The Snowmen Review

The Snowmen may just be my favorite Christmas Special yet, although The End of Time gives it a real run for its money.

The meeting of Clara and the Doctor was very innocent, much more so than most other companions' first meetings with the Doctor. After their initial conversation about the snowman outside the bar, Clara could have easily just gone back inside and not ever seen the Doctor again. Most people would have thought nothing of a conversation like the one she had with the Doctor, but not her. Her curiosity was too strong to be put down by the simple conversation they had. She wasn't content not knowing how that snowman got there and what this mysterious man's name was. It really speaks volumes about her curiosity and strong will.

The new TARDIS interior is awesome. It's circular again like Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant's TARDIS, only it's cylindrical instead of domed. Also, they've taken the long-standing up-and-downy thingy and replaced it with a spinny thingy. I'm not sure what I think of the spinning movement, but I'm willing to let them try it out and see how awesome or not awesome it is. There ought to be some special function of the TARDIS that causes the writing on the central column to light up with the same greenish light that's coming up from around the bottom. I'm don't know what that function would be, other than that it's some new function we haven't seen yet. There's more hexagons on the new interior, which always remind me of the classic series interior, except those were circles.

The new opening credits amazed and delighted me. I was afraid that they would be too much classic series and not enough new series. Thankfully, they still had the TARDIS flying around, which is the main thing that separates classic from new intros (except Sylvester McCoy's intro). The music has many elements from the classic series, borrowing from many different Doctors. Also, who can forget Matt Smith's face embedded in the nebula? I like how his face was part of the nebula, rather than a completely separate element from the background like in the classic series. I cannot wait to see how the opening credits look next November with several different Doctor's faces (although they may only do Matt Smith's, as he's the primary Doctor) and the names of a dozen different actors and actresses flying through there.

All of the actors and actresses did a spot-on job. All their roles were very believable, nothing was boring or old, and there was just the right amount of humor. I only wish we had seen more of Dr. Simeon and Capt. Latimer. I was kinda looking forward to seeing what role Captain Latimer played in the episode, and was rather disappointed that we didn't see much of him or Doctor Simeon. The main focus of the episode seemed to be on the Doctor and Clara, which it should be seeing as they're the main characters, but there should be just a little bit more attention paid to the other characters, as well.