Doctor Who: The Snowmen
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That whole period of time really upset me...
Anyhow! The Snowmen is not just a Christmas Special for Doctor Who, one of my favorite TV series of ALL TIME, but it is also the sixth episode of the seventh season (or series as they call it in Britain). It stars Matt Smith, as the Doctor (a madcap time traveler who changes his faces, but his transport ever remain the same: a blue police box) and Jenna-Louise Coleman and Clara Oswin Oswald, the mysterious new companion who died the last time she appeared on the show... after having been a Dalek (the series' big bad... most of the time) the whole time.
The episode doesn't really explain how she ended up in Victorian London or really anything about her. In fact, you're initially led to believe that she's a completely different person until the last minute when you find another version of her in modern London. I'm very confused about this character because she won't stay dead. Who does that remind me of? Oh well, I like her well enough. She's funny, spunky and might just give the Doctor a run for his money. Who knows? She can't be more confusing than River Song!
Granted, this is the show run by Steve Moffat who lives to terrify us, confuse us, and make us cry... usually in every episode he writes. You can tell this episode was aiming for the Moffat trifecta. How?
1.) Snow that turns into Snowmen that will eat you. And if a loved one is frozen alive in it, the ice will replicate that person's DNA and use your memories to come after you and kill you. Yup. Everyday innocuous thing that you don't think about and actually love rendered terrifying if you are paranoid enough to think about it.
2.) There's a character who has previously died and yet there she is, running around Victorian London like nothing happened... because it hasn't happened to her yet (at least that's what I assumed) then the ending happened which leaves me scratching my head wondered just what Moffat has planned because I can't guess it.
3.) The ending. That's all I'm saying. In case you haven't seen it. The ending is supposed to be sad. Well, everything about the Doctor is supposed to be sad too. He's mourning the loss of two great companions and then he takes on a new one... and the ending happens. That is all.
So... Yeah, I don't know if I was tired or if maybe I was just happy to see Matt Smith's face again, but... I'm confused. I just wasn't very sad or scared. I didn't get attached to the companion that fast. My analytical hat was on because I wanted to figure out the mystery of the new character. Either way, the snowmen just didn't scare me that much because if snow's going to remember to kill and eat me it better to it before I get a hold of a source of fire... and I really like fire. It's nice and pretty and it destroys trees.
So, I wasn't scared and I wasn't that sad. I may be paranoid if it actually snows instead the ice we have right now. And that ice monster just looked silly to me. Did it look silly to you? It was definitely silly to me. It looked more like a glass monster. I thought a good hammer would take it out nice and easy. The TARDIS is bigger on the inside, but hammerspace does not exist in Doctor Who. Too Bad!
On the other hand, I did enjoy seeing Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Straz again. Richard E. Grant showed up to play the villain and he was definitely a lot of fun. I love seeing him onscreen in any role. If you didn't recognize the voice of the villain, you should go watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy again or imagine the Great Intelligence screaming "YOU! SHALL! NOT! PASS!" That's right. Gandalf was the voice of the villain. So, there's a lot of talent in this episode. A lot to like, character-wise if you're a character-oriented person.
Old-time Whovians will be rather pleased by this episode as the villain is a call-back to the Second Doctor's run. For those of you who want to look up the episodes in question they were the serials: The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear. I was rather pleased when I made that little discovery. I am not an old-series fan. I only discovered Doctor Who after I graduated from high school. My first full series was Series Four with Donna Noble. Let me tell you, that was an annoying introduction. Yay! I like Doctor Who! What? I have to wait two years for the next season? Why?
However, Old-time Whovians, I'm getting better! I am trying to catch up on the old series as much as I can with all the sadness induced by BBC's idiocy. Destroying episodes and all... I'm getting better!
Now... Did I like this episode? Yes and no. It's a solid piece of work and it leaves off with a mystery so people will want to continue watching in the spring. However, I don't feel like it really hit isn't mark. The part that should have made me sad just confused me. The fact that the Doctor was mourning the loss of Amy and Rory when the Doctor always loses companions seemed a little silly to me. Yes, they're gone having lived to death, but they're still intact in another time and he has a time machine. I know there's rules about not traveling to the past of his personal time stream, but if he goes to visit them in the past, what harm is there really? At least he could get closure! So... him being all mopey mostly irritated me.
It's not like they were in a different universe! Or they had their minds erased of all knowledge of him and being reminded would kill them!
Hell, the Doctor got sent to the past once before by the Weeping Angels and it didn't hurt everyone when he set things back to rights. But, that's my own person problems. I'm sure someone will post a comment about how he couldn't do it because of blah, blah, blah and yadda, yadda, yadda. It boils down to the writers needing to get rid of his old companions and get him new while providing angst in whatever way they thought of. This is the way they decided to do it... with angst... and I can not like it if I don't want to. So boo!
Sweet Dreams!
And Happy Birthday Alexandria Campbell! You're finally ten!
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