Mr. Harvey Warms to "The Snowmen"

High above the city of London, there lives a man. A man who once, long ago, ventured far and wide, and who, with his faithful companions, righted wrongs and saved worlds.

But those days are gone.

His companions… lost. His hearts… broken. He lives apart from the world, sworn never again to venture forth…

There is more there than just the touch of a fairy-tale story, isn’t there? There is already plenty out there in the world of reviews about how “The Snowmen” is a pretty solid example of Steven Moffat’s desire to make Doctor Who a dark fairy-tale, and I can hardly, and certainly wouldn’t, argue that for a moment. There is plenty here: A Man Who Lives On A Cloud, A Box That Is Smaller On The Outside, a Young Woman Who Saves The Kingdom… Oh Yes.

Seems quite appropriate for a Christmas Special, doesn’t it? And here we are, with a story that is clearly designed to give us an entry into 2013, and the celebration of 50 years of the Good Doctor. From the new credit sequence, which echoes that of the original series and a TARDIS redesign that moves away from the organic and steam-punk versions of the new series and takes us squarely back to the look, with some updates of course, of the original series.

Let’s get this out-of-the-way. This is not a perfect episode, I’m afraid. While we have the wonderful presence of Sir Ian McKellen and Richard E. Grant, they are both used a little too slightly here. Oh, they are both grand here, with Grant’s Simeon suitably cold and malevolent, with an undercurrent of loneliness running underneath, and McKellen’s Great Intelligence suitably evil and superior, and yet…

Simeon, while something of a tragic figure, essentially a lonely little boy grown into a bitter angry man, isn’t that effective a villain. Well, let’s qualify that. While he goes around basically telling everyone that the end of the world is coming, and that he’s behind it all, he’s doing it in Victorian London. Were there no Doctor, he might have pulled it off (“And I would have too, if not for those darn… aliens.”), although I think Madame Vastra and Co. would have given him a hell of a fight, but let’s face it, 1800’s England would have been pretty unprepared to fight against the ice creatures. But there is a Doctor, and against him, well, somehow you want more from a bad guy who looks as awesome-ly menacing as Grant’s Simeon. I must say though, absolutely every shot of Grant is famed and lit beautifully. He looks more than suitably menacing.

And while Sir Ian gives us his amazing voice as the Great Intelligence, we run into a bit of a problem, one that’s always been a problem with the Great Intelligence: It isn’t that Great. While its previous appearances in “The Abominable Snowmen” and “The Web Of Fear” are classic stories of the 2nd Doctor era, the Great Intelligence has always been a disembodied one, needing a human body to work through, to be its hands. Here, until it is able to possess Simeon, its tools are the Snowmen, who are, let’s face it, not that great of monsters. Yes, if the plan had worked, it would have had those indestructible ice bodies to work with, so it’s a credible future threat, but for most of the episode it’s a talking snow globe, isn’t it?

Ah well… I guess I just wanted to see an ice monster version of Ian McKellen. No matter. It works well enough.

And in some ways the villains here are just the means to an end, and that end is Clara.

We’ve been waiting for the answer to the mystery of Miss Clara Oswin Oswald since “Asylum of the Daleks”, back at the beginning of the season. There we saw that she was what was left of the mind of a young woman, now trapped in the body of an insane Dalek, and she died there, saving the Doctor. Like many others, I was charmed as hell by “Souffle Girl”, and her witty banter, and curious as hell, since we saw her as a Dalek, and saw her die, and yet we knew that Jenna-Louise Coleman was also going to be the Doctor’s new Companion… most perplexing.

Here we see another piece of the puzzle, with a very alive Clara, living a double life as a barmaid and a governess. (There’s a small problem here I must mention, in that we are shown that Clara is essentially playing a role as the governess, and yet we’re never told why. It’s easy enough to miss as our story unfolds, but it’s a piece of Clara’s story that feels like it’s… missing.) She’s an intrepid sort, latching onto the Doctor and dragging him out of his self-imposed exile from the world, and clearly is aware of her effect on the men in her life. First we have Captain Latimer, father to the children she watches over, who is obviously smitten with her, so much so that he can’t help but stumble over words in her presence. And then there’s the Doctor, who she flirts with constantly, even going so far as to lay a pretty sizable kiss on the startled Time Lord. She’s far from the “proper” English lady of the time, and very much an adventuress of her own, it seems.

And just like her first appearance, Coleman’s Clara is a delight. Funny and brave, able to talk faster than the Doctor and think almost as fast, she is clearly going to be a wonderful Companion, just what the Doctor needs to pull him out of his despair over losing Amy and Rory, and yet that’s not where the mystery of Miss Oswald ends, oh no, because she dies. And in doing so, her dying words and her full name reveal to the Doctor that he has met this woman before, trapped in the body of a Dalek… something that is pretty much impossible. And our Doctor does love the impossible.

And let us speak of the Doctor, shall we? Distraught from being unable to save Amy and Rory from the Weeping Angels, we see the Doctor retreating onto his cloud, refusing to be an adventurer, stomping about in a tragic funk. It’s a little melodramatic, and a little contradictory if we’re honest, as Amy and Rory aren’t dead, just cut off from the Doctor by the time paradox (ok, can I just say that the whole time paradox thing makes no sense? It really doesn’t. Anyway.), and the Doctor has had Companions die, actually die, on him before and he didn’t retreat into himself like this. And doesn’t he still have River? You know, his wife? But these are quibbles really, and possibly questions to be answered later, because it does give us the joys the return of Vastra, Jenny and Strax. More on them in a moment.

Matt Smith does wonderfully here, both as a grumpy old Doctor, implying his age more than ever, and as the Doctor revived: Charming and manic, dangerous and joyous. His bitter version is quite interesting actually and a little surprising, because he’s mean. One is reminded of the 1st Doctor’s tendency to be insulting when watching the Doctor  talk to Strax, something that I was actually a little unhappy about. Sure, it was funny, but Strax died defending Amy, and the Doctor even defends him against Clara by referencing that, which makes the initial insults of the Doctor all that much more jarring. As the episode progresses though, we see Strax give as well as he gets, and the insults seem to be more along the lines of teasing. The return to form for the Doctor, engaged as he is by the intrepid Clara is most welcome though, and here of course Smith has made the character his own during his run. He’s just about perfect here, displaying that wonderful Pied Piper quality that sweeps up those special few who stand in for us, his real companions. We also see the Doctor’s silly side, as he does his best Sherlock Holmes, and his ruthless side, when he tricks Simeon into grasping the Worm and erasing his memories.

Shall we turn to the Doctor’s three friends? We shall. God, it’s good to see Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax again! Neve McIntosh is back as the Silurian Vastra, and watching her is, as always, a joy. Vastra isn’t afraid to tell the Doctor he’s wrong, and her frustration with his behavior is evident in both the needling she gives him, and the wonderfully biting speech she gives to Clara about who the Doctor isn’t. And for those who were still unsure that Vastra and her plucky assistant Jenny were a couple, well, I think you haven’t been paying enough attention, as here we have the confirmation that they are married, much to the shock of their Victorian neighbors. Catrin Stewart’s Jenny Flint is again her able companion in all things, and if I don’t have much to say about her aside from that, it’s not because Stewart isn’t great as Jenny, it’s just that Vastra is, to my eyes, the most interesting of the two of them. And then there’s Strax.

Strax, like Vastra and Jenny, first appeared in “A Good Man Goes To War”, and there he was a Sontaran Warrior who, for some past offense, was “condemned” by the Doctor to serve as a medical nurse. Here, revived from the dead by “a friend”, he seems a little less intelligent somehow, and more the object of humor. I’m not sure how I feel about that, to be honest, as while he’s always been the militant Sontaran, there was an intelligence there, and a sense of self-knowledge. Here he’s played more for laughs, and aside from his mocking the Doctor’s Sherlock Holmes impression, and a couple of moments when the Snowmen are attacking, he’s mostly a comical figure. Still, it’s great to see all three of them again, and I’ll add my voice to the chorus of those who would love to see a spin-off series focusing on them.

And then there’s our good ship herself, the TARDIS. Oh, it’s like my childhood again, with the metal and lights… any question that we’re going for a feel that recalls the original series should be thrown right out the window, as we’re looking at a design that clearly is meant to recall those designs. The same with the new musical arrangement, which loses the martial sounds of the new series and looks back to the score from the 80’s. And surely you noticed Matt Smith’s face making an appearance in the redesigned credit sequence, yes?

In my review of the previous Christmas Specials, I talked about the presence of the holiday itself, and here it’s not as much of a Christmas story as, say, “A Christmas Carol”. It’s something closer to “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe”, with the events built around Christmas Eve, and the power of a family’s emotions help save the day. It does move into second place for my favorite Christmas Specials, right after “A Christmas Carol”.

And I do have to say that I’m relieved. This season has been somewhat disappointing for me, with few of the first half’s episodes being anywhere as good as last season’s run, and here I feel like we’ve got back on track. And there’s a mystery running forward as we build to the big 50th Anniversary, and that mystery is Clara. The preview for the rest of the season shows that it’ll be a big part of it, and Moffat’s run has been pretty good with the story arcs. I’m much happier to have those back than the somewhat disjointed feel of the first part of the season. Plus we get Neil Gaiman’s take on the Cybermen and a new costume for the Doctor… one that looks a lot like something from the first run of the show… hmmm. One does wonder….

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