Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor - Spoiler warning

Well that was better than the End of Time.

I’m always hesitant to compare different eras of Who, particularly ones that are pretty much right next to each other, but there is no way of denying that Matt Smith’s exit is superior to David Tennant’s. What’s odd is that the driving force of the story in both is the same thing; the Time Lords returning, the thing that elevates The Time of the Doctor is that all of Smith’s series have actually lead up to this point, whereas Tennat’s jumped all over the place then just shoved the Time Lords in at the end, so that they could attempt pretty much the same plan as the Daleks had in the series finale before that one. In this respect they were the generic villains behind the fall of the Tenth Doctor.

I could write pages and pages about what I liked about this episode, but I do actually have a life to get back to at some point. So I’ll pick out the things I liked most.

Old, Old, Old Doctor.

Going on his appearance, Id say the Doctor is probably the best part of 2000 years old by the end of this episode. It’s a really nice touch to have him visibly age on-screen, especially being that Smith is the youngest Doctor in the Shows history. It also means that the big finale (his “last bow”) relies mostly on Smith’s delivery and not his hair.

Dalek trumps Silent

There’s always the worry when Moffat creates a new villain, that it’s going to become the new Dalek; well the Daleks had something to say about his latest creation, the Silents (or the confessional priests). And that thing was; we’re gonna put Dalek eye in their heads, because no matter what powers they may have, we’re still more awesome than them.

The questions are answered.

Ok, we pretty much all thought that Moffat had just changed his mind about the overall narrative half way through and abandoned half the story ideas, but they all make it in here.

Smith’s goodbye sign off:

No self-indulgent monologues about how awesome he is, as nice quiet performance to reassure the audience that it’s still the same show. He also has a nice hallucination of  Amy Pond, to tell him goodnight and presumably provide Twelve with his new accent. For a fun fact, the reason stated that David Tennant didn’t use his own accent as the tenth Doctor was that he imprinted the English accent from Rose Tyler. This means that the third Scottish Doctor  gets to keep his accent for the same reason that the second couldn’t.

Peter Capaldi

Not nearly as explosive as the last new Doctor entrance, but still has the same amount of humour and excitement. A joke about the Scottish to start him off (“I’ve got new kidneys – I don’t like the colour”).

Capaldi then demonstrates his fantastic comic timing, by revealing that he seems to have temporarily forgotten how to pilot the TARDIS…while it’s in the process of crashing.

It is impossible to do this episode justice on paper; it’s a must-see. A very fitting end for the 11^th Doctor and an exciting beginning for a new direction of Who.