which was on The Flash earlier this season). 

Ronnie and Prof. Stein were two completely separate beings, but when there was trouble, Ronnie could cause the two men to merge into Firestorm (Stein would disappear, no matter where he happened to be). Because Stein had been unconscious during the accident, he couldn't control Firestorm, but manifested himself as a voice inside Ronnie's head.

Firestorm could fly and rearrange the atomic structure of inorganic matter, which allowed him to transmute or create objects from other things. Think "changing bullets into flowers.

• Firestorm had one of the more... flamboyant costumes in comicdom, so I really didn't expect to see it recreated verbatim here. 

That said, I was hoping to see him wearing something a bit more elaborate than a Mossimo varsity jacket from Target with a few Anywhere Lights stuck on the front.

• During Barry's first date with Linda, he keeps getting calls from STAR Labs concerning crimes in progress. The first is a convenience store robbery at Brand and Paulson. The producers love to add little in-jokes and shout-outs to the comic in their addresses, but if these two mean something, it's over my head.

A bit later Barry gets a message that there's a suicidal jumper at the corner of 52nd & Waid. This one's a bit easier— Mark Waid had a very successful run on The Flash comic in the 1990s. I'm assuming the 52 has something to do with DC's The New 52— one of the many, many recent reboots of their comic universe.

• In their first battle, Firestorm lifts Barry high into the air. I was wondering how he'd manage to use his super speed to break his fall (spin like a tornado perhaps?), when at the last second Firestorm swoops down and saves him, depositing him gently on the ground. Well that was certainly anticlimactic.

• Joe and Cisco search Barry's old house for clues. The idea that anyone could find even a shred of viable evidence in the inhabited home a whopping FIFTEEN years after the crime occurred is ludicrous as best.

Despite this, science whiz Cisco spews out a bunch of technobabble that would make Geordi LaForge blush, stating that an antique mirror in the home contains silver nitrate, and during the Reverse Flash's attack may have reacted much like photographic film. He then somehow creates a 3D hologram from these 2D images.

OK, I know this is a comic book world, but this isn't science, it's magic, plain and simple. If Cisco had taken out a wand at this point and said, "Expelliarmus!" I wouldn't have blinked.

• By the way, Sherry, the woman who lives in Barry's old house and who was quite aggressively hitting on Joe, is played by Chase Masterson. You may remember her as Leeta the Dabo Girl on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

• Cisco's amazing Vegas-like light show depicts Nora Allen kneeling in the middle of her living room, surrounded by the Reverse Flash and another "mysterious" red-clad speedster. Young Barry looks on in horror. 

Joe studies the image and notices a spray of blood flying through the air. He tears off the wallpaper in the room, and amazingly the blood from the image is still splattered on the wall (!). He orders Cisco to take a sample of it and begin identifying who it belonged to.

So... I guess the Central City Police and Coroner's Office must have been pretty incompetent fifteen years ago, since they apparently never noticed a huge splash of blood on the wall. And Sherry must not have ever tried to clean it off, opting to simply wallpaper over it instead.

Speaking of Sherry, what the hell happened to her? She was macking pretty hard on Joe, but then is conspicuously absent while Cisco's doing his holographic light show and Joe's tearing the paper off her walls.

• During Barry's second date with Linda, they forego dinner and start making out on the couch. Barry starts vibrating uncontrollably at super speed, which Linda says "feels amazing." Yikes! I really don't need to know how Barry's powers affect his sex life, thank you very much.

• Barry's called away (to help corral Firestorm) during his make out session with Linda. He hurriedly and awkwardly exits, leaving her confused and fuming.

You know, Barry, all you had to do was remind Linda that you're a cop and you had to go investigate a case. That probably would have gone over much better than saying "Uh... something important's come up" in your best stammery Hugh Grant voice.

• After Barry's bumbling exit, Linda asks Iris about him. Iris thoughtlessly says he's still getting over someone, and probably needs more time. Linda quite perceptively realizes the "someone" is Iris herself. 

It looks like the writers can think of nothing else for Iris to do now than to cockblock Barry. Later on she sees him and Linda get back together, and storms off. Surely there's a better way to serve the character than to make her into a petulant child.

We all know that Barry and Iris are going to eventually end up together, and that makes these interminable "on and off" scenes even more tedious.

• Apparently Central City has a hockey team called the Combines. Duly noted.

• Did I hear Barry tell Linda that Joe got him tickets to a Mal Duncan jazz show? In the comics, Mal was a member of the Teen Titans.

• Dr. Wells just happens to administer the perfect "cocktail" of drugs to calm Firestorm's mind and make Prof. Stein lucid again. And on the first try yet! Usually it takes years to find just the right combination of drugs for someone suffering from mental disorders. Luckeee!

Wells then studies Firestorm, and says that Ronnie and Stein's cells have combined, but are now beginning to separate. If their condition isn't stabilized, Firestorm will go nuclear. (not nuke-cue-lar). Of course the comic book was called Firestorm The Nuclear Man.

So if Firestorm now has the mass of two men, why does he look normal? Shouldn't he look... bigger? Like twice normal size? 

• Dr. Wells reached Star Trek: The Next Generation levels of technobabble in this episode. He says, "It seems Ronnie's fight with the Flash has exacerbated the Firestorm matrix," whatever the hell that means. Later he asks his supercomputer, "Gideon, can the tachyon prototype be converted into a quantum splicer?" All new technobabble, now with twice the words, and one tenth the meaning!

• Firestorm realizes he's going to go nuclear and take out Central City, so he thoughtfully and politely flies out to the Badlands to explode. So this week Central City's in South Dakota?

• Barry tries to win Linda back by eating some kind of super hot pepper to impress her or something. For some reason she's touched by this bizarre gesture, and takes him back. She then kisses him. On his mouth that just ate a super hot pepper. Shouldn't her mouth be on fire now as well?

• Over the course of the series I've noticed that Barry's speed is portrayed very inconsistently. One week he's so fast he can zoom out of Joe's house, go to his apartment, pack all his belongings and return with suitcases in tow in less than a second. In another he's able to click the shutter of a camera, run in front of it to appear in the photo, then run back to catch it before it falls to the floor. Yet other times he's able to be knocked out by Captain Cold's freeze ray or Pied Piper's vibro-beams. His speed seems to vary wildly, depending on the needs of the plot.

I can't fault the show too much for this though, as this was a regular feature of the comics. There the Flash could run at the speed of light, but one of his most dangerous foes was a man who threw boomerangs, for god's sake. 

Realistically (!), every episode should last about thirty seconds. Barry should get a call from STAR Labs informing him that someone's robbing a bank, he should zoom off camera and then return a second later and say, "Welp, so much for Weather Wizard!" Fade to black. 

That probably wouldn't be very good for the ratings though, so this inconsistency in his speed is just something we're going to have to accept.

• After some soul-searching, Cisco analyzes the blood from the crime scene and discovers it doesn't belong to Dr. Wells (as Joe suspected) but to Barry. And not young Barry, but adult Barry. That means he was present at his mother's murder, and apparently tried to stop the Reverse Flash from killing her. Timey-whimey!

• So it looks like Dr. Wells was not the same Reverse Flash that killed Barry's mom. This falls in line with the comics, in which there've been several different Reverse Flashes over the years. It's also a bit of a relief, as all season long we've been suspecting he was the Reverse Flash, and the big reveal that he really was seemed like a bit of a letdown. 

This also opens up the possibility for Eddie to somehow become the Reverse Flash down the line.

Marvel's Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 4: The Blitzkrieg Button

We're halfway through Agent Carter's truncated first season already. This episode wasn't bad, but it didn't seem to have the energy of the pilot, and felt like mostly setup for the back half of the season. We did get another connection to Captain America with the introduction of his vial of super soldier blood, which will no doubt become the McGuffin for the season finale.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

Howard Stark smuggles himself back into the country in order to retrieve a particularly dangerous piece of tech he calls the Blitzkrieg Button (Houston, we have a title!). The Button can permanently (!) black out an entire city, and Stark is afraid the SSR science boys may accidentally activate it, plunging New York City into darkness for years. He asks Peggy to retrieve it for him. She's suspicious, but agrees.

Stark also can't stay in any of his penthouse suite, as it's being watched by the SSR. Peggy reluctantly agrees to let him stay with her in the Griffith, her strictly all-gal residence.

Meanwhile Chief Dooley (of the SSR) is investigating Leviathan agents Leet Brannis and, er, the Other Silent Guy. They supposedly died at the Battle Of Finnow, even though they got better later. He decides to travel to Germany and interrogate Nazi Commandant Mueller to get the scoop. Mueller, who's about to be executed for his war crimes, tells him that the Nazis didn't kill Brannis or any other Russian Leviathan agents at Finnow, because when they arrived everyone was already dead— mauled and torn apart by some unseen force. Hmm... 

Peggy sneaks into the SSR lab and retrieves the Blitzkrieg Button. Before handing it over to Stark though, she activates it and finds out it contains a vial of Captain America's super blood. She confronts Stark about this, and he claims he wants the blood for research, as it could possibly lead to cures for various diseases. Peggy doesn't , believing he wants to profit from it somehow and tears him a new one for lying. She punches him in the eye, keeps the vial of blood for herself, and hides it inside a wall of her apartment.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mink, the creepy gangster who smuggled Stark into the country, is miffed after being cheated out of his delivery fee. He sneaks into the Griffith to collect from Stark, and is confronted by Peggy's neighbor Dottie, who, to no one's surprise, knocks his block off— literally! 

Thoughts:

• So it turns out Howard Stark is an even bigger horn dog than his future son! Who knew? Ah, simpler times, when social diseases could be cured with just a dose of penicillin. 

• When Peggy moved into the all-girl Griffith apartment a couple episodes ago, did anyone not think she'd eventually end up hiding Howard Stark there? Telegraphing!

• When Jarvis is driving Peggy to the lab, he tugs his ear every time he lies to her. 

Was this "tell" simply a subconscious tic, or was he deliberately (and silently) trying to signal her?

• Chief Dooley offers the soon-to-be-executed Commandant Mueller a cyanide pill in exchange for information (to spare him the pain of being hanged). Later as he's being escorted out of the prison, Dooley offers a guard one of the same pills, saying it's a breath mint.

I'm still not quite sure what the hell was going on in this scene. I think they really were breath mints, and Dooley fooled Mueller into spilling his guts by telling him they were poison. 

On the other hand, maybe they really were cyanide tablets and he deliberately killed the guard. He doesn't seem all that fond of Germans, even if the non-Nazi kind. I'm honestly not sure which to believe. If they were really breath mints, isn't it a bid odd that he'd keep them in a secret compartment inside his watch?

• Agent Thompson gave Peggy a very astute observation in this episode. He asked her why she works at the SSR, saying, "You're a woman. No man will ever consider you an equal. It's sad, but it doesn't make it any less true." 

I have a feeling his comment is going to be a catalyst for Peggy to do something greater with her life and career, probably sometime around the season finale.

• Peggy got in a few really good lines during her row with Howard Stark. First she tells him, "I can trust the actions of men who don't respect me more than those who do." A little later she says, "I think you are a man out for his own gain no matter who you are charging. You are constantly finding holes to slither your way into in the hope of finding loose change, only to cry when you are bitten by another snake."

I wouldn't worry too much about them. They've got to kiss and make up eventually, since Peggy and Howard co-founded S.H.I.E.L.D. (along with Colonel Chester Phillips). 

• As Mr. Mink creeps around Peggy's apartment door, he's interrupted by her neighbor Dottie. She spies his cool high-tech-for-the-1940s automatic revolver and says, "I want that!" and casually breaks his neck to get it.

A couple weeks ago I totally called the idea that Dottie was likely some sort of secret agent. I 
was wrong about what kind of agent though, as I figured she worked for either HYDRA or Leviathan. The producers have confirmed that she's part of the Russian Black Widow Program, which, not surprisingly, gave us the Black Widow of the Avengers.

• Stan Lee pops up in yet another Marvel cameo. They really wanted to make sure we noticed him, as the camera lingered a little too long on him. 

I do enjoy his cameos though. It's going to be a sad, sad day when he dies.

The Flash Season 1, Episode 11: The Sound And The Fury

Another solid episode of The Flash this week, as this show moves to the top of my favorites list, surpassing even Doctor Who.

Although I'm really enjoying the show, there are a couple of things about it that prevent me from liking it 100%. The biggest problem— Dr. Well's Private Super Jail, where he's holding most of the series' villains captive. Comic book world or not, you just can't up and jail people without a trial! The writers really need to do something about this issue, and soon.

I'm also kind of worried that they're burning through their super villains awfully fast. The Flash has always had an extensive rogues gallery, but they're eventually going to run out of bad guys, and soon!

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

As the episode opens, the Flash uses his super speed to stop the motorcycle-riding Royal Flush Gang, which has absolutely nothing to do with this week's plot. Barry goes home and finds Iris there, moving out yet more of her stuff. She gets a phone call telling her she's been hired as a writer by the Central City Picture News. Dr. Wells goes home to his spacious, modern, all-glass home and is attacked by an unseen foe who says, "We both know what you did. It's time to pay the Piper!" Wells uses his super speed to avoid the falling glass.

The police investigate, and Eddie and Joe becomes suspicious of Wells when they realize the supposedly wheelchair-bound scientist wasn't hurt by the falling glass. Barry studies the glass and realizes it was shattered not by an impact but by sound waves. He confronts Dr. Wells, who tells him he knows who did it— Hartley Rathaway.

Rathaway was Wells' brilliant but very abrasive protege a couple of years ago. They had a falling out when Rathaway threatened to expose the fact that Wells' particle accelerator could potentially explode if activated, which seems like a justified concern to me. Wells fired him and threatened him if he went to the press.

Rathaway then attacks his estranged father's office building with his sonic powers, in order to deliberately get captured and placed in Dr. Wells' Private Super Jail, which he can't possibly know about. His plan works, and he's indeed incarcerated. He then tells Cisco that Wells has a dark secret. Later he escapes and steals STAR Labs computer files pertaining to the Flash.

Cisco, Caitlin and Barry confront Dr. Wells about this dark secret, which turns out to be that he activated the particle accelerator, knowing it was unstable and was likely to explode. The Gang is disappointed and hurt by this, especially Caitlin, who lost her fiancé Ronnie Raymond in the explosion.

Rathaway studies the stolen computer files and determines Barry's "internal frequency." He then begins causing havoc on the Central City-Cleveland Dam, which draws out the Flash. Rathaway uses his sonic powers to "tear Barry apart from the inside." Fortunately Dr. Wells comes up with an inspired plan to save Barry, involving satellite radio.

Rathaway is thrown into Super Jail again, but tells Cisco he'll let him out because he knows what happened to Ronnie Raymond. Then we see Dr. Wells in his Secret Super Villain Lair, recharging himself with tachyons and wondering why his super speed is glitching. He says, "The real endgame is almost here." I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a season finale setup to me.

Thoughts:

• The crooks on the motorcycles at the beginning of the episode were a barely recognizable Royal Flush Gang, as evidenced by the graphics on the sides of their helmets.

As much as I like this show, it continues to vex me with its lack of proper superhero costumes. The Flash wears one and the world didn't implode into a black hole, so why not give the villains costumes as well?

• Cisco wants the STAR Labs Gang to take a group photo. Barry balks at this, saying taking a picture while he's in his costume defeats the purpose of having a secret identity. Dr. Wells says, "Maybe people in the future will want to know how all this happens." I just bet they will, Dr. Wells.

• Dr. Wells lives in a stylish, ultra modern mansion that appears to be built mostly out of glass. He comes home from work, rises from his wheelchair and struts around his spacious house. 

Should he really be walking around like that, in front of all those floor to ceiling windows? Anyone who glances his way as they pass by will see him up and sashaying around. Or is his mansion in a secluded area, behind a high fence? Methinks some curtains wouldn't hurt.

By the way, when Rathaway attacks, we see Dr. Wells use his super speed, confirming once and for all that he's the Reverse Flash. We already knew that of course, but it was still significant as this was the first time we've seen him "speeding" without his costume.

• The Pied Piper turns out to be Dr. Wells' protege Hartley Rathaway. We've heard that name before, just last week in fact, when the fabulously wealthy elder Rathaway bought the Fire And Ice painting that Heat Wave destroyed. I should have made the connection as soon as I heard that name last week, but alas, it's been a long time since I've read any Flash comics.

The TV version of Pied Piper differs quite a bit from the comic version, as you might expect. In the comics, Hartley Rathaway was born deaf, but his hearing was restored by research funded by his father. He became obsessed with sound and invented a way to hypnotize people with music. He eventually turned to crime, calling himself the Pied Piper.

Later he reformed and became an ally of the Flash, working with the poor and underprivileged. I don't see that happening with the abrasive TV version.

His powers were tweaked a bit for TV as well. The TV version doesn't use sound waves to control minds; instead using them exclusively as force beams. He also wasn't born deaf, but wears some sort of hearing device to counter what appears to be tinnitus, which he developed after the particle accelerator explosion.

The Pied Piper was also one of DC Comics' first openly gay characters, which is referenced in this episode. Note that when the Flash captures him, he says, "Being scooped up by a guy covered in leather from head to toe has been a longtime fantasy of mine, so thanks!" Rawrr! Listen to her!

• The biggest surprise of the night (to me, anyway)– apparently you can now call someone a "dick" on network TV. When discussing Rathaway's abrasive demeanor, Cisco says, "He was mostly a jerk, but every once in a while... he could be a dick."

We're very near the end of civilization.

• Iris is ecstatic when she gets a job as a honest to gosh real-life writer at the Central City Picture News. I was thinking there's no way in hell her horrible blog could have landed her a writing gig, and I was right– she only got the job because the editor of the newspaper thinks she has an "in" with the Flash.

However she got the job, hooray for Iris! She's now the proud owner of a horrible, high stress job in a dying industry. Well done!

• Iris' editor pairs her with an experienced reporter named Mason Bridge. I'm guessing he'll eventually turn out to be more than just a reporter, as they placed way more emphasis on him than they would have a throwaway character.

There's no Mason Bridge in the Flash comics though, although there was supposedly a minor character named Mason Trollbridge. Hmm...

• Luckily when Pied Piper says he's going to reveal Dr. Wells' dark secret, it's not the one we think. I assumed he was going to spill the beans about the whole Reverse Flash thing, but instead he told everyone that Dr. Wells knew the particle accelerator might explode, and activated it anyway. Oh, that dark secret! Is that all?

• The TV Pied Piper uses sound waves and vibrations as weapons. In the comics, Cisco Ramon was the superhero known as Vibe, who had sonic powers and could generate shock waves. Pretty similar powers there. I wonder if TV Cisco will eventually adapt the Piper's gloves and become a super hero like his comic book namesake?

• The Pied Piper lures the Flash to the Keystone Cleveland Dam. So... Central City is in Ohio? I don't see how that name could mean anything else.

• Rathaway uses the stolen STAR Labs files to find out Barry's "internal frequency," and uses that knowledge to vibrate him to death.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this is most likely comic book science. I'm pretty sure human bodies don't each have an individual sound frequency. 

• At the end of the episode, Cisco locks up Rathaway in Dr. Wells' Private Super Jail (for the second time), without even a hint of a trial. I know this is a comic book world, but Jesus Christ! Private citizens can't just jail someone indefinitely without a trial! Who does Wells think he is, the United States Government?

Besides being highly illegal and unconstitutional, there don't appear to be any facilities in these tiny spherical cells. How are the prisoners fed? How do they go to the bathroom? Do they just have to go on the floor, and Cisco hoses them down every night?

One last thing about Private Super Jail— supposedly it exists to house super powered criminals, who could easily break out of the everyday county jail. But Rathaway isn't a metahuman crook— his powers came solely from his gauntlets. Without them, he's just an ordinary schmoe. Even more reason why he shouldn't be in Super Jail!

• In the tag scene, we get to see Creepy Dr. Wells in his secret super villain room. We find out that his super speed is apparently unstable, and cuts out at inconvenient times. Is that why he's so interested in Barry, so he can use him to somehow stabilize his powers?

We also see his Reverse Flash suit is hanging in its alcove. Why does the suit appear to have veins built into it?

• Joe assigns Eddie to start investigating Dr. Wells. As I've said before, there are several different versions of the Reverse Flash in the comics, and Eddie Thawn is one of them. Is this how TV Eddie may end up becoming the Reverse Flash as well?

Doctor Who Christmas Special 2014: Last Christmas

Believe it or not, Last Christmas is the tenth Doctor Who Christmas Special so far! Ten! It doesn't seem possible. Savor this episode though, because if the pattern holds, the show probably won't return again for another nine or ten months. At least.

Christmas Specials seem to be a thing in England, a tradition I wish would spread to our shores. Sure, most American TV series have Christmas episodes, but they're just part of the regular season. They're not, well, special.

Technically this is Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi's second Christmas Special. He appeared in the final seconds of last year's The Time Of The Doctor. His appearance there was so fleeting though that it probably shouldn't count. This is his first fully starring Special. 

Show runner Steven Moffat wrote Last Christmas, and as with most of his episodes from Season 8, it appears he assembled it from bits and pieces of various movies and previous Doctor Who episodes. It's part ALIEN (which one of the characters even points out), part The Thing, and a whole lot Inception. There's even a little bit of Titanic tossed in for good measure at the end. And the "Base Under Siege" setting has been done many, many, many times before on the show.

Even the "new" monsters in the episode are familiar. They've got the trademark Moffat "don't do something" rule about them that worked so well with the Weeping Angels. Give it up, Steven. You're never going to top the Angels, so please stop trying. 

Moffat seems to be completely out of ideas at this point and keeps on trotting out his old plots and characters, hoping we don't notice. Nice try, Steven, but throwing Santa into the mix isn't going to distract us from the fact that the Dream Crabs are pretty much the same thing as the Weeping Angels, the Vashta Nerada, the Silence and the Hiders.

Did you ever see the Star Trek episode The Ultimate Computer? It concerned a scientist named Dr. Richard Daystrom, who invented a revolutionary new type of computer when he was in his early twenties. He then spent the rest of his life trying to top his early success, which eventually drove him mad. I'm starting to think Steven Moffat is going to end up just like Dr. Daystrom.

This episode was a bit on the dark side, especially for Christmas day. Maybe a little too dark. In addition to the seriously terrifying Dream Crabs, the heartwarming theme of the episode was "Every Christmas is someone's last Christmas." Good night, everybody! Happy Holidays!

Lastly, this episode seems a bit less epic than past Christmas Specials. The Runaway Bride, Voyage Of The Damned and The Next Doctor were all very cinematic and could have easily been shown in a theater. This one is much less expansive and seems like a regular episode with a few scenes of Santa grafted onto it to qualify as a Christmas episode. There doesn't seem to be anything all that special about it. 

Was the lack of epic scope the result of yet more BBC budget cuts?

CHRISTMASSY SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Plot:
Clara is awakened by a noise on Christmas Eve, and finds Santa Claus has crashed his sleigh on her roof. As she's trying to decide if he's real or not, the TARDIS materializes and The Doctor emerges and tells her to enter.

Meanwhile at a remote Arctic outpost, which absolutely doesn't remind us of The Thing, a group of scientists are studying colleagues who've been taken over by Dream Crabs, which absolutely don't remind us of face huggers from ALIEN. The creatures attach themselves to a person's face and induce a dream state while they slowly devour their brain. To top it off, the Crabs are only active when you're thinking about them.

Just then the Doctor and Clara arrive at the base. Seeing the Crabs, they think about them, which causes them to attack. They're saved at the last second by the timely arrival of Santa.

While the others are discussing the situation, one of the Dream Crabs attacks Clara. She wakes up in a perfectly realized Christmas dream world, populated by her dead boyfriend Danny Pink. The Doctor willingly allows a Dream Crab to attach itself to him in order to enter her dream and save her.

He does so, and the two awake back in the Arctic base, as the Crabs attached to their faces fall off and turn to dust. The Doctor then realizes that they're still not in the real world. He, Clara and the four scientists are still victims of the Dream Crabs, living inside a dream within a dream within a dream, which absolutely doesn't remind us of Inception. With the help of Santa, they wake up.

Clara reminds the Doctor that they met Santa before they arrived at the base, proving they're still in yet another dream level. The Doctor tells them to all dream of Santa again, and he returns to save them once more.

They all escape in Santa's sleigh. While sailing through the air, the "scientists" realize they're all just ordinary people from different areas and perhaps even different time periods, who were attacked by the Dream Crabs. One by one they disappear from the sleigh as they wake up in their real lives.

The Doctor wakes up on an alien planet, and senses that Clara is still dreaming. He races to her side and uses his sonic screwdriver to get the Crab off her face, which causes us all to wonder why he never thought of that until now. As the Dream Crab turns to dust, we see that Clara is now an old woman. Sixty two years have passed since she and the Doctor last parted. Clara tells him she's had a good life, but never really got over him, which absolutely doesn't remind us of Titanic.

The Doctor regrets not connecting with her sooner. Suddenly Santa appears and gives the Doctor a second chance. He races to Clara's side once again, sonics the Crab and sees that she's young again. The two take off in the TARDIS, as Santa leaves a tangerine on Clara's windowsill, proving he's real after all.


Thoughts:
• All through the episode everyone calls Santa "Santa Claus." I thought they had "Father Christmas" in Britain? 

Technically they're two different characters with totally different origins. Has Father Christmas been shoved out of the limelight by Santa?

• A nice touch: In the opening credits, the TARDIS is briefly covered in snow before shaking it off as it zooms past the camera.

• Nick Frost makes a wonderful Santa Claus. I enjoyed the rivalry between him and the Doctor, along with the implication that he just may be a Time Lord himself.

He's got the perfect name for the part too. Who better to play Santa than someone named Nick Frost?

• Why does Santa only have three reindeer? Is it because three cgi reindeer are cheaper to render than nine?

• Santa's accompanied by two elves named Ian and Wolf. Ian, the one on the right in the top photo, is played by actor Dan Starkey.

Starkey's no stranger to the show, as he's played various Sontarans in numerous episodes. He's probably best known as Strax, of the Paternoster Gang.

• Santa thinks everyone likes his signature gift of a tangerine, and seems genuinely hurt to find out this isn't true. Sorry Santa, but it's true. I remember when I was a kid I used to get oranges in my Christmas stocking every year, and never much cared for them. All they did was take up valuable space that could have been used for toys.

• Apparently the Arctic base segment of the episode takes place in some indeterminate future year. The technology all seems more advanced than what we have now, and there's talk of neural links and body scanners and such.

• As I mentioned earlier, once again Steven Moffat comes up with another monster that preys on childhood fears and comes with a set of rules. This time it's the Dream Crabs, who are only aware of you if you see or think about them.

All his monsters require the suppression of some bodily function in order to survive an encounter with them. Don't blink, don't breathe, don't look, don't think and on and on. 

I can't wait for Moffat's next creations. Maybe it'll be the Olfactory Weevils, who only attack if you smell them. Or the Babbling Midges, who consume your brain if you stop talking. How about the Omni Maggots, who have every power you can't think of?

All that said, I will admit that the Dream Crabs were pretty darned scary, especially in that first sequence in which everyone's trying not to think about them. 

• In the Arctic base, scientist Shona McCullough is trying to make her way through an infirmary full of comatose Dream Crab victims. If she looks at or thinks about them, they'll come to life and attack.

To distract herself, Shona listens to Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody (which is a very popular Christmas song in England) on her headphones and dances her way through the infirmary. 

I get what she's trying to do here, but how about walking briskly through the room instead of performing an elaborate dance routine that takes twenty times longer? A couple of times her wild gyrations almost cause her to bump into the patients' beds, which I'm sure would have roused them whether she was thinking about them or not.

• There's a lone male scientist at the Arctic base named Professor Albert. He's played by Michael Troughton, son of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton! Cool! I can definitely see a bit of his dad shining through his eyes.

• While observing the Dream Crabs on a monitor, Professor Albert says what everyone in the audience is thinking, suggesting they look a lot like the face huggers from ALIEN. He probably didn't have time to list the numerous other familiar things in this episode.

The Doctor is then shocked and offended that humanity made a horror movie called ALIEN. He's over two thousand years old at this point. Seems like he should have at least heard of the film before now.

• Just as everyone in the base (including the Doctor and Clara) are surrounded by Dream Crabs, Santa bursts in to save the day. He sends in a small army of marching toys, including robots and Slinkys, to distract everyone and keep them from thinking about the Crabs. 

I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't point out that Slinkys don't "walk" on a flat surface. I guess Santa can make toys do whatever he wants though.

• Santa's two elves accompany him on his rescue mission. Ian is holding a balloon animal like it's a gun, while Wolf is holding what appears to be a BB gun. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it's an official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two Hundred Shot Range Model Air Rifle BB Gun With A Compass In The Stock And A Thing Which Tells Time!

Was that an A Christmas Story reference, or just a coincidence?

• After Santa saves everyone from the Dream Crabs, Ashley, the leader of the base, asks him who he is. The Doctor says, "Oh, take a guess. Go on, push the boat out."

For all us non-Brits, "Push the boat out" means "to behave extravagantly, or make a purchase beyond what you can afford." Kind of another way to say, "Take a wild guess."

• As proof of his identity, Santa lists gifts he gave to Shona and Ashley when they were children. 

Santa praises Ashley for becoming a scientist, and says the microscope he brought her as a child really paid off. He says her parents wanted him to bring her a "toy microscope," but he took a chance and brought her the real thing.

Is there such a thing as a toy microscope? What would be the point? A toy microscope that didn't actually magnify anything would be a big waste of time. Heck, even an Easy-Bake Oven actually cooks something. 

• The Doctor had the best line of the episode: "You know what the big problem is in telling fantasy from reality? They're both ridiculous."

• Shona doesn't believe Santa is real, so she grills him with questions, trying to poke a hole in his story. She says it would be impossible to deliver gifts to the entire world in one night.

Santa agrees, saying there's no way he could deliver toys to the 526,403,012 children of the world in twenty four hours, because that works out to 22 million kids an hour. That's why he has a second sled. 

Um... a second sled isn't going to be much more help. Is that the joke? Did I get it?

• The Doctor and Clara have a Gift Of The Magi moment. The Doctor thinks Danny Pink is still alive. Clara says she told him that so he wouldn't fuss with her and would go find Gallifrey. The Doctor says he never found his planet, and only told her he did so she'd stay with Danny. Whoops!

• When the Doctor asks Santa how he gets all the presents in his sleigh, he says it's bigger on the inside. Either Santa's a Time Lord, or they've shared their technology with him!

• One of the biggest problems I had with the episode: The Doctor says the Dream Crabs' victims don't suffer, because they keep you happy and relaxed in a perfectly realized dream world.

When Clara's attacked by a Crab, it sets up a perfect warm and fuzzy Christmas world for her, populated by her late fiance Danny Pink. So far so good.

But what about the scientists at the Arctic base? We eventually find out that the base is actually a dream that they're all sharing. How the hell is doing research in the harshest environment on Earth a perfectly realized dream world?

Clara's thinking about Danny when she's attacked. Did that have something to do with the content of her dream world? Were the others thinking about arctic expeditions when they were taken over?

• There are four Dream Crabs stuck to the Arctic Base victims. Santa brings in another Crab from god knows where, which attaches itself to Clara's face. The Doctor determines the only way to save her is to allow himself to be attacked and enter her dream world.

So where'd they get the Doctor's Crab? Did they have unseen extra ones in the infirmary?

They're all living in a dream within a dream at this point, so I guess we can chalk up any mistakes to that.

• Danny has my least favorite line of the episode, when he asks Clara, "Do you know why people get together at Christmas? Because every time they do it might be the last time. Every Christmas is last Christmas."

Oy gevalt! That's pretty dark for a Christmas episode. He's right of course, but damn, that's grim.

It reminds me a bit of my all time least favorite Christmas carol, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. One of the original lines in the song was, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last."

• Kudos to the producers for keeping Danny Pink's appearance a surprise. That's not easy to do in these days of Twitter and spoiler sites.

• The Doctor saves Clara from her dream world and they both wake up. As they do, the Dream Crabs fall from their faces and dissolve. The Doctor doesn't celebrate his victory though, as he begins to suspect they're all still dreaming.

He asks them all, "Have you ever woken up from a dream and discovered you're still dreaming?"

FOR THE LAST TIME, NO! A thousand times no. Once more with feeling, NO!

I've NEVER woken up from a dream, only to find I was still dreaming. Ever. No one has. That's something that only happens for shock value in lazy scripts written for TV and movies.

• The Doctor performs a test to find out if they're all still dreaming or not. He passes out four identical manuals to the scientists and has them all read the first word on a certain page. They all see a different word, indicating they're still in a dream world.

This test scene was very reminiscent of the one in the 1982 version of The Thing. That said, it was effective and suitably creepy though. Moffat really knows how to cherry pick.

• About three-fourths of the way through the episode I realized the Doctor was wearing his horrible top again. The black one that looks like battery acid ate holes in it. I don't know who thinks that thing looks good on him, but I wish it would meet with a severe laundry accident soon.

• After climbing up through several layers of dreams, the characters finally all wake up in the real world.

Shona wakes up to find she's not really a scientist assigned to an Arctic base, but a lonely shopgirl. She looks at her Christmas day itinerary, which reads:

1. DVD (ALIEN)

2. DVD (The Thing From Another World)

3. Dad Comes Round

4. DVD (Miracle on 34th Street)

5. Thrones Marathon 

6. Forgive Dave

Apparently the Dream Crabs cribbed their shared dream world from her list. There's an alien invasion (ALIEN), an Arctic base under siege from said aliens (The Thing From Another World) and Santa's even involved (Miracle On 34th Street). One could even argue that "Dad comes round" might have generated the Doctor's appearance!

Note that Shona apparently owns DVDs of three of the movies, but not Game Of Thrones. She's probably pirating it like everyone else on the planet.

Also, she crosses off the last item on the list, apparently deciding to forgive Dave, whoever he is.

Lastly, a lot of fans are apparently clamoring for Shona to become the Doctor's next companion. Eh, I don't know. She didn't do much for me, and I don't see what the big appeal is. Each to their own, I guess.

• When the Doctor wakes from the final dream world, he's lying on the surface of a reddish planet. Apparently that's where the Dream Crabs first attacked. So he's the one who started the whole dreamy ball rolling.

By the way, the planet looks a lot like the one where Clara tried to blackmail him in Dark Water. Is it really the same planet, or just the budget limitations kicking in again?

• After the Doctor wakes in the real world, he realizes Clara plans on staying in her dream. He rushes to her home, sonics the Dream Crab from her face, we see that she's now well into her eighties. He waited sixty two years too long to get back in touch with her.

When he asks her if she ever married, she says no, implying that no one could ever top him or Danny. But she says she travelled to every country and even learned to fly a plane.

Old Clara talking about her life experiences is very, very similar to Old Rose doing the same thing in Titanic.

• Santa appears and gives the Doctor a second chance. This time he sonics the Crab off of Clara and we see that she's youthful again. The Doctor says he can't tell whether Clara's young or old.

Yes, this was a nice little moment and reinforces the idea that the Doctor doesn't pay attention to our outer shells and sees what's really inside us. 

Unfortunately it just doesn't work. I get that he doesn't share human concepts of beauty, but surely to Rassilon he ought to be able to tell the difference between a twenty five year old and someone who's days away from the grave. It just makes him look like an idiot.

And if the Doctor really doesn't have any concept of human beauty standards, why is it that earlier in the episode he looks at Bellows, an older scientist in the Arctic base, and calls her "sexy?"

• About that "Old Clara" shocker: rumor has it this was supposed to be Jenna Coleman's final appearance. The original ending was for the Doctor to discover Clara was now an old woman, far too old to travel anymore. He then walked slowly into the TARDIS alone, regretting the sixty two years he wasted and could have had with his friend.

Then at the last minute Coleman decided to stay, and the ending was hastily rewritten to accommodate her change of heart.

I don't know if any of this is true or not, but I can certainly believe it. The ending in which Santa gives the Doctor a second chance certainly seems tacked on. We may never know what the original plan was.

And so begins the long, hard wait for Season 9.