Getting a Handle on Things

So here we are... An episode that takes place on Christmas. And they end up at a place called Christmas. And it aired on Christmas. What a coincidence. I wonder if anyone else noticed?

I'm basically a sleuth!

The Story

A message is sent across the galaxy and even though "everyone who [hears] it [finds] themselves afraid", they all come really close to the planet that's sending it.

In order to investigate this message, the Doctor picks up Clara and, after he meets the in-laws, they go to Church.

After Tasha Lem has her obligatory flirting session with the Doctor, she sends him and Clara down to the planet, where they find themselves in A Town Called Mercy Christmas. It doesn't take long for them to find the source of the message.

On the other side is Prisoner Zero, just waiting to get his revenge.

With the help of the Doctor's new severed Cyberman head friend Handles, the Doctor and Clara learn fairly quickly that the message is a question from the newly resurrected Gallifrey. And of course, it is the age-old question:

They even named a TV show after it.

Turns out, this is Trenzalore, and the crack in the wall was opened by the Time Lords, who want to come back through only when they know it's safe. But we all know it'll never be safe, because there are a bunch of trigger-happy Daleks floating above just waiting to restart the Time War. So we're left with a kind of Mexican stand-off between the Doctor, who could unleash Gallifrey if the Daleks attack, and the Daleks, who will obliterate Christmas if the Doctor lets the Time Lords out.

Don't worry about the Cybermen; they thought it was a good idea to equip their wooden model with a flamethrower...

In order to protect Trenzalore, the Doctor stays at Christmas for 600 years, and tricks Clara into getting stuck at Christmas dinner with her dad, her grandma, and her repulsive step-mother.

"You know what they say: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice and suddenly I like boy bands."

Clara goes back and discovers that the Doctor has not aged well. But that's okay, because once he goes up to the watch-tower, Clara says a few well-chosen words into the crack, and the Doctor explodes.

This is actually how the light-saber was invented.

Into a new Doctor.

"Ooh! Buttons!"

Who can't fly the TARDIS.

The Review

I think that if I had to assign two adjectives to this episode, they would be "surprising" and "fitting".

For instance, Clara was "surprised" that the Doctor couldn't find any clothes that were "fitting".

Of course, I don't actually have that restriction, so I can go into more detail.

Like anyone else, I had wondered what exactly caused the TARDIS to explode all over Season 5, but I had just assumed that the writers thought they'd already answered that question. Similarly, I thought they'd just given up trying to explain the huge grudge that the Silence had against the Doctor.

It all started when a Silent boy met a Dalek girl.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see that they actually gave answers to all those lingering questions. And even more than that, they took those villains and made them reasonable. Even Madame Kovarian, who was busy trying to murder the Doctor at every step, was doing it all to save a planet.

I was also surprised to see Gallifrey re-introduced so soon, and so effectively. As might have been obvious, I was less than thrilled with the way that they allowed the Doctor's home planet to survive the Time War, wiping away existing canon. That said, the possibility of Gallifrey's sudden eruption from the wall-smile drove the story in a way that not much else could have.

The Face of Boe Gallifrey

Of course, I was also unpleasantly surprised, specifically by a bad regeneration scene. It was so long and drawn out, and yet didn't feel like it had anything new. The 9-10 one was sudden, and the 10-11 one was emotional. This one could have been epic - have Eleven go out with a bang, a huge bang. In fact, when Clara went back into the TARDIS, I was expecting her to encounter a composed-yet-confused 12, or something like that. Instead, we ended up getting so many back-to-back monologues that I was actually getting impatient.

"I DO want to go!"

And when the actual regeneration happened, it was so fast that I thought it was an editing error. Clara holds her hand out, and then just kind of holds it there, close enough that they could touch, which they both clearly want to do, and close enough that it's still probably dangerous for her. And then she keeps holding it there until... poof!

He turned into a squirrel!

...Oops, wrong show.... Poof!

"Nooooo! I liked that squirrel!"

One more question. What were they crashing into? 10-11 blew up the TARDIS while he was in orbit, so it makes sense that he was crashing, but 11 never started up the TARDIS before 12-ing. I guess Steven Moffat assumed that a scene like that couldn't be interesting without some kind of explosion.

So the episode was fairly surprising. It messed up things that Doctor Who has usually gotten right, and resolved a number of issues that I thought had been forgotten. But in many other ways, disappointing ways, The Time of the Doctor managed to repeat many of the mistakes of the season that it closed.

For instance, why can't a dead character ever stay dead???

It was a running gag for Rory, and now it's a running gag for everyone. Pictured above is Tasha Lem, after she spent about five minutes dead, possessed by a Dalek.

In all fairness, this episode did have one casualty.

The tears carved into his eyes are the only ones shed for him.

A severed Cyberman head that nobody had any attachment to to begin with.

In a similar vein, when is the last time a Dalek killed someone?

When I first saw Dalek in Season 1, the Dalek was terrifying because of how easily it could kill; say "Exterminate" and skeletonize someone with a laser. The Time of the Doctor is their third appearence in Season 7, and I don't think they've exterminated a single person in all that time.

They used to be goofy-looking trash cans of murder and terror. Now they're just goofy-looking trash can things.

Moving on, why is the Eleventh Doctor so stupid?

Who, after living more than 1200 years, thinks that it's a good idea to wander into people's houses naked?

"Rules apply to me too?"

Ten had a gimmick of being nonchalant to a contextually surprising degree. Nine's gimmick was being kind of a jerk and grinning a lot. It seems like Eleven's gimmick is being a complete idiot who has no understanding of social customs that he himself followed for centuries. Maybe he is getting old...

Also, how did he not recognize the Gallifreyan language?

And finally, was there really a 600-year war going on?

Obligatory explosion screenshot

Sure, we got lots of explosions and plenty of narration saying that there was a war being fought, but, as I mentioned before, nobody actually died, and Christmas managed to stay standing. In a war, there wouldn't have been children playing out in the middle of a plaza that could easily be invaded by Cybermen.

People on the left: Let's run away from whatever is to the left of the screen!
People on the right: Let's run towards whatever those people are running away from!

Also, if this whole war was caused by that bizarre Mexican stand-off between the Doctor and the Daleks, didn't the Daleks break it by repeatedly invading Trenzalore? And when the Doctor didn't retaliate by releasing Gallifrey, why didn't the Daleks seize the moment, and destroy Christmas, and the Doctor, once and for all?

Of course, there was plenty to like about The Time of the Doctor. My favorite thing about it was the reveal that the Silents (or the Silence? not entirely sure) were fighting to save the world. Sure, they were antagonistic to the Doctor, but my favorite kind of bad guy is one with a legitimate point. These guys were trying to kill the Doctor because the Doctor's mere existence was a threat to the well-being of the universe!

It all started when a Silent met Emperor Palpatine, and their illegitimate child fought FOR JUSTICE!

And once their goals aligned, the Silents joined forces with the Doctor against the Daleks. It was the best way that reveal could have gone.

I also really enjoyed the way they wrapped up the Trenzalore storyline, Clara's adorable grandmother, and old Doctor.

"When I was your age, we had to set our TARDISes for 800 years in the future in order to use the internet!"

Oh, and you can't forget that on Christmas, the Doctor got stuck in traffic going to church.

Typical galactic Sunday traffic.

So I had mentioned that I was wondering exactly how the Doctor's longevity would be affected by the inclusion of John Hurt's War Doctor. Since the Classic Series had established that he could only regenerate twelve times, and he had already gone through eleven. Maybe they would ignore that rule, since it hadn't been stated since the revival? Maybe they would end the show after Capaldi? Maybe they would say that John Hurt didn't count because he didn't go by the Doctor?

Actually, they threw yet another curveball - Ten's not-quite-regeneration counted! Which meant that Smith was his last face!

Never have I seen a more handy plot device.

I had completely forgotten about that, but in retrospect, I'm glad they counted that. Excluding Tennant's regeneration into himself would have been cheating.

But now we've got a problem. The Doctor can't regenerate again, and yet Steven Moffat signed a contract with Peter Capaldi. Will they have to write in a new Time Lord called The Surgeon? Will Moffat begin a storyline involving the Romans from The Fires of Pompeii?

The real Last Centurion

So Gallifrey's resurrection paid off. First, it drove the entire plot of the episode, and then, when it seemed all hope was lost, the Time Council sent the Doctor some drugs to snort.

For improved longevity and reduced wrinkles, try Gallifreyan Gold!
Use in three easy steps!
1. Open a crack in the fabric of time and space
2. Extract Gold powder
3. Eat gold powder
Side effects: May cause you to transform into a completely different person. Call your doctor if you experience a regeneration lasting more than four hours.

I will hand it to them. The writers used this planet well. Gallifrey was not only the source of, but also the solution to, most of the conflict in The Time of the Doctor. And they managed to tie all of it up without destroying too much canon (Valeyard Who?)

Overall

The Time of the Doctor, like much of Season 7, had its ups and its downs. It sported a charming tale and resolved a lot of hanging questions that I had assumed were going to dangle forever. The Daleks continued their slide into a more and more pathetic state, and the editors (if there are any) clearly didn't review the story for plot holes. But I'd say the ups win over the downs. The show at least partially redeemed its resurrection of Gallifrey by making it an essential plot point, and a lot of the Doctor's history was explained beautifully. And, of course, what can beat the Doctor and the Silents teaming up against the Daleks?

A flawed tale, but an enjoyable one. An apt closing for Season 7 and Matt Smith's tenure, in both the good and the bad. But sorely lacking in squirrels, a fault for which I will make up.

Nom nom nom

See you in Season 8!