ABC Confirms Airdate For 'Doctor Who' Christmas Special

The ABC has shored up its official screening date for this year's Doctor Who Christmas special, recently revealed to be titled Last Christmas.

The episode will air at 7.30pm on ABC1 this Boxing Day — more informatively, on Friday, December 26 — and features current Doctor and Companion Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman crossing paths with jolly old Santa Claus (Nick Frost) himself after they find themselves trapped in the Arctic, surrounded by enemies. We can expect a raft of guest stars — Dan Starkey, Nathan McMullen, Natalie Gumede, Maureen Beattie, Faye Marsay — including one very special piece of Who history: Michael Troughton, the son of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton, will appear in the episode as a character called Professor Albert.

Of course, the title of the episode has given rise to much speculation that Coleman's quickly matured character Clara Oswald will indeed be leaving the hit show at season's end, a topic of contention over much of the second half of the recently completed eighth season that has been given extra credence even in the official blurb for the episode, which indicates that The Doctor and Clara will "face their last Christmas" together alongside old Saint Nick.

Showrunner/episode writer Steven Moffat has reportedly confirmed that Capaldi will remain in the Doctor role through season nine at least, while new Master — well, Mistress — Michelle Gomez is a strong possibility for a return. Before that though, we need to make it through Last Christmas, which Moffat describes as "scary, tense, and claustrophobic … it's The Thing meets Miracle On 34th Street".

"It's certainly the strangest bloody thing I've ever written."

Check out BBC's preview of the episode below.