So we all (well, maybe not ALL) celebrated that wonderful holiday, Christmas. Which, really, only means one thing:

You know, besides, presents…and food, and cake, and snow, and Christmas lights and pine trees and gingerbread men and candy canes and…

All right, there are a LOT of awesome things about Christmas.

But if you’re a nerd, one of the biggest things to be excited about with Christmas is the airing of the Doctor Who Christmas Special on BBC and BBC America.

Especially this one.

I mean, what could be a better way to celebrate the holidays than with the most lovable, sexy and clever Time Lord there ever was, The Doctor!

Now, this particular Christmas special was something that I was super looking forward to. For the most part, I’m not a HUGE Christmas special fan. Most of them I don’t like. I liked the Christmas Invasion because it’s David Tennant’s first episode and its awesome. I do like the Runaway Bride because that’s Donna’s first episode and Donna is badass. But the rest…I’ve never really liked. I guess its probably because I watched all the seasons except the most recent on Netflix so I just wanted to keep going on, finding out what happens next, and a lot of the Christmas specials don’t really have a point, except maybe as a filler until the episodes return.

This one, however, was pretty important to me. Amy Pond and Rory Williams are gone, taken by the Weeping Angels back in time, and are no longer with the Doctor, after a LONG run with him. Its time for the Doctor to take on a new companion and his new companion is to be Clara, played by the GORGEOUS Jenna Louise Coleman.

Jenna Louise Coleman made an appearance in the first episode of the seventh series, Asylum of the Daleks, as Oswin Oswald, Souffle Girl…a girl who becomes a Dalek and dies. Everyone knew that Jenna would become the next companion so it was quite confusing…how would she be worked in as the companion? That question would be answered in the Christmas special.

The Snowmen takes place in Victorian age Britain and The Doctor has given up. He’s over saving the world, probably because he has lost Amy and Rory, his two best friends. However, there is a problem going on, with some evil Snowmen going on and Clara, a barmaid and sometimes governess, is noticing. She is determined, along with some of the Doctor’s old friends, to get the Doctor involved, to wake him up off his cloud-literally-and save the day again.

The Good or the Bad:

Now, the story wasn’t great. If I ranked some of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, this wouldn’t even make the top 50. It was cheesy, though the Snowmen were pretty creepy, my god. I actually kind of felt grateful that I do not live somewhere where it snows because those Snowmen were scary!

But the story itself? Blergh. Whatever. I will say that it was better than some of the previous Christmas specials. I hated the 2011 Christmas special; that one was straight up horrible. But this one was enjoyable enough and that comes a lot from one Miss Jenna Louise Coleman.

Jenna is so FUN, she’s gorgeous and I’m already LOVING Clara. Clara has a little spunk to her, like an Amy or a Donna but there’s just something more than that. Clara seems to be one step ahead of the Doctor whereas the rest of his companions were either awed by him or just able to keep ahead of him. Clara was figuring things out before the Doctor was, and she was always on top of it.

I spent the entire episode wondering who Clara was and how she was connected to Oswin Oswald, and how she would become the companion. She became the companion pretty quickly; The Doctor handed over that key so fast! But I really liked Clara and I think she had a way of being easily likable from the beginning, especially since the Doctor knew that she had to be connected to Oswin in some way, and the Doctor liked Oswin.

And THEN, the best part of the entire Christmas special, the absolute cliffhanger that makes me so incredibly sad and PISSED OFF that the rest of the series doesn’t return until April: Clara dies! She dies and they bury her in the GROUND! How is this possible? They said she’s going to be the new companion! You’re freaking out, how could this happen…until you see her gravestone and it reads “Clara Oswin Oswald”…and there’s a flash-forward to present day and you see Clara, modern-day Clara, checking out her OWN gravestone.

And the Doctor figures that out and the episode ends with him leaving, determined to find her. Of course, then, they have to show all the previews of the adventures to come when the season returns. AND THAT’S NOT EVEN UNTIL APRIL! FLIPPIN APRIL! We have to wait til April to see all the adventures, including an adventure with the Cybermen, written by Neil Gaiman, and we are going to learn about Clara Oswin Oswald and what she is or who she is and figure out her mysteries.

I seriously cannot wait until April. Its going to FOREVER until it returns. SO LONG. Ugh.

I also liked the new intro to the show. It was SUPER awesome, completely different than any of the other intros before it. I hope they keep it for the rest of the season, and it wasn’t just for the Christmas special. It was really, really cool and I think it is very fitting now that there are new adventures and a new companion and all that. Very, very cool intro.

Also the new TARDIS! The new TARDIS was badass! I have NO idea why its new. The TARDIS changing makes NO sense at all to me, like I don’t understand when and why it changes. It didn’t change inbetween the 9th and 10th Doctor but it did between the 10th and 11th Doctors and now its changed again. I love the new look though and it’ll be easier to see Clara in that TARDIS because I’ll miss Amy and Rory, big time.

I also liked the subtle references to other things. Well, at least, I felt like they were references to other things. Everyone kept saying “winter is coming” in this special and every single time, it made me think of Game of Thrones. How could it not make me think of that? I think that one was more of a coincidence than an actual reference to the show.

Then there was a part where The Doctor pretends to be Sherlock Holmes and he mentions Moriarty, and that had to be a cute little reference and reminder of Steven Moffat’s other extremely popular show, Sherlock, which won’t be returning until late 2013 or early 2014.

All in all, it was enjoyable enough, if not ground breaking and it left me, and probably other Whovians, dying to have the series return, and sooner than April! I can’t wait to see what Clara has to bring to the Doctor Who universe and what her mystery is.

I’m heading to Gallifrey One, the Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles, in February and I hope that there will be some hints or previews or SOMETHING there to keep me happy until it returns.

Until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and watch Doctor Who!!!