Late to the game I know, but the season finale of series 7 of Doctor Who was a doozie. Have to get through those “feels” somehow. As a huge Doctor Who fan (albit a relatively new fan, considering the history of the series), The Name of the Doctor, and the promise of what to come is a huge deal. I’m not even sure if it is a good thing. Let’s try and go through it and find out.
The name of the Doctor finally gives us answers to what Dorium said at the end of series 6 “On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered.” Nevermind it took an entire season of unrelated events to get there, but we’ll just ignore that. “The Doctor has a secret you know? He has one he will take to the grave. And it is discovered.” These are the words said by a man sentenced to death in Victorian London to Madame Vastra. Because of these words, Vastra calls a “conference call” (essentially a telepathic link) of the Doctor’s friends; herself, Jenny, Strax, Clara and surprisingly River Song. River seems kind of annoyed that the Doctor didn’t seem to talk about her to Clara the way he should have. Clara does know who “Dr. Song” is but never realized that River was a woman, let alone the Doctor’s wife. River mentions that she knows what The Doctor’s name is. The group discusses the information the convict game Vastra; information that River realizes is much more serious than originally thought. Before any course of action can be determined, Jenny is killed by the Whisper Men, a scary yet dapper enemy.
Clara tells the Doctor about the call and the Doctor essentially freaks out. Trenzalore is not a place the Doctor should ever go. The convict wasn’t saying that Trenzalore is where the Doctor’s secret (his name) was discovered, he meant that the Doctor’s grave was discovered there. The one place a time traveler should never go is his/her own grave. So of course he goes there.
Trenzalore is a gloomy sort of planet, filled with storms, dark skies, and what seems to be free flowing lava. Not the quiet retirement the Doctor imagined for himself. Trenzalore is apparently the site of some huge battle the Doctor was involved in “Not quite the Time War” but pretty damn close. The Doctor and Clara run through the dead Tardis, which serves as The Doctor’s tomb, being followed by the Whisper men. They find Madame Vastra, Strax and a revived Jenny.
Here comes the big bad guy, The Great Intelligence. He needs to get into the Doctor’s tomb and the key is the Doctor’s name, his real name. The Doctor struggles weather or not to say it, with “the G. Intelligence” threatening the lives of the Doctor’s friends. For a minute you think that Steven Moffat was actually going to reveal the name of the Doctor, but River Song steps in and apparently mentally opens the door (since she’s kind of a ghost).
Inside the TARDIS control room there is this tangled web of light, which is what the Doctor became when he died; all of his marks and journeys throughout time. The Great Intelligence has been fed up with the Doctor’s shit for a long time so steps into the light with the intent to kill the Doctor at every single moment of his life. Until Clara realizes why she is the impossible girl, why the Doctor has met her so many times at different points in time and space. Clara steps into the light as well to save the Doctor. She has always been there to save the Doctor and stop the Great Intelligence from killing him. 
The Doctor can’t have that so he steps in to himself (weird, I know) to go and save Clara. Then the Doctor spots a version of himself that he never wants to remember or acknowledge. The version of him that did not act “in the name of the Doctor” The version of him that is responsible for the end of the Time War and the Time Lords. Effectively setting up the plot for the 50th anniversary special in November.
So. Let’s talk about this. Over all “The Name of the Doctor” was a good episode. It was exciting, the Whisper Men were scary, it was funny (mostly due to Strax, but he’s always hilarious), and we got some answers. The main answer being who Clara is and why she keeps popping up. Clara was always just Clara. She sacrificed herself in order to save the Doctor. Appearing in every point in his life where he needed saving, and the Doctor actually running into her closer to the time he meets the “original” Clara. The episode has several scenes in which we see previous versions of the Doctor which are very nice. I think I am quite happy with this explanation. It doesn’t make Clara out to be this “god-like” character or anything. She, like the Doctor’s other companions, is just a regular girl who ends up doing extraordinary things. This is the thing I like most about the Doctor’s companions; they are all just normal people but are given the opportunity to do great things. It perpetuates the idea that everyone is special “You know that in nine hundred years of time and space and I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important before.”
And now we come to the main source of my “feels” (and not the good kind either). It’s interesting that this one thing in the last seconds of the episode could almost ruin the whole thing for me. The Doctor runs into himself, but this is a version of himself that we’ve never seen. The Doctor says “I said he was me. I never said he was the Doctor….The name I chose is the Doctor. The name you chose is like a promise you make. He’s the one who broke the promise,” indicating that this version of himself has happened before (since the 11th knows about him) and that he’s done something truly terrible. The one thing that the Doctor hates about himself more than anything is what he did during the Time War. This version of the Doctor (played by John Hurt) is the version that committed mass genocide and destroyed the Daleks and the Time Lords. This means that John Hurt’s “Doctor” is the 9th, Eccleston is the 10th, Tennant the 11th and Smith the 12th, which is important seeing as how Time Lords can only regenerate 12 times (leaving only one regeneration left).
It all makes sense and fits with the story. I kind of understand why and how John Hurt is the “actual” 9th Doctor, but that doesn’t make me like it. I feel like inserting a new version of the Doctor into the middle of the timeline is just not something that should be done. This promise of what to come just doesn’t sit right with me and I’ve got to sit on it for six months.
Of course I’ll still be watching Doctor Who, and besides the dubious plot line I’m excited for the 50th anniversary special (can anyone say David Tennant and Bille Piper?).
Overall “The Name of the Doctor” was a great episode. It was great to see River Song again (whom I’m assuming isn’t going to be coming back again. Her goodbye was a bit…final) and get the answers I craved about Clara for so long. I was certainly on the edge of my seat the whole time. The future of Doctor Who is going to be interesting to say the least.