Something just occurred to me. It's not that strange that the 12th Doctor happens to look a lot like Frobisher or that Roman guy. After all, there were FOUR separate instances on the classic series of one of the current main characters running into his exact doppleganger without any explanation for that whatsoever (at least, not as far as I recall). The Abbot of Amboise looks exactly like the 1st Doctor in "The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve." Salamander looks just like the 2nd Doctor in "The Enemy of the World." Romana looks just like the alien princess in "The Androids of Tara." And Nyssa looks just like some random aristocrat from the 1920s in "Black Orchid."
That Amy remembered that aborted timeline is unfortunate, but it did not happen.
I was just wondering: We know that the Doctor, River, Amy, & Rory all remember what happened. Do you suppose anyone else does? Do you suppose Winston Churchill woke up one morning and remembered having the strangest dream about lizard doctors and the Doctor with a rubbish beard?
And how much of what didn't happen REALLY didn't happen? I don't recall anyone who died in the episode who came back later once the universe was restored. Is it possible that, while most of the effects of that timeline can no longer be seen because the causes no longer make any sense, that nevertheless some things really did happen, even if there's no plausible room for them to have actually happened? We're talking
Back to the Future, Part II rules here. Suppose, when the Doctor & River kissed, they caused time to stop collapsing but the universe instantaneously transformed around all of the people in it. So everyone was put back in their proper places as if it never happened but effects on the people are still visible. So, just as Amy & Rory's memories were unaltered, could Madame Kovarian still be dead somewhere?
I'm not sure I want another story where the Doctor is aware that his regeneration is coming up. It's a little too metatextual. Granted, the Fourth Doctor had warning of his impending demise from the Watcher, but it didn't really affect the way the story unfolded, and we, the viewers, didn't know that he knew the end was coming until it happened. But we just had Tennant's run end with a story -- heck, an entire arc -- where he had advance warning that his demise was coming, and Smith's whole run so far has been dominated by prophecies about the Doctor's imminent death, and I'm just getting a little tired of it.
Since so much of Smith's era has been about the Doctor's imminent death--not just his regeneration but his actual death--I think it would be interesting if, ironically, the Doctor spends the entire Christmas special thinking that he's finally out of the woods, only for his regeneration to come as a complete surprise.
Personally, I didn't mind Tennant's final line. But I was a bit annoyed by the victory lap of revisiting all of his companions at the end. I also was somewhat irked by the fact that, it almost felt like RTD was unintentionally undermining his successor by portraying Tennant's regeneration as the total-freakin'-end-of-the-world. Particularly when Eccleston spent most of his last few moments reassuring Rose, and by extension the audience, that everything was going to be OK and that he's still basically the same guy.
