'The Snowmen' (Story Code 7.X) by Steven Moffat

“There’s a man, called the Doctor. He lives on a cloud in the sky, and all he does all day, every day, is to stop all the children in the world ever having bad dreams.” – Clara

England, 1842: snowflakes fall through space towards the Earth – snowflakes with snapping teeth… In England, a young boy chooses to play on his own in the snow; he builds a snowman – and when he talks to it, the snowman answers him back…

Fifty years later, the boy has become a man: the cruel Doctor Simeon. At his institute, Simeon oversees his workmen as they take samples of snow from a number of snowmen standing outside. Entering the building, Simeon goes to his office and feeds the snow into a huge globe that dominates the room; from inside the snow-globe the disembodied voice of Simeon’s master talks of a great swarm approaching. Returning outside, Simeon unleashes the snowmen onto his workmen, feeding their life-force to his master… Meanwhile, at ‘The Rose & Crown’ pub, an attractive barmaid named Clara steps outside and exclaims in surprise at a snowman that has suddenly appeared from nowhere; she asks a passing stranger if he built it: the man is none other than the Doctor, now dressed in a sombre purple coat and matching top hat. The Doctor quickly determines that the snowman is comprised of mimetic snow, but instead of treating this discovery with his usual gusto the Time Lord chooses to walk away, not wanting to get involved in any adventure. After disembarking in a horse-drawn carriage the Doctor holds a telephonic conversation with a colleague – only to be rudely interrupted when Clara jumps onto the moving carriage and sticks her head through the canopy to talk to him! Elsewhere, Doctor Simeon pays a visit to the home of Captain Latimer, where he is very interested in the frozen pond outside: one year ago the governess of the Captain’s children drowned in the water and was frozen in the ice for a month – and now something is growing under the ice… While returning to his institute Simeon encounters the great Victorian detective Madame Vastra and her associate / wife, Jenny. Vastra, a member of the Earth-Reptile race known as Silurians, tells Simeon that she knows that the snow covering the streets of London is comprised of ice-crystals with a low-level telepathic field: such snow is capable of learning, and could be a terrible weapon in the wrong hands. But Doctor Simeon is unconcerned, and after ominously promising that the snow will bring the last winter of humankind, he strides away. Outside the ‘Rose & Crown’, Vastra’s butler, the somehow-now-alive-again Sontaran named Strax, watches as the Doctor examines the unusual snow. Although the Doctor is intrigued he still refuses to get involved, preferring instead to deal with Clara; however, his instruction that Strax use a memory worm to erase the last hour of Clara’s experiences goes badly wrong, and the Sontaran only succeeds in wiping his own memory. When the amused Clara demands an explanation for the snowmen, one of the creatures instantly grows next to her – closely followed by another, and then another, each with sharp, snapping icicles for teeth! Realising that Clara’s mind is creating the snowmen, the Doctor urges her to think of them melting – and just like that the snowmen instantly melt away. The Doctor sends Clara home in Strax’s carriage, but the inquisitive barmaid just slips away and follows her new friend through the snow-covered streets until he stops inside a fenced-off square, where he leaps into the air and grasps an invisible ladder; climbing the ladder, the Doctor vanishes in mid-air, then pulls it back up after him. Clara copies the Doctor’s actions and manages to pull down the ladder, and when she climbs it to the top she finds a wrought-iron spiral staircase leading high up into the sky, to where a curious blue Police Box sits upon a cloud. Knocking on the door of the box, Clara quickly hides as the Doctor steps out to investigate. The Time Lord fails to see Clara sneaking behind him, and she rushes back down the staircase… Back at Doctor Simeon’s institute, the intelligence within the snow-globe announces that “she is coming”… The next morning, on Christmas Eve, Clara leaves the pub and goes to her other job as the well-dressed, well-spoken ‘Miss Montague’, the new governess at the Latimer household. After Captain Latimer asks for her help with his daughter’s nightmares, Clara meets with Francesca and her brother Digby; the children are worried about the frozen pond, because in Francesca’s dreams her dead governess is still lying under the ice, waiting. Recalling the Doctor’s warning about the snow copying her thoughts, Clara decides to ask her strange new friend for help; returning to the square, she immediately draws a crowd as she calls out to the invisible Doctor; Clara also catches the attention of Jenny, who takes her to meet with Madame Vastra. After explaining that the Doctor no longer helps anyone due to the losses he has suffered, the Silurian Detective offers to try and appeal to him, but only if Clara can give her one word that explains why he should come to her aid. Inside the TARDIS, the brooding Doctor receives a phone call from Vastra, who gives him Clara’s word: “Pond”. The Doctor suddenly has cause to rethink his vow of non-interference… A while later, at Doctor Simeon’s institute, the intelligent snow detects a dangerous presence approaching. Before Simeon can react he receives a visit from ‘Sherlock Holmes’ – or rather the Doctor, dressed in a deerstalker and inverness wool cape coat. Rushing around the room, the Doctor whacks the snow-globe with his cane, identifying the snow within as a multi-nucleic crystalline organism, before scoffing at its plan to conquer the world with snowmen; he then goes through Simeon’s records and finds a newspaper cutting about the frozen governess, escaping just as the doctor’s servants arrive to deal with their master’s unwanted guest. Investigating the Latimer house pond, the Doctor is met by a gun-toting Strax; after shooing away the Sontaran, the Doctor sees Clara watching from a window, and when she beckons to him, the Doctor fails to stop himself from going inside. Behind him, unseen, the ice on the pond cracks open… Upstairs in the children’s bedroom, Clara tells Francesca and Digby that she knows of someone who can help them; however, before she can finish her story about a man living on a cloud the Latimers’ dead governess appears, her body now reformed out of living ice! The frosty governess chases the naughty children and Clara through the house until they reach the playroom; but just as the ice-maiden closes in for the kill, a nearby Punch doll apparently comes to life and blasts her with a sonic screwdriver: the governess shatters into a million pieces, much to the pleasure of a certain Gallifreyan Punch and Judy man! Meanwhile, Doctor Gideon arrives outside the house with a snow-making machine: he aims it at the Latimer house and then activates the controls… Back inside, the Doctor catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and realises that he has put on his bow-tie; his reverie is interrupted by Clara, who has noticed the snow falling outside – snow that causes the temperature in the room to drop, allowing the ice governess to reform and resume her attack! Rushing downstairs, the Doctor, Clara and the children are met by Latimer, and the newly-arrived Vastra, Jenny and Strax; Jenny immediately springs into action, throwing a force-field grenade that halts the ice governess in her tracks. As Vastra comments that the Doctor is enjoying himself, the Time Lord ushers everyone into the library; he then explains that the ice governess is the ultimate fusion of snow and humanity, the blue-print of a new life form that will enable the snow intelligence to take over the planet. After ordering everyone to remain inside the library while he answers the doorbell, the Doctor is unsurprised to find Clara following him again – although he does get flustered when she snogs him! Opening the front door the Doctor finds Simeon flanked by his snowmen; the evil doctor demands the release of the ice governess, but the Doctor refuses and slams shut the door. The Doctor then drops the force-field around the frozen governess, and, together with Clara, he races upstairs and up to the roof. As the ice-creature comes after them the Doctor tests Clara on his plan; she quickly deduces that he deliberately lured the ice governess onto the roof as he had a means of escape already planned: the invisible ladder to the clouds, which has now moved into position directly above them. As the ice governess closes in for the kill, the Doctor and Clara climb the ladder and escape! Up on the cloud, Clara finally follows the Doctor inside the TARDIS, which now has a new control room of gleaming metal and glowing neon. After explaining about his time and space ship, the Doctor finally gives in to his desire to resume his travels with a companion, and he gives Clara a spare key to the TARDIS. Unfortunately at that moment the ice governess reappears and seizes Clara, pulling her outside the ship – and as the Doctor looks on helplessly, she and Clara fall over the edge of the cloud and plummet to the ground hundreds of feet below. At the house, Vastra, Jenny and Captain Latimer are shocked to see Clara strike the ground amid the shattered remains of the ice governess; then the TARDIS materialises around their lifeless bodies… Sometime later, in the Latimers’ library, Strax uses the alien machine that once brought him back to life to revive Clara’s body for a short while. Inside the TARDIS, Vastra consoles the Doctor as he analyses the remains of the ice governess. The Time Lord vows to find a way for Clara to live, and after stepping from his ship, he gives Clara the key she dropped and offers her the chance to come away with him; when Clara accepts, the Doctor kisses her forehead and then hurries to the front door to confront Doctor Simeon. Waving the biscuit tin he now holds, and waffling about the 1967 map of the London Underground it bears, the Doctor promises to give Simeon the ice sample he wants if he meets him at the institute. Simeon promptly returns to his office, where he finds the Doctor and Vastra already waiting for him. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver on the snow-globe, changing the intelligence’s voice into that of Simeon as a child: the snow is an alien parasite that has been reflecting Simeon’s thoughts back at him, merging those of his younger self with his later Victorian values in order to feed. Simeon opens the tin, but instead of ice he finds the memory worm, which instantly erases his entire adult life from his mind. The Doctor is pleased with himself – until he finds that instead of destroying the intelligence, his plan has freed it: outside more snow falls, and murderous snowmen spring up everywhere. The intelligence then takes over Doctor Simeon’s body, using it to attack the Doctor and drain away his life-force… Back at the Latimer house, Strax notes that Clara is growing weaker. As her life ebbs away, Clara sheds a tear… and outside, it suddenly begins to rain, melting the snow and snowmen, and breaking the snow’s hold on Simeon’s corpse. Now free, the Doctor joins Vastra at the window; noting that the rain is salty, the Doctor realises that only one thing could have disrupted the snow’s hold: the power of a whole family crying on Christmas Eve – Clara must have only moments left. Racing back to the Latimer house in the TARDIS, the Doctor tells Clara that together they saved the world. Then, as the clock chimes midnight, Clara dies on Christmas day…

Later, at Clara’s funeral, the Doctor, Vastra and Jenny consider the fate of the snow intelligence; the Doctor is unsure that it was destroyed, and believes it may try to attack Earth again. As a memory nags at him the Doctor recalls his comment about the London Underground as a strategic weakness; he then examines Simeon’s business card, noting the name of the ‘Great Intelligence Institute’… Approaching the grave, the Doctor sees the named inscribed on the headstone: ‘Clara Oswin Oswald’; he suddenly makes the connection to the Oswin Oswald he met in the future who had been turned into a Dalek – somehow the Doctor has met the same woman, and she has died twice. Something impossible is going on, and the Doctor means to find out what is going on...

The present: at Clara’s grave, a young woman who looks just like Clara is visiting with a friend – and she is unaware that the Doctor is coming to find her…

“Run, you clever boy. And remember…” - Clara

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara Oswin Oswald), Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra), Catrin Stewart (Jenny Flint), Dan Starkey (Commander Strax), Richard E. Grant (Doctor Simeon), Tom Ward (Captain Latimer), Joseph Darcey-Alden (Digby), Ellie Darcey-Alden (Francesca), Liz White (Alice), Jim Conway (Uncle Josh), Cameron Strefford (Walter), Annabelle Dowler (Walter’s Mother), Ben Addis (Bob Chilcott), Sophie Miller-Sheen (Clara’s Friend), Daniel Hyde (Lead Workman), Ian McKellan (Voice of the Great Intelligence), Juliet Cadzon (Voice of the Ice Governess)

Directed by Saul Metzstein
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
25th December 2012 @ 5.15 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Madame Vastra, Jenny and Commander Strax, and (re)-introducing Clara

*This story sees the appearance of a redesigned TARDIS interior

*Also introduced is a new arrangement of the 'Doctor Who' theme tune, accompanying a revamped opening title sequence

*Like previous episodes, the logo for this episode is updated to reflect the story, this time with a snowy texture

*A specially-made two-and-a-half-minute prequel to this story, written by Steven Moffat and entitled 'Vastra Investigates', was made available on the BBC's official 'Doctor Who' website: once again Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax help Scotland Yard to solve a seemingly impossible case, this time involving identical twins, poison undetectable to science and an ancient Egyptian curse. As Strax escorts the handcuffed culprit away, the police inspector stops to thank Vastra, and is somewhat surprised to learn that instead of suffering from a skin condition she is in fact a member of an ancient race of intelligent reptiles, who was woken from her slumber by construction work on the London Underground – and he is even further taken aback to hear that Vastra is in love with her assistant, Jenny. Departing in their horse-drawn carriage, Vastra and Jenny muse over the lack of contact from the Doctor, who is currently away in his TARDIS, sulking over the loss of Amy and Rory; however, their conversation his interrupted by the sight of snow falling on the street outside – even though there are no clouds in the sky…