Story: The Name of the Doctor
So The Great Intelligence returns, yet again played by Richard E. Grant, and this time it is controlling new monsters called The Whispermen. Vastra, Jenny, and Strax return again to fight alongside the Doctor and Clara...as well as an echo of River Song coming from the Library. They all end up on Trenzalore, the place of the Doctor’s grave. His tomb is the TARDIS, which is getting gradually bigger on the outside as it dies slowly. The Doctor’s body isn’t what we find, but instead a stream of white light that is his entire timeline...which the Great Intelligence jumps into in order to destroy the Doctor...and Clara jumps in after to stop the Great Intelligence and save the Doctor a million times over, often without him ever even knowing it.
Written By: Steven Moffat
Length: 45 Minutes
Year: 2013
Steven Moffat’s big finale to his “big movie style” season with no cliffhangers is a big adventure that answers the question of Clara, doesn’t do something stupid like actually tell us the real name of the Doctor, and gives us one hell of a cliffhanger for the 50th anniversary special...I guess if you are going to drop cliffhangers for a whole season, the one you do really ought to count.
Now this timestream jumping thing leads me to my favorite aspect of the episode...how many past Doctors we get to see. And we see almost all of them. I heard Tennant once but don’t really remember seeing him, which is fine because he is gonna be full force in the 50th Special. Eccleston, and McGann are only very briefly seen played by doubles (the sixth Doctor is seen slightly more by a double in the background), whereas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 are all seen via old footage being CG’d in, or Clara being CG’d into them. Seeing a colorized Hartnell steal the TARDIS on Gallifrey and actually speak to Clara is cool...even if the footage is grainy.
I really enjoyed this episode, but I found two flaws. The Great Intelligence is cool and all, but I can’t help but feel it could have been scarier. That’s a minor quibble, the real problem I found is that Clara’s decision to save the Doctor is fine, but I just felt she needed to travel with him more before this heavy decision is made. This is the biggest flaw of the split season I’ve seen. Having less appearances of her character, we really haven’t had time for much exploration of her as a character. I like her, and I like Coleman’s performance of her, but we haven’t had much of a chance to know her, because so much more time was spent trying to solve the mystery of her.
Still, I enjoyed the episode. It had a good pace and for once Moffat answered more questions than he raised (though he couldn’t resist raising one last one). For right at the end the Doctor jumps into his timestream to save Clara, and while there we see several versions of the Doctor run by...and then finally we get our cliffhanger...we discover there is a secret lost incarnation of the Doctor (played by John Hurt), one whom the Eleventh doesn’t even think earns that title. A lost Doctor!? What could this, mean or be? I can’t wait for more answers in November.
NEXT TIME: Series 7 Recap
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