The second prequel minisode to The Snowmen continues to establish the three members of the Paternoster Gang.  The focus here is, very much, on Vastra and Jenny.  Strax is, in fact, hardly in it.  Although this is titled ‘Vastra Investigates’, the Silurian crime fighter actually does very little investigating.  We start the short sequence as a criminal is taken away by Strax whilst Vastra and Jenny have a conversation with Inspector Gregson.  He mentions aspects of the case – identical twins, undetectable poison and an ancient Egyptian curse; tantalising us with elements of the unseen adventure.  Vastra gets to be condescending and then proceeds to shock the Inspector with the revelation that she and Jenny are an item.  The story concludes with Jenny and Vastra travelling by cab through the snow – snow which concerns Vastra, as there is not a cloud in the sky.

The influence of Sherlock Holmes is even more obvious here than in the previous minisode.  Firstly, we have Inspector Gregson who is actually a character from the original Sherlock Holmes stories, appearing in stories such as A Study in Scarlet.  Apparently, in those stories, he is presented as quite a clever person, almost matching Holmes’ intellectual capacity.  However, the  Gregson in this prequel is very much in the mould of those inspectors we are used to in Holmesian stories where the ‘Great Detective’ condescends, patronises and generally belittles the detective skills of the local police force.  This version of Gregson actually gets to reappear later in the series in Deep Breath.

Part of the teasing of Gregson comes in the form of emphasising the relationship between Jenny and Vastra.  After some dialogue about Strax being Turkish and Vastra’s  ‘skin condition’, Vastra reveals that she is in love with Jenny.  Gregson, is true Victorian stiff-collaredness, swallows hard and seems lost for words as Jenny and Vastra flounce off arm in arm.  I think I’ve mentioned before my difficulty with the Vastra/Jenny relationship – not not that – come on, it’s the 21st century for crying out loud. No, my issue is with the way Vastra treats Jenny like a servant, even when they are not around other people.  It seems a very unbalanced relationship.  That said, here, in the prequel, it seems much more as if they are equals and it seems odd, that in later, fuller, appearances, this imbalance is introduced.  I like the Paternoster Gang (and I know they aren’t popular with a vocal minority of fandom (but then some fans seem to hate writers inserting anything, you know, fun, into their precious show)) but of the three, Vastra is probably my least favourite and that’s mainly due to her arrogance and superiority.  Here it is evident in her treatment of Gregson, although that, as I say, has its roots in the Holmesian pastiche, but in later episodes it is her treatment of Jenny which riles.