Oh, if I was allowed to go space church, I’d be worshiping on my knees every day. If you create a church where everyone has to show up naked, you are going to attract perverts. Anyway, Christmas! No, not that thing that is happening in two weeks, I mean the town where the crack in the universe has a signal coming out of it. A signal that is from a weird planet filled with pompous and self-righteous people that call their high peers lords, lords of time.

Doctor, who? Doctor, who? The eternal question, Doctor, who are you? One last hurrah for the old man with the young face, or as I’m sure the 4th would tell you, quite possibly the young man with the old face. This is something to wrap up three series of Doctor Who with so much wonder, emotion, fantasy, adventure, and sometimes, sometimes just a bit too much fun. The guest list includes River, Daleks, the Silence, the crack in the wall, the Silence, Cybermen, the Silence, Amy, madame Kovarian, and, umm… the Silence? I think that’s everyone.

Ok, joking that will annoy my editor to the nth degree aside, after watching Chris Chibnall screw up his own story by forgetting to wrap up at the finale of his last series, this is like watching an old friend walk out of his grave and lead us to something good. I needed this, just one story between Chibnall’s last series and Capaldi’s first episode. Something that wraps up Matt Smith’s run with something I’ve missed these last six weeks, connective tissue. A story that is tying knots in at least one thing (possibly several things) though some might argue too many things, but at the very least, there is a knot at the end of a story!

There is a planet with a church in a town called Christmas. In this town, no one can lie. The planet is being protected by the space megachurch, and the head priestess has this thing for the doctor. Good, are we caught up? No, so Clara is having Christmas dinner with gran, dad, who looks nothing like her dad, and I’m going to guess step-mum, but really I don’t care because aside from Clara, she’d be the first out of the airlock. I like gran though, she knows what she likes in a man when he’s naked at Christmas. Anyway, the town is called Christmas, it is filled with lovely people, and the planet is called Trenzalore.

Wait, what? The Siege of Trenzalore, a battle on the planet where the Doctor’s final resting place will soon be. In fact, it ends up being more than just his graveyard, it becomes a graveyard for all his friends and foes alike. Matt Smith’s Doctor, the final regeneration after watching 1-7 on TV, America screws up 8, then there is the War Doctor, 9 and 10 return to TV, and his the 12th and final regeneration. Of course, it wasn’t and that’s evident by the fact the show went on for several years after this then mysteriously disappeared at the start of 2020, not to return until November the 23rd, 2023.

Isn’t it weird that Jodie only got one series? That’s what happens when the writer has no clue how to write Doctor Who, the actor suffers in this awkward limbo with nothing to do but sit in her cupboard and make some of the best Doctor Who she’s ever had. Yes, I am still angry after last week. The point is this: A good writer, a proper writer can put themselves in ridiculous situations that seem impossible to get out of, and still somewhere in all that madness, they can dig themselves out of the grave. How do you dig yourself out of the Doctor at the end of their regenerations? Time Lord intervention, which would be really handy if somehow this Doctor had been one of many that brought Gallifrey back.

It is almost as if he could spend several hundred years between his 9th and his 11th regeneration simply hating the fact he killed nearly two and a half billion children. Then as a bit of affirmation that his small attempt to timey-wimey secure them (all of them) he is granted two regenerations back. None of which is given easily, he spends hundreds of years watching these people of Christmas grow and die, all while protecting them from not-so-cyber Cybermen, The Silence, Daleks, The Silence, and a couple of others I seem to be forgetting. This episode ruins whatever it is that Moffat was building towards in Series 8.

The big question the whole series ends up building to with a moment of the 12th Doctor and Clara sitting on the edge of the TARDIS’ door is, “Am I a good man?” You just spent 900-years marooned on the planet you were told is your gravesite. You spent that time growing old and protecting people who grew and died several times over, made those children happy, sat and protected all of them from every one of your enemies, and you want to ask, “am I a good man?” If that is not the definition of good, I don’t know what is. 

Am I arguing with a fictional character? You are A-right I am, because the whole point of the Doctor staying there is to protect those people. So why after the very pro-life episode and the episode where Clara suggests killing the kids because they’ll be orphans, to an orphan, in front of her orphan boyfriend, are you asking if you are a good man? Yes, I have a feeling the start of 2022 isn’t going to be a happy time for me either. It is going to be interesting how I get through that and the end of the Chibnall era next year without committing a crime.

“The Time of the Doctor” is the last gasp of hope and frivolity for a while, a long while. Smith’s fantastic energy and brilliant tone encapsulating Moffat’s sometimes ridiculous stories made for some of the best Doctor Who you’ll find in the 2010s. This is rivaled only by fleeting moments of Capaldi’s anti-war Doctor in “The Zygon Inversion” and by Malorie Blackman’s “Rosa.” Despite really taking a bad turn to him on the first appearance back in 2010, it was childishness that allowed for anger over change to bubble up. That bitterness was unwarranted for such an incredible actor for the role, one that helped explode the popularity internationally once again.

Despite my genuine seething hatred towards Clara, I do think Coleman does pull out some brilliant performances with Smith before the relationship turns bitter with Capaldi. This is why we so often see new companions with new Doctors. Rose is the only other exception alongside two separate Doctors in New-Who, because it is too easy to make the whole relationship acrimonious. Coleman is a great actor, but the character as written on the page for her is one I cannot, for the life of me, enjoy. 

She is a character that very often would become the lead in spite of her counterpart’s title being in the show’s title. For a time, it did become Clara Who. However, we’re beyond asking that question and between the point where she does take up the lead role again. This is an issue I will have with the writing of future series, but that’s a problem for 2022 Keiran to solve and not swear at.

Ultimately, I’m sad to see that energetic spark go, not least of which because of recent events. Moffat and Smith turned me around on 11 and gave some of the very best of memories. While one of them continues on for a while longer, it was the partnership that made it work. The madman in the blue box and the madman with the computer, or whatever it is Scottish writers write with, I think they’ve advanced up to hammer and chisel at this point. For all the pondering the question for a while, I don’t think you could have thought of a better way to wrap up a fantastic run.

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Doctor Who "Time of the Doctor"

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• "Everybody's naked underneath."
• Nothing does Turkey
• Smith and Coleman's wonderful performances.
• Moffat's strange still with his best counterpart.

Cons

• Capaldi's segment feels too far removed from what he is.