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| The Doctor confronts the Great Intelligence. |
1 episode. Approx. 46 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Saul Metzstein. Produced by: Marcus Wilson, Denise Paul.
THE PLOT
"The Doctor has a secret... One he will take to the grave. And it is discovered."
With these words, convicted murderer Clarence DeMarco (Michael Jenn) hooks Madame Vastra into arranging a meeting on an astral plane of the Doctor's closest allies: Herself, Jenny, Strax, Clara, and River Song. But when Vastra reveals the exact wording of the message, River warns that they have fallen into a trap. Clara is able to wake in time, but the others are captured by the Whisper Men, avatars of The Great Intelligence (Richard E. Grant).
The Intelligence takes his hostages to Trenzalore, the planet the Doctor must never visit - the planet that is home to his grave. To save his friends, he pushes the TARDIS into a crash landing, voluntarily walking into the snare that's been laid. Here, the Intelligence waits. Here, the mystery of Clara will be solved and the Doctor will be confronted with a question.
Once that question in answered, the Great Intelligence will take its revenge - a revenge that will not only destroy the Doctor, but potentially the entire universe!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor has generally been characterized with enormous energy. He is always running, always moving, always racing even in his manner of speech... Which means that you really sit up and take notice when he suddenly becomes still. From the instant Clara says the word "Trenzalore" to him, the goofiness that is this Doctor's armor drops away. He recognizes the danger of going to the site of his future death, but he cannot stay away. As he explains to Clara, he has a duty to his friends and he must at least try to save them.
Clara: This episode answers the question: How can Clara be the Doctor's "impossible girl," whom he has met in both past and future and seen die in both, and also be the "ordinary girl" Emma described in Hide? The answer is satisfying enough, fitting within the story and addressing Clara's other aspects. It also wraps up that story thread, which should allow Clara to simply be treated as a character rather than a puzzle in future episodes.
River Song: This feels like a final episode for River, and I think it should be. Alex Kingston's strong chemistry with Matt Smith remains, and the farewell (that isn't quite a farewell) between her and the Doctor is a strong emotional moment. Strong enough that it should stand as a final word. I'd have no objection to her having a cameo in Smith's final episode, to acknowledge what a big part of his tenure she's been - but other than that, I think it's time to close out her story, so that the next Doctor can start fresh with stories of his own. River's story is told - and as the Doctor himself says in this episode, it's time for her to sleep.
Madame Vastra/Jenny/Strax: These three have practically become regulars themselves, featuring heavily in three of the past nine episodes. They remain a welcome presence, the actors and characters instantly engaging. Strax has found the perfect way to relieve his yearnings for hand-to-hand combat: By visiting a pub in Scotland. Vastra "invites" Clara to their meeting in the astral plane by arranging to have a letter delivered in the distant future that will be laced with a soporific... and coming from Vastra, that actually doesn't seem forced or far-fetched. Jenny is back to being Vastra's sidekick, but she gets what may be the episode's most memorable line at the moment she is snared by the Whisper Men.
Great Intelligence: When the Great Intelligence was teased in The Bells of Saint John, I expected more of the season's stories to tie in. I can't say I was terribly disappointed when they didn't, as it was rather nice to have a season of stories that actually stood (or in rare cases, fell) on their own merits, but I do think we should have seen one more appearance. Then again, maybe not - The Great Intelligence ends up being the least interesting part of this episode, a fairly generic "evil" existing to justify the revelations about Clara and the Doctor. The Whisper Men are genuinely sinister, though; I don't much care if we see Richard E. Grant's Intelligence again, but I would love to see the Whisper Men at the center of a nice, creepy Who story of their own.
THOUGHTS
The Name of the Doctor has a lot in common with Steven Moffat's Series Six finale, The Wedding of River Song. Much like that story, it's a single-episode finale that's packed with dazzling ideas and gorgeous visuals, all coming at you at such a pace that it's only later that you really stop to think about any dots not connected, any plot threads not tied up.
As an episode, I'd rank it about even with Wedding. It's not quite as much sheer, exuberant fun, but that's deliberate: Everything about The Name of the Doctor carries a funereal atmosphere. Trenzalore is a destroyed landscape, with an engorged TARDIS standing over it like a bloody monument. Matt Smith's performance is his most subdued in a while, his Doctor behaving like a man walking to his own graveside... which is exactly what he's doing! Everything in script, performance, and production combines to make this a tangibly ominous experience, and that elevates it significantly.
As a finale, I think it works better, if only because the arc it's resolving is much simpler. The episode has three tasks: Resolve the Great Intelligence hook from The Bells of Saint John; resolve the mystery of Clara; and set up the 50th Anniversary Special. It achieves all three of these goals, with the important ones - the revelations about Clara and the Doctor - particularly successful. There remain a couple of dropped threads: The friction between Clara and the TARDIS, for instance, something which seems to have been conveniently forgotten; and the identity of the woman who gave Clara the Doctor's number to start with. But these are relatively minor loose ends, ones that I have no problem simply accepting.
The Name of the Doctor is also an exhilerating exercise in fan service. In addition to return visits from the recurring characters of the Steven Moffat era (River, Vastra, Jenny, Strax), we also get clips of many of the past Doctors. Some Forrest Gump-style editing even allows Jenna-Louise Coleman to directly interact with William Hartnell at one point. It's clever and pleasing - and it does so in a way that's in service to the story, rather than the story being fitted around the clever touches. The episode is dazzling, in a very subdued and morose way, but it's also surprisingly disciplined.
The final note is meant to leave us eagerly awaiting the anniversary special. For me, that's its biggest success. The final lines and the final shot leave me eager to see what happens next, and very happy that I get to move onto the enxt show instead of waiting months for a follow-up.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
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