The Name of the Doctor Analysis (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Wow. What a finale. You gotta hand it to Moffat – after all that worry over whether an anniversary ep would be able to celebrate 50 years of continuity, he practically gives us the equivalent of such an ep 6 months early, with multiple Doctors, a ton of references from all over the history of the show, and of course, what makes Doctor Who arguably so great, a cliffhanger. No, not just any cliffhanger: after a season of practically no cliffhangers (with the possible exception of The Snowmen), we get the MOTHER of all cliffhangers.

So where to begin? The beginning seems appropriate, since we are talking about THE beginning here: seeing the moment when an old man leaves Gallifrey with his granddaughter, in an old type 40 capsule, was just fucking glorious for so many fan-gasming reasons. I mean, for starters, there’s the obvious, like seeing the actual beginning of the story like never before, seeing not only Gallifrey itself but some nice clips of William Hartnell included, but there’s also the little things, like the early TARDISes being reminiscent to the TARDIS capsules that we saw in classic story The War Games. Followed by some nicely included clips of The Five Doctors, Castrovalva, The Invasion of Time and Dragonfire, to name a few. All of which involving Clara, the Impossible Girl we had been wondering about since Asylum of the Daleks kicked off. What a way to kick off the story by celebrating both the past 50 years and building up the finale to the past 13 episodes all in one.

Then we got cracking on with the main plot, involving Trenzalore. Having been built up since the end of season 6, I was eager to see it. And what is Trenzalore, exactly? The place where the Doctor will one day be buried. The place where his entire timeline exists and could potentially be accessed by anyone. Now, I've gotta wonder, is this worth all the build up? Not just since the ending of the series 6 finale in which Trenzalore was first directly mentioned and “The Question” was fully revealed, but since The Eleventh Hour, when the arc of the Silence first started and which slowly revealed over time how an entire order had been set up to make sure that the Doctor never, ever answered “the Question that must never be answered”? Well…yes and no.  Yes in that trying to protect the Doctor’s entire timeline – a timeline in which he has not repeatedly saved the universe but also visited so many places and so many times – would be something you’d want to make sure never got touched by the wrong hands, even if it meant ending the life of that person, (and the irony that River, some who was originally meant to kill the person who was supposed to answer the most dangerous question is the one who gives the answer is absolutely fucking delicious,) but I still think there’s numerous questions left to be answered, including why they blew up the TARDIS in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang (if it was really them). I still don’t buy that the explosion was caused by either the events of Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, which was clearly an accidental explosion or by the Great Intelligence accessing his timeline (although a voice without a body COULD explain the “Silence Will Fall” moment in Pandorica, it is, at the moment, not entirely satisfactory, considering the Intelligence re-wrote EVERYTHING in the Doctor’s history and Clara helped re-write it back). To be honest, I really think the Silence should’ve returned for this episode, although we still have the anniversary episode to look forward to, with some massive rumours going around that it will answer MANY questions from across Moffat’s entire run of the show. Gotta say, I really hope those rumours are true.

Now, that’s pretty much my main complaints out of the way, now onto what else I enjoyed about the episode. First, how much of a rollercoaster it was for my emotions to go through. Honestly, there were some beautiful moments for me to watch, including, but not limited to: the Doctor’s reaction to finding out about Trenzalore and what it really means to him; the site of the dead TARDIS as the Doctor’s tomb (“where else would they bury me?”); Clara accepting her fate and jumping into the Doctor’s timeline to save him; even the kiss between the Doctor and River was great, not to mention hysterical (“since I’m the only one who can see you right now, god knows how that looked”). There was something emotional about the episode in general, as it is, as with season 6, the Doctor confronting his own mortality – only here, he really is confronting it literally. He’s seeing that, no matter how much he’s cheated death before and no matter how many more times he’ll continue to cheat it, one day, he will die, and his beloved blue box will be buried with him with no one to look after her. Neither he nor we know when it’ll happen, but still, it’s a sad sight for all when the Doctor is forced to accept that his story will have, one day, an ending.

It’s not just the future the Doctor has to face in this episode, however. It’s also his past, which brings us to the Great Intelligence, (of which I was glad to see make a return appearance, rounding off not just the trilogy of stories that he’s appeared in this season, but also his entire story since The Abominable Snowmen with the Second Doctor), and of course, River. Now, bringing River back post-Forest of the Dead was a bold move on Moffat, but it wasn’t a decision I minded, for two reasons. First, the fact that they didn’t really bring her back from the dead, considering it was always made clear in the episode Forest of the Dead that she still lived on, just in data format, and what’s beautiful here is that she’s still just that. She isn’t magically given a new body, she is, essentially, still a ghost. And I really do hope it stays that way.

The other thing I liked about including this particular version of River in this story is how fitting it is, both for the story of the episode and for season 7 in general. It’s the Doctor not just facing up to his past; it’s facing up to another ending. He’ll continue to see River perhaps, but (hopefully) not as she is now. It’s saying goodbye to another Pond. That, more than anything, is why I liked seeing this version of River in the season 7 finale.

As for the other returning characters…I like the trio of Vastra, Jenny and Strax, but I do think they are overused at times, especially as comic relief. It was great to see Strax acting as a proper Sontaran though when history started to change, I must admit. It was a great reminder of how scary and how ruthless the Sontarans can be and how much the Doctor can change things so drastically. Can we have more scary Sontarans back soon Moffat? Please? And less of the, to quote The Office (UK), “She’s deaaaaaaad…” “SHE’S NOT DEAD!” moments, thanks? Hearing Jenny say, “I think I’ve been murdered,” I couldn’t help but think, “Don’t worry, it’s a Moffat script, you’ll be back in no time.” And sure enough, she was…before she died again fifteen minutes later, and was brought back from the dead less than five minutes later! That’s gotta be some kind of record, even for Moffat!

Still, the climax and the resolution of the “Clara mystery” was worth it. I’ll be honest, I did guess some time ago that there was never anything special about this version of Clara, not until some kind of future event would cause the whole multiple Clara thing would one day happen, but only because we all know how much Moffat loves his timey-wimey plots, and to be honest, so do I, so I was glad to see that the resolution made sense, at least.

And now, onto the biggest part of the episode of all: the cliffhanger. “Introducing John Hurt…as the Doctor.” Wow. Bold, Moffat, definitely bold. How do I feel about it? Well, if it is who I suspect it’s meant to be, it completely writes out my McGann death scene fanfic. Ok, seriously, do I think that Hurt is supposed to be the “original” Ninth Doctor? Yes. Looking back, there are clear hints about it, if you rewatch Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS – where Clara discovers the Doctor’s name, where does she discover it? In a book about the Time War. Not of Gallifrey in general, but specifically the Time War. I thought it was odd that the book would mention his real name, but now it kinda makes sense. If the Doctor gave up his chosen name when he did the things he did in the War, it not only explains why his name would appear in a book specifically about the War, it also gives greater significance to where the series began again in 2005. Suddenly, the idea of Eccleston’s Doctor being so different to all before makes more sense than ever – he’s not just recovering from the War, he’s learning to be “the Doctor” all over again. And I’ve gotta be honest, that’s an idea I really, really like. I could be wrong, he could be a pre-Hartnell Doctor, but considering the leather jacket and the idea that he “broke the promise”, I’m convinced that he’s meant to be the incarnation between the 8^th and the 9^th.

I do have to say though that there is a bit of a missed opportunity here, especially if Moffat’s had this planned for a while. Namely, who’s cast as the “missing” Doctor. Now don’t get me wrong, John Hurt’s brilliant, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what he’ll do with it. But I can’t help but be reminded of Scream of the Shalka. In 2003, an animated webcast, Scream of the Shalka, was made to celebrate the 40^th anniversary. What was so special about this particular story? It was set after the end of the TV movie and featured a brand new Doctor and was supposedly the start for a brand new online series. Who played this Ninth Doctor? Richard E Grant. That’s right, the guy that played the Great Intelligence. Now this story wasn’t AMAZING, but it did have plenty of great little ideas (my favourite being the Master being turned into a robot servant of the Doctor and was forced to be his companion), was funny and was a pretty cool way of bringing Doctor Who into the 21^st century, or so it seemed at the time. Then of course, in November, they announced that Doctor Who was coming back anyway and Scream of the Shalka was written out of canon altogether, along with Grant’s version of the Doctor. Now, with this episode, I can’t help but imagine how much cooler it would've been if they had held off casting Richard E Grant until this particular episode, therefore revealing that actually Shalka was canon after all. Would’ve been even more of an amazing twist for this fan. Still, like I said, Hurt’s a fine choice for playing the part, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of his incarnation.

One more thing I'll mention: the title, and how the story relates to it. I think it was genius of Moffat to have the title suggest one thing, something I was very afraid of, before revealing it meant something else entirely. We thought "The Name of the Doctor" referred to his real name, or at least, the name he had before he became the Doctor. I was incredibly worried that Moffat would actually reveal it, as in my opinion, the name had been so shrouded in mystery for so long, and that mystery was so important to the series, that I didn't think there was any possible way that the revelation of the name itself could've been anything better than anti-climactic. (Unless his name turned out to be Batman, that would've been cool enough.) But instead, it's about something else entirely. It's about the Doctor's identity. About what it is to be the Doctor, and not just any Time Lord. About his life, his death and, most importantly, why being the Doctor is so important. "What I did...I did in the name of peace and sanity." "But not in the name of the Doctor." Perfect words to end on.

So that’s my analysis of the episode: flawed, but overall a great episode. 8/10. As for season 7 overall? I’m not going to give it a rating until I watch it a 2^nd time through, but I must be honest, this season hasn’t impressed me as much as season 6. Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of individual episodes that I enjoyed, particularly Asylum of the Daleks, the Snowmen, the Bells of Saint John, Cold War, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and of course The Name of the Doctor, but I haven’t been as eager to watch it week in, week out as I did last season. I do think that the lack of cliffhangers is partly responsible for that. I love cliffhangers, I love going “WTF?!?” and wondering what the hell’s going to happen next, and more importantly I think that they’ve been a vital part of the show’s 50 year legacy. Season 6 was full of some amazing examples, too many to list, although my favourite still remains The Almost People, and I wasn’t even much of a fan of that story. Season 7, by comparison, hasn’t had nearly as many. Aside from this episode, there’s been no stand-out cliffhanger, other than the Snowmen – the closest thing we’ve had to a cliffhanger since then was “Oh no! The Doctor’s going to be stuck with KIDS in the next episode!” So, as great as it was to have a terrific cliffhanger for the finale, I hope to God Moffat brings the cliffhanger back on a more regular basis for season 8. There’s also been not much development for either the characters or the arcs this season, so I think that’s affected it. But most of all, season 6 really was one of my favourite seasons ever, in fact it was pretty much my ideal season of Who. Anything after that was, for this fan at least, going to seem like a step down. I’m looking forward to re-watching season 7 in full at least, hopefully after catching up on my entire series watch, anyway.

(One more thing that I couldn’t fit into the analysis: LOVED the mention of the Valeyard, one of my favourite ideas for a Who villain ever. Wasn’t an overall fan of the story he appeared in in the Classic series (The Trial of a Time Lord), but the revelation that he was the Doctor more than paid off. Glad to see that he’s finally been name-checked in the new series at last.)