"The Time of the Doctor" and a Retrospective of Matt Smith's 11th Doctor Who

Jay here. Christmas Day brought us yet another installment in the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special. This year, as all “Whovians” know, was a special one. It was the swan song of one of the series’s most beloved incarnations of the time traveling Gallifreyan, Matt Smith, who has played the character for the last 4 years. He had some very big shoes to fill, taking over for fan-favorite David Tennant in Season 5. He would also help usher in a different direction for the series as new show-runner Steven Moffat replaced Russell Davies as the creative force at the helm. Smith brought a goofy and childlike playfulness to the Doctor that meshed perfectly with the whimsical feel that Moffat wanted the show to adopt. It has been a great run, and even though I personally prefer Tennant’s 10th Doctor to the 11th, I think Smith’s spin on things was refreshing and provided a multitude of memorable moments. Some of the best Doctor Who has ever seen.

For the uninitiated, Doctor Who is the long-running British science fiction show that has started to gain popularity in the US since its reboot in 2005. It concerns the adventures of a time traveling alien known only as the Doctor. He flies through time and space in his stolen ship, the TARDIS. It was originally designed to always take the form of an unobtrusive item in whatever time the Doctor was visiting, but at some point it malfunctioned and it is forever stuck in the guise of a blue Police Box that used to be common in England several decades ago.

The Doctor is a Time Lord, a race of beings who mastered the manipulation of the Time Vortex which gave them mastery over time and space. At some point there was a huge war between the Time Lords and a race of malevolent creatures called Daleks. This war threatened to destroy all life throughout the entire universe, so the Doctor did the unthinkable and used a device called the Moment to destroy both races in order to preserve the rest of existence. Because of this the Doctor has always had to live with the guilt of knowing he wiped out his own people.

As a Time Lord, the Doctor is also capable of regeneration. Meaning, if he should be mortally wounded, instead of dying, his body changes form giving a new actor the chance to take on the role. With this regeneration also comes a change in personality, giving the new actor a chance to put his own stamp on the character. Every Time Lord can return from death 12 times. As the last of his race, the Doctor is also lonely, so he always has a companion with him to share in his adventures. Since he has a love of our planet Earth, his companions are always human. The relationship between the Doctor and whomever his companions might be is the core of what makes Doctor Who so great.

“The Time of the Doctor” was the title of this year’s Christmas special. It follows on the heels of the 50th Anniversary Special, “The Day of the Doctor”, which was a fantastic 2 hours of television. It set up completely a reinvention of the series by revealing that the Doctor never actually destroyed his home planet and all of his race. He actually froze Gallifrey in time, in another universe, preserving it for the day he could figure out how to release it and end the war. It surprised us by showing that there was an unknown incarnation of the Doctor, played by veteran British actor John Hurt, who did this with the help of Tennant’s 10th and Smith’s 11th. The ramifications of the re-writing of Who history meant that the 11th Doctor was actually the 12th and final regeneration. Next time he died, it would be permanent.

Still reeling from the excitement of the “Day of the Doctor,” fans of the BBC show waited with anticipation for Christmas night, knowing it was to be Matt Smith’s final bow. Well, unfortunately it is my duty to report that Moffat and team definitely missed the mark with this one, and it’s a shame being that it brings this chapter of the Doctor’s life to a close. “Time of the Doctor” is a prime example of a writer trying to squeeze too much into a single episode of television.

We start with the Doctor and his latest companion Clara Oswald (played by Jenna Coleman)  responding to a strange, repeating signal coming from a mysterious planet where all of the Doctor’s enemies have gathered for some reason. Turns out this planet is the fabled Trenzalore, the planet where the Doctor is supposed to die. The entirety of Matt Smith’s run as the Doctor has been building up to this moment, so Moffat had to have it end here. After a parlay with a religious group calling themselves the Church of the Papal Mainframe and their leader the Mother Superious, Tasha Lem (Orla Brady), the Doctor arrives on the surface of the planet and discovers a small town called Christmas where no one can lie.


At this point Moffat tries frantically to tie up all loose ends from the last three seasons. He explains how the Church of the Papal Mainframe comes to call themselves the Silence, the very group that has been trying to kill the Doctor for years in order to prevent him from reaching Trenzalore and fulfilling the prophecy by answering the “question.” The question is, as we viewers know, “Doctor Who?” Answering this question by saying his name (which has never been revealed), would bring about the end of all reality as we know it by releasing Gallifrey from the frozen, parallel universe it resides in. The Time War would resume with the Daleks and all of existence would suffer.

Whew . . . .

That’s a lot of plot, huh? Yeah, too much. All resolved in an hour and a half, in a very convoluted way by having the Doctor stay in the town of Christmas for over 300 years, defending it from the invading armies of Daleks, Cybermen, etc. By the time Clara finds him he is an ancient man, grasping at the last bit of life he has. But, do not worry, Moffat has the whole permanent death thing figured out as well. By appealing to the Time Lords through a crack in time (the same crack that first appeared in Amelia Pond's bedroom), they are able to grant him a new regeneration cycle. Yes, he now has 12 brand new life cycles, so we're guaranteed years and years of more "timey wimey" goodness. This problem was a little too neatly solved for my taste.

This brings us to end of the episode and the Doctor’s death, which is the only part of “Time of the Doctor” that worked for me. As his body fails him the regeneration process begins, allowing him to use the energy from the transformation to destroy the invading ships. He appears to Clara back on the TARDIS as a young man again and says his goodbyes to her. It was very nostalgic and bittersweet as a surprise appearance by Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond gives him the chance to say goodbye to her, the first face he saw as the 11th. It was great to see her say , “Goodbye, Raggedy Man” to him as he transformed quite suddenly into the 12th Doctor (or is it 13th?), played by Peter Capaldi.

So, it was not the best episode of Doctor Who, by far. It was very much a mixed bag, but Matt Smith was still great in it, as he always was, even in episodes that were not that well written. So, I thought I’d take a few minutes and list here my personal favorite episodes of his tenure on Doctor Who:

5.) “The Day of the Doctor”

50th Anniversary Special - November 23rd, 2013

I’ve already talked about this one, the 50th Anniversary spectacular. It gave every Who fan their dream pairing by putting both David Tennant’s 10th and Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor together for their greatest adventure, saving Gallifrey. Throw in John Hurt as the “War Doctor” and you get one hell of a story. The production values were through the roof as well, dazzling with our first view of the epic Time War so often mentioned in previous installments.

4.) “Vincent and the Doctor”

Season 5, Episode 10 - June 5th, 2010

Amy and the Doctor travel to France in the year 1890 and meet famous painter, Vincent Van Gogh, just shortly before his untimely death by suicide. Tony Curran is brilliant as the troubled painter, who for some reason inserted an alien image into one of his famous paintings. Van Gogh is the only one who can see this creature, and the Doctor and Amy help him discover its secrets.

3.) “A Good Man Goes to War/Let’s Kill Hitler”

Season 6, Episodes 7 & 8 - June 4th & August 27th, 2011

This was a 2-parter that found Rory and the Doctor traveling to the far reaches of space to rescue Amy from the Silence. Dr. River Song (Alex Kingston) is along for the ride and part 1 is significant because it finally reveals her true identity as Melody Pond, Amy and Rory’s daughter from the future. The 2nd part then reveals how she was programmed by the Silence to kill the Doctor to prevent him ever reaching Trenzalore. Any episode with River Song is usually very good and this one finally answered a lot of the unanswered questions about who she is and where her powers come from.  Spoilers!

2.) “The Doctor’s Wife”

Season 6 Episode 4 - May 14th, 2011

This excellent episode of Doctor Who was written by famous novelist, Neil Gaiman (Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens). The Doctor, along with Rory and Amy, answer a distress signal only to find themselves marooned on an odd planet with a broken TARDIS and three bizarre characters named Auntie, Uncle and Nephew. He also meets an unstable woman who calls herself, Idris. After sending Amy and Rory to safety on the TARDIS he comes to discover that this Idris is actually the essence of the TARDIS itself, and together they build a new time machine out of scrap to escape the planet. This was so well written and the sweet story of the TARDIS as a human and her love for the Doctor was very touching.

1.) “The Eleventh Hour”

Season 5, Episode 1 - April 17th, 2010

This is it, my favorite Matt Smith episode. It also happens to be his first. The season  premier and the first adventure of the 11th Doctor was so well done. Still reeling from his regeneration, the Doctor crashes the TARDIS in the backyard of a little girl named Amelia Pond. She has a crack in her bedroom that leads to another reality. After bonding over fish fingers and custard, the Doctor leaves her, promising to return in 5 minutes and ends up taking 12 years. When he shows up again Amelia is now Amy, and she’s an adult  in her 20’s. Karen Gillan and Smith were great together and expelled all worries after David Tennant’s exit from the show. The episode established the whimsical, fairytale-like direction Moffat wanted the show to take and set up many of the plot lines that would extend through the next 3 seasons. Brilliant!

So that’s it. Matt Smith was a great Doctor and talented actor who brought a real sense of fun and playfulness to the role. Now Peter Capaldi will usher in an older Doctor and I for one am intrigued to see what changes are in store for Doctor Who. We will have to wait until August 2014 to find out!