appearance. Elements of Shona were later reworked into the character of Bill Potts, who was the show's companion when Coleman left after series nine. Filming Filming on "Last Christmas" was scheduled to start two weeks after the Series 8 World Tour Promotion. Paul Wilmshurst directed the episode. The read-through for the episode took place on 3 September 2014, and filming began on 8 September in Cardiff, with Wilmshurst tweeting that it would likely take four weeks to complete. Scenes were filmed at Vaendre Hall in the Cardiff suburb of St Mellons. Promotion A preview was shown during Children in Need which featured The Doctor, Clara, Nick Frost as Santa Claus, and Dan Starkey (who also plays Strax of the Paternoster Gang) and Nathan McMullen as elves. On 11 December 2014, the BBC released a 30-second trailer for the episode on YouTube. Broadcast and reception The episode was watched by 8.28 million viewers, the lowest Christmas Day rating since the show's return in 2005, and was the sixth most watched programme on BBC One for Christmas Day 2014. The early figures for overnight viewing estimated that the episode was watched by 6.34 million viewers, making it the eighth most watched event on television for Christmas Day 2014. However, it received a total of 2.62 million viewers on BBC America, beating the previous record established by "The Time of the Doctor", and became the most watched episode of the revived series in the channel's history. It also got 1.07 million requests on BBC iPlayer. The episode received an Audience Appreciation Index of 82. Critical reception "Last Christmas" received critical acclaim, with many praising the fun, scary nature of the episode and noting the influences of Inception and Alien. It holds an approval rating of 92%, based on 12 reviews, and an average score of 8.76/10 on Rotten Tomatoes. The A.V. Club awarded the episode the highest grade of the site, an "A". Alasdair Wilkins praised Steven Moffat’s script as "inordinately clever" in using the trappings of a "fluffy, silly Christmas special" to make the story scary. He also praised Capaldi's performance in the special for depicting the unabashed joy common in the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor eras but was "never really" seen in series 8. Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy awarded the episode a 4 out of 5, stating that the episode was an "absolute cracker" that refused to be "throwaway" or