NuWho Rewatch: The Snowmen

[purplecat]

Oh look! We're on Victorian Christmas Planet again (I think this the third in a row and the fourth over all)! The fact that this is actually England in the Victorian era doesn't really help. That aside, like most Christmas specials, this mostly works well enough, trundling along on good spirits and Christmassy imagery.

This is the episode that gives us our second glimpse of Clara in a plot involving parasitic snow that is destined to morph into the Great Intelligence. Like most of the eleventh Doctor Christmas specials it is riffing hard on the fairytale imagery, with the Tardis perched on a cloud that is reached by a spiral staircase. We are also introduced to a version of Clara which is, I think, intended as a blueprint for the character: curious, bright, intelligent, good with children, living a double life and a great deal more audacious than companions often are. I think an awful lot of that got lost in all the Impossible Girl shenanigans later in the season and arguably the show has been fighting to get back to this core ever since. She's hugely likeable as a character here.

I was troubled by the Doctor's treatment of Strax first time around. Oddly, it bothered me less on this viewing, if only because once or twice we see Strax teasing the Doctor right back in turn. I think this was supposed to be a relationship of mutual banter, though it is undermined by the fact that the writing is making Strax the butt of jokes at the same time the Doctor is, which makes it look more like the Doctor is picking on someone incapable, than that he is trading fond insults with a friend.

Richard E. Grant is great as Dr. Simeon and the intelligent snow makes a good enemy, with a reasonable set of weaknesses to be discovered and exploited.

I complain a lot about Victorian Christmas planets, not that I don't (mostly) think Moffat does them pretty well, but just because one gets tired of this kind of schtick. I think this is one of his better efforts - certainly better than either A Christmas Carol or Time of the Doctor - I also think it is one of Clara's best stories to date.

Comments

[arcanetrivia]

To her death or at least some kind of permanent loss (since as we know Moffat seems reluctant to make death stick, to say the least), seems to be the fan theories going round. I suppose she has to be written out somehow. I thought Unlimited Rice Pudding's take on things (down at xii. onward) was interesting.

[purplecat]

I hope its not death or permanent loss. I really dislike the way NuWho has consistently written itself into this corner where the only reason a companion would have for moving on is that they are forced to do so (Martha being the only exception). I'd love to see an ARC more like the one that was, I believe, envisioned for Ace where Clara becomes an adventurer through time and space in her own right.