The Time of the Doctor (Christmas Special; 2013)
Viewed 24 Apr 2018

Doctor/Companion: Eleven, Clara Oswald
Stars: Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman
Preceding Story: The Day of the Doctor (Eleven, Ten, War, Clara, Kate Stewart)
Succeeding Story: Deep Breath (Twelve, Clara)

I don’t know what others’ families are like, but in ours obsessions come and go in waves. We’ll get all excited about something and dive in head-first, only to get derailed somewhere along the way for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s a scheduling issue that throws us off our groove, or sometimes something else piques our interest and supersedes the current passion-of-the-moment.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2013 BBC

Such is the way of the girls’ run through modern Doctor Who. Once we got on a roll, we were powering through episodes at an incredible rate. With only twenty-one left to get them up-to-date on the entirety of the modern era, we hit one of those bumps in the road. It’s now been more than a month since we last watched Who, having for the time being move on to the MCU.

All this is by way of explanation that my recollections of the girls reactions to this (and the following) episode have already been blurred by time. I have my notes, but they’re spare, and lack of temporal proximity makes them more difficult than usual to interpret. Besides, the girls did more watching than openly reacting. But there are a few key moments in the Eleventh Doctor’s last story that made an impression on them, and therefore on me.

Moffat threw everything but the kitchen sink at us here. There are Daleks, Cybermen, Silence, and the Crack. In fact, there appears to be a message coming through the Crack that no one can interpret. But the Doctor conveniently has something that can help his new “friend” Handles the Cyber-head decode that message: the Seal of the High Council of Gallifrey. “Nicked it off the Master in the Death Zone,” he explains, and the girls bark a laugh. We’ve only recently watched The Five Doctors, and they understand the reference perfectly.

Then Moffat starts tying the threads of the last three years together: the question hidden in plain sight (which must never be answered), Trenzalore (the place where the Doctor dies in a massive war), the Silence (a church dedicated to ensuring the Doctor never says his name, to silence). And the Doctor sends Clara home, and stays to protect the people of the town called Christmas.

Of course he becomes a right jolly old elf, teaching the children how to do the drunk giraffe (which gets big grins and more giggles from my girls). But Clara and the TARDIS make their way back to him in 300 years’ time. “Three hundred years?” the girls repeat, incredulous.

Then he takes Clara and Handles to the roof to watch the sunrise. Handles shuts down for the last time, and H chuckles. “Why are you laughing?” V chastises her. “The Doctor’s dog just died!” But the conversation is moving on, and the Doctor is explaining how he can’t ever regenerate again.

“So how do they resolve this?” H wonders aloud, knowing full well that Capaldi and Whittaker are yet to come. “No wait—don’t tell me.” That’s my girl; no spoilers!

Eventually the Doctor tricks back Clara into the TARDIS, enticing her with the turkey she was trying to prepare for her family’s Christmas dinner. “Did he do it again?” H asks, as Clara comes back up the stairs and discovers the Doctor is nowhere to be seen. “Obviously,” answers V, and Clara steps out to find she’s home again.

After some angsty stuff that puts me firmly in mind of Rose wailing at Mickey and her mum in the chip shop near the end of The Parting of the Ways, Clara is brought back to Trenzalore. She finds a much aged Doctor, and opens a Christmas cracker with him. She reads the excerpt of a poem on the paper inside: “And now it’s time for one last bow, like all your other selves. Eleven’s hour is over now. The clock is striking twelve’s.” The girls nod sagely, even as the Doctor makes a petulant reply. “That makes sense in the context,” they agree.

From this point, we mostly just watch until the end. The girls are delighted at the sight of fish fingers and custard on the console, and gasp her name in delight at the first sight of Amy’s hand. “Her hair!” they exclaim in unison. (I inform them later that both actors are wearing wigs in that scene. Weeks afterward, we watch the film for which Gillan had shaved her head, and I can point out the connection.)

And then the girls’ first Doctor appears. Sort of. They are utterly perplexed by his discussion of the color of his kidneys, and think he looks weird (which—fair cop). He looks at Clara and asks if she knows “how to fly thing,” and the credits roll. “What?”

General reactions:

• H – overall positive; never overly attached to Eleven, so not super sad to see him go
• V – more perplexed by Capaldi’s introduction than just about anything else
• mrfranklin – I’ve never been much enamored of this one, and that hasn’t really changed

This is an ambitious episode. It tries to tie up plot threads from the entirety of Eleven’s run into one cohesive story, all while being a fluffy, Christmassy romp for the casual viewers who would be sitting down to watch as a family the one time a year they saw the show. I don’t think it completely holds up, but the girls seemed to enjoy it for the most part. I suspect they were more interested in putting Smith behind them and getting on to Capaldi, who was a Doctor they knew they liked. Nevertheless, at least we’ve solved that nasty “limited regenerations” thing for a while longer.

Verdict: Thumbs up

Looking ahead: Deep Breath