Rate: "The Name Of The Doctor"

Series 7 concludes with the return of River Song, a visit from the Great Intelligence and the Whisper Men, and question that for nearly 50 years has gone unanswered: Doctor Who?

Prepare to have the table set to lead us into November, and the show's 50th Anniversary.  

So, what did you think of the episode?  Let's hear from you!

Really looking forward to this. Please don't disappoint!

I'm going to go on record, six hours before it airs on this side of the Atlantic, and say I'm a bit worried about this one. If this becomes a continuity heavy, expositional story filled with lots of clips from previous episodes, I'm going be very disappointed.

Thought it was pretty good. A decent send-off for River.

Simply splendid. 5/5.

It falls just short of the top score for me, but it was a good finale.

Aspadistra wrote:A decent send-off for River.

Agreed.

Looks like I'm out of step with fandom again. Thought it was pretty poor, to be honest. 2/5.

OK, in a bit more detail...

First, if Marc Platt gets an acknowledgement in the credits of Rise Of The Cybermen, why is there nothing for Lawrence Miles, given how much Moffat has 'borrowed' from Alien Bodies and other Miles books?

For me, the whole thing was a mess, like so much of this season has been. A lot of it felt like notes or selected scenes from a much bigger episode, one where things made sense and characters were actually given a proper introduction and development. Where did the Great Intelligence/Simeon suddenly get the power to know where the Doctor's grave was, for instance? Moffat's been so obsessed with setting up the Clara mystery that he forgot to give the Big Bad any motivation.

And Jenny disappears because that famous scene where the Doctor saves her life when they first met never happened...and now because we don't have that sequence where the Doctor persuades Strax there's more to life than war, he's gone bad. Oh wait, we never saw either of those on screen, so when they're removed from history, it doesn't really mean much to us. It's Moffat doing his 'tell, don't show' again - this thing is cool and legendary and iconic because I tell you it is, not because I make it so.

And Clara saving the Doctor thousands of times is an interesting idea, but we again don't really see it. We get lots of CGI Hartnell and green-screened Coleman, but we don't see her battling the Intelligence and stopping it. Again, we're just told it's happened, and the fans are expected to be so delighted at seeing the former Doctors on screen again that we'll forget there's no real story going on.

The revelation of the Doctor's greatest secret is interesting, but there's no real sense of it flowing from the episode before. What this really needed was to have some space to tell the story, to show us Clara in action in the Doctor's past, while the effects of the battle between her and the Intelligence play out in the present. Releasing the secret should be the price to pay to defeat an enemy who's been built up to be a major threat, not just a bored-looking Richard E Grant glowering at old video of Tom Baker.

The introduction of Hurt as the secret Doctor at the end is interesting, but why the onscreen 'introducing John Hurt' graphic? The dialogue on screen tells us all we need to know about him, and anyone who hasn't already identified him as John Hurt isn't going to be impressed by seeing his name in big letters on screen ten seconds before it appears in the credits. All it reminded me of was the 'hey kids, it's Mark Hamill! Applaud!' caption from Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, and it's another example of Moffat era Who being too busy telling you how impressive it all is to bother making something impressive.

Some of "What Nick Said", but mostly different things, explained at some length over on my Blog.

I said before the episode had even been transmitted I was worried this was going to be a story heavy in exposition and flashbacks, and I'm afraid I was right.

Was there any flashbacks apart from the scene where clara gets her memory back?

I saw flashbacks from Arc Of Infinity, Dragonfire, and The Five Doctors, just off the top of my head.

Oh well. I think this was the best episode of the Moffat/Smith era and no-ones going to change my mind.

Certainly one of the best since 2005. Definitely the best this series.

A story that features 11 Doctors, has scenes set on Gallifrey and the Great Intelligence as the baddie. Sounds like a dodgy fanfic to me. But instead it made an amazing episode of Doctor Who.

5/5

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Oh well. I think this was the best episode of the Moffat/Smith era and no-ones going to change my mind.

Not even if we threaten to Photoshop a compromising image of you and sell it to the Daily Mail?

Actually, I liked it, but some of the things that bothered Nick bothered me as well. Except for Clara telling the 1st Doctor to take a different TARDIS, it was really just Clara watching the Doctors. I know she was active in 11's past, but one scene where she foils the GI in the Doctor's past would have been a nice addition.

I'm not saying it wasn't a worthy effort. The fact that they shoved Clara into the storyline for "Assylum of the Daleks" proves this is something Moffat has been thinking about for quite a while now.

The problem is that the idea of "a universe without the Doctor" has been done before. The story was called "Turn Left," and I think it was structured a little better.

Nice to see the old Doctors again, to be sure, but as I think has been said before, if all we get a sneering Richard E. Grant looking malevolently at an old Tom Baker video, it doesn't "show" us how he defeated the Doctor. We're just supposed to point, go "oh, isn't that cool?!" and not dwell on the mechanics of it. The writer in me needs a bit more context, I'm afraid.

I'll be fair and a give it a 3/5. In fact, I think that's more than fair.

This is why series 7 is the greatest series of Who ever. 5/5

An amazing episode beautifully directed and the old Doctors part(s) pulled off really well. Having been spoiler free the whole episode was one joy after annother. Rivers (Hopeful) farewell done with real feeling, and one of Murray Golds single best episode soundtracks. 5/5