The Name of the Doctor

There is a spectacular ending to this episode. John Hurt is The Doctor - despite his protests to the contrary. After Clara has jumped into the Doctor’s time stream and we see some delightful glimpses of the Doctor’s past lives. Great melodramatic sci-fi.

It’s not a perfect story though. There is a lot of speechifying, where you understand what’s going on but The Doctor keeps explaining in service of a big speech. It doesn’t help that so much drama hinges on the secret of The Doctor’s name which is not particularly compelling - we’re not given a reason as to why his name would matter. We know we’re not going to find it out and that if we did it would just be a name…

The Paternoster Gang are, as always, an absolute delight. I wish we got more of them. I loved the seance scene and Strax in a Glasgow brawl. River Song doesn’t get to do a great deal here. And is very one note.

Slightly more could have been made of The Great Intelligence’s plot. What he is trying to do is monumental, but for some reason we just see him grandstanding in different clips from The Doctor’s past, and it’s not as impactful as that first hit of seeing Clara interacting with the different Doctors.

It could have potentially been more interesting if Clara had entered the time stream and her and the great intelligence found themselves in an old episode of Doctor Who. It could have been from earlier in the same series. It could have been exciting seeing them interact with an episode that we were already familiar with. Instead we got more of a hint of that. We just get the same clips repeated a few times.

A good ending to a bad season.

Trenza-Lore drop

Prerequisites: The previous bits of Series 7, and pretty much the entire River Song saga.

Spoilers!
The Name of the Doctor isn't the best-written finale, not by a long shot. The Whisper Men are underutilized for how cool they are, a lot of things are frustratingly hand-waved (like the idea that you can time travel in dreams), and there really isn't any explanation for how exactly the Doctor was able to save Clara at the end. Still, I really like this episode, and it's one of the stronger stories of Series 7. Not only does Smith give a great performance here, but the concepts Moffat employs are just really cool. Trenzalore itself is a great setting (far more engaging than would be found in The Time of the Doctor), the huge Tardis tomb is awesome, and the overall atmosphere is nicely dark. The Paternoster Gang is always fun as well (although Jenny's death wasn't given enough time to breathe before she was revived). Also, River Song's appearance here is genuinely really well done. It ties into her overall arc nicely, and her final goodbye with 11 is great. Finally, the ending stinger is iconic, and for good reason.

Name of the Doctor is just okay. It is a half-decent resolution to the Clara plot line, it has some interesting ideas about the Doctor, and works alright as prequel of sorts to the 50th anniversary.

The monsters look really cool and are utterly wasted. That still bothers me more than anything else about this episode. I think Name of the Doctor is somewhat overrated in that regard. It is very heavy on Moffat ideas without any of the usual benefits associated with that show runner. Instead, Name of the Doctor feels very self-indulgent and congratulatory in a way I don't think is deserved.

Y'all ever seen the Youtube edit where they put Ecclesten in place of John Hurt at the end of this story? That hits hard and gives a sense of what Name of the Doctor could have been - although John Hurt's appearance did hold a lot of weight, too.

So it's fine... just alright, really. Very average - as average as these sort of big stories can get. I remember watching this when it originally aired. I rolled my eyes half as often as I did enjoy Name of the Doctor, and I think that's worth remembering. For every memorable tea party, there is a half dozen scenes with the Great Intelligence that go nowhere. The pointlessness of the villain really bothers me. He has this big plan and Clara just undoes it with a little hop into a glowing pylon. A quick rescue by the Doctor later, and Clara is fine, destined to continue with the show for another few years and leaving Name of the Doctor (and most of 7B) without a satisfactory conclusion.

It's something I found very disappointing. This episode would probably be rated much lower if the monsters and special effects didn't look cool, while Coleman, Smith, and Kingston's performances all stand out as something that helps prevent Name of the Doctor from feeling like a complete dud. But, in my eyes, only just barely. It's still a pretty meh experience on the whole.