S7E6: The Snowmen *2012 Christmas Special* (SPOILERS)

Some interesting preview thoughts here. Nothing spoilery. Just some intriguing talk.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/60152

That looks exciting!! Can't wait for the future.

Make the new companion more like Donna and less like Rose, and I am all over this.

Enough with Companions trying to get in the Doctor's pants.

Loving the new titles!! Very "Classic" in their approach!!

Good things:

-Probably favourite Christmas episode
-Good dialogue "Takes one to snow one," "I'm the clever one, you're the potato one," "This device's capacity could not possibly be understood by your puny human mind... TRY NOT TO WORRY!"
-Good to see Strax, Jenny and Vastra
-At least he's ot moaning over Ponds as much as he moaned over Rose
-GREAT new title sequence
-Richard E. Grant performing PERFECTLY
-AWESOME TARDIS console room
-Enemy appeared to be defeated, all wishy-washy as usual, and then bad ass Richard E. Grant over takes the Doctor again - very unexpected.


Bad things:

-Crying over Ponds - boring
-Clara is a bit meh
-Ice woman thing was anti-climatic and just a great massive turd, too easily defeated
-Kissed companion... again
-Falling on each other, flirty innuendos - mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
-Lives on a cloud - what? Really? It's not even explained.
-Went way too quickly from 'retired' to 'join me on my travels'
-Bit too much like 'Clara Who', though the horrid excessive use of 'Doctor Who?' is as equally unbearable.

Overall, a very good episode with a few inevitable flaws. Not sure if this beats 'A Christmas Carol' (it DEFINITELY beats 'The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe' - that was an awful episode) but it's definitely high up there. Funny and witty, intriguing, some cool new things (TARDIS etc), but sadly let down a little by a fair amount of wishy-washy, inevitable, cruddy flaws.

8/10 from me, and I voted "good."

Voted OK

Looks like we're in for an extra large slice of, companion rich, Who in the following episodes?!! how refreshing....it's been such a long time since Who was all about the companion!!!

I loved it! The end titles were so Pertwee/Baker in flame red, The Tardis exterior was so gorgeous in the new colour and looked very tasteful, the impressive interior looked more pleasing and has a lovely S18 reminance on the console's layout. The theme tune i'll need to hear again but again the Tardis doors and Matt's face was an excellent addition to the intro. The story was actually quite enjoyable and the companion dying in the end was unexpected. I think Clara is cute too and will be my fav companion of the new series. I do like Matt's potrayal of the Doctor and hope he stays on for another 10 years, lol.

I enjoyed it - loved the opening titles and the TARDIS interior. As a whole, it wasn't perfect, but still kept me entertained. I voted 'good'.

I'm actually looking forward to the upcoming eps and to see what is going on with the whole 'Clara' situation.

I still want a 5" Doctor figure in his new outfit (seen in some pics and the 'Coming Soon' trailer) as well as a 5" Clara figure...

Rolling Commentary:

- Shades of Invasion in that opening set up. Like it. Like it. Also like the fast introduction of the villain. Not wasting time.

- The Doctor has brainy specs!

- Matt's always been really good at "channeling" former actors of Who, and in this opening set up he seems to be channeling a mixture of Pertwee - who can't resist a mystery - and Hartnell, who is aloof and generally not wanting to be bothered with others.

- Jenna-Louise Coleman is severely miscast. Not even a word and all I can think of is "Romana".

- New Intro...APPROVE. HIGHLY APPROVE.

- I'm not a huge fan of Vestra, but it is nice to see a Silurian that isn't an enemy of Humanity.

- Aaaand the Sontaran has overstayed his welcome. To quote Diamanda Hagan. "Yeah...I'm gonna hate you."

- Oh goodie. Broody Doctor. Because THIS a new and interesting direction to go in.

- Seriously. She's Romana.

- "Everybody remember where we parked." Looks like the Chameleon Circuit's back in functioning condition...kinda.

- Staircase is functionally impossible, visually stunning. It's a pointless shot, but it's a neat pointless shot.

- Governess Romana.

- I like the test. That was a very clever sequence and actually helped keep interest when there could only be single word answers and questions.

- Nice tease of the new interior.

- And Matt's gone from Hartnell to full on Tom Baker.

- "You're not clever, and you're not funny and you've got tiny little legs." Not going to lie, I got a good chuckle out of that one.

- And a Doctor and Donna reference. Meh. Moving on.

- Well. Snow Lady was rubbish, wasn't she?

- Bravo Matt Smith. Hartnell, Baker, and now we're starting to see Eleven's personality crack through the surface. A very subtle and very well done touch. The hilarity here is he's mourned Rose and the Ponds more then he mourned Adric...who basically got a "That sucks, let's go to Disneyland!" send off.

- And things took a turn for the utterly bizarre. Eh, laughter for the kiddies which is important on Christmas. This Special at least isn't taking itself super seriously.

- No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no No no no NO! No more "kissing" companions! Dang it, once he got married to River Song I'd hope we were done with this nonsense.

- Okay. Wow. Matt and Jenna have great synergy together...and that makes it feel like they're talking in fast forward. This will take some getting used to.

- A pity she's playing Romana and not some new incarnation of River Song. I'd find this banter and flirting less tiresome.

- The TARDIS exterior looks really rough. I never did watch Angels in Manhattan...is that leftover scars from that encounter or something new?

- TARDIS Interior...so pretty...brilliant introduction. That's how you do it.

- "I like making souffles." My reaction pretty much mirrored the Doctor here.

- And there's a twist I did not expect.

- And there's another twist I did not expect. I like it. Very "Classic Who".

All in all, I vote it "Good". Mystery to carry through to the season, and a feel like a return to classic form.

I thought it was very good overall.

Love the new title sequence. The TARDIS looks good dinged up, and I LOVED the new interior, especially in motion.

I like Clara a lot, although I do kind of miss the days when the companions were ordinary people swept up into the Doctor's world. I'm not sure Amy or Clara qualify. Rory did, which was one of the great things about him.

I have to say I figured out the "GI" thing pretty early on, though I'm intrigued to find out why the Doctor didn't. I do wonder if these gaps in memory aren't going to be a reoccuring thing leading up to the 50th Anniversary.

loved the new opening! especially the hidden surprise.

I'll have to watch it again but I think this may be my favorite Christmas special so far.

We get another story arch this season, which I know many of you didn't enjoy last time but I did and I'm glad we get another with Clara.

Now the big question is going to be this. . .how many times in this arch is the new companion going to die? Perhaps she can beat Rory's record?

Wow, so many thoughts!!!!

Clara-love the banter with the Doctor. She is smart and cute!

And who is she?

GI= Great Intelligence will we get Yeti this year?

Strax is a lot of fun!

as are Vastra and Jenny!

The Tardis looks awesome, and a lot more like a classic console room...no junk.

And the stairs were very fairy tale like, I loved it.

Not really sure what the snowmen were,but I enjoyed the heck out of this episode!! Bring on Spring!!

Clara is the new Rory. She keeps dying and dying... She seems promising, but I hope she doesn't end with some convoluted back story to explain all this.

I do like the new titles and the new TARDIS look. I wish we had got them six years ago.

The story's okay. There's this huge cast of characters and no one really has anything to do in the story. Moffat could have easily streamlined the story.

Also, please stop it with the "Doctor Who?" stuff. Thanks.

Bad Episode

They should a warning before the start of the credits: "Warning may cause epileptic seizures"!!!!

Wasn't "Who Blew Up the TARDIS" enough???? Now we got "Souffle' Girl".

I don't like the story gap (again). Which "friend" brought back Strax????? Clever Plot Device

Bad Bad Steve

I enjoyed it once I got past the cheesy Snowmen and Ice Lady.

LOVED the new Tardis console room!!!

Loved Clara!

Hate another "Who is she" storyline.

Why can't she be a new Romana and we can call it a day and get back to the Doctor fighting evil and being cool?

I think it's time for Moffat to step aside,his stories are weak and hold Smith back.

I voted... Fantastic? For a new Who episode?!? WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!?!?

Okay, so I didn't think it was *perfect* -- among other things, evil snowmen are kinda old hat (though they did look crazy cool... I want toys of them) and the ice lady was terrible -- but I thought it was way better than just good. LOVED the whole one word bit. New TARDIS interior is awesome. Great to see the alien gang back together; I'd like it if at least one of them stuck around at all times. And I'm looking forward to seeing the mystery of Clara unravel!

Much of the other stuff I liked would have been completely groanworthy in anything but a Xmas special, but here it really worked. (Magical staircase to a home in the clouds? BAH!) Too bad the villain ended up being a disturbed and antisocial manchild, though... and that he was defeated by having his mind erased and then being killed instead of something more uplifting or redemptive.

I can't help but feel that Moffat can't come up with anything original. "Who's Clara?" is way too much like "Who's River Song?"

Scary wrote:

I can't help but feel that Moffat can't come up with anything original.

I've thought this since series 5...

BUT...I've liked what we've seen so far this year.

The only thing that nagged at me was how fast the Doctor gave Clara a TARDIS key. NOBODY has gotten one so quickly. No, not even Rose.

Still, I really enjoyed it. Better than that rubbish last year.

SeaDevil wrote:

Scary wrote:

I can't help but feel that Moffat can't come up with anything original.

I've thought this since series 5...

BUT...I've liked what we've seen so far this year.

The only thing that nagged at me was how fast the Doctor gave Clara a TARDIS key. NOBODY has gotten one so quickly. No, not even Rose.

Still, I really enjoyed it. Better than that rubbish last year.

But I like Clara more than River....so I hope I will enjoy this mystery more. And I actually liked that he gave her a key so fast. It made her special, better than Rose!

Okay, they've killed Clara twice now. Is she becoming Doctor Who's Kenny?

"Oh my God, they've killed Clara! You bas&@$%s!!!!"

Who is Clara?

I'm sure a crudload of fans are thinking: "THE RANI!"

Apparently, she's a recurring person in time. How, we'll either be told or (more likely) be given some timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly answer which, upon examination, doesn't make much sense.

People are saying she's Jenny. Then why the frack why she kiss her own dad?

Personally I couldn't give a flying rat's backside who she is.

Man, I've been gone too long. You've gotten bitter in your old age, Scary!

Did anyone else find those carnivorous snowmen to be way more adorable than the blasted Adipose? Toothy snowman plushies for all!