New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Coming a little over a month after the "The Day of The Doctor", one of the most triumphant episodes of the revived Doctor Who's run, "The Time of The Doctor" always ran the risk of being overshadowed by its bigger, flashier and considerably more expensive forbear. (I mean, seriously, some of the effects in this episode, particularly the early scenes inside the Papal Mainframe, looked like they hadn't been properly rendered.) It's unfortunate that it had to come so soon after the 50th anniversary spectacular, because any episode in which The Doctor regenerates from one actor to another should be given due weight and consideration, and it's a shame that Matt Smith's departure had to happen in the wake of something so widely celebrated. (Even if, considering that he took over the part from the wildly popular David Tennant, it feels appropriate that Smith's departure is affected by him as well.)

As we've known for months now, "The Time of The Doctor" is the episode where Smith bows out so that his daft energy can be replaced by the craggy intensity of Peter Capaldi, and I think it's important to start at the end, and the regeneration itself, since that's what everything builds to. The actual moment when The Doctor's appearance changed was shockingly sudden, especially given how flashy the past regenerations have been. There were plot reasons for it - The Doctor is granted a new cycle of 12 regenerations by The Time Lords and has an excess of energy, and that causes a slight hiccup in his current regeneration - but also felt like writer Steven Moffat trying to deal with the loss of his Doctor, the one who helped usher in his fitfully brilliant tenure running the show as quickly and painlessly as possible. Like pulling off a Band-aid, it was best to get it over with, and not to belabour the point. Then again, considering that much of the last season seems to have been building up to this moment, perhaps it was just a case of the little voice in his head finally saying "Get on with it."

While the crucial moment was over and done with fairly quickly, the scene up until that point took plenty of time and consideration in giving Smith a fine send-off. As he talks to Clara about how he's going to change, and how he'll still be The Doctor, but not The Doctor that she knew, he got to have a lovely little speech about how we are all different people over the course of their lives, and the important thing is to remember all the people that you were. It's a beautiful sentiment within the world of the show, but it's also a typically Moffat-esque bit of meta-commentary, acknowledging that Smith is leaving and that he won't be forgotten by either the show or its fans. Moffat can sometimes get a little bit too clever when winking at the audience - especially when he dips into straight out insulting them - but that struck just the right balance of creating a moment that can envelop both the people on-screen and the people watching them.

It also featured a surprise appearance from Amy/Amelia Pond, the person who The Doctor first met after he regenerated, and the one who he most wanted to see in his final moments. It was a sweet moment, and it was nice to see Karen Gillan again (in a scene that reminded me of Wesley's death in the final episode of Angel), but it also typified what worked and didn't work about the episode as a whole. Much of the episode was concerned with reaching for emotional moments of catharsis (as did "The Day of The Doctor", particularly the final shot of all the different Doctors standing next to each other) and for moments that allowed Smith to embody the very best of his version of The Doctor, be it when he talks about how each life he saves matters, underlying the basic humanism of the character, or the opening in which he accidentally shows up on a Dalek ship holding a piece of a dead Dalek. It may not have been his finest hour, but it felt like the purest episode of Smith's time in The TARDIS.

Continued:       1       2