I’m glad they are keeping the Dalek Oswin and the Victorian Oswin connected. I could see clearly it was the same personality. Oswin is very intelligent. I think thats why she was working two different jobs. Bar maid and governess. She probably gets bored doing the same thing.
The BBC has some back story on the Great Intelligence. I didn’t realize this was an old enemy from the classic series. Glad the BBC is bringing us younger viewers up to date,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p011gpsb/profiles/the-great-intelligence
[QUOTE=The BBC]
The Doctor was there to defeat them again but this time the front-line was the London Underground.
[/QUOTE]
Does that mean that the Doctor showing the Intelligence his London Underground lunchbox, and describing it as a “strategic weakness”, inspired the Intelligence’s later attack? Well played, Moffat.
Another possible mythology gag - the father was named Capt. Lattimer, same as Timothy Lattimer from the “Human Nature/Family of Blood” two-parter. Could he be the grandfather/uncle of that character?
Yet another season (or 1/2 season) where the story line is “we need to find out about our mysterious, lovely companion!”?
Haven’t we done this, like, 2 years in a row?
Ok, I got curious and went to google image. Very impressed with the new companion. 
btw, this link is safe for work. The google image search wouldn’t be safe.
Yeah. I’d like a season where the Doctor and his companion just go off and have adventures. I’m sick of the story line always being ABOUT the companion.
I was pretty underwhelmed by the Christmas special. Vastra, Jenny and Strax were fun, and Clara/Oswyn is cute as hell, but the story itself was a mess and not very Christmas-y. I mean, it ends with some kids weeping over the grave of their beloved governess who died on Christmas Eve – not a very heartwarming moment. The only thing that made it tolerable is that there was so little character development of the kids that their reaction to Clara’s death didn’t seem very important.
Plus it was unnecessarily complicated. Why go to the trouble of setting up Clara living a double life when it doesn’t pay off in any way? The whole episode would have worked better if they’d just established Clara as a governess at the beginning. Then they could have developed her relationship with the kids and their father, and built up lots of nice suspense about the spooky pond.
Similarly, the whole bit about the snow monster being a real monster instead of just a reflection of childhood fears also felt rushed and overly-convoluted. Contrast it with how the Nestene Consciousness was handled back in the New Who premiere. You’ve got scary mannikins doing scary things and the Doctor figures out what’s behind them and puts a stop to it. You don’t need a double reversal where the big bad is revealed be a child’s imagination, and then is revealed not to be a child’s imagination after all.
It felt like they crammed so many twists and turns (and cute little “Doctor who?” shoutouts) into the story that they lost track of the overall arc and the emotional heart. It doesn’t give me a good feeling about what lies ahead.
Actually, it was a callback to a classic Who villain, the Great Intelligence. Remember the Doctor realizing what “GI” on the business cards actually meant? Although I have to admit, the reveal on that was kind of a confusing mess.
Well it didn’t have any in-universe explanation yet. The previews for the next stretch of episodes does show Vastra, Jenny & Strax, so the Doctor and modern-day Clara apparently go back and investigate her life there. Hopefully more will be revealed.
And while it didn’t pay off in the story itself, Clara having a double-life as a “bar wench” and a proper governess is definitely symbolic of something - whether it’s just that she has more than one life (a futuristic Dalek casualty, a Victorian governess and a 21st century hottie), or even more - I’m sure will definitely be revealed.
I did like Clara a lot, but as a stand-alone adventure, this was a bit over-stuffed for the hour run time. Lots of great ideas: the stairway to the cloud island was a great image, and I loved that they brought back the Great Intelligence (an old-school monster I’d been hoping they’d re-introduce), and the ice nanny was interesting - but there wasn’t enough time spent on any of them. This is actually a story that might have worked better as a two-parter.
Also, the Doctor’s reaction to the kiss was different from when Amy kissed him - now my wife and I are worried that there is going to be a romantic subplot coming up.
Or maybe we’re making mountains out of molehills…
I read that reaction more as he’s still off his equilibrium from losing Amy and Rory, and between Clara’s one-word plea of “Pond” and the kiss AND the problem at hand, he had to take a moment to start thinking straight. Although that moment lasted a while, considering the whole “leave the door wide open on the TARDIS when we’ve got an ice monster on the way up the stairs” thing.
I liked it a lot, but I REALLY liked the new opening sequence and the new version of the theme song is really good as well. Nice blending of the previous seasons and doctors.
Yes! Doctor Who title sequences should always show the face of the current Doctor.
But the Doctor is an alien who doesn’t have the best grasp of human fashion conventions (“Fezzes are cool!”). A deerstalker was a hunting cap, for wear while one was, well, stalking deer. A late Victorian man who wore a deerstalker in London would be thought eccentric or improperly attired, like a modern man wearing a kilt to a baseball game.
Got to give a shout out to the costume designer who put the Doctor in a late-Victorian topper with a curled brim and tapered sides, while dressing Dr Simeon’s father in a top hat with a flat brim and straight sides, appropriate to 1842.
I liked the ep, generally, but it felt a bit…incomplete, as if Moffatt’s primary intent was to set up the story arc for the next season, rather than telling a story on its own.
It’s been done, but her name was Rory that time around.
Yeah, that’s it. Christmas episodes should be standalone, with a proper beginning and a proper end. This had neither.
But I like Strax.
Bravo! Well played, sir, very well played indeed.
Can’t put my finger on what was missing, but this gets a very strong “meh” from me. I liked Clara well enough, and I’m glad to see she is somehow connected to Oswin after all. Vastra/Jenny/Strax were amusing, especially Strax, and especially with the memory worm. But the story was so very weak and muddled.
I don’t like the new Tardis set much at all. Looks like Doctor Who: Voyager.
The whole “one word response” thing was silly.
The monsters were just bland. Another case of the “take something mundane and try to make it scary” rut that Moffatt seems to be stuck in.
What’s with the ladder and staircase to the Tardis? Is this a callback to something old or a completely new feature?
The Doctor’s melancholy fell very flat to me because of the gaping plot holes in “The Angels take Manhattan.” If you’re so bummed about “losing” the Ponds, FIND A WAY TO GET THEM! We laid out several methods in the previous thread. Instead of trying, or even moving on, he’s content to write off the Earth and let it be destroyed by ice creatures? over two humans? who actually had a nice life in the 20th century without him?
And again with the flirting with the companion… been there, done that. And isn’t he a married man, after all? (though I’m not sure how “till death do us part” works in the timey wimey situation where your wife died the day you met, long before you were married, but thousands of years in the future.)
so… I’m curious about Clara/Oswin, and eager to see the Doctor move on from the Ponds and get back to adventuring, but this episode was a big dud otherwise.
And no reference to Calvin’s Mutant Killer Snow Goons.
Although there were multiple shout-outs to Game of Thrones, with Withnail intoning “Winter is coming”. (Incidentally, there’s a neat little connection to the Whoverse there…Marwood was played by Paul McGann, the 8th Doctor).
You summed up my feelings perfectly. This episode was incredibly boring and unnecessarily confusing. I liked the end reveal of Clara/Oswin but the main story was a big old meh. I am getting quite sick of Moffat’s Doctor Who being more about the companion that The Doctor!
Yup, he said it twice. Then a white walker showed up (or possibly, he turned into Withnail the White Walker) 
I think I’ve said this before, but it just looked wrong when Richard E Grant and Matt Smith were in the same shot - like Grant was the real Doctor, and Smith was just his teenage son trying to fill in for him or something. Am I getting old?