The Time Of The Doctor (Grading/Discussion)(SPOILERS!)

[inflatabledalek]

Why would they use the same actor they cast as Clara's dad as a 20-something in the 80's to play a 50-something in 2013? Of course they would look for an older guy.

They were happy to have him play older for the scene of her mother's funeral though weren't they? Which (IIRC) was set as recent as 2005 wasn't it? Plus, it's not as this was an episode averse to unconvincing old age make up was it? Presumably it was either an availability thing or being unhappy with the original actor.


EDIT: @Gov, that would make sense, even if it wasn't completely clear in the episode ("Getting used to it" could just a easily mean just having to get used to not being able to lie) and means the Doctor got used to it very quickly..

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Why would they use the same actor they cast as Clara's dad as a 20-something in the 80's to play a 50-something in 2013? Of course they would look for an older guy.

They were happy to have him play older for the scene of her mother's funeral though weren't they? Which (IIRC) was set as recent as 2005 wasn't it? Plus, it's not as this was an episode averse to unconvincing old age make up was it? Presumably it was either an availability thing or being unhappy with the original actor.

Or maybe the actor simply wasn't available? Stuff like that happens.
BTW, they also recast little Amelia!

 

[JoeZhang]

It is unsurprising that they recast Amelia given that three years is a long time in a developmental sense between 10 and 13.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I also found the whole bit about this being the Doctor's final incarnation to be pretty unnecessary. Not to mention that it was handled in a pretty half-hearted way. "This is my last life. Oh, cool, a new regeneration!" The Doctor overcoming his regeneration limit should have been a much bigger deal, I think.

I agree that it needed to be dealt with at greater length, perhaps by seeding the Doctor's realization that he's the final incarnation across a number of episodes instead of springing it suddenly at the moment when it came into play.

From a production standpoint, though, Moffat's hands were tied. Season Clara was in the can (except for the final scene of "The Name of the Doctor," which was shot during the block for "The Day of the Doctor") months before he was absolutely certain that there would be a War Doctor incarnation, which (with the "Journey's End" nonsense) would make Matt 13 rather than 11.

The only place he could seed that Matt's incarnation was the last was "The Day of the Doctor." He does sort of, with the certainty that Trenzalore is the end for the Doctor (depending on how you interpret the Curator, of course), but it's not explicit why Trenzalore is so certain to be his final end.

Basically, it's easy to say in retrospect that Moffat should have seeded this plot point better, but given what he knew, when he knew it, and what he had to work with, we couldn't have learned it any other way.

 

[Brendan Moody]

Of course, Moffat could also have chosen to skip the final incarnation thing altogether by not counting "Journey's End" as a full regeneration. Personally, though, I'm just as happy he didn't. Given that we've already had two mediocre-to-terrible "the Doctor confronts his mortality (but not really)" arcs in the Tennant specials and series six, I don't see the benefit of doing another one. It's the kind of thing that sounds like potent dramatic material but doesn't actually lead anywhere interesting, or at least not anywhere family-friendly TV Doctor Who can go.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Naff, but watchable.

There was one plot that Moffat didn't resolve. I was sure 10 would show up, walk into the regeneration energy as 11 was off wiping out daleks, and Alan Rickman would pop out as the Valeyard. I'm surprised he let that go. Everything else was crammed in!

And why not pack the villagers into the Tardis and fly off?

One thing, the second time Clara returned, and we get that lingering introduction to Ancient 11, from the back there I got a weird Hartnell vibe that lingered for a few seconds...

 

[The Nth Doctor]

One thing, the second time Clara returned, and we get that lingering introduction to Ancient 11, from the back there I got a weird Hartnell vibe that lingered for a few seconds...

I did as well. Combination of the hair and the cane.

 

[ATimson]

I'm fairly sure that reusing old musical themes was intentional this time around, since the Time Lords and the Time War itself had their own themes during the RTD era. Murray Gold is, at the very least, consistent.

Reusing the Tenth Doctor's action theme ("All the Strange Strange Creatures") during a scene in the Papal Mainframe not involving the Doctor is not "consistent".

I don't blame Murray Gold at all - after all, if he was failing this badly the production team should have sacked him. I blame the producers for not giving him enough time and/or budget for new music. At this rate one CD will hold all of the new musical material for the Capaldi era.

I noticed this during the 50th as well. The UNIT theme, the Time War theme (from Journey's End), etc. all made a return.

Except that wasn't the UNIT theme, that was some other random S1 music they used instead of the UNIT theme. (Heck, even SJA used the right music! )

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

All the strange, strange creatures was playing right when the whole situation changed from siege to war and all the... well, creatures started to take action.

And I think we got an inkling of the new Doctor's theme in an ever so subtle way once Capaldi shows up.

 

[eklypse]

Overall I enjoyed it. Just one nitpick, and it's not entirely with this episode. When River shot The Doctor at Lake Silencio, how was he starting to regenerate if he'd used up all of his regenerations?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Overall I enjoyed it. Just one nitpick, and it's not entirely with this episode. When River shot The Doctor at Lake Silencio, how was he starting to regenerate if he'd used up all of his regenerations?

He was not actually regenerating.
He was using a shapeshifting robot to put on a lightshow to convince the bad guys, that he has been killed.
Everyone knows Time Lords regenerate when being shot, so he faked the beginning of that process to make it more convincing.
No one knows he was already at the end of his regen cycle, so not seeing an attempted regeneration might have caused suspicion.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Of course, Moffat could also have chosen to skip the final incarnation thing altogether by not counting "Journey's End" as a full regeneration.

I still don't see why it wouldn't count seeing as he didn't somehow suck the regeneration energy back into his body its still getting used up.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Of course, Moffat could also have chosen to skip the final incarnation thing altogether by not counting "Journey's End" as a full regeneration.

I still don't see why it wouldn't count seeing as he didn't somehow suck the regeneration energy back into his body its still getting used up.

That's one of the bits I didn't like about this episode, the whole contrivance to let Moffat deal with the 12 regenerations limit on his watch (although it does tend to suggest that he will move on either with Capaldi or even before that). I always thought that the metacrisis thing helped save a regeneration for Tennant, but now he just saved face, and we get a throwaway vanity issues line that seems a little disparaging.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Well, it was just a throwaway line, so I wouldn't think too much about it.

I still don't see why it wouldn't count seeing as he didn't somehow suck the regeneration energy back into his body its still getting used up.

Well, the mechanisms of "regeneration energy" weren't really established until Matt Smith's tenure. From watching that scene, I took it that the energy itself was the destructive force that caused the body to change and giving it an outlet stopped the process before it was completed. In other words, I took the energy to be the mechanism of regeneration, but not what caused the regeneration in the first place (and, therefore, wasn't the source of the 13 lives limit).

 

[shivkala]

That's one of the bits I didn't like about this episode, the whole contrivance to let Moffat deal with the 12 regenerations limit on his watch (although it does tend to suggest that he will move on either with Capaldi or even before that). I always thought that the metacrisis thing helped save a regeneration for Tennant, but now he just saved face, and we get a throwaway vanity issues line that seems a little disparaging.

And what's the alternative? Moffat not addressing it and everybody complaining that it wasn't addressed?

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

And what's the alternative? Moffat not addressing it and everybody complaining that it wasn't addressed?

By leaving the whole issue until the end or even midway through Capaldi's tenure...
EDIT: Capaldi finds and frees Gallifrey, grateful Time Lords give him another regeneration cycle as a reward... Neat and tidy, and we could have a Star Wars style medal ceremony for him, Captain Jack, and K9, while Clara the Wookiee doesn't get a medal...

If this story was always intended to be Matt Smith's send-off, then I begin to very much doubt that Eccleston was seriously in the frame for the 50th. They need to have the War Doctor and Tennant's vanity issues to use up the regenerations and make Smith the 13th. And with that in mind, they wouldn't have been able to have Eccleston in the War Doctor role as a pre PTSD Northerner. They might have asked him to appear as a triumvirate of Doctors against John Hurt, and that would have been easier to turn down as too many cooks spoiling the broth (I always prefered Laurel and Hardy to the Three Stooges), or they might have asked him for a cameo for the War Doctor regeneration, again easy to turn down.

 

[eklypse]

Overall I enjoyed it. Just one nitpick, and it's not entirely with this episode. When River shot The Doctor at Lake Silencio, how was he starting to regenerate if he'd used up all of his regenerations?

He was not actually regenerating.
He was using a shapeshifting robot to put on a lightshow to convince the bad guys, that he has been killed.
Everyone knows Time Lords regenerate when being shot, so he faked the beginning of that process to make it more convincing.
No one knows he was already at the end of his regen cycle, so not seeing an attempted regeneration might have caused suspicion.

Now I just feel dumb. Any other time I'd have remembered that. Thanks for reminding me, Timewar.

 

[Procutus]

I voted Fish Fingers and Custard. It wasn't the train-wreck I was expecting after reading the various comments above, but it was not nearly as good as TDotD.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

EDIT: Capaldi finds and frees Gallifrey, grateful Time Lords give him another regeneration cycle as a reward... Neat and tidy, and we could have a Star Wars style medal ceremony for him, Captain Jack, and K9, while Clara the Wookiee doesn't get a medal...

Neat and tidy without any theme or meaning or sacrifice. Here, the Time Lords sacrificed their chance to come home at that moment in order to save the Doctor there. To me, that's better. They can have their reward ceremony and all that when they actually come home, but that's a different day.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Don't get me wrong, I did love the last five minutes of last last night's DW, but the more I think about about everything before the Matt Smith farewell in the TARDIS, the more problems I have with it.

The direction was calculated to provide cool-looking individual shots to pick from for the trailer, rather than to carry a narrative. The editing wasn't up to it either.

I still think, overall, were given a shopping list of things originally intended for an arc. Look at some of the things that would have been so cool if they were given an episode- wooden Cybermen! The Doctor being allied with the Silents as they turned out to be the good guys after all - fuck me, that would have made a hell of an episode. But no, we get them all as throwaway lines in narration.

And what's with the town of Christmas? Why? If it had been a former theme park colony like the planet in Nightmare In Silver I could see that, but it was just... there because the brief says the Xmas episode has to be stuffed with irrelevant Xmas trappings.

The holographic clothes? What was the point other than padding? Yeah they got a couple of good gags out of it, but it still outlived its purpose.

Worst of all- why Trenzalore and all that, when that whole arc was meant to lead to the 50th... and did. I mean, that arc was all covered *in the previous two fucking episodes* - why go over it again, only worse?

Oh, which reminds me, of all the episodes you need to be accessible to the casual viewers, it's the Xmas one. This fails on that score.

The DW year as a whole has been like a magnificent charge along a rugby or American Football field, unstoppably great from season 7 all the way to the 50th anniversary special, and then tripping over its own shoelaces at the goal-line and the ball flying off into the crowd.

Actually, you know what the whole Xmas episode felt like - apart from the regeneration scene - ? That really stupid bit of wooly thinking in Tomorrow Never Dies when Bond's car has a cable cutter on an extending badge which could only possibly cut a cable if someone put one at exactly the height of the cutter, which they do.

I know, people are going to complain "oh, sour grapes or something" - but no, I've defended and praised Moffat's handling of the show most of the time, and am happy with most of his episodes, but if I'm gonna say "that episode was great because of..." then it's only fair that I should say the opposite when he fucks it up.

And everybody fucks up sometime, everybody has an off-day; there's no real shame in that. It's just that... if you fuck it up in the middle of a season, it's easier for the audience to accept cos it'll be better next week. But when you fuck it up and the end of the year, when there's no new episodes for nine months... The audience aren't going to be so sanguine about it. Well, not this audience here, anyway... And is such a shame after all the good stuff we've had this year in DW.