History Recap / DoctorWho2012CSTheSnowmen

The one with the impossible girl and the [[Creator/IanMcKellen voice of]] [[Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings Gandalf]] as a snowglobe.

** [[invoked]]It's normally redundant to mention that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside. But this episode is the first to show the outside of the TARDIS, the door open, and then have the camera pan inside in one continuous shot. You get to actually see what someone walking into the TARDIS would actually see in a SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome moment. Prior to this, the transition from the outside of the TARDIS to the inside was done with a JumpCut (due to the inside being a separate set).

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Doctor-Who-The-Snowmen-Christmas-Special-Trailer-Video_3104.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Elementary, my dear potato...]]

* AllLoveIsUnrequited: Captain Latimer is clearly nursing something of a crush on Clara, but she's politely not interested in him. (Or so she lets on; later, it's made clear she did have designs on him until a certain Time Lord dropped into her life.)

** Simeon does a JustBetweenYouAndMe. "You know why I'm telling you this? Because there's not a single thing you can do to stop it." When Madame Vastra says there's someone who can, Simeon's only response is that [[BringItOn he looks forward to meeting him]].

* SkirtsAndLadders: Averted when the Doctor and Clara are running from the nanny. When they reach the ladder to the TARDIS Clara insists the Doctor go first because she's wearing a skirt. He tells her that he wouldn't have looked if she'd gone first, Clara admits she ''is'' looking as she follows him up the ladder.

* ShipTease: Some viewers interpret this as a "love at first sight" scenario playing out between Clara Oswin and the Doctor. Clara Oswin becomes the ''only'' version of Clara to be shown outright kissing the Doctor romantically.

** When the Doctor shows up at Dr. Simeon's as Franchise/SherlockHolmes, the background music briefly switches to a few bars of the theme from ''Series/{{Sherlock}}''.

** [[invoked]]It's normally redundant to mention that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside. But this episode is the first to show the outside of the TARDIS, the door open, and then have the camera pan inside in one continuous shot. You get to actually see what someone walking into the TARDIS would actually see in a VisualEffectsOfAwesome moment. Prior to this, the transition from the outside of the TARDIS to the inside was done with a JumpCut (due to the inside being a separate set).

* MadeOfIron: A possible literal example,e as Clara manages to fall ''thousands'' of feet from the cloud yet isn't turned into nearly LudicrousGibs. The fact the Ice Governess broke her fall shouldn't have meant much.

* MissingMom: The mother of Francesca and Digby doesn't appear. That's why they have a governess.

* ShipTease: It's made pretty clear that a "love at first sight" scenario is playing out between Clara Oswin and the Doctor. Clara Oswin also becomes the only version of Clara to be shown outright kissing the Doctor romantically. Although Clara Oswin does not survive, their brief relationship sets a template that the Doctor attempted to replicate when he later finds the original Clara; while Eleven kept his feelings in check, it was Twelve who made it clear how much in love with Clara he was, and in turn Clara made it clear that she loved him back.

** The episode is ''loaded'' with foreshadowing of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]" including (but not limited to): "Clara who?", Clara demonstrating her ability to think like the Doctor, the Doctor planning to erase Clara's memory against her will, and "Clara's Theme" is heard in full for the first time. Plus, we see Eleven start to regain his love for life; it'll be made clear by the time Clara leaves the Doctor for good that he had fallen hard for her and vice versa.

* ContrivedCoincidence: When Clara has to describe her problem [[HouseRules with]] [[ArbitraryMaximumRange one]] [[HouseRules word]], she says "Pond," which is only peripherally related to her actual problem, but conveniently happens to be the last name of the companion the Doctor is mourning. She ''probably'' has some awareness of the Ponds from [[spoiler:her other echoed selves]], but it's not explicit.

** The episode is ''loaded'' with foreshadowing of the 2015 episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]" including (but not limited to): "Clara who?"; Clara demonstrating her ability to think like the Doctor; the Doctor planning to erase Clara's memory against her will; and "Clara's Theme" is heard in full for the first time. Plus, we see Eleven start to regain his love for life; it'll be made clear by the time Clara leaves the Doctor for good that he had fallen hard for her and vice versa.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Clara's distinctive theme music/leitmotif makes its debut. Nearly three years later, this piece of music will retroactively take on on a whole new meaning thanks to the events of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]".

* MadeOfIron: A possible literal example,e as Clara manages to fall ''thousands'' of feet from the cloud yet isn't turned into strawberry jam. The fact the Ice Governess broke her fall shouldn't have meant much.

* ShipTease: It's made pretty clear that a "love at first sight" scenario is playing out between Clara Oswin and the Doctor. Clara Oswin also becomes the only version of Clara to be shown outright kissing the Doctor romantically. Although Clara Oswin does not survive, their brief relationship sets a template that the Doctor attempted to replicate when he later finds the original Clara; while Eleven kept his feelings in check, it was Twelve who made it clear how much in love with Clara he was, and vice versa.

* LivingADoubleLife: Clara works as a barmaid under her real name and as a governess under the name "Miss Montague". Her reasons for doing so have not yet been revealed; presumably her rant about having "ideas above her station" has something to do with it, though it's also strongly hinted that she has designs on Latimer.

* InternalHomage: Clara runs around the TARDIS to confirm it is indeed BiggerOnTheInside, just like Rose did in the first New Series episode. (with the crucial -- and lethal -- difference that Clara doesn't close the door behind her when she goes back inside).

* InternalHomage: Clara runs around the TARDIS to confirm it is indeed BiggerOnTheInside, just like Rose did in the first New Series episode.

Also, the Doctor changed the desktop of his TARDIS from whimsical wonderland to Spartan and sterile. [[DarkerAndEdgier Guess he put away his childish things.]]

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: When Clara catches Vastra in her "Truth is singular, lies are words, words, words" argument by highlighting how much she rambles about how the Doctor is not kind, the scene cuts to Jenny stifling a giggle.

* TheCameo: A bit of an unusual example, but it makes sense given the context of the story arc: Jenna Coleman appears briefly in the final scene as the ''original'' Clara Oswald.

* ContrivedCoincidence: When Clara has to describe her problem [[HouseRules with]] [[ArbitraryMaximumRange one]] [[HouseRules word]], she says "Pond," which is only peripherally related to her actual problem, but conveniently happens to be the last name of the companion the Doctor is mourning. She ''probably'' has some awareness of the Ponds from her other echoed selves, but it's not explicit.

It's Christmas Eve 1892, and the falling snow is the stuff of fairy tales. When the fairy tale becomes a nightmare and snow turns out to have really sharp teeth this year, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar Madame Vastra, her wife Jenny Flint and their Sontaran friend Strax]] (who has by now been revived) call on the Doctor for help. But the Doctor is in mourning, reclusive and determined not to engage in the problems of the universe. He's parked his TARDIS high above the clouds and refuses to get emotionally invested in Earth issues again.

Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax investigate the snow, knowing full well that the Doctor's mourning is just a phase and that they need just the right kind of trigger to get him going again. This trigger turns out to be a young barmaid-slash-governess named Clara (Creator/JennaLouiseColeman). Her employer's previous governess drowned rather nastily in the garden, and stayed frozen for days before anyone was able to thaw her out. This, as it turns out, enabled the sentient snow (actually a telepathic alien parasite, voiced by Sir Creator/IanMcKellen) to get a blueprint of the human genome, and it's about to use that blueprint to take over the world. Helping the snow are brainwashed Victorian scientist Doctor Simeon (Creator/RichardEGrant, who has incidentally played the Doctor [[WebAnimation/ScreamOfTheShalka a couple]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoTheCurseOfFatalDeath of times]] before) and his beautiful SteamPunk lab.

When Clara mentions the word "pond" (as in what the governess died in), it sparks the Doctor into visiting Simeon's lab, pretending to be Franchise/SherlockHolmes. He realises that the snowy menace might actually threaten to destroy the Earth. After rescuing Clara and the children from the now-revived and very icy ex-governess, he takes Clara up to his TARDIS, decides to start taking on companions again, hands her a TARDIS key -- and watches in horror as she's captured by the ice and promptly falls several hundred feet to her death. Strax manages to keep her alive, but just barely, and the Doctor rushes to confront Simeon a second time and destroy the sentient snow once and for all. However, when the Doctor uses the memory worm to wipe Simeon's mind and break the "link", the snow reveals it has already become its own entity, and animates Simeon's now empty body to try and kill the Doctor. But Clara, knowing that the parasite is telepathic and can be destroyed by a thought, spends her last moments wishing it to die. As it turns out, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor Clara's mind is able to destroy its immense power merely by thinking...]] and the tears of the children she cared for make the snow melt once and for all.

* CanonDiscontinuity: It is made very clear that Franchise/SherlockHolmes is an entirely fictional character in the Whoniverse, albeit possibly inspired by Madame Vastra. (The Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse previously had a different explanation in the ''Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures'' novel ''All-Consuming Fire''.)

* WhoAreYou: "It doesn't matter because you and I are going to forget we ever met." Yeah, like that's going to happen.