DW: Flatline - Keeping It Up

"Doctor Who" does yet another monster-of-the-week style episode, but it's very good.

One of the things I've come to really enjoy about "Doctor Who" is the way they take seemingly unconnected concepts and strings them together to make a sci-fi adventure. This week's episode is about beings from a two-dimensional universe coming into ours wrecking havoc. Are they as evil as their actions suggest? Or are they just being misunderstood by creatures who've never experienced their reality?

There is little to no advancement in any of the series wide arcs this episode, except from a few throwaway lines here and there, but that is totally fine. This is the kind of episode that people will use to introduce their fans to "Doctor Who". It perfectly sums up what it is about, and how the series' universe works. You have the Doctor being stuck in a weird situation, alien monsters hunting down humans, and the various dragged-alongs who have to deal with what is going on. It's perfectly capable of standing on its own.

I still have some trouble with the kind of VFX they are using from time to time. Some simple stuff look very bad, whilst other seemingly more complex shots look above passable. It's not bad enough for me to get thrown out of the story every time it happens, but it's bad enough that I start to wonder why they are prioritising they way that they are. Do they have too small a budget? Are they saving their money for a big episode down the line? I don't think it's anything other than them not being able to present the material the way they want to, but the questions still linger.

DW: Mummy on the Orient Express - Monster Madness

We're at the eight episode of the eight series of new Doctor Who (or NuWho as it's sometimes called by its fans). We're over halfway through the first series of a brand new Doctor. In the newest episode, "Mummy on the Orient Express" we move both forwards and backwards in "Doctor Who"'s history, but it eventually lands on being an episode better than the average of its series.

"A Mummy on the Orient Express" is about a mummy on the Orient Express, to make it even more interesting the mummy can only be seen by the people it is about to attack, and the Orient Express is in space. This is the Doctor's and Clara's last hurrah. Clara wants to settle down with Danny, and can't quite handle darting off with the Doctor on adventures all the time any more. She wants a more quiet life, a stable life, one where she can know more certainly that she won't die the next time she steps through a pair of blue doors.

This is definitely a step up from last week's episode, and the one before that, and the one before that. It's the best of the series since "Listen", and there aren't many episodes before that's better than "A Mummy on the Orient Express" either. This episodes has almost everything I look for in an episode of "Doctor Who". A wacky premise, a skewed theme, funny one-time characters, and the continuing of a plot larger than any single episode. One of the best things this episode did was keeping the Doctor and Clara separate throughout most of it, we get to really see the new Doctor on his own. See how he deals with things without having his companion constantly by his side.

The episode also limited itself to almost just one set piece, a train car. We do get to see some other sets, but only briefly, and to show the viewer that there is more to the train than just this one cart. It makes the monster-of-the-week all the more scary and intriguing, the characters cannot just escape it. They're stuck on a train in the middle of space. The monster itself it not as much scary as it is interesting. It has some interesting abilities, but not once when I saw it was I scared. It was too much of a monster-monster, it wasn't like the Silence or the Angels who have traits of normality in them, the mummy was just a mummy. Kind of a setback.

Overall this episode was good and exciting. One of the most entertaining episodes of the series, in terms of just entertainment value it might even out-rank "Listen" (which wins on having a lot more value than just being entertaining). It was also fun to see the Doctor acknowledge so many things that's been happening to him before, and who he was before. He seems to be a Doctor who is much more aware of his past selves than he has normally been since the relaunch. It isn't too much, it doesn't come off as too self-referential, but they are nice nods and certainly gets a giggle from a fan who knows just the right amount of trivia to recognise it when it comes.

DW: Kill the Moon - On the Shoulders of Giants [Spoiler levels: High]

The Doctor boasts about being able to see all of time and space unfold in front of him, but there are certain times he cannot see. Grey blobs when big decisions are being made. "Kill the Moon" is about just such a time.

In "Kill the Moon" we follow the Doctor, Clara, and her student Courtney to the Moon in the year 2049. There is something wrong with the Moon, something big, something that's making the tides of Earth go haywire, and has strengthened the Moon's own gravity to the point it's as good as equal to Earth's. What exactly is it that's happened?

It's hard to discuss this episode without giving away the major reveals of it, so I'm not even going to try. If you haven't watched the episode, and you don't know what's going to happen, stop reading. I'll give you a few sentences worth of fluff so you don't accidentally see the next sentence and end up being spoiled. Are you gone now? You should be. It turns out, the Moon isn't a moon. It's the egg of a giant, celestial being, and it's about to hatch. This brings an important ethical question to the table, do they kill it to ensure life on Earth continues on? Or do they risk it in favour of not instantly killing what might be the most amazing life form in the universe? The initial plan was to blow pieces of the Moon off, decreasing its mass and hopefully causing its effects on Earth to stabilise.

Although there are a lot of fluff and uninteresting bits in this episode leading up to the reveal of the egg (giant germ spiders, the Moon not containing any minerals, and more) this is a really great episode. The Doctor gets his regenerational definition in terms of how he deals with humans, each regeneration deals in their own way, albeit mostly just minor differences between them. This Doctor likes to let the humans decide a lot. He won't let his own interference mess with the decisions that will lay humanity on its path for the next several millennia, he wants us to decide for ourselves, set our own paths. But in doing so he loses Clara. She's all of a sudden slung into making history altering decisions, she's literally hovering her finger above the button that will change it all, and she despises the Doctor for it. He's always been there for her, and when she needs him the most he's gone. It's a nice exploration of what might be to come. The first moment where Clara realises that the Doctor won't always be there, that he won't always be nice to her, or necessarily do what is best for humanity. And she can't handle it.

Overall this is a good episode, but perhaps not an overly rememberable one. The goofy b-film plot of the first half, with a deserted Moon base overrun by alien bugs, doesn't quite set the viewer up for what they're going to get. It seems like it will be just another monster-of-the-week story, when it really isn't. They should've spent more time on the egg, revealed that early and made the rest of the story deal with them dealing with it. It would've been a lot more interesting.

DW: The Caretaker - A Necessary Evil

"Doctor Who" has been mostly been increasing in quality as the current season has passed by, unfortunately tonight's episode is a bump down on the same graph.

In this week's episode the Doctor goes deep undercover at Clara's school, Coal Hill, as the caretaker. He's learned there's an alien killer robot hiding somewhere close by and he needs the school to trap and get rid of it. The story itself is no doubt a "Doctor Who" story. It's wacky, it's sci-fi, it's got the world by a thread, and only the Doctor can save it. But it still falls short of being an actual good episode.

First of all, the alien robot suffers from some of the weakest effects the show has had since the early days of the relaunch in 2005. They decided to go for special effects as they tend to do with most robots and aliens on "Doctor Who", but they didn't get it right. The robot never looked like an actual robot, it looked like a toy, like someone's plaything, it was hard to find it as menacing as it was supposed to be. Even when it started shooting deadly plasma beams all over the place I found myself not even flinching at its sight. We know the special effects team on "Doctor Who" can do good stuff. Just look at the Silence for example. They're just humans with a big mask and long-fingered gloves, but they still manage to be scary. This time they dropped the ball big time, hopefully it's due to them saving their production budget for something grander.

Secondly the sub-plot is tiring. It's once again centered around Clara and Danny and their relationship, making it absolutely cemented that Danny is going to stick around for a while. This episode marks the half-way point in the current season and despite Danny's promised big role the character is still rather unfamiliar, almost a stranger still. That's where the best thing about this episode comes into play. We absolutely need this episode if Danny's story arc is to lead to anything significant, or just long-standing, at all. We get to know Danny a lot more than we did before. We get to look more into his relationship with Clara, and we get glimpses of what the Doctor thinks of him. Hopefully this will mean there can be less get-to-know-Danny episodes in the future, and we can instead focus on the things that seems to be the main arcs of the coming seasons. Mainly the one about Heaven.

DW: Time Heist - Good But Forgettable

The Doctor still hasn't stopped running, and is going full speed in this action-packed adventure where time is of the essence.

In "Time Heist" we follow the Doctor, Clara, and two others whilst they're trying to rob the most secure bank in the galaxy for reasons they can't even remember. It's going back to the same sort of episodic theme that we first saw the Capaldi Doctor experience in "Into the Dalek". The episode is set in the distant future on an alien world inhabited by mostly humans who are living in a society that's a coin toss between a utopia and dystopia.

In this particular episode they stray away from the more heavy sci-fi tones that "Into the Dalek" delved into, and instead focuses on the people living in such a world. We're introduced to Psi and Saibra who in this episode are more or less as instrumental as the Doctor and Clara. They all have stakes in the robbery of the planet-wide bank, although they don't know for sure. At the beginning of the story they're greeted by a recording of themselves stating that they voluntarily wiped their own memories in order to go on the mission they had been handed. At the bank they face several obstacles, including a giant stalk-eyed alien who can remind you of the minotaur from "The God Complex". A big hulk of a creature walking slowly through hallways while showing you your deepest fears and secrets.

I thought this episode was rather fun. There were elements I'd wish it had gone more into, but in doing so they did manage to keep a concise and to-the-point story that kept me entertained and interested from start to finish. The new characters, Psi and Saibra, could have used some better writing or acting, they didn't feel as real as the other characters. They were there for their very specific purposes, and it seemed as if the writer didn't bother doing anything more with them. Because of this there were some troubles with their respective character endpoints, but I won't go too much in on that other than to say that they didn't feel quite satisfactory.

Overall I liked this episode. It's light, it's got action, and it's set in the future which is one of my favourite episode formats in "Doctor Who". Unfortunately it's a bit of a step down from last week's "Listen", but given just how great that episode was it would have been overly optimistic to expect anything as good or better. "Time Heist" is an episode that will keep you entertained when you watch it, but it's probably going to end up as that one episode you never think of when looking back at the series.

DW: Listen - The Sound of Awe [Spoiler levels: Medium]

The Doctor is back again with an episode which's trailers send you down memory lane in search of the classic NuWho episode "Blink". But I think "Listen" just might be better.

I feel that for every new episode of eight series of Doctor Who I've written about how it's gotten better, how I like it a lot more now than last week, and this week is no different. I genuinely think "Listen" might be my new favourite episode of the show. At the very least the best in a few series. I realise how uninformed and easily won-over I sound, but to be fair that is true. I had no real idea of what to expect from the Capaldi Doctor, and it would almost be impressive if this early in his tenure the episodes started to get worst. Almost every time there's a new Doctor it takes a little time to get going. A few episodes to really kick in. They have to go through the different themes Doctor Who has added to its rolodex over the years. A funny one, a periodic one, a future one, a scary one.

This episode is a scary one. It is all about what's underneath your bed. About what it is that you glimpse in the corner of your eye. What's making the foot step you hear right behind you. What makes you talk to yourself late at night. It's back to what Tennant had done with the Angels and what Smith had with the Silence, but this time for Capaldi's run. I feel it's done a lot better this time in terms of scariness. We never really get to know what it is the Doctor is looking for. Is he looking for something at all? Is something really there? Or has the Doctor just gone off to the really deep end?

Integrated into the main plot is the plot of Danny Pink, Clara's new romantic interest. They're sent back and forth in his timeline because of a malfunction happening when Clara got to telepathically interface with the TARDIS, effectively rendering her in direct control of the TARDIS itself. We get to see the past of Danny Pink, and the future. We get to speculate on whether what the Doctor and Clara does is what made Danny the man he is in present day, and whether or not what Clara is doing in the present day is what's reflecting into the future. It's a very interesting way of handling the romantic aspect of the show. Instead of constantly having scenes that's just showing them being lubby dubby, we get to explore their relationship through other means.

What really gets me about this episode is the feel and theme. It's still not the super gritty and ultra serious feeling that I felt we were promised over the last year and a half or so, but I don't mind that anymore. The Capaldi Doctor has shown himself in several different episode types and theme aspects. He's starting to really become a fully fleshed character. You can start to understand why he's doing what he's doing, and you're not as surprised by how he handles things. I still think I was right when I said last week that "Robot of Sherwood" would be referenced to as a classic Capaldi episode, but "Listen" will be the one talked about the most. It will be the one people say really sold them on Capaldi as the Doctor. It's now that it got good. It's now that he's the Doctor.

DW: Robot of Sherwood - Doctoring History

As I made clear in my posts about the two previous episodes starring the Capaldi Doctor, I wasn't overly keen on him. He didn't feel quite right, he fell between a few cracks that made him seem not quite like the Doctor. This episode changes that for the better.

"Robot of Sherwood" will go down as the episode that really cemented Capaldi's Doctor. There's no dillydallying about past episodes or events, they just get on with it, much like in last week's "Into the Dalek". However, unlike "Into the Dalek" this episode didn't feel like it was written for a different Doctor. This felt completely like a normal Doctor Who episode tailored to this new man we got to meet last year.

The most interesting this about this episode is perhaps the relationship between Robin Hood and the Doctor himself. Robin Hood acts much like Smith's Doctor in this rendition of the character. He always laughs in the face of danger, believing it much more wise to live life in enjoyment rather than bitterness. But he also knows how to deal with seriousness and drama, feeling like the same character despite the contrasting emotions. This episode feels very much like Capaldi's Doctor squaring off against Smith's Doctor. From the get-go Clara is excited about Robin Hood, much in the same way as she was about Smith's Doctor. She looks at him like a hero, and loves how he stands for what he does, and how he acts to defend it. Capaldi's Doctor sees this as a kind of unwelcome memory. He knows he's not quite the same as when he first met Clara, but he is the same. It hurts to see her act with someone else like she used to do with him. He starts trying to impress her, show that he can still be the person that he used to be, but in the end he doesn't have to.

The episode itself is very fun and an interesting turn on the regular period pieces Doctor Who does. The Doctor is adamant in his belief that Robin Hood is just a fictional character, and spends the episode trying to figure out what exactly he is, and where he comes from. The way the Doctor hypothesises aliens, robots, amusement parks, and all kind of weird scenarios make the episode feel a lot more science fictiony than your typical period piece (yes, even the ones containing cyborgs and dinosaurs), which in my book is a big bonus. I really love the episodes when the Doctor go full sci-fi, travelling far into the future or to distant alien worlds.

Overall I really enjoyed this episode, a lot more than I thought I would. It's satisfying to finally see Capaldi's Doctor settle in as his own character, and have him face off against someone so much like himself. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being one of the episodes remembered as a classic Capaldi episode.

DW: Into the Dalek - The Doctor Is In!

I wasn't quite sold on the new tone set by the new Doctor in last week's premiere episode, but Into the Dalek goes a long way in getting me interested in buying.

This episode really doesn't mess about when it comes to the story and plot. There's nearly no mention to this being a "new" Doctor, or how he's now almost completely different from before. They've done the wise decision of jumping ahead a bit in time in order to establish the feeling that this Doctor and Clara has been on their own fair deal of adventures. That they've gotten to know each other, that they have developed their own rapports and there's no need for dilly-daddling around the non-issue. Leaving the question about what kind of person he is now available to more fun ways of addressing it than just having two characters sit down and talk about it every episode.

There was however some, I felt, developmental problems. There's a new character introduced, Danny Pink, who works alongside Clara at Coal Hill School. They're adding him because there will be no romance or flirting between this Doctor and Clara, so Danny gets to now act as the romantic aspect of the show. This is completely fair, it's been done before in the show, many times. Most recently with Amy and her would-become husband Rory. But they didn't successfully sell Danny Pink as an actual person. He seems a bit too constructed and flat. First of all, they didn't give him much screen time. He was basically there only for the first and last segments of the episode, acting as a kind of grounding element in Clara's life. The little alone time we do get with him is really odd, it feels like they tried to cram far too much backstory into the character right off the bat. Within just a couple of minutes we know that he was a solider in the war, and that he's killed someone who wasn't an enemy soldier. They way they chose to show this was to first have him tell his class that he was a soldier, and when prompted if he'd ever killed someone who wasn't a soldier they did a sudden close-up of his face to reveal a single tear rolling down his face. It was just too much.

The Doctor, though, was just the right amount. From the moment we first see him he's right on key. He feels like he's already been through a couple of years as a character, he acts like he's always had the exact personality he has now. Peter Capaldi just generally sells his incarnation of the Doctor as a real person. The part I still haven't entirely bought into yet is how silly his adventures seem in terms of the apparent seriousness of the character. Don't get me wrong, it's not like he's portrayed even half as serious and moody as the teasers and trailers lead us to believe, but there's still somewhat of an offbeat gap between him and his situations. Into the Dalek is basically a retooling of the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage where people shrunk down in order to be sent into another living being's body, in the case of Into the Dalek a Dalek. It's a silly, b-film concept which I normally love, but I don't quite like it in the context of Capaldi's Doctor. It feels much more like something Smith's Doctor would've happened onto. I can practically hear his Doctor oohing and aahing at the marvelous technology, and how fantastic even the evil Daleks are. Instead we got Capaldi's Doctor walking briskly around lecturing everyone on what everything is.

There are some nice themes in the episode, we get to know the new Doctor a lot more than we got to during the last episode. We get to see him react to an entirely different environment and see how he interacts with new characters and threats. They also help spring what seems to be the overall theme for this new series: "Who is the Doctor?" Not necessarily who he is as in what his name and nationality is, but as in what kind of man he is. Why is he the person he is? Where does his faces come from? What makes him him? It's a common and oftused theme in the Doctor Who franchise, but it's for a good reason. It's always exciting to get to know the Doctor, to peel back even more layers from him. See what's underneath, what has lead him up to this point in time. I think we're in for a treat.

But who is Missy?

Doctor Who Series 8 Premiere: Deep Breath - He Still Carries On

Just shy of a year ago the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special screened on cinemas all across the world at the same time. Bringing the entire world together in a collected moment. It was such a huge success that this year they decided to do it again, in the episode properly introducing the latest incarnation of the Doctor. The one played by Peter Capaldi.

I haven't been a fan of Doctor Who for very long, I'm afraid. I didn't get on the hype train until just three years ago. August 25th, 2011 I first really watched an episode of Doctor Who. I had promised myself I would watch it from the beginning, watching all of the classic episodes before embarking on the post-relaunch, but I just couldn't help starting off at Eccleston's first episode "Rose". I was hooked from the beginning, plowing through the post-relaunch series in a month, despite pulling double-digit hours at college most days. Ever since then I've watched every episode the moment I was able. Be it on iTunes the following day, or in later cases on iPlayer Live just as it was airing on television. I almost feel like it all lead up to this, the first time I had to see a Doctor really go. I had seen Eccleston and Tennant go, but just in the flash of a month. Matt Smith will always be my Doctor. He's the one who was on when I started watching. He's the one I watched for three more years. He's the one I met! He's the one I loved. And now he's gone.

I didn't really know what to expect going into this new series of Doctor Who with a brand new Doctor. I knew that this new Doctor was allegedly going to be far more serious than Smith and Tennant, but that was more or less it. But I still got my ticket the moment they were made available, and got in my seat even earlier than I used to. I wasn't going to give up on the show I loved so much just because there had been a change in cast. I still wanted to be blown away. I wanted Peter Capaldi to show me that he's just as good as my Doctor. I wanted the show to live on. But I'm not entirely convinced he managed to show me that.

Don't get me wrong, the episode wasn't bad. But it was very different, more different than I had expected. Why I hadn't expected more of a difference I don't know, but I hadn't. It took a while to get into it. An entirely new Doctor amongst all these familiar characters. A Doctor who isn't sure who he is, or what anything or anyone else is or are. When he first walked into the scene it was weird. He acted somewhat like Smith did as his Doctor. He flailed a bit around. He made funny remarks, funny faces. But every other character seemed to have the same kind of dumbfoundedness as I had. Something just didn't feel right. It walked like the Doctor, it quacked like the Doctor, but was it the Doctor?

The episode's main plot is the Doctor figuring out who he is, and generally how to deal with his new face and the people closest to him not recognising him, but it's set around a series of murders in Victorian London. And I have to say, I'm not overtly found of Doctor Who episode sets in Victorian London. It seems like such a waste to me. Put a man of his genius and advancement in the middle of a backwards backwater. I like having the occasional period piece in Doctor Who, seeing him walk around through history, but Victorian London has been done to death for me. Luckily this just didn't feel the same. Maybe it's because there was a spanking new Doctor, but it felt fresher and different from the other times. It was more enjoyable. There was less of a focus on the fact that it was set in Victorian London, it just happened to be.

I am going to get a bit deeper, not into the plot exactly, but into what results from the plot. So if you for some reason is reading this without having watched the episode yet, you might want to close this tab now. 

The apparent plot to start with is the appearance of a giant dinosaur in the Thames in the middle of London. Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax immediately appear at the scene to investigate what exactly is going on. They soon find the Doctor's TARDIS being coughed out of the dinosaur's throat. The entire plot of the dinosaur stranded, lost and alone in London is just a way of dealing with the Doctor being stranded, lost and for all intents and purposes alone, in the universe. I found it to be at times a bit too on the nose, having the Doctor actually say what the dinosaur is feeling in a way that makes it obvious that it applies to himself as well. It just came off as a bit too obvious, especially considering how short-lived the dinosaur plot was.

Turns out it wasn't just a front for the Doctor's emotions, it was also a way of setting up the main plot. A rogue cyborg on a killing spree. I liked this part of the episode a lot better. It wasn't as in your face about what it was, and most of the time it actually ended up on the backburner. Serving as purely a way of getting everyone together to figure out who the cyborg was, and what he wanted. During it we learn a lot about the new Doctor. What he's capable of doing, what he thinks of himself, what he thinks of others, and just overall development of this new sub-character. We start to really see who Capaldi's Doctor is. The mannerisms left over from Smith slowly fade away, and he starts picking up his own, and before you even realise it there's a brand new Doctor in front of you.

I liked that they also mentioned the Doctor having seen his new face before. For those of you might not know, Peter Capaldi has previously acted in the Doctor Who universe. Both as a multi-episode villain in Torchwood, and as a single-episode character in Doctor Who (different characters, just to be clear). Showrunner Steven Moffat has said before that this will be addressed, that the Doctor will at least try to learn where his faces come from. Why they look the way they do when they come. How he can renew himself but end up with an old face from seemingly nowhere. But it wasn't too obvious. It was a bit obvious for those who might follow the surroundings of production, but generally it was just enough to implant the idea that there was something important about him having seen his face before. It neatly sets us up for a new long-arc that might not even be resolved in just one series.

At this point I rather liked the episode, but I wasn't entirely sold on the new tone quite yet. I was still getting over my Doctor being gone. I was still kind of expecting Matt Smith to show up. Which is why I was completely caught off guard when we all of a sudden hear his voice over the telephone. There he was again. Telling us, telling me, not to worry. That the seemingly new man is still him. It's the same Doctor, he just looks and acts a bit different. I almost teared up at it. The idea that the Doctor had the foresight to call Clara, to make sure that she was okay after he was "gone", it cemented how nice and caring he really can be. Especially after an episode where that is really brought into question. It warmed my heart.
Still not entirely sold though. It might have been a good ending, but the preceding episode still left me feeling odd and uncertain. I am still not entirely sold on it. I don't know how long it will take. I don't know if I will ever get over it. My Doctor is gone, but he still carries on.

The Name of the Doctor is...

Hey, you. Go away, this post is riddled with, in the words of River Song, spoilers. If you have not yet seen The Name of the Doctor, I need you to stop reading. I normally don't mind spoilers, but this is a biggin, you don't want it, trust me.

Now that the rest is gone, let us talk about The Name of the Doctor.

So I just watched the latest episode of The Name of the Doctor. I went into it with little expectations, I didn't really know much about it part from what I'd seen in the trailers, I thought they were pretty revealing, they were not. I never really thought we'd get to know the name of the Doctor, why would they reveal it now after fifty years, and just before the fiftieth anniversary. But what they did reveal was in my mind greater than I would've ever dared imagine. I cannot believe how they manage to keep all of this a secret. The big reveal, the big stakes, the big changes. If for some bizarre reason you are still here, and have not watched the episode, this is your last chance. I cannot believe that they've managed to disguise and hide the death of a Doctor this well. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the pre-title sequence at first, I felt it was a bit lame, and that the way of including past Doctors seemed weird and weak due to the difference in film quality and grain. Clara running around seeing all the Doctors, talking about how she's always saved him. How she's always been there, but he's never seen her. Never noticed her. Mostly. The pre-title sequence's role in film and TV is to set the tone for what you're about to watch, some sets of terminology call it the "teaser". It is best recognised in crime procedurals where the first few minutes of every episode is showing the crime, setting the stake for the episode and often actually setting it a bit too high. But it's more important that it teases the audience enough to sit through the episode than not. The Name of the Doctor's teaser really did tease the episode, but in no way will you understand how and in what way till you've seen the entirety of the episode. That's what makes it so great, unfortunately it can mean that some more casual viewers will tune out and not bother watching the rest and get the greatness that is The Name of the Doctor, but I am so glad that they went for it.

There's then a small post-title teaser setting up a bit more, it starts with Vastra speaking to a prisoner, he warns of the Doctor's secret. He must go to Trenzalore.

The real episode starts Clara making a soufflé (wink, wink; hint, hint; nudge, nudge) when she gets a letter which seems to be very old. This immediately reminded me of that moment in Blink (you know the one), it's from Vastra and is inviting her to a conference call. Vastra, Jenny, Strax and (yay!) River Song all meet in a inter-timular psychic meeting. Vastra is warning them all about the news from the prisoner, and they are all worried (well, Strax isn't strictly worried, but what ever goes for worriedness on Sontar he is portraying it). 

Now one of my favourite parts of this episode happens, and it is great. Jenny starts talking about how she forgot to lock the door and that she thinks someone is there. 

"Sorry, ma'am, sorry, so sorry. So sorry, so sorry. I think I've been murdered."

The fact that's she's "actually" sitting there reporting that she's been murdered before quietly fading away is very disturbing and emotional. This was the first time in the episode I was close to tears. I don't even have a close relationship to this character, she's been cool, but she's sort of just been the sidekick of Vastra with a few surprises up her sleeve. This moment, however, is one of the most captivating I have had in any Doctor Who episode I've watched. The only thing that weakens this moment is the fact that they copped out and gave her back her life with the wave of a wand ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."). It ruined the moment for me, I wish they could've just let her die.

At this point River demands everybody wake up so they can face their attackers, but before she manages to wake Clara up (or even trying to be honest (it's complicated)) she is awakened by the sound of the Doctor's voice.

It's been a long time since I've seen the Doctor as grave as he was when Clara told him about Trenzalore and the meeting. But I were not prepared for what I would see only two cuts later.

He looked devastated, defeated, he was balling his eyes out, he looked scared out of his mind. Seeing the Doctor like this was a much a shock to Clara as it was to the audience, the Doctor is normally so held together, so courageous and brave. The fact that something could put him this far out, beat him this far down is evidence of something truly horrific and painful. He quickly pulls himself together and starts, scarcely telling Clara just what Trenzalore is, what he thinks. That it is where he is buried. 

"[We all have a grave] somewhere out there, in the future, waiting for us. The problem with time travel you can actually actually end up visiting."

The fact that he is so upset over visiting his own grave (he claims it is because it's so dangerous, having travelled so much through time - probably more than any other - it is the ultimate point of time line crossings in the universe) is heartbreaking. The Doctor has lived for so long, he's been through so much, so many worlds are alive because of him, but he is still afraid of death. That it will catch up with him. This isn't specifically mentioned in the episode, but I'd like to believe that that is what's going through the Doctor's mind. He isn't worried about the universe being at risk, it's been countless times and he's saved it every time, he's worried that he will die. Maybe because he won't be around to save the universe anymore, maybe because he'll leave someone behind, but I think, that in all the years he has been running, all the running he's done, he's been doing it because he is afraid of what will happen if he stops. 

OFF TO TRENZALORE! Regardless of how afraid he is of his own death, his friends have been attacked and taken. If he does not go to Trenzalore to face his attacker they will be lost, and that is even worse than losing himself. The TARIDS is less willing to let the Doctor die, she can live without the friends he brings along, but she cannot bear life without the Doctor. So she sabotages their attempt to get to Trenzalore, but not so much that the Doctor won't manage to push her that final mile. The TARIDS even gets a tear falling down her cheek as she realises what will happen now that they are, indeed, on Trenzalore.

I know I'm being very freely analytical and poetic about this imagery, but I do believe it is meant to mean something to that affect. At any rate, I'd like to believe so.

The entire planet is a grave yard, the grave yard of a battlefield. 

"They're soldiers; bigger the gravestone, higher the rank."

The Doctor seems to know a lot about it despite having supposedly  never been there, you might say this is just because he's seen so much that he instinctively knows things, he recognises them from past days, from repeated history. But there is something to his voice, he knows exactly where they are and what has happened there, just like he knows exactly what he is going to find.  And what does he find? The biggest gravestone of them all.

Yup, the Doctor's TARDIS from the future.

It's not actually a gravestone, it's the real TARDIS. In the words of the Doctor, it had somewhat of a size leak. And in the future it serves its purpose as the Doctor's final resting place, his tomb. 

I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but seeing as you've already seen the episode you will know, the Great Intelligence is the one who summoned the Doctor to Trenzalore. He's the one who attacked the Doctor's friends, he's the one behind it all.

On their way to the tomb Clara starts remembering memories she shouldn't have, she knows that the Doctor has met her before. That she has died many times. That the Doctor is as puzzled by her as she is by him. Along with this I assume she also remembers the Doctor's name, as she learnt it right before the Doctor saw fit to erase history and let her live without the knowledge of past and future deaths she has never experienced. This leads up to a moment outside of the tomb, the Great Intelligence demands that the Doctor speaks his name as that is the key to the tomb. The only word in the universe known to no one (well, as good as seeing how many sentient souls there are out there). The Doctor does not in fact speak his name, but the doors do open. River Song who's still lurking around through a mental link with Clara from the conference call speaks it. No one except Clara can see her, and the fact that the door opened bewilders the Doctor. A clever way of avoiding the reveal of his name, but still open the door. Especially seeing as for a few moments the audience is left to believe that "Please" is the name of the Doctor. 

Inside the tomb a light is found.

"What were you expecting? A body? Bodies are boring, I've had plenty of them."

The light is a time tunnel, it consists of every second of the Doctor's life. Every place he has ever been, every person he's ever met, every second he has ever lived. The Great Intelligence is going through. He means to kill the Doctor at every single second at once. The Doctor is dying all at once, all times, all places, all regenerations, they're all dying at once and the Doctor suffers as he has never suffered before. He is screaming, he is wrenching, and it is revealed now through some miracle past-alteration-telling-machine that Vastra has that the Doctor has died in the Dalek Asylum, and then in London with Vastra and Jenny. The very places that Clara has saved him before. This is where the teaser kicks in, Clara is realising. At the same time as Vastra is witnessing the disappearance of hundred of star systems, Jenny and even Strax, Clara knows what she must do. She has to enter the tunnel herself.

The Doctor has already seen her do it, it has already been done. Clara is the impossible girl, born to save the Doctor at every time all at once. Millions of versions of Clara living only to save the Doctor. Clara herself, the real her, will die. But it is the only way to to save him. The Doctor pleads her not to go, but she has to.

"Run. Run you cleaver boy. And remember me."

The teaser runs again, slightly altered. She tells of what she has always done and will always do. She is born, she lives, she saves the Doctor, and she dies. She's been there since Gallifrey and will be there till Trenzalore.  Immediately on her entrance the universe is restored, Clara saved him, every single time. And now, just for once, just for fun, the Doctor has to save Clara. River Song, through the mental link of Clara yells at the Doctor, he cannot go through the tunnel, it will destroy him. She is about to slap the Doctor, that's when he reaches out his hand and stops her. He has always seen her. Always. He's always heard her, always listened. But he was afraid how much it would hurt to talk to her that he has ignored her. He doesn't like good byes, but River won't leave until he does, she has to hear it. Hear it as if he is to come back. 

"See you around, professor River Song."

Oh, and remember how she was there due to the mental link to Clara? How can she still be there if she's dead? River fades away, and the Doctor is left with only one option. He steps into the tunnel and finds Clara lying in a wasteland of time and space. A place where all of the Doctor's time is spread, where his ghosts roam freely and the universe comes to die. This is when Clara hears the Doctor's voice one more time. He contacts her through every day he's ever had all at once, the Doctor is reaching out to her, he wants to save her just once. She embraces him, weak through all of the lives she has just lived through all of time and space.

This is when it gets really interesting. The Doctor sees something that truly shocks him, that leaves him speechless. A man. 

Clara: "Who is that?"

The Doctor: "That is me, everything here is, that's the point."

Clara: "But how can he be? I saw all your faces and he wasn't one of them.

The Doctor: "I said he was me, I didn't say he was the Doctor. The name you choose is like a promise you've made, he's the one who broke the promise. He is my secret."

The Secret: "What I did I did without choice. In the name of peace and sanity." 

The Doctor: "But not in the name of the Doctor."

He turns around, and John Hurt is introduced as the Doctor.

This was just incredible to me. That through all of what's happened since the idea came up, through the BD leak and till today, I didn't get a single whiff of anything hinting at the 11th Doctor's adventure on television coming to an end and an old Secret stepping in to take us with. We all knew, of course, that John Hurt would be in the 50th special, there were apparently rumours that he would play a forgotten regeneration of the Doctor, that he had been involved in the Time War and therefore exiled from memory. That sort of died down when Hurt himself said his part in the special would be in a "kind of trinity".

He would play a part of the Doctor along with David Tennant and Matt Smith. I, along with others, figured it would be a kind of ghost of Christmas past, present and future thing going on. With Tennant being the past, Smith the present and Hurt the future. It seems however that some twisted version of that is what's happening. Hurt is Christmas past, how else would the Eleventh even know of him? People can scream that he was found in the time tunnel stretching all the way from beginning to end all they want, but the Eleventh knew who he was. And that means he's been him. He's not proud at all of that fact, he can't respect him, what he's done is horrible. 

If the rumours are to be believed, that has something to do with the Time War, and I wouldn't look past it. I believe that what will happen now is not the Eleventh dying, not an actual on-screen death at least, but instead of keeping up with the Eleventh and Clara we will start following the Secret. The fact that the episode introduces Hurt as the Doctor means that it isn't just a one-of thing for the anniversary or a mini-arc, at least not how I see it. I think that the entire series is being revamp again like it was when Smith took over. The entire feel and build of the show will become different. I doubt the Secret will bring many companions with him, it just doesn't seem like his style right now. And if we're going to see a man dealing with the concious of something so horrible on his back, I think we'll spend more time in gritty neighbourhoods feeling pain alone than jumping around bright star systems feeling wonder with friends. 

Many will probably dislike this, as they did when Smith came around, but I think it will certainly freshen up the show. A lot of people has started to dislike the episodes coming out, though no one will really say the show has changed or the quality sunk measurably. People have just grown to accustomed to a level of excellence and expect more. Maybe this new approach won't bring more, but it will certainly bring new. An entire new show is going to return after the 50th anniversary special. I don't know how the change will happen, and I'm having a hard time imagining it happening very smoothly. But I do believe and hope it will happen.

Epilogue:

There was just released an interview with Smith and Tennant on playing the Doctor, and they mention "another character" that they can't talk about. They say that he's bemused by how the Tenth and Eleventh act and behave. I hope it's done well, that they don't make the Secret seem too sad and unlikeable. I'm starting to get worried that they won't get something unconfirmed just right, that's how invested I am in this show.

No, I have faith in Moffat. I believe he can do this, that he can pull it off. We are really going towards a great new era of Doctor Who, and I'm looking forward to it.