Doctor Who: S07PT2E08 - The Name of the Doctor.

From one finale to another, I've still got Beauty and The Beast to go yet!

 So who is Clara? Clara was born to save the Doctor, diving into his timeline and shattered into pieces, living and dying in a billion different times and places all to save the Doctor. What is Trenzalore? A graveyard, it turns out, where a giant dying TARDIS houses the Doctor's corpse, which actually isn't a physical body at all, but more a doorway into his entire timeline. And my God Matt Smith is once again acting his chops off.

Clara's explanation was an extremely satisfying one, providing a surprisingly simple answer to who the Impossible Girl is, for Moffat at least. What is less than fantastic is the execution, the inserting of Clara digitally into old clips looks absolutely awful. However it isn't without problems, largely, is anyone else feeling like this is too soon?

Clara has barely been on any on screen adventures at all, she's spent so much time almost getting killed we've barely seen any relationship form or any downtimes play out between her and the Doctor and so her so suddenly blowing herself to pieces just seems to come across a little flat and lifeless, a sacrifice is largely meaningless from a storytelling perspective if we barely know the person making the sacrifice.

Then again this is perhaps the greatest issue with Part 2, the lack of two parters, I wish more writers knew that although the action adventure stuff keeps the kiddies entertained, the quieter character moments are what holds it all together and we've had barely an incite into Clara before she's dying right before our very eyes. Giving us broad strokes of who a character is through the action sequences is all well and good to get them across quickly to the audience but you're going to have to do a lot more than that if you want us to actually care. And aside from Jenna Louise-Coleman's stunningly gorgeous face, there is very little I cared about when it came to Clara.

What I will say about all of this is the future of the show does seem very exciting now. Although the Doctor, minus some largely self enforced rules, can go anywhere and do anything...for the most part, now both Clara and The Great Intelligence have been rummaging around in his timeline, we really have no certainty of what the future will hold, none at all. We, at this point, don't even know who The Doctor is any more and have no idea just how much of the Doctor's 50 year adventure actually happened and happened how we once saw it. Least of all with a whole new incarnation of the Doctor stepping up.

The weakest part of the finale is sadly the villains, The Whispermen served very little purpose beyond being utterly terrifying and the Great Intelligence was so campy, he felt frankly completely out of place in an otherwise surprisingly tender, sombre and understated finale.

There is another issue as well, The Name of the Doctor isn't exactly...a whole unit. It's largely one part introduction to the 50th Anniversary and two parts nostalgia. As much as Doctor Who was a big part of my life growing up, I've rewatched very little of Classic Who in my teenage/adult years and so a lot of this episode was lost on me. It wasn't the references I misunderstood but it seemed I was supposed to be cheering and clapping at every reference and honestly I don't care enough to do so. So really the big hook of the whole episode completely failed to hook me and if you didn't even have Classic Who in your life at all, then I'm pretty sure you'll basically see no appeal in this episode.

Overall though, numerous problems granted, I can't understand why Moffat doesn't write more episodes like this. In previous finales of his I simply spent the episodes saying, 'what?' before being served an ultimately completely underwhelming climax to something very simple that he over complicated for the sake of it. Thankfully, there is none of that here. The Name of The Doctor is intriguing from start to finish, it has many moments where you're frozen on the edge of your seat in excitement and information is dealt in a steady and fulfilling fashion to make each moment feel satisfying. This may have been a largely mediocre season, and this finale may have been deeply flawed, but I'm honestly happy to take what I can get at this point and I'm just happy it was at least coherent.

Pros;

• A simple but clever, and most importantly coherent, explanation for Clara.
• The future is so exciting!
• The Whispermen at least looked cool.
• Well paced. 

Cons;

• Well bye then Clara..? A little soon to be jumping on a dimension grenade isn't it?
• The Whispermen were underutilised. 
• The Great Intelligence was awful.
• There wasn't a whole lot to it other than fanservice. 

Think About It!

-Locke

What would you rate, 'The Name of the Doctor'?