Right.
Okay.
*takes deep breath*
The moment has come.
The moment I’ve been dreading almost as much as the actual event itself.
I don’t want to do it.
But it must be done.
It’s time to talk about the Fall of the Eleventh.
Christmas day dawned with the usual excited anticipation Christmas brings about. This Christmas, however, was a very emotionally complicated one, in that both my sister and I knew what was coming. So our Christmas anticipation was tainted ever so slightly by the knowledge of what was to come later that evening.
The Eleventh Doctor was going to regenerate.
And that in itself is immensely emotionally complicated because the Eleventh Doctor is my Doctor and I didn’t want him to go. But pulling at my heartstrings just as hard was my already established love for the Twelfth Doctor. I’m extremely excited to see what magic Peter Capaldi will bring to the show. But Matt Smith’s magic has had a special place in my heart for the past year or so. How does one deal with so many feels??
The fateful hour approached. The special Farewell to Matt Smith show on BBC America was over. Off went the lights and on went the fezzes, in one final salute to our favorite Doctor. Boxes of tissues were at the ready. There was no turning back now. We had to face it.
So there we were, preparing for the worst, when the beginning of the episode got off to a HILARIOUS start!! Emotional roller coaster phone calls, meeting Clara’s family and “going to church”. OH MY GOODNESS!!! XD I don’t know what’s worse, though, feels wise. Having a sad opening to an episode or a funny one. ‘Cause funny openings are just the calm before the storm.
So this “church” that the Doctor is going to is more like a spaceship, and it’s there that he and Clara meet the Mother Superious, Tasha Lem.
It was Clara’s first time meeting her, but the Doctor and Tasha have met, apparently. Classic Who character?
The Papal Mainframe, the technical name of the spaceship, is orbiting around a planet that the Doctor and Clara are unaware of what its name is so far (but of course, we knew what it was). There’s some type of message transmitting from the planet’s surface, and Tasha recruits the Doctor to go and investigate.
Once on the planet, Clara and the Doctor happen upon a town called Christmas, a charming little village with a peaceful community of people that look like they’re from the Victorian era. It’s not long before the Doctor and Clara realize there’s something called a truth field around the village, and that’s how they find out where they are, because they can’t tell a lie.
Trenzalore.
By the way, I was a bit surprised at what Clara said when she introduced herself, about how she fancied the Doctor. It never seemed to me like she fancied him. She certainly hasn’t been a Martha about it! If she really does fancy him, she’s done an incredible job of hiding it!
So the Doctor and Clara continue to investigate the town, and soon they find the source of the message. A crack in a wall.
Hold on. Weren’t the cracks in the walls already explained?
APPARENTLY NOT!
Funny thing: I was actually thinking about this at some point beforehand. It did seem like the cracks in the walls weren’t fully explained. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was missing from the whole story, with the cracks.
But now we were getting the missing pieces.
And this is where the classic Moffat mindblown moment was incorporated.
Put simply, the cracks in the walls, the sky, Spaceship U.K., wherever, are what the Doctor described them as. Waaaay at the beginning, in The Eleventh Hour, he said they’re points in space and time that should never have touched.
What wasn’t entirely clear, though, was what was on the other side of those cracks. We know that anything that goes through those cracks is erased from history, never to be remembered by anyone.
Sounding a bit familiar yet?
Remember The Day of the Doctor? When the Doctor froze Gallifrey in a specific time? He put them in a pocket universe. And the Time Lords weren’t too happy about it. So wouldn’t they try to find a way to come back?
Yes. The Time Lords–GALLIFREY–are what’s on the other side of those cracks. They’ve always been there, it’s how it’s always been from series 5, up till now. And the message is emanating from the cracks. The message is the oldest question in the universe. Hidden in plain sight. “Doctor Who?” If the Doctor answers that question, if he says his name, Gallifrey and the Time Lords will come through those cracks into our universe.
MOFFAT HAS BEEN PLANNING THIS FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, GUYS. This has been his WHOLE plan, all along, for the Eleventh Doctor! From day 1, he’s been building up to THIS moment, THIS episode!!
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT HE COULDN’T GET ANY MORE GENIUSER, HE DID.
Seriously, this is one of THE BEST episodes Moffat has ever done, when it comes to storytelling. WELL. DONE. SIR!
I’m not even going to bother trying to explain the whole Silence/River/Madame Kovarian thing. It’s wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey at its pinnacle and I’m still sorting it out. However, there’s a handy little explanation I found on Pinterest a few weeks back that I’ll share with you to read for yourself:
With this crazy news about Gallifrey, a war was on its way. If memory serves, Tasha Lem and the Doctor were on the side that didn’t want the question to be answered. Gallifrey had to stay where it was, at all costs. The Daleks, Cybermen and the Kovarian sect of the Silence are on the other side. They want Gallifrey to come through so that they can destroy it. I think that’s how it went. Unfortunately, Tasha had been killed by a Dalek and now she was technically one, so then she ended up being on the Daleks’ side.
She declared war on the Doctor, and this was interesting, she called for a time of silence until the Doctor said his name. “Silence will fall when the question is asked.” Again, the mindblowing!
The Doctor took Clara back home and he went back to Trenzalore to defend the town of Christmas in the battles that ensued.
He ended up staying there for 300 years, I think it was, fending off Daleks and wooden Cybermen, with the help of the Silence, which were now his friends, I guess? It was quite fitting for the Doctor to stay so long in a town called Christmas. The Victorian era seems to be a favorite time period of his–he stayed in Victorian London after the Ponds left. So I imagine he was far from unhappy while he was there.
So it’s great that he was defending the town and all, but we all know what the greatest moment of that whole time period was. THE DRUNK GIRAFFE CAME BACK!!
MATT’S WISH WAS GRANTED!! “One last hurrah for the Drunk Giraffe.” I nearly started crying then.
Clara’s return to Christmas was INSANE. She held onto the TARDIS as it went through the time vortex to get back to Trenzalore. SHE DID EXACTLY WHAT JACK HARKNESS DID IN UTOPIA. SHE SHOULD HAVE DIED. But she didn’t. Which makes me wonder if the TARDIS was protecting her. Hmmm…
She and the Doctor then had a conversation, as they watched the few minutes of sunlight that Christmas got. The Doctor went into an explanation of his regenerations, so we finally have some clarification. So the regeneration from Paul McGann to John Hurt did, in fact, count as a regeneration. It wasn’t an artificial one, like I theorized it might be. But John Hurt’s Doctor went by another name, the War Doctor, so he technically speaking wasn’t “the Doctor”. But the regeneration still counted. So this regeneration that was coming up for the Doctor would be his 12th regeneration–his last one. So hopefully that clears up any questions/doubts you all had.
The Doctor took Clara back home again ’cause she couldn’t be part of the war (we all knew that he lied to her when he said he’d never leave her again. Rule No. 1). But at some point, the TARDIS came back for her again. But it wasn’t the Doctor flying it. It was Tasha Lem. She came to bring Clara back to Trenzalore so she could be with the Doctor in his final moments. He was dying, apparently.
The Doctor was dying, but not of what I expected him to be dying of. Here my naïve self was sitting, being a New Whovian and having been exposed only to regenerations that have come about by violent causes. I completely forgot that the Doctor can die of old age. And that’s what he was dying from. As a side note, I liked how The Day of the Doctor kind of prepared us for Eleven’s regeneration, through the War Doctor’s regeneration. It was a reminder that the Doctor can die of old age, it doesn’t have to come about by radiation or a bullet.
That was a LONG regeneration, though! My goodness! That glowy regeneration stuff was coming out of Matt for a good minute, at least! Regeneration must take longer when it comes to repairing old age. But it was a LOT of regeneration energy too, and if I remember correctly, it took out the Dalek ship. So that ended the war. But the episode certainly wasn’t over.
The Doctor made it back to the TARDIS before Clara did, and when she got back to it, Eleven’s old man clothes were tossed on the floor and there was a bowl of fish fingers and custard sitting on the console. Fish fingers and custard!! Eleven was remembering his first days! *dies*
The next bit was such a troll! We see these shoes slowly coming up the stairs, and my first thought was that it was Capaldi. Twelve was already here! Phew! We were spared the emotional damage of the actual regeneration. But hold on! That’s not fair! We needed to be with Eleven in his final moments!
Turns out he was still Eleven. He had just gone in to change back into his normal clothes. His face was young again, meaning it was almost time.
Before he went, though, he saw a vision of Amy coming to him to say goodnight.
The first face his face ever saw. AND THE LAST FACE!!! AAAAGGGGHHHH!! FEELS!!
But the real hearbreaker came when Clara said, “But you’re the Doctor.” That’s when I lost it. Initiate the uncontrollable sobbing.
THIS WAS HEARTBREAKING!
And so was this. The Eleventh Doctor’s last lines.
And then he started glowing. This was it. The last time we would ever see Eleven. Here we go. Wait for it…wait fo…
BAM! PETER CAPALDI!!
!!!!!!!
Wha…WHAT?!?!?
WHAT ON EARTH?!?
WHAT WAS THAT?!?!?
THAT WAS THE MOST SUDDEN REGENERATION EVER!!!
He’s…he’s gone! Eleven’s gone!!
That was it!
HE’S GONE!!
And there’s Twelve, standing there with his huge eyes and intense eyebrows (which I’ve been a fan of ever since November 23rd).
And then we got his first lines as the new Doctor, which were heartbreaking because of the dramatic change in voice. And there was a split moment of panic when he said, “Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?” But then, remembering the side effects of regeneration–amnesia being one of them–there’s no concern for him at all. Watching the scene again later, it’s ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!! I’m in love with Twelve already. He just feels right.
Needless to say, though, I shut myself in my room after the episode ended and I sobbed on my bed like a Disney princess for almost an hour.
I wasn’t myself for the rest of the week, I had a headache for at least the day after Christmas and I still can’t bring myself to put my fez back in the closet. It’s still sitting by my bed.
It was THE WORST episode, feels wise, in the history of ever; BUT, it was also one of the most clever episodes ever done in New Who, thus far. Moffat really did a MAGNIFICENT job with the Eleventh Doctor’s story, and it left off at the perfect place for Twelve to pick up from. Matt Smith will be missed every day, but we have a whole new exciting chapter of the story to look forward to with Peter Capaldi! I’m really excited!!
Goodnight, Raggedy Man. ❤ ❤
Memoirs of a Fangirl 