I, like many, have watched the recent Dr Who Christmas special. As fellow fans of the series will know, this episode was tasked with ending the Silence arc, with closing the era of Matt Smith’s Doctor and introducing the new one. So, how did it do?
I’d say it failed, quite badly.
I will say now that it was better than Journey’s End and The End of Time, Tennant’s last episode. Yet being better than such is not much of a positive. There’s also the memory of Eccleston’s exit, which was far better.
The first problem is that, with other Moffat Christmas episodes, there is a strong Christmas feel to it. In those of RTD’s era, there was a Christmas feel, but it did not overwhelm the story and its tones. Of course, the latter part of his run had other problems, but these have been looked at by plenty of others. I might write about them myself at some point, but not now. Anyway, it is clear from parts that this is meant to have an epic feel to it. Yet the Christmas elements contrast badly with it and strip away such feelings. The main location simply feels like a small Christmas village, which feels like an odd setting for an epic battle between multiple factions, including the Daleks.
This failure to set the right tone is mixed with plot silliness. We again have a great number of races brought to a single place by a signal sent everywhere, sent through a crack like those in season five. Of course, the deja vu is somewhat ameliorated by the fact that this signal is at least encrypted. This is nullified, however, by the fact that it is sent to everyone once it is translated. We do not know if this is the fault of the Cyberhead that the Doctor was using or the Time Lords, the group sending the signal. No matter which one is at fault, this is pointless stupidity and happens for no in-universe reason.
Then the Silence, who have been trying and failing to stop things from escalating, join with the Doctor to fight against the other factions. This fight begins because the signal is being sent out by the Time Lords for the reason of escaping the dimension they were put in during Day of The Doctor to let them survive the Time War. The crack on this planet was created by the Time Lords, who had been unintentionally assisted by the Silence and would be used to let the Time Lords return. Naturally the Daleks fear the return of a foe as advanced as them. The Silence are involved because they see in this the potential beginning of a new Time War. Of course, both powers in this event are time travellers, which is why the Time War was so destructive in the first place.
In addition to that, we know the Silence are advanced enough that they are capable of destroying a TARDIS remotely, an event that nearly destroyed reality. But I suppose we can forgive Moffat. After all, why should we expect Moffat to remember something written by… oh, this is embarrassing. It was written by Steven Moffat. Never mind.
So, after an attack by the Daleks on the Silence ship, the episode moves into a fight between the various factions against the Doctor and the Silence, with it eventually ending up with only the Daleks, the Doctor and the Silence left. This fight, lasting many years, is rather dull, which is unsurprising given the failure of either side to make use of its ability to time travel. This long battle over the Christmas time village finally ends with the Doctor, now at the end of his life, surrounded by the Daleks.
At this point, the leader of the Silence goes to the present to fetch Clara, who has been sent back for the second time this episode. She is being collected because the Doctor should not die alone. Fair enough. But this scene has them sitting next to a fire, surrounded by cards, which again means it fails to have the right mood to it. Then the Doctor goes out to face the Daleks one more time. Clara then pleads through the crack for the Time Lords to assist the Doctor. They manage to hear it, which is odd enough. They respond by giving the Doctor a reset of his regeneration count and the ability to temporarily go around blowing stuff up with regeneration energy, including all the Daleks on the surface and a Dalek ship floating right above everyone. This apparently was the only ship around now, so the Doctor can claim another victory by deux ex machina.
Of course, Smith has yet to give us a goodbye, so it takes quite a while for him to regenerate. But the goodbye is good, with Smith’s Doctor giving us a speech about change and that it’s ok, as long as we remember, proclaiming that he will always remember. This good part is ruined fairly swiftly by Capaldi’s Doctor, who ends this episode asking about how to fly the TARDIS. So much for remembering.
I liked Smith’s Doctor, so the way this episode went saddened me. I feel he deserved a better last episode. This feeling is amplified by the memory of the previous episode, Day of the Doctor, which I liked very much. I hope Smith goes on to better things than this final episode and I’m sure he will. The good episodes he’s done will certainly be remembered, even as we try to forget this one.
So, thanks for reading.
Gloomy Intelligentsia 