Rate and Discuss: The Time of the Doctor

[SiHart]

It's nearly time for The Time of the Doctor.

Will we see all the plot threads of the last few years sewn up neatly? Will Matt Smith get the send off he deserves? Will it be the best Christmas special yet?

What do you think?

[SiHart]

Oh I will miss Matt.

[duncan]

That's going to take a few more watches. My daughter just doesn't understand it and I wasn't overly enamoured.

[egdcltd]

Probably the worst Matt Smith episode I've seen (it didn't help that I didn't want him to go). Bitty, and looked to be just there to fill a gap.

[Alex]

Absolutely adored it and thought it was brilliant.

I really really didn't want to cry at the end. But then we saw her and I was off. But it was a beautiful scene, and even though I'm gutted that Matt's left, I can't wait to see what Capaldi will bring us!

9/10 from me btw. Or 9.5, if we had that option!

[SiHart]

I thought Matt got great last words. He went with dignity, unlike David Tennant.

[Dirk Gently]

I can't give it a score yet as I need to see it again...without the phone interruption.

But I guess I'd say it was good but not nearly as good as Day of the Doctor.

[Mike Saville]

But I guess I'd say it was good but not nearly as good as Day of the Doctor.

It was NEVER going to be as good as Name and Day, but there was some more remarkable acting from Matt Smith. The subtlety of his resignation to his fate as Handles shuts down, and the helpless sadness on Clara's face were fabulous. I'm going to miss the chemistry between those two.

Like others, I'll be voting after a second watching.

The obvious elephant in the room- the regeneration reset- was not as well imagined as I'd hoped it would be. Such a shame we couldn't have had it as a surprise instead of the Capaldi fanfare earlier in the year. I'd have said those days are gone were it not for the John Hurt and McGann reveals, but hey ho.

[Dino]

I missed the first few minutes of the title sequence as I'd discovered a bottle of Sherry who's cork was too broken to stop the flow having small woody bits.

It had my attention for the rest of the night until the last five minutes when someone was coming back into my house so I had to run upstairs to avoid evidence I had tears in eyes. It was her being sent home twice and the cameo I didn't expect.
It was the final elderly Doctor regenerating on the tower. (And I spoiled the boots fake re-generation shot it for myself by switching on the upstairs TV to rewind back where I'd left off)
It was pretty much what I'd want for a final ending for Doctor Elev-Wait, 13... no I can see I haven't made my mind up on that, but I look forward to watching it again. The last time I thought the Christmas Specials were good was The Snowmen, but this one knocked them all out. The Christmas Invasion is finally eclipsed by an episode based the final say on Matt Smith's Doctor.

Although his make up didn't convince at the start, the Doctor's through the years were fantastic performances, and he can be proud he saw his years off with his acting in this.

Even though the plot might not turn out to make as much sense, there is still the thrill of different enemies come to have one last go.

The New Series has finally got a claim for the greatest Regeneration episode in it's "nine" years. No two part stories like Bad Wolf/The Parting Of The Ways or The End Of Time.
Everything condensed into one golden hour of TV.

It would have been epic if they'd shown this at the Cinema.

And finally, I get it now. The reason why Doctor Ten went for a farewell tour and dragged out a couple of lines into speeches.
But RTD realised that's less heartbreaking than how Matt Smith went.
It was perfect, after the expectations and traditions, all over in a flash. Maybe that's the way a regeneration really should have been all along.

I can see how Peter can look Doctory when he stares. Some tone of his voice was a bit "Er..." but... remember Matt Smith's first appearance. Remember the tone of his voice when he was noticing his new hair.

You'd never know from that one scene we'd get stuff like Series 7 and the two part stories from Series 6. So same with Capaldi. I can see we'll be getting some great Doctor performances. I'm in no hurry to see his first series televised. I'm happy to wait until "August", if this means, and I've read reports of how excited the cast are for the direction the show is intending to go in, if this means Peter Capaldi can take on from tonight's production, the deaths! Finally!

So, The Time Of The Doctor. It wishes us to take it apart in the cold light of day. It's not a party, but it's not a funeral. You never see the Doctor give up in his ages. It is an epic, but scripted without the flab of a second part, it's so concentrated there may as well be not that much of a plot behind this story, but as a collection of Matt Smith's Greatest Hits, you still wish this one really could have done so much more.

Farewell Matt Smith's Doctor! Thank you for your service! And Merry Christmas everyone!

[Rob McCow]

Gave it a ten. It's Christmas after all.

[Nyder]

As ever, it's impossible to give a full review under a haze of sherry & turkey, and with all the family chatting away. So it's a re-watch from me too! It's a general thumbs up from me though!

[Jon Masters]

I, too, need another watch to give it a final score

Huzzah to everyone who enjoyed it.

Sorry, but summing it up in one gut-instinct word I'd have to go for.......dull.

Another watch may spark more delight, or might getting me pondering too much on the plot.....

Onwards, Mr Capaldi !

[Simon R]

I can't remember what his last words were. It was ok in places but didn't do it for me. Fed up of cameos from those monsters now and what an undramatic way to give him a new life cycle.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

On the one hand it's probably a good thing that it tied up all those outstanding threads that have been left dangling since (seemingly) time immemorial. But on the other hand I can't even really be sure that it did do since it was all sooooo long ago and frankly I just don't have all that stuff in my head anymore. So it was all jsut confusing and a mess and too rushed. Some nice bits in it, and hardly awful, but really just a confusing mess that probably doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.

But I hope we can put all the River/crack/Silence/Angels/Amelia/Kitchen Sink stuff behind us now and start with a blank slate and maybe just have some stories that are actual stories again for once.

[Perry Vale]

Wow. Epic, exciting, funny, sad and amazing. Everything I didn't expect it to be. An unreserved 10/10 from me, and makes up for a disappointing anniversary special. Lovely surprise seeing Karen, the icing on the cake. A perfect and fitting end for Smith.

[Paul Clement]

A pretty poor 6/10 for me. It was an exceptionally dull episode, and the regeneration sequence wasn't all that great either.

[Nyder]

So thinking about it last night (and because I won't get chance to watch it again until I return to London):-

Immediate likes
All the turkey & nakedness stuff
Nearly every line Matt delivered, whether it was funny, or a condescending put-down to his enemies. THIS is why I'm going to miss Matt so much.
The return of Amy's crack
The return of Amy

Immediate dislikes
The Daleks not centre-stage. They need a really good story where they're not reduced to bit parts.

Comedic Sontarans - make them scary again! Bob H would have wanted it that way!

"Old" make up - it's been done before with Tennant. I don't think young actors playing old really works

The almost "mass destruction" power of Time Lord regeneration. Second only to "re-set time" it's a lazy plot device.

"Kidneys" Really? Not a killer line!

I didn't mind the weird regeneration - it was a quirky touch! I couldn't quite tell if Capaldi was playing it Scottish or English. It got noisy in our house at that point!

[Darren]

4 out of 10

This final story for the eleventh/thirteenth Doctor pretty much sums up his era- a magnificent Doctor from Matt Smith, saddled with poor writing and ideas, full of contradiction, gaping plotholes and nonsense.

The opening scenes with the Doctor and Clara's obnoxious family were excruciatingly bad. He has to be naked to approach the Papal mainframe? Why? Oh so there can be an unfunny sequence with Clara and her family.

The crack in time has been rewritten (again?) to be a gateway from Gallifrey which, just a month ago was locked in a time bubble to prevent detection from the rest of the universe.
The Timelords apparantly are sending a signal through, which they must know is going to attract the attention of every enemy, to find the Doctor and secure their return to the universe. Even though to do so would trigger The Time War 2.

Why is it that the Doctor needs to speak his real name to tell them it's safe to come out of hiding? At the end Clara spoke through the crack to them to give him a new cycle of regenerations (and they listened to her, an unknown companion). So why couldn't the Doctor simply say "It's me lads, give us another thirteen lives and wait for me to get rid of the Daleks berfore you come out!"

In The Name of the Doctor, on Trenzalore, the Doctor collapses and says that he can feel all his future selves in the spinning timestreams yet must already know that he is the last.

And the regeneration. Such a let down. So underwhelming. Peter Capaldi given nothing to work with. New kidneys? David Tennant got there first with new teeth. And was it my telly, or were the last moments of dialogue drowned out with music and special effects? All the regeneration sequences we have had under Moffat's tenure, and he screws up the most important one!

And it was so incredibly boring!

[dalekkiller]

I'm going to have to watch it again as owing to a trapped nerve in my left leg I had to pace up and down whilst watching it but on a first viewing 6/10.

[Jason Thompson]

Disappointing nonsensical drivel just about sums it up. Oh it had some good moments, and Smith was superb as usual. The story made no sense whatsoever and was saddled with a load of gag fluff for no reason. Nudity gags were done to death and served no purpose. If they have to be naked why wear holograms? What's the difference between that and wearing clothes? The Doctor had the TARDIS, then didn't have the TARDIS, then had it again, all through handy nonsense like this Tasha Lem person being able to fly it. A quaint little town where it's not only always Christmassy but the town is actually called Christmas? A pointless truth field just so we can hear that once again the companion fancies the Doctor. The Silence are back, but oh, these guys are OK actually, so why was there one menacing Clara? Once again the Daleks have the Doctor entirely surrounded and fail to just completely obliterate him with their huge arsenal of weapons. The regeneration was a messy stop-start affair. His hand is glowing, it's started, no, it's stopped for a bit so he can deliver another line or two, oh, there it goes, huge great fountain of energy conveniently wiping out everything and everyone, but that doesn't let us have a schmaltzy final few lines from Smith as the Doctor we recognise so there's a reset stage and a few more random glowing hands and then oh it's Capaldi and what the hell's he saying because I can't hear over the music and explosions.

I didn't care about the death of 'handles' because he wasn't around long enough for us to get any kind of understanding of why we should actually care. The aliens are once again all out of character because they're not fighting with each other despite their own stated goals of universal domination. Was anyone even remotely surprised by the 'revalation' that they were on Trenzalore?

Essentially too many disjointed set-pieces and not enough plot. This didn't feel like a finale. It felt like 'well, we know there's a new Doctor coming up so we'd better just get to it really'. Massively disappointing after Day of the Doctor, and the weakest Christmas special/Doctor finale yet.

[Nyder]

Oh so it wasn't just my noisy family! General consensus seems to be the music & SFX drowned out PC's opening lines. Oops!

[Simon R]

Capaldi's scene was so uninspiring. He deserved something better. Amusingly my 4 year old godson just watched it and asked why Doctor Who was a baddie now.

[Alex]

Oh so it wasn't just my noisy family! General consensus seems to be the music & SFX drowned out PC's opening lines. Oops!

I think it comes down to individual tv's and (possibly) how they're set up - as I struggled whilst watching it on my Mum's tv, but when I watched it back on iplayer on my laptop it was crystal clear.

[Dino]

I've enjoyed it a lot more on my second light of day watch. It really is the best Christmas Special, it's even beaten The Christmas Invasion at last! That one had a sleeping Doctor this one had the Doctor at his most active. The episode alone makes me think he could win the Best Actor at BAFTA's, but then they might also take in Nightmare In Silver for further consideration...

I still think the crack was a cop out. But I'll live with it. Capaldi won me over more fully now, but I'm still prepared to wait and see.

[brandynigma]

7/10 for me.

Enjoyable, but not spectacular. I'm satisfied with the explanations of the Silence, the Crack and the Question, with the concept of the episode and the performances. Not thrilled or elated, but satisfied.

And it was a great deal better than The End of Time, even without Timothy Dalton.