Last Christmas

Last Christmas kicks off this anthology with a bang. I'm not sure what I expected other than a series of light-hearted, simple adventures, but already I think I need to gauge my expectations slightly going forward because this Short was quite impressive on the whole. Last Christmas was written by Simon Guerrier, a pretty recurring writer in the world of Doctor Who. His experience shows here as he takes on some unique ideas to form something quite substantial.

This is a difficult short story to get into as a reader since it plays around a lot with narration at different periods of time, shifting perspectives, and changing names. The story is all about the Seventh Doctor encountering a man named Samarjit (nicknamed Smith by his racist British colleagues) and the two of them work together to destroy an ancient temple with implied alien artifacts in it right in the middle of World War I. In doing so, Samarjit was fatally wounded, so the Doctor uses some of this alien technology to save him.

It works, but if this sounds a little familiar to the story of Ashildir, fear not. Guerrier is a much more serious writer (or at least it comes across that way) when compared to Moffat, and we soon learn Samarjit's fate is a pretty tragic one. Last Christmas is largely about the Seventh Doctor making up for that, as best he can. It is a sad story with only a glimmer of hope to it and its ending. It is the kind of thing that sticks with me, and better yet, is just a vastly superior version of The Girl Who Died. No Moffat-style humour to take me out of the story, no clumsy future for the person the Doctor saves, and better use of the historical setting.

Last Christmas is a relatively well-executed narration about death, the meaning of Christmas, and the meaning of life. It, in my opinion, would have worked a little better if the story was told in chronological order - that would have given the story a better sense of twists, turns, and reveals, but I still found Last Christmas very satisfying and do feel like I came away with something positive from the experience of reading it. So there is little more one can ask of something like this.