Doctor Who: Eleven’s Hour is Done

The Time of the Doctor or “Protect Christmas”

And by “Christmas,” I mean an actual town called Christmas located on Trenzalore. Gallifrey exists in a crack in time and the Doctor has to protect it from the Bad Guys of Doctor Who Union Local 42 lay siege on Christmas while the Doctor grows old. When all seems lost, hope bursts forth and the Doctor begins anew.


We open on a planet. It kinda looks like Earth. Just surrounded by spaceships. Oh, is it another invasion? Oh look…more Daleks. Just in case you forgot this was Doctor Who, you know. They attack the Doctor and he jumps back into the TARDIS. He yells at someone for sending him onto a Dalek ship while he is holding a Dalek eye stalk. That someone is a Cyberman head the Doctor has dubbed Handles. Where he got this Cyberman head, we don’t know. He just keeps berating it, saying he’ll never know what the message is and why all those ships are there at the rate he’s going. As he rants, he ends up on another ship. Which is a Cyberman ship. And he’s carrying a Cyberman’s head. Repeat the scenario on the Dalek ship with Cybermen instead.

As the Doctor flees for his life, the TARDIS phone rings. The Doctor has Handles make a note to remind him to run the phone line back into the console. Handles asks when the Doctor would like to be reminded and the Doctor gets frustrated, snapping at the Cyberman head to just pick a number and then turn it into minutes. The Doctor finally answers his phone. It’s Clara! She’s preparing dinner for some family members we’ve never heard of before and she needs him to come. You see, she’s convinced these heretofore unheard of relatives that she has a boyfriend. So she needs him to play the role. It’s hard to describe the chaos going on in this scene. But it builds until we reach the opening credits.

DOCTOR WHO!

Clara’s family sits around a small table in her apartment building. This includes a grandmother, an uncle and an aunt. Not sure which side they’re from—Clara’s mother’s or her father’s. But it’s awkward. Clara excuses herself to check on the turkey. As she does so, she hears the TARDIS. Clara runs out to greet the Doctor.

And he’s naked! With only a piece of the TARDIS’ console placed in a way to keep this show family-oriented. Clara closes her eyes and points out the Doctor’s lack of clothes. He flips a few switches and he’s clothed again. Clara opens her eyes and invites him to dinner. He accepts and they run up to her flat. Her family ogles the Doctor…well, her grandmother does. Her aunt and uncle look everywhere but at the Doctor. Turns out they can’t see his clothes! Awkward. Clara looks thisclose to killing him. She pushes him into the kitchen to check on the turkey. Her family is going to be suspicious.

I wouldn’t blame them. That turkey is taking forever. So the Doctor lets her put it some place in the TARDIS. It will supposedly cook the turkey to perfection. Okay. While they wait, the Doctor takes Clara to church. What church, you ask? Well, it’s one in outer space. That requires you to be nude. But since this is a family show, the Doctor and Clara remain clothed by use of hologram technology. But Clara is not comfortable.

The Doctor approaches a woman he calls Tasha Lem. She’s the priestess in this church. And she exchanges some flirty banter with the Doctor, like River Song. There are some people who think she may be River in some form. Tasha reveals that a message had gone out to the universe and everyone had responded. She takes the Doctor to a separate room, leaving Clara outside. Guess who is also out there? Our favorite Area 51 Escapees! (Or as the show calls them, the Silents). She flips out and interrupts the Doctor’s semi-erotic experience with Tasha. But of course, she forgets all about the Area 51 Escapee hoard the minute the doors close. Tasha asks the Doctor to explore the source of the message. He accepts.

The Doctor and Clara land on the planet and encounter danger. Don’t blink—it’s a Weeping Angel! The Doctor pulls Clara away and makes the TARDIS materialize around them before the angel can get to them. Phew! After escaping the Weeping Angel, the Doctor and Clara exit the TARDIS in a quaint little village. They approach a couple and everything starts spewing out. How the Doctor stole his TARDIS, how Clara may fancy the Doctor…The couple just laughs. They say the two aren’t used to the truth field. The Doctor asks where they are. And the couple reply “Christmas!” Yes, the town is called Christmas.

After leaving the couple, the Doctor and Clara do some investigating. They stumble upon a church and go inside. What’s in there? A crack in the universe. Yeah, it’s back. And it’s where the message is emanating from. What’s the message? It’s the first question: Doctor Who? The Doctor realizes who is asking it—It’s the Time Lords! But here’s the thing: All the baddies circling the planet? Turns out I’m not the only one who remembered that the Time Lords had become douches under their Supreme Douchecanoe, Rassilon. So should Gallifrey come back, the Time War would resume. No one wants that. So they want to destroy the planet. And the Doctor because…hey, do they need a reason to destroy the Doctor? Especially as the Daleks all remember the Doctor again due to…off screen deux ex machina?

The Doctor asks the name of the planet and Tasha informs him it is Trenzalore. You know, the planet where the Doctor dies? He knows what is going to happen. But he’s not going to let anything happen to  Christmas or Gallifrey. Or Clara, for that matter. So he tricks her into going into the TARDIS and sends her away, like Nine did to Rose during “The Parting of the Ways.”

And like Rose in “The Parting of the Ways,” Clara isn’t going to be left behind. But unlike Rose, Clara doesn’t open up and absorb the very essence of the TARDIS to become Bad Wolf II Mary Sue Redux. Because this time, the Doctor is recalling the TARDIS. Clara hangs onto the TARDIS as she dematerializes.
Back in Christmas, the Doctor settles in as the town’s new leader and protector. And the people love him. His enemies keep trying to sneak into Christmas and the wooden Cyberman is amazing. The Doctor manages to outsmart him, even though the sonic doesn’t work on wood. (Another call back to the Davies era—series 4!) And we see the Doctor dancing, a call back to Amy and Rory’s wedding. There are so many callbacks in this episode, it’s competing with the 50th anniversary!

He is surprised when the TARDIS materializes with Clara still attached. The TARDIS took a few centuries to travel back to Trenzalore as it was protecting Clara from the space-time continuum. She’s cold and in shock but she’s reunited with a visibly older Doctor. He shows her around Christmas, including all the pictures the children have drawn him over the years. One young boy worries that the TARDIS’ return means the Doctor is going to leave them. But he’s not.

Clara and the Doctor have a talk while keeping vigil over Handles. He reveals he’s used up all his regenerations. For those who are confused, the BBC broke it down:

William Hartnell: 1st Doctor, 0 regenerations 
Patrick Troughton: 2nd Doctor, 1 regenerations (The Tenth Planet)
Jon Pertwee: 3rd Doctor, 2 regenerations (War Games)
Tom Baker: 4th Doctor, 3 regenerations (Planet of the Spiders)
Peter Davidson: 5th Doctor, 4 regenerations (Logopolis)
Colin Baker: 6th Doctor, 5 regenerations (The Caves of Androzani)
Sylvester McCoy: 7th Doctor, 6 regenerations (Time and the Rani)
Paul McGann: 8th Doctor, 7 regenerations (Doctor Who TV movie)
John Hurt: “War Doctor,” 8 regenerations (Night of the Doctor minisode)
Christopher Eccleston: 9th Doctor, 9 regenerations (Day of the Doctor)
David Tennant: 10th Doctor, 10 regenerations (Parting of the Ways)
David Tennant: 10th Doctor, 11 regenerations (The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End)
Matt Smith: 11th Doctor, 12 regenerations (The End of Time Part 2) 

Yes, apparently the Doctor’s aborted regeneration in Journey’s End counts. So, the Doctor is dying of old age. And Handles is dying as well. He reports the fault again and his voice is fading. The Doctor pleads with Handles to hold on but after reminding the Doctor to reroute the phone in the TARDIS, he dies. Whovians everywhere try to figure out how we ended up crying for a Cyberman head.

The Doctor goes to visit Tasha. She says these battles have gone on long enough to create a stalemate and people have tried to end the stalemate by destroying the Doctor. Like the rogue group which broke off and engineered a psychopath to kill the Doctor. The Doctor notes he married that psychopath (River!). Some more banter occurs before Tasha reveals she died. Yep, she’s dead. Time for another callback—this time to “Asylum of the Daleks.” A stalk grows out of Tasha’s head and Daleks swarm around. Time for an action sequence! The Doctor insults Tasha until she regains her consciousness over the Dalek inside her. She holds off the Daleks so the Doctor and Clara can escape.

Once inside the TARDIS, Clara makes the Doctor promise to never leave her behind again. But he had his fingers crossed behind his back because when she goes to check on the turkey, he sets the TARDIS into flight—without him. Clara doesn’t realize he’s done it again until she runs out with her perfectly cooked turkey and doesn’t see him. It really sinks in when she runs out to see her apartment building again.

So Sad!Clara goes back to her family’s Christmas celebration. While there, they break out the Christmas crackers. Clara’s grandmother complains that there aren’t any jokes in the crackers but her aunt protests that there are poems, which are classier. Aunt wants posh, Nana wants fun. Clara asks her grandmother for a joke but Nana seems to ramble on about something that no doubt applies to the plot.

Then Clara hears the TARDIS. She grabs a cracker and runs toward it. But the Doctor isn’t inside; Tasha is. Tasha explains that the Doctor is dying and shouldn’t do so alone. She takes Clara back to Christmas, to the Doctor. Who is reaching Methuselah proportions here. Anyway, as Christmas falls under attack, the Doctor and Clara have one more encounter. They open the cracker, though the Doctor finds it difficult. She reads the poem inside, which is all about Eleven’s hour ending and Twelve’s hour beginning. Oh look, an anvil just fell.

A young man runs in to tell the Doctor the Daleks are attacking. The Doctor goes to make what appears to be his last stand. As he climbs up the bell tower steps, Clara approaches the crack in the wall. She tells the Time Lords that his name is the Doctor and it is the only name they need to know. She pleads with them to help him. After she finishes, the crack seals itself.

Clara runs out to join the people fleeing the Daleks as the Doctor addresses them. He taunts them, really. Says that they’ve been trying to kill him for years and here he was dying of old age. But as everyone watches, the crack appears in the sky. Golden wisps come out and swirl toward the Doctor. The Time Lords have restarted his regeneration cycle—the Doctor now has twelve more regenerations. As he erupts in a golden stream, he takes down the Dalek forces with him. The Doctor wins! And the crack disappears again.

The people of Christmas celebrate while Clara tries to find the Doctor. She decides to check the TARDIS. A trail of clothing leads to a young Eleventh Doctor. He says that the regeneration process has begun and he’ll change soon. Clara doesn’t want him to change but he gives this whole speech about it:

We all change, when you think about it. We’re all different people, all through our lives. I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.

And everyone knew this was Matt Smith breaking the fourth wall. He even made a little motion with his eyes as if acknowledging he was talking about himself.

Then a little redheaded girl runs by him, laughing. It is Amelia Pond, the first person Eleven ever met. Only the Doctor sees her—and all the drawings from the children of Christmas—in the TARDIS. As Clara tearfully watches, the Doctor sees someone coming down the TARDIS stairs. It’s Amy Pond! I didn’t know Karen Gillan was coming back! Way to surprise me, show! She calls the Doctor her “raggedy man” one more time. As Clara pleads with him to stay, the Doctor blinks…goodbye, Matt Smith. Hello, Peter Capaldi. He approaches Clara like a dog curious about another dog. Then he starts talking about new kidneys and not liking the color. Clara is understandably confused, especially since Eleven promised not to forget her and it looks like Twelve has.

Before they can get past the kidney thing, the TARDIS lurches. Twelve rushes toward the console and asks Clara if she knows how to fly the TARDIS. The episode ends on Clara’s “Holy crap!” face.

And so Eleven’s era is done. While David Tennant will always be my Doctor, I enjoyed Matt’s take on him. But now I am looking forward to seeing Capaldi in the role.

As for the episode…It wasn’t the strongest, especially coming after “The Name of the Doctor” and “The Day of the Doctor.” The last half hour was probably the best part of the episode, starting with the Doctor’s confrontation of the Daleks. His goodbye was well handled and, as I said, the inclusion of Karen Gillan was a complete surprise. But the part proceeding it? Could’ve been better.