Doctor Who 2013 Christmas Special Thoughts
Jan. 3rd, 2014 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaThe Time of the Doctor
I liked it overall. It felt rushed but there were a lot of great scenes.
• So what is the new Doctor going to be called? Are we going with Twelve even though it's not technically correct?
• I loved Eleven hallucinating Amelia and thought that was perfect. The right amount of sentiment. The Amy appearance seconds later didn't work for me as well. It was just a little too much. But it was still really nice to see her.
• I was pleasantly surprised at how many dangling threads Moffat managed to tie up, all together, with this episode. The exploding TARDIS, the Crack, the Silence, Trenzelore and "the silence will fall" and the Doctor's name.
• Oh and they also threw in an answer about what was in the Doctor's room/what his greatest fear was in 'The God Complex' - the Crack. I'm not sure how well that works but at least we go an answer.
• Loved Clara's "His name, his name is the Doctor. All the name he needs. Everything you need to know about him." It was a great moment.
• I loved Mother Superious Tasha Lem and her relationship with the Doctor. Pretty much everything about them was great. It was clear she's known other Doctor's. I wonder who was her first? I really hope we get to see her again.
• The scene with old Doctor and Clara was wonderful. I loved her resting her head on his lap. I liked this exchange:
"Doctor, what are you going to do?" - Clara
"Oh, I don't know. Talk very fast, hope something good happens, take the credit. That's generally how it works." - Doctor
- Also the poem, how fitting: "And now it's time for one last bow, like all your other selves. Eleven's hour is over now. The clock is striking Twelves."
• I loved Handles. His death at the end and the Doctor's reaction to it was genuinely moving. I wonder if he's going to count as a Companion?
• I actually liked the truth about who the Silence are. Confessional priests for the Papal Mainframe is an interesting origin. It, along with the fact that the antagonist Silence from season 6 were a breakaway sect, does put a different spin on the Doctor making it so that any human who saw one would try to kill it. Um, oops?
• I liked the entirety of the scene where the Doctor/Clara meet with Dalek Tasha except for this line: "That is a woman!". I loved:
- the realisation she was dead and everyone's reactions.
- Clara's reaction to being threatened with death - " You'll kill me anyway. What difference does it make? I'm not afraid. I'll leave that to you. Awesome!
- the Doctor making Tasha so angry that she broke free of the Dalek's control so she could slap him and everything about their interactions after.
- "None of this was for you, you fatuous egotist. It was for the peace. Fly away, Doctor!" - Tasha.
• "You've had practice at restraining your inner psychopath for years. Don't fail." - Doctor Huh. Hmm. What did he mean by that?
• I loved the Doctor's home and the TARDIS being filled with children's drawings. That he was basically everyone's favourite uncle on Trenzalore - fixing toys, dancing and being fun. It seems so appropriate that his last days where filled with children. I also liked how it was seeing Barnable waiting for him that induced him to return to Trenzalore.
• I wonder if the Doctor, who couldn't handle an hour at the Ponds, would have managed those first three hundred years as sentry duty if the TARDIS hadn't been gone?
• You'd think that if the Doctor knew that war was inevitable, or at least once it started getting bad, that he would have evacuated the entire Christmas village into the TARDIS and dropped them off on a new safer planet.
• I didn't like that Ten's partial-regeneration in Journey's End has been retconned as an actual regeneration.
• I feel like it would have been more interesting if we'd had a season of the Doctor dealing with the fact that he was on his last regeneration and seeing how that affected him.
• I wasn't completely sold on the Time Lords giving the Doctor a new set of regenerations.
• In the end the standoff didn't entirely work for me. Once it got to the point where the Doctor knew death was certain why wouldn't he say his name and release the Time Lords? If the Time Lords knew what was happening why didn't they do anything - either closing the crack or coming through? I like the whole idea - Gallifrey on the other side of the crack - but how it played out didn't work for me 100%
• Eleven has to be the longest lived of all regeneration excepting perhaps One, right? He had to have almost doubled his lifespan in this one regeneration. It was, what, at least 600 years on Trenzalor itself? 300 + however long after he sent Clara away the second time (that has to be just as long if not longer). Plus the 200 years he was off by himself. Plus the decades or more when during the Pond era (it was at least 10-20 years for the Ponds, the Doctor came in and out of their lives so likely longer for him). So Eleven has lived at least 800+ years. I could easily buy 1,000 years or more. Wow.
I liked it overall. It felt rushed but there were a lot of great scenes.
• So what is the new Doctor going to be called? Are we going with Twelve even though it's not technically correct?
• I loved Eleven hallucinating Amelia and thought that was perfect. The right amount of sentiment. The Amy appearance seconds later didn't work for me as well. It was just a little too much. But it was still really nice to see her.
• I was pleasantly surprised at how many dangling threads Moffat managed to tie up, all together, with this episode. The exploding TARDIS, the Crack, the Silence, Trenzelore and "the silence will fall" and the Doctor's name.
• Oh and they also threw in an answer about what was in the Doctor's room/what his greatest fear was in 'The God Complex' - the Crack. I'm not sure how well that works but at least we go an answer.
• Loved Clara's "His name, his name is the Doctor. All the name he needs. Everything you need to know about him." It was a great moment.
• I loved Mother Superious Tasha Lem and her relationship with the Doctor. Pretty much everything about them was great. It was clear she's known other Doctor's. I wonder who was her first? I really hope we get to see her again.
• The scene with old Doctor and Clara was wonderful. I loved her resting her head on his lap. I liked this exchange:
"Doctor, what are you going to do?" - Clara
"Oh, I don't know. Talk very fast, hope something good happens, take the credit. That's generally how it works." - Doctor
- Also the poem, how fitting: "And now it's time for one last bow, like all your other selves. Eleven's hour is over now. The clock is striking Twelves."
• I loved Handles. His death at the end and the Doctor's reaction to it was genuinely moving. I wonder if he's going to count as a Companion?
• I actually liked the truth about who the Silence are. Confessional priests for the Papal Mainframe is an interesting origin. It, along with the fact that the antagonist Silence from season 6 were a breakaway sect, does put a different spin on the Doctor making it so that any human who saw one would try to kill it. Um, oops?
• I liked the entirety of the scene where the Doctor/Clara meet with Dalek Tasha except for this line: "That is a woman!". I loved:
- the realisation she was dead and everyone's reactions.
- Clara's reaction to being threatened with death - " You'll kill me anyway. What difference does it make? I'm not afraid. I'll leave that to you. Awesome!
- the Doctor making Tasha so angry that she broke free of the Dalek's control so she could slap him and everything about their interactions after.
- "None of this was for you, you fatuous egotist. It was for the peace. Fly away, Doctor!" - Tasha.
• "You've had practice at restraining your inner psychopath for years. Don't fail." - Doctor Huh. Hmm. What did he mean by that?
• I loved the Doctor's home and the TARDIS being filled with children's drawings. That he was basically everyone's favourite uncle on Trenzalore - fixing toys, dancing and being fun. It seems so appropriate that his last days where filled with children. I also liked how it was seeing Barnable waiting for him that induced him to return to Trenzalore.
• I wonder if the Doctor, who couldn't handle an hour at the Ponds, would have managed those first three hundred years as sentry duty if the TARDIS hadn't been gone?
• You'd think that if the Doctor knew that war was inevitable, or at least once it started getting bad, that he would have evacuated the entire Christmas village into the TARDIS and dropped them off on a new safer planet.
• I didn't like that Ten's partial-regeneration in Journey's End has been retconned as an actual regeneration.
• I feel like it would have been more interesting if we'd had a season of the Doctor dealing with the fact that he was on his last regeneration and seeing how that affected him.
• I wasn't completely sold on the Time Lords giving the Doctor a new set of regenerations.
• In the end the standoff didn't entirely work for me. Once it got to the point where the Doctor knew death was certain why wouldn't he say his name and release the Time Lords? If the Time Lords knew what was happening why didn't they do anything - either closing the crack or coming through? I like the whole idea - Gallifrey on the other side of the crack - but how it played out didn't work for me 100%
• Eleven has to be the longest lived of all regeneration excepting perhaps One, right? He had to have almost doubled his lifespan in this one regeneration. It was, what, at least 600 years on Trenzalor itself? 300 + however long after he sent Clara away the second time (that has to be just as long if not longer). Plus the 200 years he was off by himself. Plus the decades or more when during the Pond era (it was at least 10-20 years for the Ponds, the Doctor came in and out of their lives so likely longer for him). So Eleven has lived at least 800+ years. I could easily buy 1,000 years or more. Wow.
