Doctor Who: The Name of the Doctor
May. 19th, 2013 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which the Moff indulges his fondness for creepy fairy tale rhymes again, and also I'm ever so tempted to use an icon making a complicated joke about roles of actors in other shows, but for plot reasons, a River Song icon it has to be.
Not least because I think that was it for River. At least as far as Stephen Moffat is concerned; he left the door open for later show runners to use the character again if they should wish, given the nature of River's story and the fact she's a time traveller, but this is actually where something he said on the original commentary podcast for Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead becomes on screen canon. If you haven't heard it: back then he said, apropos River Song's fate (and bear in mind this was before he knew he'd become the next show runner, though he probably knew that was likely), that he leaves it up to the audience and their own belief system as to what the Doctor saved and stored into the Library was River - i.e. her soul/true self, if you like - or her electronic echo, the way it worked with Miss Evangelista. He added that he personally believed the later, that River died in the act of saving the Doctor and the River in the Library was her echo, but that it was up to the invidual watcher to go with his own interpretation. Now I'm aware there was a lot of speculation as to whether Eleven would eventually "upload" River again from CAL (though whereto, I don't know, given her body well and truly died; as opposed to Donna and the other people CAL had stored only temporarily, who physically disappeared), that River's last scene in white from Forest of the Dead couldn't really be the last thing we'd see of her in her time line.
Well, The Name of the Doctor for the first time gave us actually post-Forest of the Dead River - while also making it clear she is indeed an electronic echo. (Unless you want to go with the interpreation that the Doctor is absolutely wrong about that, which I suppose you can, but at the very least this makes it clear he won't go to visit CAL and the Vashta Nerada in order to extricate River there any time soon, because he considers what he saved there an electronic ghost who by now should have faded. But doesn't, because it's River's ghost, after all, and she goes on her own terms. I found their goodbye scene very poignant, and very characteristic, especially her insistence that she wouldn't consider it a goodbye unless he said it as if it was only a temporary farewell till their next meeting.
Considering River's fate here to be final is a good thing to me because otherwise the show wants to have its cake and eat with everyone else. I mean, I'm glad Clara isn't dead (again), and that Jenny isn't. But it still feels like cheating to me; basically the joyful "just this once, everyone lives" from Moffat's first New Who outing has become the expected cliché by now, and if there are never any true stakes, well, it's hard to feel truly worried. And while I'm complaining (I mostly liked the episode, I hasten to add, and will get back to the praise in a moment), the explanation for Clara being split all over time is excellent, except for the part where her motivation to do this would work better if we'd seen her (this version of her) and the Doctor bond over an entire season, not just a very few episodes. So here's what I think Moffat should have done: let the Ponds' exit in season 6 be permanent, with the end of that Christmas Special (the one with Marge & kids) a farewell dinner between them and the Doctor. (They had enough reasons not to want to travel through time and space anymore after s6 without adding plot devices to strand them in the 40s.) Then introduce the two alternate Claras at the start of s7 and let the Doctor find and meet the third one in 7.3, giving us an entire season with this particular team TARDIS and this particular Clara. Same ending of the season.
Great Intelligence, Richard E. Grant edition: very plot devicy with no personality, but I am prepared to change my mind this John Hurt thing plays out in a way that provides genuine motivation to the Great Intelligence and the Silence etc..
Poor, poor TARDIS. Last season she ended up in a graveyard full of dead TARDIS-es, this season she ends near her own dying self. Triple ouch. Mind you, a dying TARDIS growing into infinity because the bigger-on-the-inside system starts leaking is a cool touch.
Kilgarrah! That's where you went after leaving Merlin! John Hurt!Doctor: my own first assumption when watching was that this was the Valeyard, but for all that the Sixth Doctor had the dubious pleasure of meeting him, the Valeyard is a possible future of the Doctor, and also not a secret. (Leaving aside lots of Time Lords including the Master being witnesses to the whole Valeyard thing, so was Mel.) (Still, I suspect when Moffat & Co. brainstormed this storyline, it started with someone saying "we should do the Valeyard, only properly.) So it's more likely this is a past regeneration. Which either means a pre-William Hartnell! Doctor (which would ruin lots of fanfiction, but I suppose you could find ways...), or, most likely, a regeneration between Paul McGann and Christopher Ecclestone. To be specific, the very one in the Time War. After all, RTD left it conveniently open which regeneration fought in said war and ended up wiping out (or so he thought) both Time Lords and Daleks, and the Doctor himself never numbered his Eccleston and Tennant shaped regeneration.
The Doctor defining his name as "a promise" and this particular incarnation of himself as the one who "broke that promise" presumably fits with the Master taunting him about the meaning of his name - "The Doctor", that is - as "the man who makes people better", which would work if John Hurt!Doctor is the one involved in the Time War. Then again: I am really not sure the Moff wants to revisit the Time War at all, so it may be John Hurt!Doctor "broke the promise" of his name through actions independent of the Time War but in fact the reason why the Great Silence is so set on his grand vendetta (because being defeated at Christmas plus whatever happened in Two's era doesn't really cut it as motivations to split oneself through space and time go). It openes a lot of possibilities for the big 50th anniversary special, that's for sure.
Fanservice: all the previous Doctors, of course, or: footage splicing put to excellent use. BTW, I thought it was lovely touch that the first time we see One (btw, guess we'll have to recount and rename all the Doctors now, won't we?), it's in colourized footage so it matches Clara, and then when we see the same scene again it's in almost black and white, as Clara has entered his world/time. Of course, figuring out various ways Clara encountered various regenerations (or saved them behind their backs) is fanfic fodder.
Oh, and before I forget: I didn't expect the name (as in, the not-Doctor name) of the Doctor to be revealed in this episode, because for all the fondness for teasing, Moffat is a fan of old and knows he can't do that. So the title of the episode being a pun of sorts (see also: "which he will carry to his grave; it has been found") met my expectations and works for me: what is revealed isn't Name XYZ, which could never match fannish expectations anyway, but that he picked "the Doctor" as his name as a promise and that he considers one part of his existence as the breaking of said promise.
Unless I'm mistaken, Clara and the (Eleventh) Doctor are still trapped in his mind/altering timeline, aren't they, when the episode ends (though they have found each other)? Should explain how they encounter a certain living guest star or two in the anniversary special. Speaking of which, I'm now leaving casting spoiler space - I have no idea what will happen in the special and don't want to know, but I was inevitably spoiled for one particular guest star, and I guess so were most of you. If you weren't, and don't want to know anything about the anniversary guest cast, stop reading here.
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So here are Matt Smith and David Tennant, talking about being the Doctor. They don't give any plot spoilers for the special, but given how we've just ended, my current guess is that Eleven and Clara will by way of dealing with whatever happened with John Hurt!Doctor encounter Ten and unite forces to end this changing timeline thing and reenter the "normal" time flow at their respective points. Alternate guesses?
I still love the idea that what John Hurt!Doctor did was spending time as a Dragon and altering the time line of the 6th century so much there are tomatos in England and anachronistic armor galore, all so someone else, Colin Morgan shaped, gets to be Merlin, because as he found out while being Seven, that's not an easy gig.
Not least because I think that was it for River. At least as far as Stephen Moffat is concerned; he left the door open for later show runners to use the character again if they should wish, given the nature of River's story and the fact she's a time traveller, but this is actually where something he said on the original commentary podcast for Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead becomes on screen canon. If you haven't heard it: back then he said, apropos River Song's fate (and bear in mind this was before he knew he'd become the next show runner, though he probably knew that was likely), that he leaves it up to the audience and their own belief system as to what the Doctor saved and stored into the Library was River - i.e. her soul/true self, if you like - or her electronic echo, the way it worked with Miss Evangelista. He added that he personally believed the later, that River died in the act of saving the Doctor and the River in the Library was her echo, but that it was up to the invidual watcher to go with his own interpretation. Now I'm aware there was a lot of speculation as to whether Eleven would eventually "upload" River again from CAL (though whereto, I don't know, given her body well and truly died; as opposed to Donna and the other people CAL had stored only temporarily, who physically disappeared), that River's last scene in white from Forest of the Dead couldn't really be the last thing we'd see of her in her time line.
Well, The Name of the Doctor for the first time gave us actually post-Forest of the Dead River - while also making it clear she is indeed an electronic echo. (Unless you want to go with the interpreation that the Doctor is absolutely wrong about that, which I suppose you can, but at the very least this makes it clear he won't go to visit CAL and the Vashta Nerada in order to extricate River there any time soon, because he considers what he saved there an electronic ghost who by now should have faded. But doesn't, because it's River's ghost, after all, and she goes on her own terms. I found their goodbye scene very poignant, and very characteristic, especially her insistence that she wouldn't consider it a goodbye unless he said it as if it was only a temporary farewell till their next meeting.
Considering River's fate here to be final is a good thing to me because otherwise the show wants to have its cake and eat with everyone else. I mean, I'm glad Clara isn't dead (again), and that Jenny isn't. But it still feels like cheating to me; basically the joyful "just this once, everyone lives" from Moffat's first New Who outing has become the expected cliché by now, and if there are never any true stakes, well, it's hard to feel truly worried. And while I'm complaining (I mostly liked the episode, I hasten to add, and will get back to the praise in a moment), the explanation for Clara being split all over time is excellent, except for the part where her motivation to do this would work better if we'd seen her (this version of her) and the Doctor bond over an entire season, not just a very few episodes. So here's what I think Moffat should have done: let the Ponds' exit in season 6 be permanent, with the end of that Christmas Special (the one with Marge & kids) a farewell dinner between them and the Doctor. (They had enough reasons not to want to travel through time and space anymore after s6 without adding plot devices to strand them in the 40s.) Then introduce the two alternate Claras at the start of s7 and let the Doctor find and meet the third one in 7.3, giving us an entire season with this particular team TARDIS and this particular Clara. Same ending of the season.
Great Intelligence, Richard E. Grant edition: very plot devicy with no personality, but I am prepared to change my mind this John Hurt thing plays out in a way that provides genuine motivation to the Great Intelligence and the Silence etc..
Poor, poor TARDIS. Last season she ended up in a graveyard full of dead TARDIS-es, this season she ends near her own dying self. Triple ouch. Mind you, a dying TARDIS growing into infinity because the bigger-on-the-inside system starts leaking is a cool touch.
The Doctor defining his name as "a promise" and this particular incarnation of himself as the one who "broke that promise" presumably fits with the Master taunting him about the meaning of his name - "The Doctor", that is - as "the man who makes people better", which would work if John Hurt!Doctor is the one involved in the Time War. Then again: I am really not sure the Moff wants to revisit the Time War at all, so it may be John Hurt!Doctor "broke the promise" of his name through actions independent of the Time War but in fact the reason why the Great Silence is so set on his grand vendetta (because being defeated at Christmas plus whatever happened in Two's era doesn't really cut it as motivations to split oneself through space and time go). It openes a lot of possibilities for the big 50th anniversary special, that's for sure.
Fanservice: all the previous Doctors, of course, or: footage splicing put to excellent use. BTW, I thought it was lovely touch that the first time we see One (btw, guess we'll have to recount and rename all the Doctors now, won't we?), it's in colourized footage so it matches Clara, and then when we see the same scene again it's in almost black and white, as Clara has entered his world/time. Of course, figuring out various ways Clara encountered various regenerations (or saved them behind their backs) is fanfic fodder.
Oh, and before I forget: I didn't expect the name (as in, the not-Doctor name) of the Doctor to be revealed in this episode, because for all the fondness for teasing, Moffat is a fan of old and knows he can't do that. So the title of the episode being a pun of sorts (see also: "which he will carry to his grave; it has been found") met my expectations and works for me: what is revealed isn't Name XYZ, which could never match fannish expectations anyway, but that he picked "the Doctor" as his name as a promise and that he considers one part of his existence as the breaking of said promise.
Unless I'm mistaken, Clara and the (Eleventh) Doctor are still trapped in his mind/altering timeline, aren't they, when the episode ends (though they have found each other)? Should explain how they encounter a certain living guest star or two in the anniversary special. Speaking of which, I'm now leaving casting spoiler space - I have no idea what will happen in the special and don't want to know, but I was inevitably spoiled for one particular guest star, and I guess so were most of you. If you weren't, and don't want to know anything about the anniversary guest cast, stop reading here.
I
M
E
A
N
I
T
!
!
!
So here are Matt Smith and David Tennant, talking about being the Doctor. They don't give any plot spoilers for the special, but given how we've just ended, my current guess is that Eleven and Clara will by way of dealing with whatever happened with John Hurt!Doctor encounter Ten and unite forces to end this changing timeline thing and reenter the "normal" time flow at their respective points. Alternate guesses?
no subject
Date: 2013-05-19 07:12 pm (UTC)I didn't watch a lot of this season, but I liked this as an answer for 'why Clara' and enjoy that she's essentially the universal spirit of all Companions. I also liked the River!ghost.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 04:50 am (UTC)This :( It's just such a tragically perfect concept for a character arc, you know? Although...there's the possibility that even though Eleven knew all about Hurt!Doctor, he could still be a future regeneration. I mean, it would fit Moffat's loose view of time travel and crossing timelines, and how he knew about where his grave was and all that stuff. Unless I'm missing something that said no, this isn't a future regeneration?
And of course, there's the possibility that Hurt!Doctor had a very short life, that Eight died near the end of the war, regenerated, wiped everyone out, and regenerated again right afterwards. Or also, since the Valeyard wasn't exactly one particular regeneration either, maybe whoever Hurt!Doctor is isn't simply Proper Nine.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 05:39 am (UTC)C: Who is that?
D: Never mind. Let's get back.
C: Who is he?
D: He's me. There is only me here, that's the point. Now let's get back!
C: I never saw that one. I saw all of you. Eleven faces, all of them you. You're the eleventh Doctor.
D: I said he was me. I never said he was the Doctor.
C: I don't understand.
D: My name. My real name. That is not the point! The name I chose is the Doctor. The name you choose - it's like a promise you make. He's the one who broke the promise. He is my secret.
John Hurt: What I did, I did without choice.
D: I know.
JH: In the name of peace and sanity.
D: But not in the name of the Doctor!
I have to say, that makes it sound unlikely to me Hurt!Doctor is a future regeneration and more likely that whenever he happened, it was already in the past as far as Eleventh's timeline is concerned.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 06:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 01:23 pm (UTC)I suppose the temptation to make the Doctor the Twelfth and do away with the regeneration limit in the 50th must be too much to bear for the Moff.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 07:55 pm (UTC)the Doctor himself never numbered his Eccleston and Tennant shaped regeneration.
What do you mean?
I watched all of the back half of the last season this weekend, and enjoyed it well enough, although Clara hasn't really jelled for me as a solid personality.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-22 05:14 am (UTC)re: The SJA scene, no, it wasn't made explicit (though it certainly was the implication) - the Doctor while answering Clyde's first question (re: colour) seriously was clearly messing with him in the second one (and also Rusty was messing with the fans because it's such an endlessly debated point). (Bear in mind that limiting the regenerations for Time Lords in the first place was something that the show's writers only came up with in the Fourth Doctor era to give the Master a motivation for body snatching; subsequent writers have been cursing Robert Holmes - who came up with the twelve regenerations thing for one Master story - ever since.) The SJA scene in question, or rather the relevant excerpt, is here. (The reason why Clyde is surprised at the sight of Matt Smith is that the last time the Doctor visited Sarah Jane and the kids, he was still David Tennant shaped. What he asks next are two of the big fanboy debated questions since the time RTD was a teenager, so, as I said: it's both a funny scene and a fannish in joke.)
no subject
Date: 2013-05-20 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-21 12:40 am (UTC)GI: Welcome to the final resting place of the cruel tyrant; of the slaughterer of the ten billion; of the vessel of the final darkness. Welcome to the tomb of the Doctor!
[Later]
GI: It was a minor skirmish by the Doctor's blood-soaked standards, not exactly the Time War, but enough to finish him. In the end, it was too much for the old man.
Jenny: Blood-soaked?
Vastra: The Doctor has been many things, but never blood-soaked.
GI: Tell that to the leader of the Sycorax, or Solomon the trader, or the Cybermen, or the Daleks. The Doctor lives his life in darker hues, day upon day, and he will have other names before the end: Storm, the Beast, the Valeyard.
V: Even if any of this was true, which I take the liberty of doubting, how did you come by this information?
GI: I am information.
The Doctor thinks it isn't the secret that's been discovered, it's his grave; but it could be both. Perhaps learning one brought the Great Intelligence to the other.
And when we see John Hurt at the end, he's an old man standing among the graves of Trenzalore. Not that it means they're back on the planet's surface, in a literal sense; they're still inside the Doctor's time-stream. But Clara witnessed the various Doctors in many other settings within the time-stream, so that suggests this is a setting associated with the Hurt incarnation. And though the present Doctor seems to know about him, this may be because he's inside his own time-stream and can see the future.
I don't think it's conclusive, but I wouldn't dismiss the future option yet.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-22 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-22 08:41 pm (UTC)But whereas I could identify all the Doctor's victims in the GI's second statement (eventually - it wasn't until the second watch that I remembered Solomon was David Bradley!) I couldn't place the ten billion from his opening speech, so I took it that their slaughter was the unknown and possibly future event.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-23 04:02 am (UTC)However, having both this suggestion of the Doctor's future, and the evidence of the GI using only non-future examples you mention, figure in the episode could also just be Moffat's way of keeping viewers guessing about the placement and nature of Hurt!Doctor, making them more excited for the 50th because they want to know what's going on. The hints towards either one of the theories could be red herrings.