Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman, Orla Brady, Peter Capaldi, James Butler, Elizabeth Rider, Sheila Reid, Mark Brighton, Rob Jarvis, Tessa Peake-Jones, Jack Hollington, Sonita Henry, Kayvan Novak, Tom Gibbons, Aiden Cook, Nicholas Briggs, Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg, Ross Mullan, Karen Gillan.
It seems like a bad dream now but there was a time when the absence of Science Fiction from television, especially British Science Fiction tales, was in danger of being seen as antiquated as the thought of Medieval History. Thankfully neither genres and those that love and cherish where we have come from and where we are heading will ever lay down and let the banality of life ever let some television executives get their own way.
As Doctor Who finishes celebrating its 50th Anniversary and also reaching the important landmark of 800 episodes with the final tale in a very loose trilogy of stories, the very good Time of the Doctor, it is worth remembering that there are those that don’t like the programme, for whatever reason, they will sneer and poke a finger of discontent and yet somehow seem to know what’d going on. Unlike other programmes in which draw a similar line of disgruntlement, it’s doubtful that those who don’t say like Strictly Come Dancing for example can even name any of the contestants or what it actually brings to television. Such is the power in the end of Doctor Who, even those that profess to not liking it, still can name something that is going on.
The back and forth nature of the episode, the link between Earth and Trenzalore may have perplexed the casual viewer but it served to show the nature of aging in the life of the Doctor. For a man who doesn’t like to hang around people too long because it reminds him of the frailness of life, especially in his favourite kind, Humans, too have the tenderness shown between Clara and The Doctor as he gets old (the longest any incarnation of The Doctor has lived) was touching and poignant. The Grandfather metaphor being captured completely and a reminder of what the man was originally like, a hermit, a dusty scholar surrounded by the young.
The relationship between The Doctor and Tasha Lem, the Mother Superior of The Papal Mainframe was a delight and again reiterated why The Doctor can be seen to prefer travelling with a female companion because of the inner strength they possess and the way that they hold him back on occasion from going too far. In an episode that mainly focused on the “ageless God”, (River Song), the use of Orla Brady and the friendship created between the Mother Superior and Clara Oswald was one that drew that female strength together. It is difficult to have imagined Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond being on the same sort of wave length with another woman in the Doctor’s life.
This is the difference between Clara and Amy, the two companions that have straddled this incarnation of the Doctor’s long life. Amy may have drawn strength from meeting the Doctor but the man seems to draw more strength from Clara. For that part Jenna Coleman remains possibly the most pivotal person to have stepped into the Tardis, an actor that brings much to the programme.
The last episode of the year, the 800th overall in 50 years of adventure in time and space was never going to completely match the anniversary special in November, it would have been a tall ask for any writer to match the intensity that the 90 minute special created but what it did was provide an almost perfect swan-song for Matt Smith and the perfect opening for Peter Capaldi to step into the shoes of the man who makes things better.
Matt Smith certainly embodied the spirit of the Doctor throughout his tenure as the man from Gallifrey and in years to come should be seen as one of the finest actors to be The Doctor. The Doctor may have changed but nature still requires him to be Time’s champion.
Ian D. Hall