The Name of the Doctor (3314/714)

[Greenee]

This episode was probably a lot better for people who have watched all of Who including all the classic episodes, which I guess is as it should be since this is the anniversary year.

I haven't seen much of classic who, and absolutly enjoyed this ep.

Did anyone else hope that Series 5/Cracks in time/whoever hijacked the TARDIS/Silence would come into play here too and disappointed when it didn't?

I hoped, the silence would pop up again, but wasn't dissapointed they didn't. I think, what we got was brilliant (though I admid a kittle more screentime for the evil would have been good but like it was said many times during teh last weeks: 45 min. for one story are hardly ever enough.

[Greenee]

Personally, if the series does well enough into future months/years ahead, then the standard (default) regeneration cycle will be broken with some sort of rational explanation.
It will probably depend on who is TPTB at that time, and how many more stories get sent across the writers desks, etc.

*immitateds Ood-voice* the circle must be broken!

[Cold Fuzz]

The Doctor hasn't shown much if any concern about how few regenerations he has left, he probably burned up an entire regeneration without so much as a second thought in The Stolen Earth and readily used regenerative energy to heal River's wrist in The Angels Take Manhattan (though granted, she wasn't happy about that and called it a stupid waste). Now, this could be because he isn't afraid of dying (Nine wasn't, at least if it meant something) and if Ten's words in The End of Time still hold true for Eleven, he still might think he's already lived too long. But even so, if he was still subject to the thirteen incarnation limit imposed before the Time War surely he would be very worried about the possibility of the Valeyard rearing his head soon?

I'm wondering if River using all her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor in Let's Kill Hitler may have a factor in removing the regeneration limit.

On the subject of the Hurt incarnation, I doubt he's the Zeroth Doctor. It might seem too obvious, but I'm sticking to the idea that he was the one who in effect sacrificed his name and almost existence in order to end the Time War by doing something completely necessary ("What I did, I did without choice." "I know.") and yet something so unforgivably terrible and monstrous that the other incarnations actively bury all knowledge of him. If he broke the promise, doesn't that imply there was a promise in effect to break in the first place?

Very good points. I think there are three likely possibilities for John Hurt

1. He is the 0th Doctor.
2. He is the Doctor of the Time War (possibly igniting the war or cataclysmically ending it).
3. He is the Valeyard, the Beast, Storm, etc.

I'm leaning towards numbers two or three. As the Doctor can see the past, present, and future (especially inside his own time stream) I think he would treat even future incarnations as if their actions have already happened. I think the dialogue, "He's the one who broke the promise" in the episode was perhaps a way for the Moff to bring out the idea of a future Doctor that's gone bad. If the dialogue read as "He's the one who will break the promise" instead, it would function as a spoiler, which I think is something he would avoid.

One final thought - anybody else think this was just a visit to Trenzalore, not the visit to Trenzalore? Assuming the Silence were actually right, it didn't seem like anybody was compelled to answer truthfully at any point (in fact the Doctor resisted the GI's interrogation even though it nearly cost him Vastra, Jenny, Clara and Strax) and it didn't feel much like the Fall of the Eleventh. I think we'll be seeing that planet again, when Matt Smith eventually chooses to step down.

I completely agree. This is not THE visit to Trenzalore, where the whole Fall of the Eleventh is supposed to take place. I remember reading several months ago that Moff has the endgame for the Eleventh Doctor planned already and I think one final battle for him at Trenzalore would be it. I'm also thinking that the Silence and other past adversaries will be there for that battle, and that someone the Doctor will again escape his supposedly predestined fate.

[MasySyma]

Was it an entertaining episode? Yes, absolutely.
Did it contain a story worthy of a series finale? Most of the time, yes.
Was it worth six hours of weak episodes leading up this finale? Unfortunately, no.

The Good:
I enjoyed the references to past Doctors. I'll need to rewatch to catch them all, but this was the best use of the past Doctors in New Who.

River. She improves almost any episode (except The Angles Take Manhattan). Here, it was nice to see the Doctor's feelings for her as well as her official (i.e., canonical) death. I'll be sad to see her go, but her story has been developed well.

The not so good, especially after further thought:
The Doctor stepping into his body. 1) It's rather gross. I respect that he is just made up of regenerative electro glowing goo, but a small parade of people are in his timeline made flesh, a physical timeline, hence a body. 2) It's rather poor writing. Wouldn't every time lord body leave this scar? Couldn't any of them be entered? Also, if the Tardis starts leaking, wouldn't some of these tombs get planet- or universe-sized? Again, it seems a bit odd, impractical, and more about spectacle than substance.

Clara's answer. Now, I respect that more could be coming here, but right now, this one doesn't quite work. The Silurian could have jumped into the scar too, and given her desire to save Jenny, it would have made sense, but logically only Clara can enter the stream to make part 2 of series 7 have any kind of meaning.

Speculation:
Clara has to repair the Doctor. So she has to patch all of him, so John Hurt being the first form or Doctor 8.5 doesn't matter. The point is that the Doctor has to accept all of himself, even the parts he doesn't like to call the Doctor, to defeat the Great Intelligence.

The Disappointing:
Series 5 and 6 plots appear to be abandoned. Yes, we know the cause of the cracks, but we don't know who creates the scenario from the mind of Amy. Also, no Silents appeared at Trensilor (sorry if I'm spelling that wrong.) I respect that River saved him from having to say his name, so perhaps the fall of the Silents is still in a possible future, but after having to put up with the boring fleshy people last year, fleshy-like whispering henchmen don't make this episode better.

Overall, it was a fun episode that accomplished nothing other than giving us a few details on Clara and setting up the 50th anniversary.

As a episode: 10/10
As a finale: 9/10
As a wrap to series 5, 6, and 7: 3/10

[Coco Pops]

From here

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-w...-of-the-doctor

This is interesting

Is there an unsolved TARDIS mystery?

From commenter Sean The Sheep, something we'd not considered: "Remember that the TARDIS claims the Doctor did not steal it; it says it stole the Doctor. Therefore, Clara was acting as an agent of the Tardis when she directed Dr Hartnell away from a perfect TARDIS towards a defective one. That makes the TARDIS The Great Intelligence. Not immediately, of course, but we now know the Tardis will go bad sometime in the future: the past depends on it".

Read more:
http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-w...#ixzz2TszDTBTh

And check this page out. Last picture of "Journey to the centre of the TARDIS" there's a "crack" in the TARDIS. That looks like the ones from season 5..

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-w...ploding-tardis

[mr_kennedy]

HOLY CRAP.........

Clara, loved the explanation , she is dying all the time because she is in all of his time streams, never thought about that, i was thinking it was clones sent across time and space or something but not that awesome

River Song, Post Silence of the Library was a nice touch, i think it was made possible cus when madame vastra sent out the calling cards she might have sent it to late (timey wimey wibbly wobbly) so we got dead river song....?

the valeyard, was awesome so that makes matt smith the 12th doctor , i just wonder which number the valeyard is tho, and john hurt is a great choice for this part btw

The Tardis getting bigger on the outside, ha nice touch, but worrysome if it got too big

As previously stated this episode makes up for every weak episode from this season (not that there where that many tho)

[Ian-S]

A second viewing made the episode much better.

The way stuff is being leaked I wonder if the 50th Episode will happen solely in this "timestream world", or whether Hurt's character will follow Smith Dr and Clara back out to the real world, and Smith Dr may enlist Tennant Dr to help.

I also got the feeling that this wasn't the visit to Trenzalore either, as TGI said his death was the result of a "trivial" battle in comparison to some the Doctor has encountered, was being the indicator, as in, past tense (for TGI anyway).

[The Flyattractor]

The one thing that this episode kind of saved for me was that before this I kind of had this dread that the 50th was going to be focusing on Clara being the Impossible Girl more then it would about the Doctor's Himselves.

[Nth Chevron]

For all of you postulating JH as the Doctor that instigated the TW, it wasnt a sole act, TW was the outcome from the TL as an authority pre-TW, attempting to change the evolutionary path of the Daleks in the Tom Baker era "Genesis of the Daleks."

The Time War ended because the Doctor used the "Moment," which was a modification on the original "D-Mat Gun," created by Rassilon in ages past to remove a single target from existence in much the way the cracks in season 5 removed Rory. The problem being is that once it was used it blew up after one shot if i recall correctly.

"The Moment" was modified by the Doctor to remove more than just 1 target from existence, it was used on the TL to prevent the initiation of the Final Sanction.

I would hazard a guess that the effects of removing the planet and civilisation that are, i think, responsible for for Time as we know it to exist, was the inferno that the Dalek Emperor spoke of in "The Parting of the Ways."

What i dont understand though, is if JH is the TW Doctor who commits genocide and every other iteration of the Doctor ignores that part, then whenever the Doctor says anything relating to the fact that it was HE who killed the TL, he acknowledges that persona as its an even that happened at the hands of, by, during and in full knowledge of its effects BY the JH incarnation.

N.C

[Sealurk]

Which episodes mentioned all this? I was under the impression that the Time War was a creation of the revived series, and I can't remember hearing any of that.

[mr_kennedy]

i think john hurt was the one who used the moment, and that made him regenerate into 9, i dont think the john hurt incarnation of the doctor would have been around too long, maybe 8 had to regenerate during the time war before using the moment heck maybe obtaining the moment made him regenerate and turn into john hurt's incarnation, and using the moment made john hurt regenerate into christopher eccleston's incarnation

[Darren]

Loved the episode and the reveal at the end.

Not knowing a whole lot about the pre-2005 Who, my instincts were to think that John Hurt's Doctor is a regeneration between McGann and Eccleston (making Smith the de facto Twelfth all this time). After all, we never did see the McGann-to-Eccleston regeneration on screen. It would be brilliant for Moffat to use the show's years off the air as a hidden plot device -- i.e. an extra Doctor the viewers never knew about and always assumed didn't exist.

I'm not worried about him running out of regenerations, for the various reasons people have mentioned above. They've been playing fast and loose with regeneration energy for a while now.

The notion of him having broken a promise seems to point to a time after he first took the name "Doctor." Theoretically this could be pre-Hartnell, if Hurt took the name and then broke the promise before regenerating into Hartnell.

This horrible thing that the Hurt Doctor did ... the end of the Time War seems the obvious choice. But the Eccleston and Tennant Doctors never seemed to have any problem talking about it, taking the blame for it, etc. Not sure why it would have to be a buried (non-)Doctor.

[Nth Chevron]

It wasnt mentioned in any episodes nor is it part of anything televised.

I read on a website that has alot of interesting stuff, as nothing has been set in stone by the series yet i took it to be the most plausible possibility of what happened for a number of reasons.

- The Doctors aversion to guns, especially 9th in "Dalek"
- The Dalek Emperor in "The parting of the Ways" describing the Doctors "Inferno"
- In "The End of Time," the seer woman describes Gallifrey on burning.
- The removal of Gallifrey and the TL's from ever existing and creating the web of time is why history is more susceptible to changes since the TW

Possibly a few others but i cant remember them right now, i cant remember the site of the top of my head but will look the link up and you can decide for yourselves.

http://www.whoniverse.net/tardis/
http://meshyfish.com/~roo/index.html

Also, with the airing of "The name of the Doctor" some of the information from link #2 has been made incorrect. Until the events of the TW become canon by the televised series i dont mind have a place holder we can speculate about. Ofcourse it could also be that with the 50th special and/or the 8x01 in November, the information on this site could be brought back into the realm of possibility

Happy Reading

N.C

[Sealurk]

Ah cool, thanks NC. I must admit, I don't consider anything but the show to be canon, but it can definitely be interesting to see what might have been, or what could now be considered defunct timelines.

I'm going to be very interested to find out just what the Hurt Doctor (a name I suspect will prove to be unusually appropriate for more reasons than one) did that was so bad as to cause him to be stripped of the name and all knowledge of his existence covered up, removed or worse by his other incarnations... who, let's face it, aren't exactly strangers to bloodshed and death and doing terrible things for good reasons.

As The Flyattractor said though, I am very glad the 50th will be focusing on the Doctor himself in perhaps the best way possible. Ah well, only one hundred and eighty five days, seventeen hours and ten minutes (approximately) to go until we find out!

[min min light]

I'm going to be very interested to find out just what the Hurt Doctor (a name I suspect will prove to be unusually appropriate for more reasons than one) did that was so bad as to cause him to be stripped of the name and all knowledge of his existence covered up, removed or worse by his other incarnations... who, let's face it, aren't exactly strangers to bloodshed and death and doing terrible things for good reasons.

And that reminded me of what the reveal of his name could possible be that would be a shock, so now I wonder - maybe it's another piece of semantics, like "(in) the name of the doctor" and "the fall of the 11th" (the Tardis literally falls, or 11 is the date - take your pick). I hope not, because I hate these just-semantics mysteries.