Friday Review-Doctor Who 'The Snowmen'

Doctor Who is a show that is, above all, irreverent as it completely disregards the standards and norms of Sci-Fi/Fantasy and television in general. That irreverence sometimes works brilliantly for the show but, at other times renders the show unwatchable and even pretentious. Luckily, however, this year's Christmas special was carefree and enjoyable even if it suffered a bit from the departure of Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) after the first half of Season 7. Even though I haven't been a fan of some of the choices showrunner Steven Moffat has made regarding the past few seasons, I have greatly enjoyed Matt Smith's portrayal of the Doctor. He is charming and vulnerable, although "The Snowmen" finds him mostly in vulnerable mode as he lives above 19th century London, refusing to help since his help seems to go consistently unnoticed. However, thanks to an evil Doctor Simeon and a spunky governess (Jenna Louise Coleman) he gets his mojo back and, of course, saves the world.

Our villain, Simeon, was once a reclusive child with only an evil snowman to talk to. Now he's an adult and commands a whole army of evil snow beings, voiced by none other than Ian McKellan. Simeon seems to have frequent run ins with with Lady Vastra, a lizard woman who is set up as a Sherlock Holmes character along with her partner Jenny. When Simeon says that they are suspiciously close, Vastra retorts that she resents his implication of impropriety. Jenny and Vastra, are in fact, married. The advantage of fantasy and science fiction in general is that is has always been ahead of the pack in terms of societal norms. Star Trek was the first show to depict an interracial kiss and likewise, Doctor Who embraces it's gay and straight characters equally. More importantly perhaps is that the implication, at least in the past seven seasons is that, Doctor Who is, in fact, bisexual. Christopher Eccleston's Doctor had a flirtation with Captain Jack, while Matt Smith's Doctor has played with the same implication many times. And why not? He is an otherworldly being, why would he be held down by our prudish human notions of sexuality?

Meanwhile, Clara, is a lovely and, of course, gregarious (how else would she get the Doctor's attention?) Governess/part time pub employee. She has a run in with one of the evil snowmen but the doctor tells her that they are dependent on her thoughts so she has to distract herself from thinking about them. Isn't that always the way it goes? After that he takes off to his home, that is, the newly refurbished TARDIS which is perched  atop a cloud. Clara heads off to her Governess job where the young girl in her charge is having nightmares about the previous Governess who tragically drowned in the pond and is now, we soon learn, the last piece in the puzzle for the evil snow which will soon become a fully realised villain. After a game with Lady Vastra where she is only permitted to give one word answers, Clara gets the Doctor's attention with the word (name?) " pond". Of course, everything gets wrapped up nice and neatly, with Clara's untimely death ultimately saving the day. Not to worry though, the Doctor fires up the TARDIS and heads to another time to find her and make her his companion.

It could be argued that a lot of the conflict as well as it's resolution felt contrived and implausible but this is Doctor Who we're talking about. A show that uses improbability as one of its main plot points. Still,  "The Snowmen"  wasn't one of the strongest Christmas specials, nor episodes. However it was enjoyable, and had several extremely well done moments. I just hope that the rest of season 7 shows more of the Doctor's sadness about losing Amy and Rory.