The Time of the Doctor

Matt Smith was a concerning choice when announced... yet won me over even faster than Tennant ( he took until tooth and claw for me).
Matt has one of the strongest post regeneration stories of all the doctors, up there with pertwee and Troughton for me.
Yet when it comes to send offs new who has been particularly satisfying.
Tens regeneration scene was magnificent and emotional but the initial story was all over the place. Time of the doctor is even more so. I feel Moffs teasing and mysteries all caught up with him in the end. The era started so strong for me personally (S5&6a) but dwindled rapidly in the middle. This was due to arc heavy series that don’t tend to even pay off.
Time of the doctor tries quickly to culminate the cracks in time , Trenzalor and a fair bit of yarn in a hour. Mess is the best answer albeit a pretty one. It’s action packed but cheesy. Matt’s regeneration was so different and mad I was pleased until suddenly he does it again quickly in the tardis... I don’t care if it was something to do with the new regenerations, it killed the moment for me.
Still it does have epic moments at the least and I admire Matt greatly , he truly charmed me start to finish.

I’m sad to give it a 6 but it deserved to be better!

Following The Day of the Doctor which I felt was a triumph and had hugely pleasantly surprised me that Steven Moffatt could make so many elements work and make a great episode under the pressure of huge expectations this episode is sadly yet another case of Moffatt throwing way too many ideas at a story and not making them work. Yes it is hugely entertaining if you switch your brain off and for many viewers that is what they want but I require stories to make sense in terms of logic and to be coherent. This adds to the long line of adventures that Moffatt lets get too muddled. It is not 'clever' or 'complex' to just randomly throw loads of convoluted ideas into a story, ANYONE can do that. The clever bit comes in making it work and make sense when you analyse it as well as being entertaining at the time.

This is fun and epic and has humour, great acting, strong effects etc but it is a mess in terms of plot and is too contrived in content. The whole premise does not make sense. When the TARDIS takes Clara off for 300 years before finally returning it at least makes sense that means the Doctor is 'trapped' there but he basically trapped himself which does not seem a character choice he would make. Then even when he has the TARDIS back he remains on Trenzalore for hundreds more years. For a start, when he has a time machine he cannot get trapped anywhere as he could leave and return back to the exact moment he left so he would never have to remain on Trenzalore unless there was a reason given that he could not go back and forth in time from there which there is not. Also it does not make sense how the Daleks, the Angels, the Sontarans and the Cybermen with all their might can attack the small, primitive town (with the needlessly contrived name of Christmas) without success or wiping out all the inhabitants. Yes the Doctor and his allies defend the town but this is not depicted as a believable sufficient defence as attackers frequently are seen to get into the town and attack with powerful weapons. Moffatt just decides the Doctor will be stuck there for hundreds of years so it happens without making narrative or visual sense.

The Doctor visually ages a lot in 300 years but did not age at all in 200 years during The Impossible Astronaut story and the idea he cannot regenerate does not fit with earlier stories. If he knew he could not regenerate then why was there the idea of River's poison being required to 'disable regeneration' in Let's Kill Hitler and why was the space suit shooting an apparently regenerating Doctor at Lake Silencio? If the Doctor was destined to die at Trenzalore then why did everyone also think he was destined to die at Lake Silencio? If he was not due to regenerate why did he not notice the 12th Doctor's arrival in The Day of the Doctor or question the existence of the Curator? If he knows he will eventually die and therefore eventually be unable to further defend Trenzalore/Christmas then what is the point of him staying there for hundreds of years in an ultimately hopeless task without leaving or coming up with another plan? Why does the Angel touching Clara have no effect on her? So many ideas that are not thought through and just get chucked at the screen for epic show. This is the same problem as in The Big Bang, Day of the Moon, A Good Man Goes To War, Let's Kill Hitler, The Wedding of River Song etc. Moffatt had SUCH great potential as he could write terrific dialogue, come up with great scenes and spectacle as well as thoughtful character insights but he far too often just throws all his ideas at things with absolutely no attention being paid to making it all fit into a logical narrative. He also overblows things with lack of subtlety such as including numerous enemy races and characters without really using them properly.

The acting is great, especially by Matt Smith who puts in a bravura performance which should be recognised and applauded. There are some lovely quieter scenes and some exciting moments of drama. The ideas of the Doctor being naked and the whole element of the 'Church' and their leader Tasha Lem are weak and silly with no context that integrate them sensibly.

It is only the acting, the entertaining visuals and the smart dialogue which stop this falling to a really poor level. Even giving credit for all the positives though I think I am being generous in rating this as 4.5/10.

Matt Smith's final performance as the current Doctor was sensational. There's a little moment in the first portion of the episode where he decides he will stay to defend Christmas, he goes out to introduce the townspeople, and says "Hello everyone, I'm the Doctor." Every time I watch this episode, this is the moment in the episode that holds the most emotional weight and impact. It's the last time we here him say that iconic saying and the way that Smith delivers the line is perfect. It also goes without saying that his final monologue or speech at the end, in the Tardis about moving on and change, but how he will always be the Doctor is stellar writing on Moffat's behalf, and I can only hope Capaldi gets similar treatment in Twice Upon a Time.

I do really enjoy this episode, mainly for Matt Smith, but there are some negatives to it. The pacing does feel a little off, I do have a feeling that Matt was supposed to stay for Series 8, and so Moffat had to cram everything into this 1-hour special. But i'd like to think that Series 8 would've been solely dedicated to the Doctor defending Trenzalore, and as the series went on we saw 11 age, and lose hope in life to the point in the finale on top of the clock-tower having the final standoff with the Daleks. A bit like having whole adventures per episodes, ala Tales of Trenzalore novel. Tasha Lem is a bit naff as well, she needed to be more fleshed out or a character we knew.

But overall, Time Of The Doctor is a sorely underrated episode, and a great final performance by my Doctor.

This one should be called The Time of the Rani.