[Doctor Who] S33E13 The Name of the Doctor [SPOILERS]

[Parallax]

I'd actually suggest the proper thing to do would be to give Smith a year off to recharge the ol' creative batteries and do a series of Time War stories starring John Hurt. Not the full story, just select bits and pieces to suggest what happened.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Which would incidentally allow them to bring back the Master (perhaps even in the form of Derek Jacobi) without retconning him alive again.

[The Romulan Republic]

Not very good. The plot seemed contradictory and not very clear, I didn't like the symbolism and melodrama, and it didn't feel as impressive as it should have (though that might be partly because I was distracted and sleep-deprived). But it was nice to see Gallifrey and the old versions of the Doctor, and Strax's first scene was pretty funny.

I'm not sure what was going on with River. If she was in Clara's mind how did she open the Doctor's tomb?

I'm annoyed that there wasn't more about the Silence.

Anyway, If the 50th. anniversary is going to take place in the Time War, they can have the Master return then. He's currently time locked with Rassilon and company after all.

[The Romulan Republic]

Sorry for the double post, but anyway, I think this episode was comparable to "The Wedding of River Song" ( its partly a sequel to that episode). I think it had some of the same strengths and weaknesses. Which makes it shit compared to Moffat's earlier work but maybe tolerable compared to a lot of season seven.

[Scrib]

To elaborate further, DW and companion interactions to defeat the bad guys work the best when its a "team effort." So you see Ian Chesterton's brawn complementing the First Doctor's brain, Sarah Jane Smith managing to turn off the plant mulcher machine about to kill the Doctor in the Seeds of Doom, Jo Grant confusing the Daemon in the Daemons etc, but the Doctor tends to do the most.

To me these nuWho episodes relegate the Doctor to almost becoming the equivalent of the stereotypical Damsel in distress while the Mary Sue companions save him.

Yeah, I know one person who is always absolutely livid about this and even I have to say that this cheerleader Doctor is getting on my nerves. Clara should have died. She herself says her arc is finished and we're told that the Doctor cannot enter and that she cannot escape and is basically dead and...he jumps in and walks out with her anyway, but not after fawning over yet another magical, amazing, brilliant wonderful, impossible human female who saves his ass yet again. I know that this probably isn't reasonable, the Doctor has had moments with Clara but at this point I find it difficult to build up an emotional connection to this shit.

[The Romulan Republic]

If she saved him and then he went to save her, why is he the only one who's like a damsel in distress?

[Scrib]

If she saved him and then he went to save her, why is he the only one who's like a damsel in distress?

I suppose that it's the pattern? But there's no reason that he has to be the only one. In fact, I don't think that that was ever the claim. Though note that his reciprocation is almost by fiat compared to all the situations where the Doctor being saved is the big plot point.

Also: how did he escape from the scar? Didn't we hear that this was a certain death sentence for most and catastrophic for the person whose scar it was?

And Clara went back in time and foiled the Great Intelligence every. single. time? I don't recall her having the foreknowledge to make this believable.

[PREDATOR490]

0 - This was nothing but a complete self-indulgent piece of shit that tried so damn hard to be melodramatic and ruined itself with inconsistent bullshit

River Song - Oh the Doctor cant see me... oh wait he can. This character has always been a constant source of bullshit that hopelessly infects episode she is in because she is so EPIC !
Previous Doctors - Ugh, the attempts at trying to include Clara in previous incarnations was just awful on the CGI and it didn't accomplish anything.
Doctors Name / Identity - At the rate they keep hyping and circle jerking over this I expect the Doctor to be God or Jesus at this point because nothing less justifies this round and round bullshit.

[Gandalf]

I thought the Doctor was his "name." He helps, heals, and such, and thus he is The Doctor.

I found it amusing that all of the old Doctors are still BBC blurry. Maybe sometime after the eighth regeneration the Doctor upgraded himself to better film stock.

[Stark]

Obviously the Laws of Time mean that blah blah time war blah blah power of love.

Oh shit I wrote a doctor who episode.

[Iroscato]

Obviously the Laws of Time mean that blah blah time war blah blah power of love.

Oh shit I wrote a doctor who episode.

Quickly, somebody give him money!

I just rewatched the episode, it seems the more recent eps get better with a second watch, as there's often so much info to take in. Did anyone else notice the Whispermen in the window when Jenny and Vastra were going into the trance? Brrrr...
I think the Doctor was indeed atomised when he entered his own timestream, but being his own timestream allowed him to keep his mind intact somehow. The leaf gave Clara a focal point to 'wish' the Doctor back into existence, rather like how Amy 'wished' the Doctor back into existence, all those years ago... a bit of a crummy resolution, but nicely symbolic in a way I suppose.

[Scrib]

It's awesome that you quote Stark's sarcastic point then use the point made in the post to explain the plot

Anyways, the difference between nicely symbolic and sappy lazy bullshit here is basically how much of a good mood you're in and how forbearing you are. I'm on the far end of the negative side of both criteria.

I do think that it's something like that, but I'm hoping that there's something I missed and that there's a better explanation. Hoping against hope.

[Batman]

'All those years ago' being June 2010. I've only watched nuWho and even I don't think that's all that far back.

[PREDATOR490]

I thought the Doctor was his "name." He helps, heals, and such, and thus he is The Doctor.

They completely nosedived that option as early as the new Master showing up never mind River Song.

After years of bullshitting and playing up how epic the identity of the Doctor is: Turns out his name is Doctor...
Yeah, that was totally worth 50 years to learn and really, who gives a fuck ?

They have backed themselves into a hilarious corner by making the Doctors identity so damn significant that years have been spent revolving around it with the universe shitting bricks at the idea of learning it. The only options are to follow through and reveal the Doctors identity as being something worth that significance or effectively assassinate the entire new series by showing they spent years to deliver nothing but shit that started with River Song.
If only the fuckwits in Doctor Who hadn't killed the Master, they could have doubled the drama bullshit by making the Master's real name super-significant as well.

[Iroscato]

'All those years ago' being June 2010. I've only watched nuWho and even I don't think that's all that far back.

What can I say, a hell of a lot happened in that time, to me it feels like the better part of a decade.

[Scrib]

I thought the Doctor was his "name." He helps, heals, and such, and thus he is The Doctor.

They completely nosedived that option as early as the new Master showing up never mind River Song.

After years of bullshitting and playing up how epic the identity of the Doctor is: Turns out his name is Doctor...
Yeah, that was totally worth 50 years to learn and really, who gives a fuck ?

They have backed themselves into a hilarious corner by making the Doctors identity so damn significant that years have been spent revolving around it with the universe shitting bricks at the idea of learning it. The only options are to follow through and reveal the Doctors identity as being something worth that significance or effectively assassinate the entire new series by showing they spent years to deliver nothing but shit that started with River Song.
If only the fuckwits in Doctor Who hadn't killed the Master, they could have doubled the drama bullshit by making the Master's real name super-significant as well.

I hate to defend Moffat here but his name is only brought up as a plot point last season.Sure,River used his name to get him to trust her in S4 but that was nothing more than a way to show trust. So in a meta sense it's not really a big issue.

In an in-universe sense then the explanation makes sense. It's like the Tesselactor thing, the universe is not shitting bricks at the Doctor's name, the universe is shitting bricks at the passcode, we just didn't have enough information so we made an assumption. It's just like last season where the fixed point was actually the Tesselector dying, not the Doctor.

It's still less asinine to bring up plotlines and mysteries everyone knows you have no intention of playing straight but it's not as bad as it could have been.

Which brings up another plot hole: the Doctor is not supposed to be able to lie in the Fields of Trenzalore, that's what makes them significant. That part of the prophecy is completely ignored and you have good old fashioned (boring) duress.

[Havok]

NOVEMBER 23RD?!
FUCK YOOOOOU ENGLAND!

Anyway, I thought it was really good.
However, prepare for more River Song. As she said, how was she able to keep the connection if Clara was dead? That means she has figured out how to transpose her essence out of the mainframe and across space and time.

I like the Clara arc and I was fully satisfied with how they wrapped up how she was in those different times. Now though I wish there had been more build up with a couple more episodes of her popping up before she became the regular companion.

[B5B7]

If you go to Z'ha'dum you will die! [And watch out for multiple Mr Smiths from the Matrix].
It was obvious that Clara had to go into the timestream thing, but they took their time getting round to doing it. The past five or so episodes have all had rushed endings, and really needed two episodes for each of the stories to develop properly.

[Broomstick]

Which brings up another plot hole: the Doctor is not supposed to be able to lie in the Fields of Trenzalore, that's what makes them significant. That part of the prophecy is completely ignored and you have good old fashioned (boring) duress.

The Doctor clearly goes to Trenzalore at least twice - the prophecy could have referred to either of those two times I suspect it refers more to the battle episode rather than the "Name of the Doctor" episode.

[Bounty]

However, prepare for more River Song. As she said, how was she able to keep the connection if Clara was dead? That means she has figured out how to transpose her essence out of the mainframe and across space and time.

No, she kept the connection because Clara was still alive somewhere. I'm pretty sure she's supposed to stay dead now.

[mr friendly guy]

If she saved him and then he went to save her, why is he the only one who's like a damsel in distress?

Imagine I am the writer of lets say Wonder Woman. Now in my story arc I have the Cheetah kidnap some civilians and instead of putting up a fight, or finding a way to save them, Wonder Woman just goes, "Please, please don't hurt them." Now imagine a later scene where Cheetah is about to destroy Wonder Woman and incapacitates her with paradox a plot device which has been seen before but never ever affected Wonder Woman in that convenient fashion. Now rush through a new character named Gary Stu, who defeats Cheetah and saves Wonder Woman, but is so injured in the process he requires Wonder Woman to give him CPR.

Now lets say some disgruntled fans criticise the writer for reducing Wonder Woman to a damsel in distress, begging instead of fighting, incapacitated by a contrive plot device just so the new character can rescue her, a plot device which shows the writers were too lazy to come up with their own reason because its never affected her in this manner before. Now imagine the writer defending his plot by saying "But Wonder Woman saved Gary Stu, why is she the only one who's like a damsel in distress?

Because that's what has happened to the Doctor.
No action except begging the GI to leave his friends alone. Tick.
Incapacitated by a plot device. Tick. One which has never done this to him before when he crosses his own time line, which demonstrates the creative bankruptcy of the team.

In case its still not clear, the damsel in distress jibe was referring to how he just folded to the GI earlier. If he put up a fight, I would have said that Mary Sue Clara showed him up in his own show, but I would not have accused the writers to reducing him to like a damsel in distress.

[Scrib]

No action except begging the GI to leave his friends alone. Tick.

Which is the weirdest part. This is the man that beat the Order of the Silence in what, six minutes? He had the same amount of time to prepare and what does he do? Oh, just walk into a place he's not supposed to be, a place that he has been told will force him to divulge his secret,something that will lead to the destruction of the universe according to the Silence. And even more concretely, it's supposed to be a big no-no for a time traveller.

What does he do? Nothing, indeed forcing someone to reveal his secret and almost dooming the universe. No tricks, no plans, nothing. Then, he doesn't even have the class to pop out of the universe in a sensible fashion. He has to lay their and cry like a baby until he can magically be saved.

(Also, does Clara now have foreknowledge of the Doctor's life since she went all through his entire timeline? Another reason she should have died)

[jwl]

Would have been absolutely amazing if River Song hadn't been included as Exposition Lady.

At least that seems to be her final appearance.

I'm pretty sure it's not. "Spoilers".

[Korto]

Meh - Gave it three. The whole "name" thing is kinda anticlimatic.
It would have been better if Clara had of died in the end. It would have been consistent (not that that's a huge issue with Who), and would have made it more meaningful. Anyway, it's not like the show would have lost anything, she's just another young pretty face, and I'm getting sick of them.
Which leads to Riversong. I don't get the hatred some of you seem to have for her. I wouldn't mind seeing her as a proper travelling companion, as the Doctor's wife. She's competent, has personality, doesn't look like she should be still in school instead of gallivanting around the universe , it would get rid of this sexual tension nonsense (oldWho never had sexual fucking tension. You may have had girls dressed in bearskin bikinis, but no sexual tension, and it didn't suffer for it), and she's much more his equal. It would change the dynamic, less "Batman and Robin" and more "Mr and Mrs Smith" (or possibly "The Avengers", but Broomstick may be a better judge of that then me).
Try it for a while, say it's during some of the "Lost Years", before Riversong gets stuck in a book.

I like the older-look Doctor. I still support an elderly female Doctor. Dame Judi Dench was an excellent suggestion from someone some time ago. I realise it's a bit much to expect the show to show some guts, but I still hope.

[Havok]

There was no sexual tension between Rose and 9/10. They both knew and acknowledged how they felt.
The Doctor had zero interest in Martha.
Donna and 10 had zero interest in each other.
Amy just wanted a quick jump in the sack, while 11 had zero interest in her.
It seems like 11 likes Clara and she may or may not like him, but it is mild infatuation with a stray comment here and ther and nothing close approaching sexual tension.

Sexual tension is Sam and Diane on Cheers or David and Maddie on Moonlighting.
The one character that should have had some sexual tension with the Doctor was River and there was like absolutely none.
Doctor Who couldn't find sexual tension with a sonic screwdriver and a map.