The story of The Time of the Doctor wasn't really suited to being a Christmas Special. It had to bring an end to Matt Smith's Doctor and tie up plot threads from as far back as 2010. As a result, the episode is packed full to the brim with incident and exposition that might have been a bit baffling to a casual audience who were too full up on up on turkey and wine and wouldn't necessarily remember every plot point from previous season. A lot of the Christmas related story threads, such as the Christmas themed town and Clara trying to cook Christmas dinner for her family, felt tacked on. The time spent joking around with Clara's family might have been better spent establishing the main plot.
At its heart, The Time of the Doctor is a very simple story of the Doctor growing old while attempting to protect a backwater town from alien attack. But to get to this point there is a lot of setting up to do, such as reintroducing Gallifrey and the Trenzalore prophecy from Series Six. The story was further complicated by the idea that the Doctor had reached his thirteenth life. A plot point necessitated by the introduction of the War Doctor back in The Day of the Doctor. All of these additions mean that the plot is shifting from location to location. From Earth to the Papal Mainframe, to Trenzalore, and back and forth. This gives the audience little time to take in what is going on, before the story moves to the next set up.
In fairness, Steven Moffat does answer the majority of outstanding questions from the Matt Smith years. We now know who it was that blew up the Tardis in The Pandorica Opens, why the Doctor had to speak his name at Trenzalore and why the Silents wanted to prevent this. While some elements have obviously been altered over the years, Steven has done a good job of tying things together for the end and he can now move on to give Peter Capaldi's Doctor a relatively fresh start.
While the story had its ups and downs, other elements f the production were pretty good. The design work by Michael Pickwoad was excellant. Christmas Town looked like every other fantasy Christmas town ever. The Church of the Papal Mainframe looked suitably vast and moody in black with glowing blues and reds.
By now, Matt Smith has complete confidence in the role of the Eleventh Doctor. This episode shows off every facet of his character from the goofiness when he is naked, to the trickster and the warrior who defends Trenzalore from his old enemies. Seeing the older Doctor at the end of his life was very interesting. It also means that Peter Capaldi’s Doctor will seem younger in comparison. I wonder if the crutch was for his injury that he had before filming?
Jenna Louise Coleman continues to do her best with a thinly defined character. Clara apparently now fancies the Doctor which is disappointingly familiar to other companions. Still, it will be interesting to see how this affects her reaction to the new, older, Doctor. It was nice to see more of Clara’s family life. Her dad is now completely different from the one we saw in the Rings of Akhaten. The Gran was the best character. The other woman is unexplained, but I guess it was supposed to be Dad’s new girlfriend, since she was listed in the credits as “Linda” and not “Mum”.
The Papal Mainframe was an interesting idea, building up from the religious elements introduced in The Time of Angels and A Good Man Goes to War. However, it did veer into the hardcore science fiction that Russell T Davies strove to avoid. I didn’t really like the character of Tasha Lem , partly because I dislike old friends of the Doctor that we have never met before and partly because she felt way too similar to River Song in that she is a psychopath who fancies the Doctor. Either Alex Kingston was unavailable or Moffat fell back on an old character archetype. At least Orla Brady proved herself to be good in the role. It was good to see the Silents back again after it seemed like they'd been forgotten in Series 7. They are continuing with their tradition of having a different background per episode. First they were a race that had manipulated humanity. Then they became the establishers of history, now they are demoted to being confessors for the Papal Mainframe.
The alliance of aliens attempting to destroy Trenzalore was a bit of a repeat of the alliance in The Pandorica Opens but had a few, more interesting differences. The Daleks and Cybermen were generic threats with no discernable differences. I did, however, like the idea Wooden Cyberman that was used to infiltrate Christmas Town. I also liked the comedy Sontarans with their invisibility field. I would query the inclusion of Terileptils in the list of aliens though. It seems that in Steven Moffat’s vision of Doctor Who, every alien race knows about the Doctor.
As for the regeneration itself, Moffat has his cake and eats it by having the volcanic regeneration as the way to defeat the Daleks and a more low key regeneration. Amy’s cameo was nice, although I wish Rory could have been there. I liked the fact that the actual regeneration was swift. It meant the audience was just as disoriented as Clara was. It’s impossible at this stage to give my opinion on Peter Capaldi yet, because he is acting insane through post regeneration trauma, but he looked suitably insane.
All in all, The Time of the Doctor was not a bad story, but not a very emotionally engaging one. It does, at least, give Steven Moffat an advantage in that he can jettison all of the previous story threads and give Peter Capaldi's Doctor a fresh start. Matt Smith has been a very successful Doctor. While I am not sure this was the best story for him to go out on, he has been great in other stories. Steven Moffat has made good decisions and some not so good, but hiring Matt Smith was definitely a good decision. Goodbye Mr Smith. You were brilliant.
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