The Time Of The Doctor: How To Tie Off Story Lines without seeming to … !

Jude watches Dr Who.

You know, it’s Christmas Day.   You’d worked that out, hadn’t you: just by the date … ?

And, yes: I’ve already spent most of the day at my family’s place.

I’ll be back again, tomorrow: there’s a certain young man who’s had quite a LOT of presents, today.   And who’s due to get more, tomorrow.

Well, Boxing Day’s Jude’s birthday: he’s either going to be sick of toy cars, or SWAMPED in them … !

~≈Ï≈~

At ANY rate, today is Christmas Day.   Presents have been exchanged — my nephew, Jude, has had quite a lot of cars, trucks and tractors* — and everybody’s managed to get themselves well and truly stuffed.

So to speak.

I’ve also managed to get myself home: with the gifts I’ve been given.   Including, I should add, a new mouse and keyboard.

Oh, and a t-shirt that says ‘Gallifrey University: Prydonian Chapter’.

You can’t be TO geeky, can you … ?

~≈Ï≈~

No, you can’t, can you … ?

Certainly not if you’re like me: a Dr Who fan, and one who’s home in time for tonight’s Dr Who Christmas special.

Matt Smith’s last episode.   Peter Capaldi’s first.

The Fall of the Eleventh, itself.

The Time Of The Doctor.

And I have to say, I was impressed with that … !

~≈Ï≈~

Set an undisclosed time after The Name Of The Doctor, The Time Of The Doctor tells us of an initially unnamed planed that’s broadcasting a signal: a signal that none of the inhabitants of the orbiting spaceships can understand, and that the Doctor is told — by the disconnected Cyberman head he nicknames ‘Handles’ — is Gallifrey.

The Doctor, of course, knows damn well that it isn’t.

Which is confirmed by two things: by the words of Tasha Lem, Mother Superior of the Church of the Papal Mainframe, who tells the Doctor that the planet is Trenzalore.

And by the fact that — in a wall of the main tower of a Trenzalorean town called Christmas — there’s a very familiar looking crack … 

~≈Ï≈~

Now … impressive … ?

Oh, lordy, yes … !

I know some fans have heap a touch of ire onto Stephen Moffat, for coming up with something of a confusing morass of plotlines.

Personally … ?   Personally I can understand a certain amount of dissatisfaction: although not the sort of behaviour I’d heard had been flung at him.

I ALSO feel that that dissatisfaction may well be a case of maybe not concentrating enough.

However, I think those fans may well have little to complain about.

If they’ve sat down, today, and watched The Time Of The Doctor, I think they — like me — would have found would have found it — and The Name Of The Doctor and The Day Of The Doctor, which form a rough trilogy with The Time Of The Doctor — I think they’d’ve found an episode that neatly ties up the loose threads, and some nice writing, wonderful acting from the cast.

Jenna Coleman, I believe, is going to go down as a classic companion: she’s certainly put in the work and given a stunner of a performance.

As has Matt Smith: who’s given something of a stonker of a performance, over the past few years.

Perfect … ?

No, The Time Of The Doctor isn’t perfect.

It IS, however, everything that we come to expect in a regeneration story: emotional, touching, demanding, and giving us both endings to stories we’ve invested time in.

AND the promise of a fresh start.

What else CAN one ask … ?

*        And had fun with both them: AND the assorted boxes they came in.   I think I’ve got a nephew fascinated by the idea of putting things in things …