Review: The Time Of The Doctor

After 39 magical adventures it was time to join Amy Pond and bid farewell to the Raggedy Doctor. Each actor who plays the Timelord creates his very own icon within the icon. All Doctors are icons but some are more iconic than others. Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor stands proudly alongside Tom Baker as one of the most memorable and distinctive of incarnations. The Time of the Doctor reminded us of the unique brilliance of Matt’s interpretation not from the dissonance that comes following any regeneration but from watching him visibly age through the story.

In the Day of the Doctor Matt Smith was to share the limelight with David Tennant, but both would find themselves upstaged by John Hurt. On that occasion Steven Moffat deliberately played on the similarities between ten and eleven, reigning in some of Matt’s quirkiness. The Eleventh Doctor needed one more adventure to showcase the talents of Matt Smith and remind the children who they would be saying goodbye to. At once a friend to play with and a grandparent figure to feel safe with, the eleventh Doctor wooed the younger audience more than any of his predecessors. Whilst long-standing fans argued about the alleged over complexity of the plots the youngest viewers remained transfixed by this madman in a box.

A champion of childhood, Clara describes this doctor in a nutshell when she observes that his modus operandum can be defined as one of “fixing toys and fighting monsters.” Even as a frail old man we are still watching the same person who made toys come alive in Night Terrors and The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe. From Craig’s baby to the nanny Clara’s placement family the Matt Smith era has been one full of children encountering the doctor. The touching scenes with Barnable were a fitting tribute to this endearing aspect of the 2010-2013 period of the show.

As a goodbye to the iconic eleventh doctor this episode was toned to perfection, who could not have been moved by the Doctor symbolically removing his bow tie in readiness for his new persona, or by the bowl of fish fingers and custard on the console? All that was missing from this episode was a “Geronimo” or two.

With our hero hiding out, trapped in the besieged town of Christmas, and with this doddery aged doctor sitting in his workshop fixing up wooden toys it called to mind Benny Hill’s toymaker and Dick Van Dyke’s Caratacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Under Steven Moffat’s watch we have had allusions to Mary Poppins, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe and Alice in Wonderland to name but a few children’s classics. This was enough to make The Time of the Doctor Christmassy and the superfluous scenes with Clara’s family and the Christmas turkey needn’t have made the final cut.

Bereft of Clara as his regular companion in this story, we were at least treated to the wonderfully surreal Handles. Reminiscent of the talking skull Murray from The Secret of Monkey Island game franchise, and more Tom Baker’s cabbage than K9, it was a delightful invention.

There was a deft simplicity to the tying up of some of the loose ends of the last four years and thankfully very little need for exposition. The crack shaped as it is like a crooked smile is at once the friend and teaser of the doctor, a link to Gallifrey but a means by which all his work in The Day of the Doctor to save the universe and the time lords could be undone, heralding a new and equally devastating time war. In the brief flashback to room eleven from The God Complex we discover that it had by then become an image of fear for the Doctor, reminding him of the mortality of the TARDIS. Here its smile taunts him as if laughing at the dilemma it presents.

This episode provided some welcome resolution to questions surrounding the militant church of the papal mainframe and an explanation as to the shift in its portrayal from The Time of Angels to A Good Man Goes To War. Madam Kovarian leading a splinter group to take matters into their own hands made perfect sense not only within the story, but because that seems to be an inherent feature of religious movements. However, whilst members of the established church might feel exonerated and breathe a sigh of relief this turn in the story is not good news for non conformists and it should be remembered that often splinter groups are formed to be less militant, less authoritarian than their parent body. The Silence as priests who enable a literal forgetting of ones sins through confession whilst theologically and psychologically suspect at least explains why each encounter with them is instantly forgotten.

As for the appearances of other mainstay Doctor Who foes, the weeping angels in the snow were the least effective and awakened again that nagging feeling that they worked best as a one off. It felt like the scene was trying too hard to scare. The Sontarans will surely need a reworking if they are to shed themselves of the Strax effect (as entertaining as that character is) but the wooden Cyberman was a joy to behold. Full marks for sheer determination in their attempt to outwit the Doctor. Best of all, the Daleks looked and sounded back to their fearsome best with Nick Briggs ramping up the sinister undercurrents of the classic voice. It would have been fun to see the new Zygons reused but it is unlikely Moffat will resist the temptation to make a story with them as the main villains of the piece.

The jeopardy of a regeneration story is considerably diminished by the knowledge that we all know the doctor will emerge with a new body at the end of the episode, no matter how traumatic his death. This time around however Steven Moffat chose to deal with the finality of a timelord’s thirteenth incarnation. We say “chose” because he could have written off Tennant’s “hand” regeneration so that it didn’t count or could have ignored the limit completely as Russell T Davies had a mind to. Whilst still knowing there will be a regeneration, we watched with the added question of how could the doctor get a fourteenth body – would it be a complete new cycle of regenerations or a one off? In a very brief scene the Doctor quickly explains to Clara why his next death will be his final fate. The Doctor’s acknowledgement that his previous incarnation has vanity issues at the time adds humour to this sad scene. Ageing and death become something of a theme in the story with the Doctor’s ageing body contrasting with Tasha Lem’s body (since she is against ageing). In many ways if the doctor did die of old age it would have been a triumph. He points this out to the Daleks who despite centuries of hunting him down had still never managed to kill him (though from their perspective according to The Asylum of the Daleks they keep him alive as sport).

The gift of a whole new regeneration cycle from the Time Lords, on the face of it in response to Clara’s intervention will likely prove to have been motivated by their own desire to one day escape back into this universe. And if the series is to continue with the new direction promised in The Day of the Doctor then the search for Gallifrey is still on. Whether the new Doctor likes it or not they apparently want to be found, and therefore are not happy with the fate the doctor left them in DOTD so expect more twists on the way and revelations about this supposed new cycle.

A wonderful swansong for Matt Smith he once again conjured images of many of his predecessors. Lovely as it was to hear him call the TARDIS his ship (Hartnell) and to dress like Pertwee in the red lined cape, it will be his Troughtonesque mannerisms and walk that will be most missed. Capaldi has already showed off his lapel clutching Hartnell impersonation and would be quite suited to a Pertwee debonair and authoritarian style but you cannot see him channelling Troughton one iota.

The regeneration scene itself was tantalizingly brief but only when compared to the eleventh doctor’s first scene and leaves us with absolutely no indication what kind of doctor we can expect with Capaldi. It did however give Matt Smith the opportunity to end his time on the show with a touchingly humble and reflective parting speech. At times during his stint he seemed to be so naturally one of the lads, a very human loving Doctor, but on rare occasions he would look quite alien and disconcerting with his facial expressions and staccato mannerisms, displaying an intensity that could almost burn. Matt Smith brought that strangeness to bear in his last scene. Having found friendship and family with Amy and Rory their loss hung over the rest of his tenure in the Tardis and it was perhaps quite fitting that Clara was cast aside for Amy Pond in that last scene. It would have been less harsh on Clara if it was Amy and Rory together whom the Doctor imagined. One notable absence was River Song though the Tasha Lem character seemed to fulfil a similar role, at times uncannily so.

After three hundred years saving the people of Christmas town and four years mesmerizing children across the globe with his antics and heroics the eleventh Doctor’s era has come to a fitting and suitably epic end. Fan sites will continue to debate imagined plot holes and unanswered questions but this episode as simply as possible rounds off the last four years of the show and should bring closure to the eleventh Doctor’s extraordinary reign.

The plaudits were well and truly out for Steven Moffat’s anniversary special but this episode has justifiably received mixed reviews by comparison. Whilst straightforward to those who have stayed loyal to the show throughout the Matt Smith era, it is fair to say that the casual viewer may have been a little lost. The scope of the story set as it was over three hundred years did not help nor did the lack of explanation or background to the Doctor’s relationship with Tasha Lem. Clara is particularly ill served in this one and considering the extent of her sacrificial love for the doctor one can only hope that the Capaldi Doctor at least for a time will show more understanding than the eleventh doctor who fails to even notice Clara’s admission of fancying him in the truth field. The incidental music could have done more to provide variation in pace and mood but instead the more reflective scenes felt rushed. Scripted well there was something not quite right timing wise such as with the scene where Clara is visibly moved empathizing with her Grandma’s regrets.

Despite these niggles as a story to close the eleventh doctor’s innings it worked beautifully. Thank you Matt Smith for making Doctor Who relevant and loved by a new generation of children. A bold and daring choice of lead actor, in case any one ever doubted this, every rewatch of The Time Of The Doctor will reinforce his credentials as one of the best actors to have played the role. Capaldi is expected to be an instant hit with his acting calibre and range, but watch out – he will do well to come out of the shadow of his predecessor as successfully as Matt Smith did. Whether he will be as instant a hit as the regeneration remains to be seen.