S7E16: The Time of the Doctor [2013 Christmas Ep] (SPOILERS)

When the action moves to Trenzalore and the Papal Mainframe, the structure of the story gets a bit weird. There's a lot of time spent with Tasha Lem and lots of futzing about, which I felt could have been better served developing the town of Christmas and the Doctor's connection with it a bit more. The quick gallop through his time (with Tasha's voice over) there did a pretty good job of showing his connection to the people, as well as the business with Barnable. But Clara comes and then she goes and then she comes back again. It's like little pieces of story in fits and starts. It might have been nicer to somehow FEEL the years passing and the constant struggle the Doctor is undertaking. But, because of the Christmas theme, until the very end there's something that feels very safe and cozy and drama-free about the Doctor's time in the town called Christmas. For this reason, you're left with a feeling that "The Name of the Doctor" wrote a check that "Time" couldn't quite cash as far as there being a feeling of an epic battle taking place here.

The answers to the questions that have been built up over the years are, frankly, a bit lame in some cases. "Oh, that was just some splinter group and they tried to blow up the TARDIS and prevent you from getting to Trenzalore." I don't know... I was just hoping for more. The fact they were trying to stop the Time Lords from returning (and that the Time Lords were on the other side of the crack) is pretty interesting, I suppose. It all seemed to fit together well enough. The revelation the Silence are actually priests was interesting as well!

But, after all of this, I did find the ultimate end pretty interesting. That this Doctor just gets old (we're never really told how long he was on Trenzalore - more than 300 years! He might have lived as long as the First Doctor or more!) was actually very touching in a lot of ways. How great is Matt Smith? So wonderful. I loved his send-off of Handles the Cyberhead. Not every actor could sell that moment. I liked that the Time Lords gave him (if nothing else) a new set of regenerations, though it seems like it really threw away the opportunity to do something a bit more interesting with it. I think, essentially, it was Moffat's way of saying "Eh, this stuff doesn't matter, let's move on." It was pretty simple (Clara just asked nicely!) but it did fit the whole fairy tale theme of the episode.

It was a SLIGHT bit of a cop-out that a young Doctor gets to make the actual regeneration, but I'll take it! The bits with Amelia and then Amy at the end... I totally cried when Amy came back to say goodbye.

I feel like we got even less of 12 than we did of 11 when we first saw him! I didn't love that Moffat cribbed and tweaked 11's first lines about legs. I would have rather had 12 say something a bit more distinctive. But the line about whether Clara knew how to fly the TARDIS or not was fun.