Exploring the post Name of the Doctor landscape
So here we all are in that dreadful gap between the end of Series 7B and the Anniversary special. How to fill the time? I will be catching up on some more Classic Who DVDs and there’s plenty more Big Finish to come I’m sure I’ll survive!
For now I thought I would reflect again on The Name of the Doctor and consider in particular the whole concept of game changing as it did (or didn’t) apply. There will be some spoilers and some baseless speculation which is, I believe, the best kind!
Remind me - what does game changing mean?
The game changes when we learn something new that can’t be unlearned and future episodes have a new (and hopefully richer) context in which to operate. Classic Who really changed after the first regeneration, Friends changed when Chandler and Monica became lovers and Blake’s 7 changed when it lost Blake (and the Liberator…).
To be seriously game changing is more than adding a character or losing the fifteenth companion.
How the game changed
Two candidates for me:
- The Doctor dies (one day) on Trenzalore
- John Hurt’s character.
I take these in order.
The Doctor dies
We now know that at some point the Doctor dies. We don’t know when (but see the end of this article) but we do know where (Trenzalore) and we’ve seen his tomb! For me though this only firms up part of the game that we probably already knew. I would have had a final death on the remains of Gallifrey (which Trenzalore could yet be - see Is Trenzalore Gallifrey?) probably with the final destruction of Davros but whatever the events this isn’t a major game changer.
Not really.
John Hurt
There is another incarnation beyond the eleven (so far) that we have encountered. John Hurt had somewhat spoiled this in his recent announcements about the anniversary special (see The real ninth Doctor?) but it does change the game. Confusingly the on-screen graphic gave him as The Doctor even though he had just been described as an incarnation that didn’t take the name.
We don’t yet know by how much the game has changed - given that the Eleventh Doctor knows who it is the most likely theory to me is that he does come between the Eighth and Ninth Doctor. Much though I would rather have had Paul McGann appear, we are where we are and we either renumber all the Doctors (which means Matt Smith is the Twelfth and there might be no more to go beyond the Valeyard and a final incarnation. Or the rules changed in the Time War and remember River also gave him several regenerations.
I do agree the game changed but probably only for the Anniversary special; I suspect that this won’t survive beyond that.
How the game didn’t change
I mentioned the Valeyard and one thing this episode made a point of doing was mentioning him. Should we be concerned? Is the Valeyard working with the Zygons? Did the Valeyard send the Great Intelligence to Trenzalore? How did the Great Intelligence get time travel?
One last speculation!
Guess what? It’s only a TV programme! Assuming it runs on and on we don’t know how many Doctors there will be nor who the next one will be acted by! Stories such as The Next Doctor make a good effort in dealing with this but given it isn’t real and the writers don’t have time travel (I think) they know little more than what might happen in the next year or two (if anything).
This means that one interesting point from The Name of the Doctor is that no future Doctors were seen! Does this mean there aren’t any?
I have a paranoid theory that says Moffat is going to finish Doctor Who for good and that is why the TARDIS tomb was the same as the current TARDIS. I think it is lazy writing - how hard would it have been to:
- ‘Doctor, why does the TARDIS look the same but different?’ ‘Well you see, Clara, it’s from my future and a later version of myself must have re-decorated.’ That plus a few changes of prop and job-done
- ‘Doctor, there were so many of you but the memories are fading. I still remember 11 versions from the past…’ ‘That’s time putting itself back on track. The human mind can’t recall events from the future and my mind doesn’t want to!’
Still what do I know?!
Thoughts?
