Catch Up // Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor
Warning:
Contains spoilers!
Cast:
Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman, Orla Brady, the voice of Kayvan Novak, and
introducing Peter Capaldi as The Doctor
Written by Steven Moffat,
Directed by Jamie Payne
The story
A host of the Doctor’s
enemies circle the planet of Trenzalore as a mysterious message is sent across
the stars. The oldest question in the Universe; hidden in plain sight. But will
Trenzalore be the place where the Doctor dies?
Following hot on the heels
of the Doctor Who 50th
Anniversary special episode, we have The
Time of the Doctor and Matt Smith’s final episode playing our favourite
Time Lord from Gallifrey.
After four years and
numerous unanswered plot threads to tie up, head writer Steven Moffat set
himself the monumental job of resolving some pretty significant issues for
long-term fans while making a show accessible enough for the more casual
Christmas viewer. He also had to answer a question long debated by fans – how
to address the tricky issue of the 12 regenerations limit set on the
Doctor. So how did he do?
Well, by pretty much
throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it. Turkey and all. In The Time
of the Doctor Moffat continues with the fairytale feel he’s given the
Doctor’s adventures since Matt Smith’s introduction in the sublime The
Eleventh Hour. The old questions that have been floating around since 2010
are answered here with varying degrees of satisfaction, from the question of
who blew up the TARDIS in The Big Bang to the mystery of who The Silence
are and what they’re for.
The Doctor lands on
Trenzalore and becomes trapped in a Mexican standoff with almost every enemy
he’s ever faced as the crack in time, first seen in The Eleventh Hour,
turns out to be the Time Lords (last seen sent off to a pocket Universe in The
Name of the Doctor) trying to get back in to our Universe. The Doctor only
has to speak his name and the Time Lords will return, but to do so would start
the Time War all over again, meaning the deaths of billions. And so he packs
Clara back off to her family and sets out to protect the people of Trenzalore
for hundreds and hundreds of years in what he believes is his final
incarnation.
For the regular viewer
this was all very lovely, but for the turkey-stuffed, casual watcher, an awful
lot of the plot of The Time of the Doctor must have been a mind-boggle
of confusion. There was still lots to entertain, from Smith’s ‘naked’ Doctor
meeting companion Clara’s family for Christmas dinner (with a lovely turn from
Sheila Reid as Clara’s saucy gran) to the war on Trenzalore when the big guns
are turned out as an assortment of Daleks, Weeping Angels, Sontarans, and even
a wooden Cyberman come out to fight in a snow-covered town called Christmas.
Jenna Coleman is sweet and
moving in this episode and it’s sad to see her and Matt Smith part company just
as they seem to have built their Doctor/companion relationship. There’s a
rather brilliant turn by Fonejacker Kayvan Novak as Handles the Cyberman
head, who we’d love to see again, but probably won’t. And Orla Brady as River
Song Tasha Lem is a feisty foil for the Doctor to play against. We even
have a cameo from Dan Starkey as clones from Commander Strax’s Sontaran clone
batch.
But The Time of the
Doctor really belongs to Matt Smith, and rightly so. From the young
pretender to the massively popular David Tennant’s crown, Smith has taken
television’s most iconic role and made it his own. He has been a brilliant
Doctor Who and a great ambassador for the show and he will be missed
enormously.
In complete contrast to
Tennant’s regeneration, where the tenth Doctor’s long goodbye was a drawn out
affair, Moffat gives us a deliberately different beast here. Having used his
regeneration energy to triumphantly blast the Daleks from the skies above
Trenzalore, Smith’s Doctor appears in a beautiful and quiet moment in the
TARDIS with Clara. His farewell speech is wonderfully done - emotional, yet
joyful - as he sees visions of his first companion, Amy Pond, before dropping
his bow tie to the floor and then – BANG! – the twelfth Doctor appeared. No
face merging, no floating companion heads, no ghostly figure. Just straight to
Peter Capaldi’s scary eyed face quicker than you could say “Doctor Who?”
A wild departure from the recent past, but then the Smith/Moffat era has always
done things its own way.
And so ends Matt Smith’s
tenure as Doctor Who in an ambitious episode that I’m sure will be debated
among fandom for years to come. So goodbye Matt and thanks for everything. And
welcome to Peter Capaldi and whatever his Doctor brings to the best show on
television.
Did you spot?
All of the eleventh Doctor’s
adventures in the children’s drawings
Smith’s
resemblance to William Hartnell as the Doctor ages through centuries on
Trenzalore
Fish fingers and custard
The
puppet show (a throw back to the William Hartnell era)
The
Time Lord Seal from The Five Doctors
The ‘Please Steven Moffat bring him back’ Appeal
Handles
the Cyberman head. If you can chuck regenerations at the Doctor, surely you can
bring back Handles?
The
‘Where’s My Hankie/What A Way To Go’ Best Quote
I will not forget one line of this. Not one day, I
swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.
