The (Insert Noun) of The Doctor

The BBC have released the full poster for the 2013 Christmas Special, The Time of The Doctor.

More like The Time to Get Some New Title Ideas, am I right?

Quite why we had to have an almost identical name to the 50th Anniversary Special and the Season 7 finale, I'll never know. Besides that bit of old news, it looks like they're slapping a bunch of big enemies together again in a Too Many Monsters extravaganza.

Why Angels? I'm so sick of them. They are totally played out as a monster. I had hoped after The Angels Take Manhattan we'd seen the last of them. That was pretty stupid, I suppose. And trotting The Silence out again? What's the point of that? They should have been done and dusted after The Wedding of River Song. Teasers have shown references to Trenzalor as well, another plot point that should have been left alone after it was resolved in The Name of the Doctor.

I'm trying not to draw too many conclusions from this poster and the few teasers, but I fear we're going to get a bit of a cluster-you-know-what here, and my expectations are currently rather low. The best scenario I can imagine sees most of these monsters appearing in some kind of nightmare dream sequence of The Doctor's.

In the end, I'm just hoping the few seconds of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor make it all worthwhile.

Review - The Day of the Doctor

Well there was a whole bunch of hype leading up to this momentous event. It could have gone either way, but I'm glad to say it lived up to the hype, and I very much enjoyed The Day of the Doctor.

The 50th anniversary Special - The Day of the Doctor

Starting with the original credits and a reference to both Coal Hill Secondary School and the I. M. Foreman scrapyard where we first encountered the TARDIS in An Unearthly Child, right from the off you can see we are set for a whole flood of references to the past 50 years of Doctor Who. We had a couple of references to Omega, a big scarf, some nice bits and bobs in the Black Archive, and to my great pleasure, a reversal of the polarity. Sure, it wasn't of the neutron flow, but obviously The Doctor has sharpened his physics knowledge in recent years.

Nostalgia ahoy!

The Moment was sort of interesting, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it choosing Rose/Bad Wolf as it's interface form. This essentially boils down to getting Billie Piper into the episode somehow, really, but that's fine. It would have been good to see the Interface shift a few times to take on other forms using file footage. Maybe just flicker between them at times, or when first settling on a form.

When Ten and Eleven get together the interplay between them is truly awesome. Matt Smith and David Tennent have a clear chemistry on screen that gives a wonderful energy to the episode. I was worried John Hurt's War Doctor would end up being all dour and sombre and kill the buzz, but he only made things better. I loved every second of Hurt's interplay with the other two Doctors. In a way he was an in-show avatar of me expressing confused bewilderment at where Doctor Who has ended up, commenting on everything from the age of the other Doctors to the use of the phrase "Timey wimey".

They're scientific instruments, not water pistols!

Despite making fun of many of the things that usually irk me, we still had a whopping great In-Who-Endo added when Ten and Eleven compared Sonic Screwdrivers. We had plenty of other bits of funny banter between them without resorting to a tired old dick joke, thanks very much.

Hur hur hur! Willies.

Some of the scene transitions seemed to be a bit weird. I recall one wipe came in far too soon, whilst Kate Stewart was still talking, which seemed a bit sloppy to me. That said, the morph effects on the Zygons were awesome. Really smooth and natural looking. The 3D paintings looked really cool too. I imagine seeing it in 3D would have been quite the treat at that point, but I feel it would have been wasted throughout most of the rest of the episode.

The episode did have some pretty glaring continuity issues though. I'm still struggling to see how this whole thing fits with the events of The End of Time. The Doctor is clearly now looking to find Gallifrey and restore it to the galaxy, but he was previously determined not to let the Time Lords return because they planned to destroy reality. Is the Time Lock the same thing as the Stasis Cube, or are Rassilon and the other Time Lord high council trapped somewhere else? Hopefully subsequent episodes that build on this story and fill in the gaps, because I am rather confused at the moment. I may have to re-watch The End of Time again and see if that helps. It would have been awesome if they got Timothy Dalton back in to play Rassilon though.

There were also some internal story issues with Elizabeth and the Zygons. She would have had to be remarkably quick thinking to be able to replace the Commander and subsequently find out all of the details of the Zygon's plans without arousing suspicion. Overall I found that to be a tad clumsy even with the offhand "they never considered I would survive" line. It was fun to see the gap in Ten's life just previous to The End of Time filled in there. Of course you have to feel bad for Liz because you know she's going to end up bitter and hateful towards The Doctor. I'm also left feeling The Doctor is a bit of a dick for following through with the wedding when he wasn't actually interested. And how is he able to tell Ood Sigma about it? Doesn't he forget? Either way, John Hurt made that little bit of Hunka hunka burning Doc tolerable.

Is there a lot of this in the future?

It does start to happen, yeah.

The Zygon plot was sort of left unresolved. I don't think it would have taken too much to make mention in the closing scenes of whatever resolution they came up with. It felt a little unfinished, or that Steven Moffat decided it wasn't important any more, as we'd moved on to resolving the Time War plot, which was far more interesting and important. In a way it was always just a secondary plot that provided the vehicle for plot exposition as well as the final solution, but it got so much screen time that I feel it deserved more of a resolution than it received.

Throwing Capaldi in there at the end was inspired. I only wish that was the first reveal of him in the role of Twelve. The fan reaction would have been insane, especially if it was just that short flash of his eyes. There would have been so much discussion about who it was. Such a missed opportunity.

Do you recognise these eyes?

Overall I'm excited about how things were left, even if I was a bit annoyed at throwing Tom Baker in there with a weak "reusing old faces" line. Seeking out and freeing Gallifrey is a great way to go, assuming the aforementioned plot confusion is addressed. Most excitingly it gives us an opportunity to resurrect a sorely wasted foe.

The Master is waiting!

10/10

Can we fix it?

No. All we need was a bit more exposition on some of the minor plot points and the removal of a rogue wang reference. It was a perfect homage to the 50 years, encapsulated in that epic final shot.

Anniversary poster revealed!

The BBC have just revealed the poster for the 75 minute 50th Anniversary special, named The Day of the Doctor.

John Hurt looks badass! I see exploding Daleks, bits of TARDIS and a Bad Wolf reference.

I'm freaking excited!

Who will be Who?

People are having great fun guessing, suggesting and wishing who could be the next Doctor, and I'm not any different. As I said in my previous post, I expect a lot of up-an-comers to jump at the chance to launch their careers off The Doctor's newly global fanbase.

So, that leaves us with a few different lists; Who I expect we'll see, who I'd like to see, and who I definitely DO NOT want to see.

Who I expect we'll see

Just going by previous form, I expect whomever to take up the mantle of The Doctor to be young, good looking (even if just in a quirky way), and relatively unknown. Not being overly familiar with talent in this pool in England at the moment, I couldn't really offer any names.

These criteria are based on where Steven Moffat seems to be driving the show. The Doctor must be marketable as primarily a credible love interest or object of affection for hot young female companions.

Brando Lars over on Nerditis has suggested maybe Richard Madden from Game of Thrones could be a good choice. Now he's far from my ideal choice, but he does fit the criteria above pretty well, and he'll be looking for something new too... umm... spoilers? Sorry.

Who I'd like to see

As regular readers may have picked up, I'm not a huge fan of The Doctor being a sexual being, and even less of a fan of the companions (and everyone else) always having a crack at him. With that in mind, I'd welcome an older, grumpier and more grizzled Doctor. I want to see a Doctor that isn't lusted after by all and sundry, but possibly loved in a paternal way, as befits his role of protector.

The teaser with John Hurt at the end of The Name of the Doctor blew my mind because Hurt was my idea of the perfect new Doctor. Dramatically different to the last couple. Of course Hurt is already pretty much locked in as a previous Doctor, so we couldn't see him taking over from Smith. Or could we? More on that later.

Who I definitely DO NOT want to see

I know people love to speculate about a gender-reassignment regeneration, but I don't want to see a female Doctor. As I have said before, I'm not a hardcore Whovian, and I haven't explored any Doctor Who material beyond the TV stories, but the only reference I can recall to spontaneous gender swapping between regenerations was in The Doctor's Wife. Well, that and the hilarious Comic Relief sketch Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death:

All excellent candidates for the role

I don't care about race, age is flexible, but The Doctor is a dude. Let's keep it that way.

My ideal situation would be to have a season or two that are essentially "prequel" seasons where we can explore The Last Great Time War in detail, following John Hurt's Ninth Doctor through the darkest part of The Doctor's life. With Jenna Louise Coleman already confirmed as returning in the next season, this could be difficult, but not impossible. If The Doctor is somehow blocking many of the memories of this time, perhaps he's forgotten Clara too. This would then leave things open for Matt Smith to return again after a hiatus.

It all depends on what's in store for the 50th Anniversary show.

Anyway, I'm still holding out hope for a cranky old curmudgeon in 2014.

Review - The Name Of The Doctor

The title of this episode combined with the tag line it was promoted with had me very worried. Thankfully the thing I was worried about didn't happen, and I was able to very much enjoy The Name Of The Doctor.

Season 7, Episode 13 - The Name Of The Doctor

What can I say about this episode? I had to go into near Internet blackout in the lead up to its screening here in Australia to avoid spoilers. I don't think any spoilers would have diminished my enjoyment of the episode, but was glad I did. If anything the episode made me angry at whatever marketing department person it was that decided to drop that line in the poster above. Anyway, here's yet another spoiler-laden review from me.

This was yet another example of a near perfect episode structure. From the pre-credits opening hook we had a steady increase in threat and fairly natural plot exposition. The conference call was an interesting way of doing it, but it worked well and didn't seem forced. Vastra's embarrassment introducing Clara and River and River's jealousy were slightly off-putting, but that's more to do with the failure to clarify the relationship between The Doctor and Clara (platonic only, please). I loved Strax's weekend retreat though, and Jenny's "death" gave both Neve McIntosh and Catrin Stewart a chance to shine. There needs to be more of these guys, I can't say that enough.

I was simultaneously delighted and saddened with River's appearance in this episode. Although we've known she was dead since we met her, her exit this time was somehow more poignant. She will be missed, and not just because it frees the writers up to have The Doctor get freaky with someone else (please don't). Similarly I was sad to see Richard E Grant go. The Great Intelligence had potential for a wonderful recurring villain. Gods know they could use one now that they threw The Master away (such a waste). All of that was made up for by the appearance of John Hurt at the end. That scene alone has me so fired up for the 50th Anniversary Special. I'm hoping for more on The Time War and The Doctor's part in it. 

The Whispermen were nice and creepy and actually threatening too, which was good. I can't work out if they were maybe slightly underutilised or if there was just a lot packed into this episode. They were, however, another example of the "advance slowly and be menacing" variety of monster that seems to be becoming more prevalent in the show of late.

I can see now why they didn't have Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS play out like I suggested. They were saving that trick for Clara's journey through The Doctor's time stream. I still think they could have added a little of it to Journey though. This episode certainly shows it's possible. And didn't it look fantastic? Seeing all of the Doctors was pretty special.

My only real criticism of this episode is that the ending was slightly rushed and there was no real explanation of why the Great Intelligence died, but Clara didn't. Again, I'd have to place the blame squarely on the constraints of time. That said, we didn't get into the pacing issues seen in The Bells of Saint John, for example, and I wouldn't say Go, go, go, Geronimo! was a problem here.

Overall a very entertaining episode with a bit of everything. After some of the rather poor episodes this season, it was great to go out with a bang!

9/10

Can we fix it?

No, not really.

If anything it just needs some handwavium above and beyond River's hint that she was still linked to Clara and it would have tidied that ending up a bit more.

To be honest, I wouldn't bother touching it. This one's going in my favourites.

The what of the who?

So... this happened last week:

Season 7, Episode 13 - The Name of the Doctor

So it appears the penultimate episode of Season 7 will somehow involve The Doctor's name. The poster teases "His secret revealed," which is frankly a horrifying thought.

For good or ill there have been a lot of changes to Doctor Who over the years, but there is one thing that's remained constant; We don't know his name. When all is said and done the show's title is more than just a recurring joke. It is, as Dorium Maldovar hinted in The Wedding of River Song, the ultimate question. And it's one that doesn't need an answer.

We've got Alex Kingston credited too, so we will see River Song again. Maybe that'll keep Clara off The Doctor for an episode at least. Perhaps we'll see a proper wedding. Perhaps it's time for a trip to Trenzalor.

To my way of thinking, The Doctor hasn't yet wed River Song because he didn't tell her his name. Of course, the real wedding could have happened off camera, but it does remain an option.

Dorium's prophesy from The Wedding of River Song is a more likely candidate:

On the fields of Trenzalor, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsley or fail to answer, a question will be asked. One that must never be answered. And silence must fall when the question is asked.

So "the fall of the eleventh" indicates the death of The Doctor (or at least the Matt Smith version), and even though he has been rumoured to be bugging out after his contract ends this year, he's still set for the 50th Anniversary show and this year's Christmas Special. Not exactly his fall if he gets two more adventures out of it. And I thought the Tenth Doctor took a long time to die.

I'm hoping they take the route I proposed earlier and show The Doctor handing the Sonic Screwdriver over to River. That would be the last loose end in the River Song timeline, and we can begin removing romance from The Doctor altogether.

Either way, I'm fairly confident what we won't see or hear is the actual name of The Doctor.

If we do, that's it. I'm out.