For the 2010 Christmas special, Doctor Who managed to pull off a really good mix of festive traditions, sentiment and entertainment with its version of A Christmas Carol. It pulled it off so well that in 2011 they had another shot at it with a Narnia-inspired story involving a dead pilot and his grieving family among a lot of other nonsense – it was silly and poor, failing to do anything the previous special had done but on the plus side it seemed to have knocked the specials off the track of going for the sentimental and cloying aspect. As a result we get this much more enjoyable episode where the Christmas tone means snowmen monsters and big name guests as usual, but more importantly it is roundly entertaining, limits sentiment and links to the main series (albeit in a way that I would prefer it hadn't).
The plot sees "memory snow" creating snowmen monsters, threatening Victorian London and, by extension, the world. This produces moments that are satisfyingly frightening as we have ice monsters made from dead tutors and friendly looking snowmen with big teeth and menacing looks – all while Ian McKellen's voice gives the brains behind the operation a sense of gravitas and menace. As the show should do, this will frighten younger children but it balances it well by having the usual sense of comedy and silliness but, not as usual, it manages to keep it in check so that it is not excessive or annoying in the most part. Even the multi-species support team (which seemed like they would be stupid in the trailer/minisode) managed to work by virtue of them being used well as characters (either to be serious or to provide decent laughs); although as usual as this is new-Who, we have to have gay characters in there like it is some sort of running in-joke, which I guess it more or less is by now.
One of the main attractions for me was going to be the introduction of the new assistant, although actually a reintroduction since we had already seen her as a ghost memory trapped inside a Dalek. This offered interest to me as I hoped that she would simply be the same character earlier in the same timeline, meaning that her end was known which would mean she would ultimately be a tragic figure who would not have a big "end of the world" ending to her arch. Of course sadly this isn't the case and the epilogue and trailer suggests she will have cosmic meaning and importance, which doesn't appeal but we'll see what they do with it. As a character Clara doesn't ever threaten to break the mould either since she is yet another attractive perky girl with big wide eyes and a good line in spunky flirting – enjoyable and produces easy chemistry just like all superficial and pretty flirts do, but again we'll have to see what she does when more is asked of the character than just making a flirty and fun intro or reintro, but for now I quite enjoyed Coleman. Smith also does good work here as the material doesn't overload him with any extreme but keeps the balance even. McKellen and Grant are good with very limited time while the effects are reasonably good for the budget.
Overall this is a solidly enjoyable special that really benefits from moving away from the cloying sentimentality of the last special and just focusing on thrills, fun and the ongoing series (or, in this case, season, since we are in the middle of one). It is still a Christmas special and it does still have weaker moments but generally it serves a wide audience pretty well and I enjoyed it for focusing on its core strengths rather than losing the plot like it did last Christmas.
The plot sees "memory snow" creating snowmen monsters, threatening Victorian London and, by extension, the world. This produces moments that are satisfyingly frightening as we have ice monsters made from dead tutors and friendly looking snowmen with big teeth and menacing looks – all while Ian McKellen's voice gives the brains behind the operation a sense of gravitas and menace. As the show should do, this will frighten younger children but it balances it well by having the usual sense of comedy and silliness but, not as usual, it manages to keep it in check so that it is not excessive or annoying in the most part. Even the multi-species support team (which seemed like they would be stupid in the trailer/minisode) managed to work by virtue of them being used well as characters (either to be serious or to provide decent laughs); although as usual as this is new-Who, we have to have gay characters in there like it is some sort of running in-joke, which I guess it more or less is by now.
One of the main attractions for me was going to be the introduction of the new assistant, although actually a reintroduction since we had already seen her as a ghost memory trapped inside a Dalek. This offered interest to me as I hoped that she would simply be the same character earlier in the same timeline, meaning that her end was known which would mean she would ultimately be a tragic figure who would not have a big "end of the world" ending to her arch. Of course sadly this isn't the case and the epilogue and trailer suggests she will have cosmic meaning and importance, which doesn't appeal but we'll see what they do with it. As a character Clara doesn't ever threaten to break the mould either since she is yet another attractive perky girl with big wide eyes and a good line in spunky flirting – enjoyable and produces easy chemistry just like all superficial and pretty flirts do, but again we'll have to see what she does when more is asked of the character than just making a flirty and fun intro or reintro, but for now I quite enjoyed Coleman. Smith also does good work here as the material doesn't overload him with any extreme but keeps the balance even. McKellen and Grant are good with very limited time while the effects are reasonably good for the budget.
Overall this is a solidly enjoyable special that really benefits from moving away from the cloying sentimentality of the last special and just focusing on thrills, fun and the ongoing series (or, in this case, season, since we are in the middle of one). It is still a Christmas special and it does still have weaker moments but generally it serves a wide audience pretty well and I enjoyed it for focusing on its core strengths rather than losing the plot like it did last Christmas.