20 May 2013

Series 7 Episode 13: The Name of the Doctor

Summary (Spoilers):
Madam Vastra, Jenny, Strax, Clara and River have a conference call in a dream room. Vastra tells them about the coordinates where the Doctor's greatest secret is hidden and also mentions Trenzalore. Meanwhile someone is in Madam Vastra's house and kills Jenny and River wakes her and Strax up. They find themselves surrounded by Whisper Men, who take them away. More appear in the dream room together with the Great Intelligence. When Clara wakes up, she tells the Doctor what has happened and that he can only save his friends when he goes to Trenzalore. The Doctor explains to her that this is the only place where he shouldn't go but does it nonetheless because he wants to save Vastra, Jenny and Strax. They land on a graveyard and make their way to the Tardis where they hope to find the others. When Whisper Men attack them, they find a hidden tunnel with the help of River and get into the Tardis where Clara remembers things about her dying twice, which she shouldn't remember. The Doctor and Clara are able to find Vastra, Jenny and Strax and the Great Intelligence tries to force the Doctor to open the doors of the Tardis by saying his name. Although the Whisper Men torture his friends he doesn't say his name but River does. Inside the control room the Great Intelligence steps into the Doctor's timeline and kills him in all his incarnations and all the good the Doctor has done, all the lifes he has saved, is lost. Only Clara knows how to save him, because she has done it before and so she steps into the Doctor's timeline as well to safe his life. When everything is back to normal the Doctor tries to figure out how he can save her and the ghost of River tries to stop him from entering his own timeline. She is surprised that he is able to see her but then she tells him that she's only still there because he hasn't said goodbye. River gives him hope that he can still save Clara and so he steps into his timeline to bring her back.

Wow, this really was a great finale and we got some answers to questions but at the same time there is a whole bunch of new questions for us, too. We finally know how Clara can have so many incarnations and deaths and I think Steven Moffat found a great solution here. It's only because she wanted to save the Doctor from dying and therefore she gave herself up to save him. The way they showed her in the Doctor's timeline with the different costumes was great. It was also brilliant that they managed to fit in former incarnations of the Doctor which must have been quite some post-production work. We still don't know the name of the Doctor though but I wasn't really expecting that Steven Moffat would give this secret away. I really enjoyed to see River again and we haven't seen this version of her since "The Forest of the Dead". Her scene with the Doctor was lovely and heartbreaking and I really hope we will see her again. I honestly hadn't expected an ending like this and I want to know how this is resolved but unfortunately we still have to wait until November to find out.
I really enjoyed the finale of the seventh series but I think I have to watch it again to catch all the little details I haven't seen in the first go. Well, I have enough time until November I guess.

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