Blood on Santa’s Claw

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Emissary of the Daleks

A nice enough story, but not one I'll be revisiting at christmas. I find Nev Fountain's work to be really hit or miss and this leans towards miss for me. It's a bit too silly, even for me and it feels like it's trying to be funny, but ultimately falls flat. The ideas are fairly charming though, even if I don't like the execution. Colin Baker atleast seems to have fun as the Doctor pretending to be Santa.

This story is also the introduction to Joe Carnaby, it's not a very good introduction because if you're listening along to the Doctor and Peri's adventures then he sort of pops up out of nowhere. I'm sure that's intended and will be explained later but it doesn't help to make my opinions of this story any greater. He's also not present whatsoever in the story which means you end up forgetting about him quite quickly, only for the ending to remind you he exists.

Next Story: The Baby Awakes

This is a very bizarre audio short. Blood on Santa's Claw introduces us to new companion Joe, a neat idea where it is more about Peri wanting him around. Kind of like with Adam Mitchell in the new series, the Doctor isn't pleased to have him around. More importantly, it is such a clumsy and strange introduction for the character I had to check this is actually his introduction, because it feels like he was brought on during a previous adventure. I guess that's the implication, I just wish it were handled better.

Because that stuff holds back from the actual story, which has some funny ideas about belief, and is a deliberately silly adventure that has quite a bit of fun to it along the way. The idea of this episode feels like it would be a little more at home with something like Futurama, but for a Christmas-themed short, it works quite well in a Doctor Who context. The Doctor and Peri disguising themselves with the Doctor as Christmas was a lot of fun and just makes a lot of sense, in a weird way, that the Doctor would "fill in for Santa" in a story. It's weird in the best way possible, full of bonkers ideas like Shakespearean worshippers having it out with a bunch of animal people, and that stuff works quite well. It's how the writing handles Joe that is a bit of a mess, but that's easy to get around and have a good enough time. That being said, I do wish the music and effects were a little more Christmasy? They feel underwhelming when that could have added something.