Contributor: Bronzethumb
Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Saul Metzstein
Here to bridge the gap between the departure of the Ponds and whatever story arc Moffat has cooked up for the fiftieth anniversary is one of the more successful Christmas specials “Doctor Who” has ever produced. It helps that unlike last year, the writing and direction has a very clear objective, namely to introduce (or re-introduce, as the case may be) the new companion, and the emphasis on the Doctor and his array of new and old allies makes up for the episode’s minor faults.
After the departure of Amy and Rory, the Doctor has all but retired from a life of traveling and universe-saving, instead content to brood and sulk in Victorian London under the watchful eye of his concerned friends: the Silurian “Great Detective” Madame Vastra, her wife Jenny, and Nurse Strax. Even the threat of carnivorous snowmen, the mysterious Dr. Simeon and his master, the Great Intelligence, aren’t enough to snap the Doctor out of his apathy, but the plucky enthusiasm of serving wench/governess Clara just might.
It’s really hard to peg who the stars of the episode are. The obvious candidates are Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman, who both give great performances and play out great arcs across the running time. The Doctor’s return from apathy was predictable but handled well: Smith is always a hoot, but here he gets to portray that wackiness as the frustration of being drawn out of his shell by Clara. And speaking of her, Coleman is just as compelling as in her debut, “Asylum of the Daleks”, and everything we enjoyed about Oswin Oswald — the cheeky humour, the easy rapport with Smith — is present in Clara.
But Smith and Coleman have competition in “The Snowmen”. The detective trio steal just about every scene they’re in, and by now have surely wormed themselves into the Nu-Who pantheon as effectively as Captain Jack Harkness and River Song. Vastra, Jenny and Strax are incredibly fun characters in their own right and have great chemistry with one another, the Doctor and Clara. The funniest moments all came from the trio’s dialog and interactions, and much of the first two acts was carried by these characters in the face of the Doctor’s apathy and Clara’s newness to the world of “Doctor Who”.
Where the episode disappointed was in the heavily underutilised villains. The titular snowmen’s appearance was creepy, but they showed up so infrequently that they never quite crossed over into “scary” territory, and made all of Simeon’s threats seem empty and abstract. Richard E. Grant is a wonderful actor who can go broad and bombastic without losing the emotional hook of a scene, yet Dr. Simeon is such a constrained character that Grant’s talents seem wasted. The only big tick was Sir Ian McKellan as the voice of a classic Who villain, the Great Intelligence. From McKellan came the only moments of true malevolence, and hopefully he’ll return in the future.
All this fails to touch on other pleasant aspects of “The Snowmen”, like the new TARDIS design (broad and retro at once), the Classic Who vibe and the fun Sherlock Holmes connections. It all comes together fabulously, even with the problem of underused villains, reaffirming this new tradition of the Doctor Who Christmas special by delivering the best one since 2010′s “A Christmas Carol” while gearing up the audience for a new companion and a wild ride in 2013.
Score: 9/10
