11.44: The Name of the Doctor

In which both Matt Smith and I cry.

Broadcast: May 2013

Watched: January 2022

“Gallifrey, a long time ago.”

I remember Jim [Cooray-Smith] once telling me that, when he did the pilgrimage through the original series for his book Who’s Next, he got to Hartnell’s cameo in The Five Doctors and felt properly emotional. After watching this after working my way through the preceding 50th years and feeling genuinely overwhelmed, I understand this anecdote a lot better now.

I mean, the intro alone: the caption, Hartnell, all the clips (it’s only classic Doctors I think? Though I like that it suggests there’s a story with the 2nd, 3rd and possibly 8th Doctors). Love Troughton wearing his fur coat at the beach and Clara dressed in a variety of outfits meant to evoke the original show.

The actual plot is weirdly magical in its logic. A lunatic serial killer hears voices in the air: we’re not given an explanation for why he knows about the Doctor’s grave (presumably it’s part of the trap?). The Doctor’s friends can communicate across time and space via conference call/seance. The whispermen (Moffat does love a creepy children’s rhyme doesn’t he?) and the Great Intelligence/Simeon himself are these scary, hollow things that defy logic.

But god, it’s just one great moment after another. River giving Clara a jealous look. “Of course he mentioned you. It’s just that I never realised you were a woman.”/“Well neither did I.” “So sorry. I think I’ve been murdered.” The kids tricking the Doctor into playing hide and seek. “Yes, an ex.” The Doctor literally crying, and running back to the TARDIS, knowing that he has to visit his own grave because he can’t not try to save his friends. “This planet is now property of the Sontaran Empire! Surrender your women and intellectuals.” “The heart is a relatively simple thing.”/“I’ve not found it to be so.” 

Then the timelines changing, Jenny disappearing, Strax reverting and Vastra shooting him – she’s normally such a capable presence that it’s genuinely quite powerful seeing her properly lose it in this one. Then, my god, the moment you realise the Doctor can see River… Once you know this, you realise he actually saw her the first time she appears on Trenzalore, then styles it out by pretending he’s looking at her grave.

I’m not sure it entirely makes sense. “I was mentally linked with Clara. If she’s really dead, then how can I still be here?... spoilers.” Er, is it just that she’s not dead? It’s never explained.

Also not explained – how exactly the Doctor saves Clara. Is there basically a missing adventure that’s like Timewyrm: Revelation? [Massively influential 1991 New Adventures novel by Paul Cornell, which takes place in SPOILER.] Was it considered for the 50th but we got Day instead? Also, the staging of the bit in the Doctor’s timeline is *rubbish*: “You can do it, I know you can” the Doctor says about walking something like four metres. I wonder if this was a last minute addition when it became clear Eccleston was refusing to come back for the next one.

But this is nit-picking and also you don’t notice it because of that final twist and another amazing caption: “INTRODUCING JOHN HURT” (even if it’s also not that clear why Clara never saw the War Doctor). I love the way it implies Hurt is an eeeeeevil doctor – but actually, if you listen to the line deliveries, Hurt’s sincerity and Smith’s disgust, fit with what’s to come.

It is basically another anniversary story, isn’t it? For the 50th, Moffat shows us the end of the Doctor’s life, then has him survive it. I miss that man.

Other thoughts:

• Between the grave and the biodata, I think we can assume that Moffat has read Alien Bodies. [Another massively influential novel, this one a 1997 eighth Doctor adventure by Lawrence Miles.]

• My ex wife used to mangle this plot with Douglas Adams’ Mostly Harmless, put on a silly voice and say “Something very nasty happens to you on Trenzalore...”

• Strax in Glasgow. LOL.

• The souffle bit is actually quite sweet (“Was your mum deep on puddings?”) although I’m not sure “the souffle isn’t the souffle, the souffle is the recipe” makes sense either. 

• My god, the idea dead TARDISes grow to a massive size because the dimensions leak!

• Love that the Great Intelligence calls Jenny the lizard woman’s “pet”. The bit where he reveals he still doesn’t have a body and is replaced by one of the whispermen is incredibly creepy.

• The Doctor refers to River as his wife! Also, love that when he finds his friends the only one he greets verbally is Jenny because he’s really saying “I’m very glad you’re not dead”.

• “Run you clever boy and remember me” is a lot better than without “me”.

• “I’m a time traveller. I’ve probably time travelled more than anyone else.” 

• Moffat does love people remembering deleting timelines, doesn’t he? It at least means they have consequences I suppose.

• When are the Doctor and River meant to have travelled together exactly? She turns him down in Angels, but here it’s in the past.