Doctor Who: The Snowmen Review

H-allelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah!

Spoilers fall upon this page.

Alright, after two months, Doctor Who is back... before it goes away for another four months. Annoying hiatuses that would make my head explode if I didn't know Moffat wasn't busy writing Sherlock (H-allelujah! Hallelujah, hallelujah!) aside, it's time to review the latest DW X-Mas special. Now, like most Whovians, I have mixed feelings about the Christmas specials. I liked the Christmas Invasion, I liked The End of Time, I really liked A Christmas Carol, but for those there's still... the Next Doctor, the Runaway Bride, and the Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe. That's why I was thoroughly surprised when this episode blew me away.

So when this starts off, the Doctor's become lonely and miserable. He's holed up in the TARDIS in Victorian England, he won't talk to anyone except Strax,Vash, and Jenny (great seeing them again), and the deaths of the Ponds still haunt him. But a monster has come to town, specifically the Great Intelligence (voiced by IAN MCKELLAN!!!!), which is using snow and the nefarious Dr. Simeon to reach his goals of attaining a physical form.

I'm not gonna lie, when I first saw the Snowmen monsters in the trailers, I thought they looked wicked cheesy and this episode was just gonna be a showcase for the show's low special effects budget. But not only were the Snowmen effective, albeit slightly underdeveloped, villains (as were Ian McKellan and the guy who played Simeon who's name escapes me), they were far from the main point of the episode.

The point of the episode was Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara. I pretty much fell in love with Clara from the get-go (not just 'cause she's wicked hot-which she is); she was smart (one word answer riddles anyone), she was funny, she was curious, she was tough, she could actually talk faster then the Doctor (apparently that's the reason Coleman was cast) and they had really good chemistry, she was basically everything I liked about Rose amped up to 11, but with the whole River Song-style mystery surrounding her.

The mystery, in case you forgot, was that Coleman appeared in Asylum of the Daleks as well and apparently died, which she did again here. Yeah, you thought Rory was Kenny, now we've got Clara; they obviously didn't explain how she came back to life because that would take the fun out of the whole thing, and I'm glad they didn't, because this is a great mystery. I'm wicked intrigued, and I can't wait to see where this goes. I just have to wait until April to find out. Sigh.

Moffat put in his usual great dialogue into this episode, too. The banter was so hilarious, especially from Vash, Jenny, and Strax (here's hoping for that Spin-off to happen) that I lost track of the number of times I laughed (which culminated when Vash and Jenny showed up at the house and Vash said to the maid "Hello, I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife"). The music by Murray Gold was great as usual, same goes for the new, squeal-inducing opening titles and spectacular TARDIS interior (also, loved how they inverted the usual line with "It's smaller on the outside).

Overall, this was just a great episode. It's one of my favorites of the new season/series/you know what I mean, right up there with Asylum of the Daleks and The Angels Take Manhattan.

Final Rating: 95%

Also, just a quick side note: this will be my last post of 2012. I'll be back on New Year's Day with my best and worst movies of 2012 posts, so I will see you then.