Rate & Discuss: The Time of the Doctor
Orbiting a quiet backwater planet, the massed forces of the universe’s deadliest species gather, drawn to a mysterious message that echoes out to the stars. And amongst them, the Doctor.
It was the end of a mighty era tonight as the Eleventh Doctor faced his final curtain call…
The Name of the Doctor was followed by The Day of the Doctor but this Christmas it was all about The Time of the Doctor as Matt Smith prepared to hand over the TARDIS duties to our new hero, Peter Capaldi. It was a climactic adventure four years in the making as various arcs were tied up to make way for a new Time Lord. But was it a worthy climax?
Christmas in the TARDIS is always an eventful time but this year the drama was pushed to new levels as a menagerie of monsters returned and the Doctor found himself caught up in a terrible battle. Not everyone got out alive as the Doctor was aided by old friends but his fate was already sealed by a timey-wimey trap that started to close around him.
The clock strikes 12 and a new journey has begun but did Matt’s swansong adventure do justice to his tenure as a whole? Our emotions ran high and there were some last minute surprises, but do you agree with Jenna Coleman who has said it was the “perfect” way to say goodbye? Join in the conversation and let us know. Raggedy man, we salute you!
NOTE: This discussion will NOT be spoiler monitored so please do not read the comments if you haven’t seen The Time of the Doctor. You have been warned!
He must have grown tired of working 11 months a year non stop
i loved it! answered alot of questions and i cried when matt died. capaldi could be seen as the 12th doctor or the 1st seeing as he is the start of a whole new regeneration cycle.
hold the phone! if gallifrey is what has been on the other side of the cracks since season 5 then does that mean when matt got stuck there he was in a universe where gallifrey existed and amy brought him away from that?
loved karens cameo at the end sort of made it that though clara was there, amy was in a sense the first and last face matts doctor saw and i like that :)
Day of the Doctor was better, but then, Day of the Doctor was *perfection*, so that is no surprise. ;-) I loved this. It was a perfect send-off, and I’m ready to meet Capaldi’s Doctor when the next season starts up. ;-) I’m very happy that there won’t be a split season this year. It was good, it tied up a lot of threads with neat little bows, but left Gallifrey still unresolved, which I think is as it should be; the Doctor needs something to push him forwards. I was sad to see Matt go, but it’s time, and they’ve got everything settled for the future now.
I thoroughly enjoyed it Matt was in excellent form as usual but i couldn’t agree with Stephen M that it would be more tear jerking than Ten’s demise Ten is still the king
and the Unanswered questions are as follows… who came through the crack in the eleventh hour because it wasn’t the doctor, who bellowed “Silence will fall” in the TARDIS and who was the woman in the shop that Clara talked about? three unanswered questions which im guessing steven is going to carry on into series 8.
Loved the episode and CLaras reaction to seeing a regeneration
@Francis Cowzer
i think tens end was prolonged too long.
he needed to let go
tens end was angsty, one of denile and left you with a bit of a sour taste
matts was one of acceptance, of the past and for the future, acknowledging the past, not letting it rule his head but never letting it go.
it was one of the better regenerations
The only thing that bothered me was that the little girl looked nothing like Amelia. Everything else was beautiful and could not have been more perfect. Bravo to all involved. Matt was outstanding as The Doctor and will be so missed.
@Kelli
i agree, you could tell it wasnt the same girl
@Katie
Totally agree with you.
@Kelli
The original actress, Caitlin Blackwood couldn’t because she was too tall and is obviously older so had to go with another actress.
@Patrick
that makes sense. I knew there would be a reason :-)
Of course, the Doctor was hallucinating when he saw Amelia. It could be thought to have been due to the confusion of his regenerative state that he didn’t “see” little Amelia the way she really looked.
@Katie
Uhm, it was made pretty clear the Doctor was dying of old age. The biggest clue might be this piece of, admittedly cryptic, dialogue:
“Here I am, dying of old age” ~ The Doctor
I mean I know Moffat tends to do a lot of “between-the-lines” writing, but you really can’t have been paying much attention. It fits in with pretty much everyone who says they don’t like Moffat’s writing, actually. None of them seem to pay attention, missing the subtle details like the Doctor shouting “I AM DYING OF OLD AGE” off the top of a bell tower.
@Freddy Jones
You’re absolutely right, I wasnt paying attention. I wasnt interested in the story at that point so it makes total sense that I wasnt really listening.
Although I have not been a huge fan of Matt’s Doctor or the Steven Moffat years I have to say that the actually regeneration from Matt was very sad and made me appreciate the work he has done…so much so it made put the dvd on for The Eleventh Hour and I appreciated it much more. Loved that Amy came back into it to round up the MS years.
Sadly though the rest of the episode did not live up to that one great moment. It was too short an episode to pack everything in- it should have been at least a 2 parter episode or at least an extended episode- as everything felt rushed. It was a great idea to have all the monsters return but again there was no time for a plot to develop.
I am sorry but I still don’t feel that the loose ends for Matt’s era were tied up. I still do not get ‘Silence Will Fall’ and what it means.
I liked the fact that a whole new string of regenerations starting up and that caused an explosion to the dalek ship.
Over all it was a disappointing way for Matt to go out and furthermore, the change into Capaldi was way too short and there wasnt as much bouncy dialogue as DT regeneration into MS.
I feel this whole episode suffered due to time restrictions.
i agree with you all but i am not particularly keen on Matt.i am more of a Tennant fan.i still think that the day of the doctor was better.the ‘dying of old age’ has alwready been done. they could seriously have done making it more interesting.But i know what you guys mean :)
I am fairly new to this series and fell in love with it immediately. I watched every single episode in a matter of about three weeks and caught up in time for the Christmas special. The Time of the Doctor was amazingly written. It broke my heart when the Eleventh Doctor said his final farewell, and left me stunned when the episode ended so suddenly. I was not very pleased with the ending, because we barely got any time with the new Doctor, Capaldi, and the series doesn’t resume until August of 2014. The long wait has made me angry, but I do need time to recover from the loss of the fez wearing, bow tie adjusting Eleventh Doctor that I have come to adore. Although the wait has left me upset, I can’t say that I was not pleased by the ending of Matt Smith’s time as the Doctor.
the ending was a disappointment,yes,I also think that the time of the doctor is a bit useless really because you have a big special like the day of the doctor and then its just a regular episode after, which gave me great disappointment but the episode overall was ok.
Having had time to think, I have to agree with others here.
Nothing actually did happen in Time of The Doctor when you think about it. There was actually no story, just a set of events that lead to his regeneration and waste of another 300 years of the Doctor’s life.
Quite poor when you think about it, not an episode you’d watch again, even to see the 12th Doctor’s “birth”.
I’ve made a video of my thoughts of the episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvcJMyLV41s