C+Q - The Name of the Doctor (2013)

I might as well start where the episode does: with the best pre-title sequence Doctor Who has had since The Time of Angels. Some of the effects look absolutely terrible but conceptually it's a stunning sequence which sets the tone and scale of the rest of the adventure. The Name of the Doctor makes a huge addition to Doctor Who lore by establishing where the Doctor will die. Yes, I know in The Time of the Doctor we find out that he doesn't actually die on Trenzalore, but this episode's job is to convince us that he does. The decision to start the episode with Clara, a character from the modern continuity, being retconed into a moment as mythic and unfilmable as the First Doctor and Susan stealing the TARDIS on Gallifrey demonstrates this episode's willingness to play with the show's lore. It's a statement of intent, communicating the mindset you have to be in to fully accept big ideas like the Doctor's death and the introduction of the War Doctor.

I love how confident Steven Moffat is when creating huge game-changing plot points like this. Some would say he doesn't have the right to make such massive changes, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have. Personally, I think that in the absence of Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert, whoever is the showrunner should have absolute control to make whatever changes they want to make. If everyone who ever wrote for the show was too scared to make a lasting difference, Doctor Who would never evolve and it certainly wouldn't still be on TV now. For that reason, I embrace all the new changes and adore this episode for having the guts to tell a big lore-bending story. It's not as if Doctor Who has a canon anyway.

Another thing this pre-title sequence establishes is the standard of the music. All of Murray Gold's tracks for this episode are perfect. As well as the opening fanfare version of This is Gallifrey, the musical highlight for me is the Trenzalore theme that crops up many times throughout the 50th anniversary trilogy. Its first use is by far its most effective, when the Doctor and Clara emerge from the TARDIS and explore the graveyard. The music is incredibly subtle and understated but nevertheless sends shivers down your spine and has a weight that makes you believe this is where the Doctor could die. From the lighting to the direction to the music to the design of Trenzalore and the sinister Whispermen, everything about this episode has a sombre atmosphere that hasn't been fully captured by the show since Logopolis. With The Name of the Doctor, Saul Metzstein directs his fifth episode of Who and his work just gets better and better. He manages to give everything a real sense of gravity and importance, again helping you to believe that this really is the Doctor's future grave.

Few things were known about this episode when it aired (that is if you hadn't pre-ordered the Blu-Ray in which case the BBC would've accidently sent the episode to you in full HD), but one thing we knew for certain was that we'd see a resolution to Clara Oswald's "Impossible Girl" arc. At this point, I'd like to offer a defence against some popular criticisms of this arc in fandom drama (I'll be referencing fandom drama and Moffat criticism a lot during my reviews of the early Capaldi episodes). Many have criticised Moffat's handling of Clara (including me in the past), claiming she's nothing more than a human Rubik's Cube; a mere puzzle for the Doctor to solve rather than a fully fleshed-out character in her own right. However, as I've come to realise in revisiting this series, the writing does nothing to dehumanise or objectify Clara. Quite the opposite in fact. While the Doctor is running around trying to figure out her mystery, both he and the audience are constantly told how normal she is.

In The Rings of Akhaten, the Doctor delves into her past hoping to find clues to the great mystery but instead finds the backstory of a completely average person. We see that her mother died when she was young, which could be partly why she looks after children and eventually pursues teaching as a career (something she does after she starts travelling with the Doctor, demonstrating that her life continues outside of the TARDIS). In Hide, the Doctor seeks out Emma Grayling, a psychic who he thinks can help him uncover Clara's mystery, but instead Emma simply says that she's a "perfectly ordinary girl." With regards to Clara, a majority of fans (again, including me) were essentially playing the role of the Doctor; failing to see Clara as a normal person and instead viewing her as some puzzle to be solved. The revelation in The Name of the Doctor, that Clara jumped into the Doctor's timeline to save all of reality works so well because in the end she DID turn out to be an ordinary person and her saving the universe was ultimately her choice.

My only problem with the way it's handled is the line "I'm Clara Oswald. I'm the Impossible Girl. And I was born to save the Doctor." For me, this completely misses the genius of Clara's arc and undermines it a bit by reducing her accomplishment to a big cliffhanger statement. She wasn't born to save the Doctor at all. She isn't Amy or River Song who'd been conditioned from an early age to obsess over the Doctor. She's a normal person, not a puzzle. Had that line not been in this episode, I think Clara's Series 7 story would've been almost perfect. What would've made it truly perfect of course is if Steven Moffat had come up with Clara way earlier and we saw at least one more episode featuring one of Clara's echoes on top of Asylum of the Daleks and The Snowmen. The revelation that Clara was supposed to have existed way back at the show's beginning in 1963 is slightly diminished by the fact she's actually only been around since 2012. A few genuine Jenna Coleman cameos mixed in with that opening montage would've made it perfect.

This episode also saw the return of River Song in what seems like her final appearance. I really hope she comes back one day. Silence in the Library promised a relationship between the Doctor and River that would be stronger than any relationship he'd previously had with another companion, but so far we haven't seen that relationship entirely blossom. The Name of the Doctor is only River's second episode since they got married and already she appears to be leaving the show. I'd love to see some River appearances in the Twelfth Doctor's era because now that the Doctor knows who she is, that would bring a radical new dynamic to their relationship that would allow them to become as close as Silence in the Library said they would be. Based on a line from The Time of Angels ("I've got pictures of all your faces. You never show up in the right order, though. I need the spotter's guide."), it's implied that River has met multiple Doctors but doesn't know what order they come in, explaining why she checks her diary with the Tenth Doctor and struggles to place his age. For all she knows, Tennant's Doctor could come after Smith's. Also, I just want to see how well Alex Kingston plays the role opposite Peter Capaldi and what River makes of his latest incarnation.

The Name of the Doctor is a fantastic series finale and is the start of an excellent trilogy of stories marking five decades of adventures through time and space.