Original Airdate: December 25, 2013
Bowties. The fez. Fish fingers and custard. Jammy dodgers. Geronimo! This Christmas, we say farewell to Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.
And we welcome Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor!
A planet sent out a message and ships came to see. The Doctor lands in a ship and is surrounded by Daleks. Exterminate, they cry. He returns to the TARDIS and tells his Cyberman head not to send him onto a Dalek ship next time, especially not while carrying a broken Dalek. The Doctor sees all types of ships around the planet: Dalek, Soltaran, Slitheen…and someone else. That’s when the phone rings. It’s Clara, and she needs a boyfriend. The Doctor is only too happy to oblige her, but she doesn’t need a real boyfriend, she needs a stand-in because she’s making Christmas dinner and may have “invented” a boyfriend. Of course, the Doctor is in the middle of figuring out what is going on with the mysterious planet (in the middle of their conversation he lands on a Cyberman ship), and he leaves Clara hanging.
Clara’s family seems pleased with her cooking. She suddenly hears the TARDIS and rushes down to meet the Doctor only to find that he’s…naked. “Yes, I am naked!” he exclaims gleefully. He’s going to church. Actually, it’s a holographic image that he’s projecting, and once he’s clothed he explains that everyone is naked under their clothes anyway. They go inside and Clara introduces him to her family. They all gawk at him, but he charms her grandma, who likes the idea of playing Twister. Clara pulls the Doctor into the kitchen, explaining that he’s Swedish. Nonplussed, the Doctor notes that the turkey won’t be ready in time and so Clara asks him to use an app on his screwdriver to fix it. There’s no app for turkey, he chides her. She convinces him to use the TARDIS to save the day, and he agrees, though he says she must stop using the TARDIS for reservations and the like. Once the turkey is in a compartment in the TARDIS, Cyber Head says that he knows what planet it is. It’s Gallifrey.
The Doctor is angry and in denial. Clara points out that he thought he may have saved it. He doesn’t think that it can really be Gallifrey. There is a foghorn noise from outside. It’s the Mainframe, something akin to a church. They can get them to the surface. Mother Superius appears and the Doctor bows to her. She’s
welcoming them aboard. The Doctor tells Clara to swallow a holographic projector so that she can go with him, since they can’t wear clothes in church.
Clara doesn’t feel like she’s wearing clothing as they enter the Church of the Papal Mainframe. Tasha Lem, the leader of the mainframe, closely examines the Doctor’s new body, commenting that it’s “tight.” Tasha wants a word with the Doctor, and after some consideration he decides to ask her to leave them for a moment. As Clara stands outside, she sees something in the shadows. Tasha leads the Doctor into an altar room with a giant bed in the middle. She explains that they have been blocking the planet from everyone else, but that there is a human colony on the planet that is sending the signal. It’s only a matter of time before someone else goes down to the planet. The Doctor wants to be first, which is exactly what Tasha was counting on. Meanwhile, Clara starts to see shadowy figures all around her, but as soon as she sees them she forgets who they are. They are the Silence, and they whisper that they want to be first. Clara runs away from them into the altar room, but she forgets why she is running as soon as she enters. The Doctor negotiates a trip to the surface for an hour, but Tasha takes the key to the TARDIS to prevent the Doctor from using any kind of technology while on the surface.
The Doctor and Clara materialize in a snowy field. Clara is freezing and the Doctor rubs her arms vigorously until the holograph program kicks in. She spots a hand poking up through the snow, and when she touches it and turns to tell the Doctor that it’s a statue, he tells her not to look away. It’s a Weeping Angel, and it grabs Clara’s foot from under the snow. They’re surrounded by them, which means that the Mainframe’s shield must have been cracked. The Doctor summons the TARDIS, but when they get back on board, the Doctor’s head is bald and the Cyber Head is sporting a coiffed Doctor-do. Clara tells him to put his hair back on before they land again.
They exit the TARDIS and find themselves in a quaint little town. The Doctor spies a couple moving through the snowy streets and suspects that he should be called Hank or something. However, as they approach the couple, the Doctor blurts out that he’s a Time Lord who has stolen a time machine and flaunted the rules of his people. Clara introduces herself as a schoolteacher who fancies the Doctor. “I’m wearing a wig!” the Doctor adds. He realizes that they’re under the spell of a truth field, and the town folk suggest that they stop talking until they get used to it. They cannot lie while in the town. The couple explains that the town is called Christmas. “How can a town be called Christmas?” Clara wonders as they walk away. “How can an island be called Easter?” the Doctor counters.
As they investigate the town, the Doctor finds a glowing crack in the wall, a “split in the skin of reality.” Clara doesn’t understand what the big deal is, but it was his TARDIS that blew it up in the first place. Someone is trying to break through. The Cyber Head confirms that it is the planet Gallifrey, and the Doctor suspects that the Time Lords is trying to get a message through. A message is coming through for him. “Doctor Who?” the Cyber Head asks. He keeps repeating it over and over and it gets broadcast to all of the ships. He tells Clara that it won’t be safe for them if the Time Lords comes through. He sends her back to the TARDIS as Tasha tries to get through to him. He asks what the planet is called. “Trenzalore,” she says. She reminds him that if the Time Lords were to return, there would be a never ending war. Clara runs outside of the TARDIS and finds herself back home. “No!” she cries, sticking her key into the lock. “Speak your name and the planet will burn,” Tasha says. The Doctor gathers the townspeople and tells them that he is the Doctor. Back on the Mainframe, Tasha tells her people that there has been a change of plan, and that their new mission is to silence the Doctor as the Siege of Trenzalore begins. “Silence will fall!”
The narrator speaks of how the Doctor kept his word to the people of the little town called Christmas, protecting them from the enemies trying to take over. We see Soltarans destroyed by the Mainframe (which apologizes for their deaths), and we see the Doctor take out a Cyberman disguised as a wooden tree. Time passes and the doctor has all but forgotten his old life. He has aged quite a bit as well. The people of the town love him, though, and celebrate him as the man who never left them. One night the TARDIS appears after a 300-year absence. Clara is standing outside trying her key. She had been sucked into the time vortex with the TARDIS, and after a brief argument she accepts his hug. “Fixing toys and stopping monsters,” she murmurs as she looks at his workshop. When the Doctor enters she asks if the Cyber Head is still asking the same questions. It is, he says, but he wants her to come see the dawn, as the light only lasts a few minutes each day.
The Doctor explains that he’s in a standoff. He can’t leave because the Mainframe will burn the planet, and they can’t hurt him because he could say his name and unleash the Time Lords. He fixes the Cyber Head enough to watch the sunrise, but the Cyber Head says he has a fault. He gives the Doctor one last reminder—to patch the telephone back to the console, just as the Doctor requested. The Cyber Head dies (reminding me of Tom Hanks and Wilson). As the sun comes up, the Doctor tells Clara that this place reminds him why he needs to fight. If he hadn’t sent her away she would have died long ago. She reminds him that he can’t die, and he says that he only has thirteen regenerations. The man who showed up was a version of himself even though he didn’t call himself “The Doctor” during the Time War. This is all he has. She wants him to change the future. He says that the future of this planet is the graves that he saw before. His graves. Tasha interrupts their moment together and says that the Mainframe is requesting a parlay. He agrees, but not before warning Clara that everything ends, and “sooner than you think.”
As Clara and the Doctor head to the TARDIS, the Doctor sees a little boy guarding the TARDIS. The boy wants to know if the Doctor is leaving. The Doctor won’t leave, he promises. He and Clara return to the Mainframe and meet with Tasha. Outside the altar room, the disciples start to communicate with the Dalek ship. Soon a light stem pokes through their foreheads. They’re all Daleks. The Doctor has entered the trap. The Doctor and Tasha trade barbs while Clara watches. When Tasha slips and says that the Dalek ship infiltrated their shields, the Doctor realizes that Tasha is really dead. She writhes around until a light stem bursts through her forehead. She doesn’t even recall dying. The door opens and a group of Daleks enter the room. Tasha grabs Clara and holds her hostage, challenging the Doctor to make a choice about the life of his companion. Clara says they’ll kill her anyway, and the Doctor gleefully tells Tasha that Clara is a real woman who won’t be fooled by the Daleks. The last bits of Tasha break through and the Doctor kisses her, tearing off the light stem in the process. She ushers them back into the transport booth to return to the TARDIS and he urges her to continue fighting the Dalek inside of her.
Once they’re back on the TARDIS, Clara makes the Doctor look her in the eye and swear that he’ll never send her away again. He promises, and then he says her turkey has finally cooked. She rushes down to get it, but when she comes back, the Doctor is gone. She goes outside to find that he has returned her home. The TARDIS disappears, leaving her standing alone with her turkey.
The Doctor returns to Christmas, and the boy asks why he’s leaving the TARDIS. Because he might leave someday, the Doctor says. The narrator says that the other races fled or burned while the Doctor and the Mainframe (and the Silence) fought together against the Daleks.
Clara sits with her family as they discuss their Christmas crackers. Gran wanted ones that have jokes in them. Clara asks her to tell a joke. As her Gran reflects on her lost love, Clara starts crying. She hugs her Gran, who tells her to make a wish. At that moment, she hears the TARDIS materialize. She goes out to the field and finds Tasha flying the TARDIS. Flying the TARDIS is easy, Tasha says, but controlling the Doctor is hard. They return to Christmas, where Tasha says that the Doctor should not die alone. Clara steps outside the TARDIS into the middle of a fiery warzone in what used to be a pretty and peaceful town. She walks to the Doctor’s workshop and goes inside. Every wall is covered with children’s pictures.
Clara finds an aged Doctor in a wheelchair. He comments on her youth. She kneels down beside him and they share a Christmas cracker as they sit in front of the crack in the wall. She reads the joke and sits at his feet. Outside the Daleks surround the house, calling the Doctor out. A boy comes to tell him that they’re outside, and the Doctor says he has a plan. Clara wants him to change the future, but he says it isn’t possible. He wants her to stay inside so that he can save her, which is his one final victory. He thanks his “Impossible Girl” and goes out to meet the Daleks, all the while saying that the Daleks talk so much he’ll probably die of boredom before they get to their point.
Once the Doctor has left, Clara goes to the wall and tells the Time Lords that his name is the Doctor and that’s all they need to know, and if they love him, they will change the future and save him. She stands up and turns to leave, and the crack disappears.
Outside, the Daleks keep calling for the Doctor. He is making his way to the roof, commenting that he’s a bit older than he used to be. The Dalek ships bomb the town. The Doctor looks up and sees the crack up in the sky. The crack shoots a beam of energy into the Doctor, and then it disappears. The Daleks think he has expended his regenerations, but then they realize that he’s about to regenerate again. “Never mention the rules,” the Doctor shouts. The Daleks try to kill him before he can regenerate, and Clara rushes to get the townspeople out of danger. “Love from Gallifrey!” the Doctor shouts as a beam of energy shoots from his body and up into the sky, effectively wiping out the Daleks.
Clara and the people of Christmas walk through the rubble looking for the Doctor. The Daleks are gone. The TARDIS stands untouched, but the phone is off the hook. Clara hangs it up and goes inside. She finds a trail of clothing leading around the console. The Doctor appears. He’s young again. He drinks a bowl of custard as the regeneration cycle begins again. “Any moment now, he’s a coming,” the Doctor says. “You’re the Doctor,” she says. The Doctor sees young Amelia Pond running up the stairs. “We all change,” he continues. “You’ve got to keep moving so long as you remember the people you used to be.” He vows not to forget who he was as the Eleventh Doctor. Amy Pond shows up and caresses his cheek. “Raggedy Man, goodnight,” she says to him. Clara can’t see her. She realizes that he’s about to change. He pulls his bowtie off and drops it to the ground. She reaches for his glowing hand, and he has a regeneration spasm.
All of a sudden Matt Smith’s Doctor is gone, and Peter Capaldi’s Doctor emerges. Clara’s eyes are as big as saucers when he shows up. The TARDIS starts flying out of control. As usual, they’re about to crash. The Doctor notes that he has new kidneys. Clara continues to stare at him. And then he asks the golden question. “Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?”
And that, ladies and gentleman, is the end of Matt Smith and the beginning of Peter Capaldi.
I have to admit, I was really worried about how the Eleventh Doctor would leave the series. And fortunately, I think that his departure was well done. I think the story was a bit rushed (this could have been a three-part episode easily) but in the end, the Doctor was able to say his goodbyes and usher in a new era of Doctor Who with class. Not only that, but it looks like the problem of having thirteen regenerations has been solved thanks to the Time Lords in the crack. Now the future is limitless.
What did you think of tonight’s Christmas special? Are you thrilled about the new Doctor? Post your comments below!
Comments are closed.