![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Time of the Doctor reaction post
Dec. 26th, 2013 01:50 amI am apparently Grumpy Fan in relation to Doctor Who. While there were definitely some things I enjoyed, if you are looking for unadulterated squee you might want to scroll past.
Sadly, "The Time of the Doctor" carries on the tradition from "The End of Time" of sending off a popular Doctor with an overstuffed wreck of a final episode. I wish Moffat had stripped off some of the confusing excess plot to give the episode a stronger emotional core.
On the one hand, I was glad to see several of the unresolved plot holes from Eleven's era finally given a bit more explanation (the crack in the universe, the exploding TARDIS, "silence will fall when the question is asked," etc.), but I sort of feel like it was too much for one episode to handle. Certainly there was no reason to have Daleks AND Silence AND Weeping Angels AND Cybermen AND Sontarans there. This ep fixed some plot holes, but created new ones: if the Doctor didn't actually die on Trenzalore, where did the giant TARDIS-grave in "The Name of the Doctor" come from? Also, I am a bit annoyed that Moffat created the War Doctor and decided to count the metacrisis as a regeneration to manufacture the danger of this being the Doctor's last life, but then this episode was the first we heard of it. In "The Impossible Astronaut" he got shot once and apparently started to regenerate until he was immediately shot again. Where did that attempted regeneration come from?
The Day of the Doctor: so Gallifrey isn't destroyed, but it's lost and who knows when/if we'll ever see it again?
The Time of the Doctor: O HAI GUISE GALLIFREY HERE WITH A JOKE FOR YOU. KNOCK KNOCK. WHO'S THERE? DOCTOR WHO? HA HA GET IT? SERIOUSLY GUISE LET US OUT SO WE CAN RESTART THE TIEM WAR AND BURN DOWN THE UNIVERSE. KTHX. OH BTW, HERE ARE SOME BONUS REGENERATIONS WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE. MERRY CHRISTMAS.
(I have no idea why the Time Lords speak in capslock LOLspeak. I also have no idea why appealing to their love of the Doctor worked to get him a new regeneration cycle in the episode, because most of the Time Lords think the Doctor should go fuck himself.)
Eleven lived for like 200 years while trying to run away from his supposed death in series 6 and didn't appear to age a bit. Here, Eleven spent 300 years on Trenzalore and aged tremendously. Why so uneven? Maybe it was not having the TARDIS with him that caused so much aging? I don't think Nine or Ten would have survived being stuck for three centuries in one small town on one planet with sanity intact. I'm somewhat surprised that Eleven did. I did like all the children's drawings he kept in his living space in the town.
Good to see Clara having a life beyond the Doctor, even if none of her family members had more than one personality trait apiece. This didn't need to be a Clara-centric episode, but it would be nice if her family reappeared and got deepened during Clara's tenure as a companion. I was NOT HAPPY about Clara blurting out that she traveled with the Doctor because she fancied him under the truth field. That was not at all the vibe I got from modern!Clara in S7. She didn't fully trust him for quite some time, and even when she trusted him I always got the impression that she thought of him as a weird platonic friend, sort of an odd combination of mentor and someone who needs looking after, not a hot guy she wanted to bang. Other than that, I thought the truth field was interesting both as a plot device and joke source. (Unlike the nudity jokes, which I mostly found really unfunny.)
I have seen some people speculating that the priestess lady (Tasha) may actually be a previously unknown regeneration of River Song, which would make the fact that she uses so many of the same character tropes more excusable (yet another woman who has power but is head over heels lustful for the Doctor).
One of my favorite moments of the episode was when the Doctor whipped off his wig to reveal the shaved head underneath. I knew that Matt Smith was wearing a wig for most of the filming of this after having shaved his head for a different role, but I was never expecting it to be lampshaded like that. The wig gave Eleven one last piece of ridiculous headgear before the end!
I was unsurprised that Karen Gillian got a cameo, but I thought it was a really sweet touch. Aww, Amy. That was pretty obviously a different child standing in for wee!Amelia, but I suppose the original is probably looking too different by now.
The Doctor's regenerations are getting bigger every time in New Who. Nine glowed, but didn't mess up anything other than his ability to stay conscious when regenerating into Ten. Ten set fire to the TARDIS control room and made his poor wife crash when he changed to Eleven. Eleven blasted an entire Dalek fleet out of the sky with his regeneration energy. I dread to think what will blow up when it's Twelve's turn.
Overall, while I think Matt Smith is immensely talented and has brought a lot to the role, I'm not really sad to see him go. Even as I appreciate Matt Smith as an actor and a person, Eleven's just never been my Doctor. (Most of that is the writing, and sadly the showrunner isn't changing, but perhaps the new Doctor will be written differently enough to hook me a bit more.) Eleven's had a big three seasons, with a lot of crap episodes but also some true gold, and now it's time for a change.
Hooray for eyebrows!
On the one hand, I was glad to see several of the unresolved plot holes from Eleven's era finally given a bit more explanation (the crack in the universe, the exploding TARDIS, "silence will fall when the question is asked," etc.), but I sort of feel like it was too much for one episode to handle. Certainly there was no reason to have Daleks AND Silence AND Weeping Angels AND Cybermen AND Sontarans there. This ep fixed some plot holes, but created new ones: if the Doctor didn't actually die on Trenzalore, where did the giant TARDIS-grave in "The Name of the Doctor" come from? Also, I am a bit annoyed that Moffat created the War Doctor and decided to count the metacrisis as a regeneration to manufacture the danger of this being the Doctor's last life, but then this episode was the first we heard of it. In "The Impossible Astronaut" he got shot once and apparently started to regenerate until he was immediately shot again. Where did that attempted regeneration come from?
The Day of the Doctor: so Gallifrey isn't destroyed, but it's lost and who knows when/if we'll ever see it again?
The Time of the Doctor: O HAI GUISE GALLIFREY HERE WITH A JOKE FOR YOU. KNOCK KNOCK. WHO'S THERE? DOCTOR WHO? HA HA GET IT? SERIOUSLY GUISE LET US OUT SO WE CAN RESTART THE TIEM WAR AND BURN DOWN THE UNIVERSE. KTHX. OH BTW, HERE ARE SOME BONUS REGENERATIONS WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE. MERRY CHRISTMAS.
(I have no idea why the Time Lords speak in capslock LOLspeak. I also have no idea why appealing to their love of the Doctor worked to get him a new regeneration cycle in the episode, because most of the Time Lords think the Doctor should go fuck himself.)
Eleven lived for like 200 years while trying to run away from his supposed death in series 6 and didn't appear to age a bit. Here, Eleven spent 300 years on Trenzalore and aged tremendously. Why so uneven? Maybe it was not having the TARDIS with him that caused so much aging? I don't think Nine or Ten would have survived being stuck for three centuries in one small town on one planet with sanity intact. I'm somewhat surprised that Eleven did. I did like all the children's drawings he kept in his living space in the town.
Good to see Clara having a life beyond the Doctor, even if none of her family members had more than one personality trait apiece. This didn't need to be a Clara-centric episode, but it would be nice if her family reappeared and got deepened during Clara's tenure as a companion. I was NOT HAPPY about Clara blurting out that she traveled with the Doctor because she fancied him under the truth field. That was not at all the vibe I got from modern!Clara in S7. She didn't fully trust him for quite some time, and even when she trusted him I always got the impression that she thought of him as a weird platonic friend, sort of an odd combination of mentor and someone who needs looking after, not a hot guy she wanted to bang. Other than that, I thought the truth field was interesting both as a plot device and joke source. (Unlike the nudity jokes, which I mostly found really unfunny.)
I have seen some people speculating that the priestess lady (Tasha) may actually be a previously unknown regeneration of River Song, which would make the fact that she uses so many of the same character tropes more excusable (yet another woman who has power but is head over heels lustful for the Doctor).
One of my favorite moments of the episode was when the Doctor whipped off his wig to reveal the shaved head underneath. I knew that Matt Smith was wearing a wig for most of the filming of this after having shaved his head for a different role, but I was never expecting it to be lampshaded like that. The wig gave Eleven one last piece of ridiculous headgear before the end!
I was unsurprised that Karen Gillian got a cameo, but I thought it was a really sweet touch. Aww, Amy. That was pretty obviously a different child standing in for wee!Amelia, but I suppose the original is probably looking too different by now.
The Doctor's regenerations are getting bigger every time in New Who. Nine glowed, but didn't mess up anything other than his ability to stay conscious when regenerating into Ten. Ten set fire to the TARDIS control room and made his poor wife crash when he changed to Eleven. Eleven blasted an entire Dalek fleet out of the sky with his regeneration energy. I dread to think what will blow up when it's Twelve's turn.
Overall, while I think Matt Smith is immensely talented and has brought a lot to the role, I'm not really sad to see him go. Even as I appreciate Matt Smith as an actor and a person, Eleven's just never been my Doctor. (Most of that is the writing, and sadly the showrunner isn't changing, but perhaps the new Doctor will be written differently enough to hook me a bit more.) Eleven's had a big three seasons, with a lot of crap episodes but also some true gold, and now it's time for a change.
Hooray for eyebrows!