When
this season started, producer and head writer Steven Moffet made a
conscious decision to scale back on the arc heavy connections between
episodes seen in previous seasons to do more stand-alone adventure
stories. As a result, we've had what is easily the worst season in
the history of the show. This latest episode, the finale and last Who
installment until November's 50th
Anniversary special, followed the trend of the last few in being
markedly better than the majority of this year's efforts, and yet the
arc averse formula that gave birth to it made what could have been an
amazing hour of television much less than what it by all rights
should have been given the collective talent behind it.
The
Name Of The Doctor begins with the most fanservice-y opening sequence
in recent memory, including clips from the whole history of the show
Forrest Gumped into our current narrative in such a way as to promise
a final revelation as to the mystery of the Impossible Girl. This we
get, and it is more than a bit underwhelming, though not entirely
disappointing. When we finally learn how and why Clara has been
appearing and dying in so many places throughout history, it comes
off like a last minute cap to be clever without actually adding
anything to the character or the larger mythology. It's interesting,
but I'm forced to admit that it doesn't really change anything, and
considering this was a moment that has been effectively three seasons
in the making, I can't help but view it as a bit of a broken promise.
I
wonder if the general malaise I'm feeling is a result of coming down
from the season as a whole, or if I honestly expected more, but
either way, in retrospect I wonder if the hype surrounding this might
have been bigger than it should have been. It took us two seasons to
learn what The Silence was, all of which was apparently just to set
us up for the monumental events due to happen on Trenzalore, and yet
once we get to Trenzalore, I don't really see what all the fuss was
about. Yeah, I know the universe is at stake, but it always is, and
in retrospect, unless I missed something, their whole goal of killing
the Doctor apparently to prevent this outcomes doesn't strike me as
particularly effective, since we now know his death was actually a
precipitating factor. Wouldn't it have been in their best interests
to keep him alive so none of this could have happened?
And
because of the emphasis on stand-alone episodes, the villain leaves
much to be desired. The Great Intelligence, an old school Who villain
brought back in the Christmas special and briefly in The Bells Of St.
John apparently taking on the role of The Doctor's Braniac is
revealed to be the driving force behind this years threat to the
universe, but because we saw so little of him up to this point, his
quest for vengeance never really appears to be as profound as this
episode wants to me to think it is. His henchmen, the new monsters
known as the Whispermen, were no less lackluster, their powers and
nature too ill-defined, and lacking the typical fantastic Moffet
twist like The Angel's time locking or the Silence's mind wiping.
The
resolution is a bit muddled even once you acquiesce to the fact that we
won't actually be learning what The Doctor's name is despite the
title of the episode. More than that, now that I think about it, the
way they handle this might be a mistake. They get around him having
to reveal his name by having River Song do it off screen, but if I
remember correctly, The Doctor never told it to her. It was implied
in Forest of the Dead, but in The Wedding of River Song, wasn't the
part where he told her his name a trick? Wasn't he actually
whispering to her the fact that he faked his death? I could be wrong,
and I'll have to go back to the old episodes to check, but I'm pretty
sure this either means we haven't gotten to the point where she
actually learns this information, or the writers forgot that she
didn't actually know it.
Still,
as always the acting is top notch and saves the episode during
moments when it clearly needs saving, and we get another appearance
by my favorite trio of Victorian alien sleuths, who really need to be
spun off into their own show already. Smith and Coleman try their
best to come across as having the same sort of close personal
connection to each other as Smith and Gillian did, even if the
writing up to this point hasn't quite earned it yet. The final
moments serve to cement this relationship, then give way to a
significant teaser for the Anniversary show that is legitimately
exciting, and possibly an allusion to another classic Who villain
I've been waiting to see come back for a long time, if an off hand
mention of the character earlier in the episode is any indication.
Overall, I'd say it was just enough to keep me interested and give me
faith that maybe they finally know what they're doing, but it remains
to be seen whether any of it is paid off down the road.
Going
forward, I think I might go back to the first few seasons of the new
series to fill in the gaps where I wasn't reviewing, so stay tuned
for that, assuming I don't give up on the idea. Either way, see you
in November. And also, you know, tomorrow when I post other stuff.
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