The Time of the Doctor

"The Doctor - fixing toys and fighting monsters."

Writer: Steven Moffat
Format: TV
Broadcast: 25th December 2013
Series: 2013 Christmas Special

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Clara

Synopsis

Orbiting a quiet backwater planet, the massed forces of the universe's deadliest species gather, drawn to a mysterious message that echoes out to the stars – among them, the Eleventh Doctor. Rescuring Clara from a family Christmas dinner, the Time Lord and his companion must learn what this enigmatic signals for his own face and that of the universe.

Verdict

The Time of the Doctor was an excellent Christmas Special and a great way to say goodbye to Matt Smith's tremendous Eleventh Doctor. Now, this blog entry may be slightly different as I have already blogged this story on broadcast some five-and-a-half years ago now but I thought I should give this another watch ahead of my reading of Tales of Trenzalore. I think a refresher of the episode and the Doctor's time in Christmas was a very good idea and I'm now already very excited to read the stories within the collection. I was actually quite surprised with how little the town actually features in the story and it almost is made the most of through speedy narration scenes. Almost as it was introduced, the town quickly became the basis for the Doctor's defence for three centuries! In my opinion, this episode is genius in tying all of the threads of the Eleventh Doctor era together with so many unanswered questions answered. It was the Kovarian Chapter of the Papal Mainframe that blew up the Doctor's TARDIS in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. The Silence are not the name of the species but merely their mission statement in preventing the Doctor from speaking his name through the Crack first seen in The Eleventh Hour as the Time War would begin anew. The Doctor didn't want that either so he sat in the middle of the Time Lords and every other enemy they had, including the likes of Sontarans, Tereleptils and Judoon. He knew from The Name of the Doctor that his fate was on this planet so he accepted it. Seeing the Doctor age quite quickly was a surprise as I really didn't remember it happen so fast so I'm very much looking forward to the book filling in a lot of those gaps. I'm sure we will see the Doctor's relationship with Barnable expand further. I'm also very excited to read some more interaction between the Doctor and Handles as I think the logical approach of the latter could provide a lot of humour. The scene where the Doctor defeats the wooden Cyberman was superb and I just loved how he didn't lie but still outsmarted the enemy. The scene with the Weeping Angels at the very start was terrific and watching this one with my girlfriend made me realise how scary it was to the casual viewer. They're a sublime villain. Tasha Lem was a very good character and something I'm looking forward to in the book is potential interaction between her and the Doctor with the former being in the holographic form we saw in large parts of this episode. The truth field is a very good element and I'm sure that will be important for a lot of the stories in the collection. Clara was magnificent as always and I like how she begged the Time Lords for help to save the Doctor and he received a brand new regeneration cycle and the Daleks were defeated. The suddenness of their change from smugness at knowing the Doctor was out of regenerations to him then carrying out that very function and causing their defeat was just magical. The regeneration sequence itself was quick and sudden and I did enjoy Capaldi's arrival as the Twelfth Doctor, but the star of the show was undoubtedly Matt Smith with a marvellous sendoff speech. The moment Amy wished her raggedy man goodnight had my girlfriend in tears and that made me realise just how lovely this scene was. Overall, a stellar episode!                      

Rating: 10/10