lizbee | Doctor Who: The Snowmen (Reply)

(Seriously, one "Winter is coming" is funny. Three or four, I was HOWLING, while also going, NO, IT'S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE! ANY MINUTE NOW I'LL STOP LAUGHING!)

SO! Clara is Oswin, a genius from the future who sought out adventure via the service industry in space! And Clara is a working class barmaid who is clever enough to pass herself off as a middle-class governess! And a contemporary woman who ... well, all we know so far is that she doesn't believe in ghosts.

Oh! And Victorian!Clara wears a ring on her left hand:

And she was kind of not very Victorian at all, which makes me wonder if she's the first Clara, or something else.

Now the mystery of season 7.2 is Who Is Clara? Is she a manifestation of the Great Intelligence? The Last-But-One-of-the-Jagaroth? ~~Romana?~~ (I keep telling myself that regeneration doesn't work like that.)

Also, Clara Oswin is well and truly in the running to beat Rory in the Dying Quite A Lot stakes. That's pretty amazing.

Meanwhile, Richard E Grant follows in the footsteps of many a Classic Who villain, by being perfectly normal up until halfway through episode 3 (or, you know, the beginning of act 3 in modern pacing), and then going RIGHT OFF THE RAILS.

The plot itself was kind of ... you know, I never once looked at the Great Intelligence and thought it needed an origin story, but okay. And I guess the snow has a lot of resonance if you live in a country where it falls. I'm mostly impressed that Moffat took the trouble to foreshadow the "family crying saves us all" business.

Generally, I'm here for the characters. And they were pretty great! Captain Latimer and his ill-concealed infatuation with the governess! Vastra and Jenny, explicitly married (I look forward to finding out how this is problematic) and inspiring the Holmes mythos! Strax being ... well, kinda dense, actually, which I don't think he was previously, but okay. The Doctor should stop making fun of him, though -- two-thirds of the time it felt affectionate, and the rest it was just kinda awkward.

I'm glad, though, that the Doctor's emo wasn't overplayed -- he wasn't going on about how Amy miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight as welllllllllllllllllllllllll be deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeead or anything, he was just a bit depressed and emotionally bruised. And mostly dealing with it by hiding in his TARDIS and reading, not actively destroying people's lives like some regenerations I could mention!

IN SHORT, that was pretty great, and I look forward to MORE CLARA.