Trivia / Doctor Who 2014 CS "Last Christmas"

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• Development Gag: The Twelfth Doctor "deletes" the Arctic crew from his memory. One of the lines used to test out Peter Capaldi's acting skill as a newly-regenerated Doctor before his debut was, "I've deleted French."
• Lying Creator: Moffat claimed the Santa appearing in this episode was the real deal. He's actually a sort of hallucination. (Actually, this may not totally be a lie, as Moffat's earlier Christmas special, "A Christmas Carol", actually established that Santa actually does exist within the Whoniverse; his real name is Jeff. This could explain why Santa and the Doctor seem to know each other here.) It should be noted the ending of the episode implies he was Real After All.
• Throw It In!: When Clara and the Doctor leave the base for the first time, as soon as they exit and go outside Peter Capaldi sneezes, but the actors continue on. This take ended up in the final episode rather than another one, but the Doctor's sneeze is left silent (i.e. they didn't dub in the sound when they rerecorded dialogue later).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Steven Moffat and Jenna Coleman later confirmed that this was to have been Clara's final episode, and the episode would have ended with the Doctor helping the aged Clara open her Christmas cracker. Moffat has implied that Coleman was still planning to leave as late as the episode readthrough; Coleman has confirmed that lobbying by both Peter Capaldi and Moffat convinced her to stay on another year, so Moffat rewrote the ending to create a deus ex Santa scenario.
  • Had Clara left as planned, Shona was considered as a possible replacement companion.
  • Moffat said that he almost put K9 in the episode. How he would’ve fit in is unknown.
• You Look Familiar: Ian is played by Dan Starkey, who is more commonly known for his role as Strax. On top of this role, he's played Strax's clone batch look-alikes and relatives, among several other roles in heavy makeup as Whoniverse monsters, like Plark the Skullion. This time, he's using his real face to portray a character. This is also his third consecutive DW Christmas special, after appearing in "The Snowmen" and "The Time of the Doctor".

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