ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
This is a story with some great bits and some over
complicated mythologising which is a bit typical of this period of Doctor Who.
There’s some wonderful nostalgia as we get glimpses of the various old Doctors
and how Clara has helped them through his time stream – especially like the
bits with Hartnell’s Doctor – and the last visit of the Great Intelligence in
the form of Richard E. Grant. Plus there’s that wonderful final twist leading
us straight into the upcoming 50th Anniversary story.
Madame Vastra receives some disturbing information that the
Doctor has a great secret and it has been discovered. She shares this via a
mental link with River Song and Clara. Then the Paternoster Gang are attacked
by the eerie Whisper Men who seem to kill Jenny. Via the mental link the Great
Intelligence tells Clara to tell the Doctor to travel to Trenzalore – the
planet where his tomb is situated – or he will never see his friends alive
again.
The Doctor and Clara travel to Trenzalore and find a massive
TARDIS which has deteriorated and now stands guard over a huge graveyard. River
is still telepathically linked to Clara and she directs the Doctor and Clara to
escape into the TARDIS. The Great Intelligence threatens to kill Vastra, Strax
and the revived Jenny unless the Doctor says his name to unlock the giant
TARDIS. He refuses, but River says his name instead. The Giant TARDIS opens and
inside is a huge beam of light, this is a link to the Doctor’s past lives and
the Great Intelligence enters it to cause havoc throughout the Doctor’s time
stream. Against the Doctor’s wishes Clara follows the Great Intelligence and is
split throughout the Doctor’s time stream rescuing him from the Great
Intelligence.
After she undoes all the damage done by the Great
Intelligence the Doctor pulls Clara from the beam of light. They then notice
another figure standing in the shadows, it is an old man in a battered leather
coat (John Hurt), he turns and faces them and the Doctor recognises him as a
previous incarnation of himself – the one who fought in the Time War – the one
regeneration that the Doctor himself refuses to remember.
There’s a lot of making up big myths about the Doctor and
Trenzalore in this story that to be honest get in the way of enjoying the
better bits, a lot of doom and gloom and portents of disaster that don’t really
add much to the story.
The Whisper Men are scary but underused and they kill Jenny
only for her to be revived not long afterwards. It’s great to see the Great
Intelligence one last time and Richard E. Grant’s performance is cold and
detached here, moving towards unhinged near the end. It does feel a little like
the story is never really completed, so there could still be more to come.
Jenna Coleman is magnificent as Clara here in a story that
revolves around solving her Impossible Girl plot and resolving it. I love the
sequences where she pops up in other Doctor’s lives – it’s a nostalgia fest
which you can’t help but enjoy spotting which is a real old clip, which is a
remake of someone in an old Doctor’s costume and so on. It’s the start of the
nostalgia build up for the 50th and raises this story up.
Finally, there’s that wonderful reveal of John Hurt as the
War Doctor (as he would become known), in actual fact he is the 9th
incarnation of the Doctor, the one who fought in the Time War and who the
Doctor – ashamed of his part in destroying his own people – has chosen to
forget. It’s a really really great cliffhanger ending to Matt Smith’s last full
season in the role and you can’t help but feel a thrill when you realise that a
great actor like John Hurt is about to play an unknown version of our Time
Lord.
In the end, those last 10-15 minutes of this story are what
you remember the most, and all the rest merges into a bit of a blur of
confusing myth-making and weird stuff. So it’s a mixed bag but boy does it
leave you looking forward to the Anniversary tale.
NEXT UP: THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR
© Text copyright - Raving Loony
Productions and
Andrew J. Müller,
Roy Barton
and Shaun Runham
© Photos and Artwork - Andrew J. Müller
© Web Design and Layout - Andrew J. Müller
2022
