The Time of the Doctor (TV story)

The Time of the Doctor was the 2013 Doctor Who Christmas special, and the final appearance of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. It served as a conclusion to the entirety of the Smith era, bringing back both the Silence and Trenzalore and bringing their stories to a close. The episode tackled the issue of limited regenerations, and had the Doctor regenerate into his thirteenth incarnation at the end. This served as Peter Capaldi's formal introduction as the new Doctor.

Synopsis
Orbiting a quiet backwater planet, the massed forces of the universe's deadliest species gather, drawn to a mysterious message that echoes out to the stars. Among them, the Doctor. Rescuing Clara from a family Christmas dinner, the Time Lord and his companion must learn what this enigmatic signal means for his own fate and that of the universe.

Plot
The Doctor is among thousands of ships orbiting a planet after hearing a message being broadcast from it, a message that no-one can understand. He visits a ship, holding a Dalek Eye Stalk to show his bravery. Unfortunately, the ship belongs to Daleks, who fire at him until he teleports back to the TARDIS, where a disembodied Cyberman head that he calls "Handles" is plugged into the console. Clara calls the Doctor via the TARDIS phone, and pleads that he pretend to be her boyfriend for her family's Christmas dinner. The Doctor then accidentally visits a Cybership while holding Handles, where he is also shot at until he returns to the TARDIS again.

The Doctor picks up Clara from her home (after causing major embarrassment when he forgets to update his holographic suit to be visible to her family) and takes her to the planet's orbit. When asked to identify the planet, Handles claims it is Gallifrey, which the Doctor refutes. The two are invited aboard the Papal Mainframe, a space church headed by Mother Superious Tasha Lem. Tasha and the Doctor discuss the signal coming from the mysterious planet, while Clara repeatedly sees and forgets several Silents that surround her. She bursts into the room where the Doctor and Tasha are conversing, but forgets why after she does so.

Tasha sends the Doctor and Clara to the planet, but accidentally places them in the middle of an ambush by Weeping Angels. They escape to a town called Christmas, surrounded by a truth field, so no one can lie. Here the Doctor finds a crack in time through which the message is being broadcast. Using a copy of the Seal of the High Council he "borrowed" from The Master, he has Handles translate it. The message is a repeat of the same question: "Doctor who?" The Doctor says this is the Time Lords, trapped in a pocket universe, trying to get out. If the Doctor speaks his name, the Time Lords will know they are in the right place and come through, and all the alien species above will descend on the planet and begin the Time War anew. Tasha contacts the Doctor, telling him this cannot happen and the Doctor refuses to withdraw and let his enemies destroy the planet, which she reveals to be Trenzalore - the place where he is supposed to die.

The Doctor tricks Clara into plugging a device into the TARDIS that transports her home. For the next 300 years, he defends Trenzalore from his enemies. Clara returns after gripping the sides of the TARDIS and forcing the TARDIS to increase the shields and bring her back through the Time Vortex, slowing it down considerably. She meets a Doctor who is over 1500 years old, having spent three centuries defending the town of Christmas. He reveals to her he is in his thirteenth and final life (including his regeneration into the War Doctor and the regeneration energy used by the Tenth Doctor during his Meta-Crisis). He is then transported, with Clara, to the Papal Mainframe, now the Church of the Silence. The Silents are revealed to be genetically engineered confessional priests, whom Church members can confess their sins to, then later forget. (A renegade faction of these priests called the Kovarian Chapter broke away and travelled back in time to stop the Doctor reaching Trenzalore). The Doctor later discovers that Tasha and her crew have been killed by the Daleks and turned into Dalek puppets. Three Daleks accost the Doctor. At the Doctor's urgings however, Tasha regains her mind and defends the Doctor, who escapes from the ship and tricks Clara home for a second time. He and the Silence then defend the planet from attackers above, until only the Daleks are left.

Meanwhile, having returned to her family (who assume she's broken up with her "boyfriend"), an upset Clara later hears the TARDIS engines and runs outside, to find the TARDIS piloted by Tasha, claiming, "Flying the TARDIS is easy, it's flying the Doctor that's hard." She returns Clara to Trenzalore to see the Doctor, saying she could not let him die alone. The Doctor is now very old and often acts slow and slightly confused. He still won't release the Time Lords, knowing that it would mean Hell for all the universe. All his enemies have withdrawn save for the Daleks, whom he has been fighting with the aid of the Silence. The Daleks launch their final attack and the Doctor, finally out of ideas, weapons and regenerations, goes to meet them. Clara cannot watch this and returns to the crack in time, pleading with the Time Lords to save the Doctor, saying; "His name is the Doctor! All the name he needs, everything you need to know about him, and if you love him, and you should, help him!". The crack vanishes. At the top of Christmas's clock tower, the Doctor is preparing to die. Then, the crack appears in the night sky and through it, the Time Lords grant the Doctor a new cycle of regenerations. As his regeneration process begins, the Doctor uses the energy to destroy the Daleks and their ship.

In the aftermath, Clara returns to the TARDIS, finding the Doctor, whose youth has been restored, and is enjoying a bowl of fish custard, a meal he enjoyed at the very start of his now fading incarnation. Despite this renewal, he tells her he will regenerate anyway, and that it is simply taking some time to begin. Clara is saddened greatly when she realises that the Doctor she knew is about to disappear. However, the Doctor is not upset about the regeneration yet to come. He understands how fast everything about him and life itself can be gone in a moment, because it is always changing. He comforts Clara by telling her that times change, and so must he. The Doctor's hand begins to glow with regenerative energy and he makes peace with the fondest memories he had during this incarnation before its time is up.

Suddenly, he sees a little girl prancing through the balcony of the TARDIS with cheerful giggling, with every inch of its walls covered in her drawings of their adventures together, alongside those given to him by the children on Trenzalore. Aloud, he starts to reminisce about the past companion Clara never met, who he lost so long ago: Amelia Pond, "the first face this face saw." For one last time, he sees her in the TARDIS as an adult. She descends from the balcony, places her hand against his cheek, and she tells him, "Raggedy Man, good night." The Doctor places his hand against her face as well, only to see he's reaching out for air. Ready to move on and become a new man, the Eleventh Doctor lets go of his greatest attachment to this incarnation - he removes his cherished bowtie, dropping it to the floor. In tears, Clara begs him not to change. He smiles, consoles her once more, and then suddenly jerks his head back.

In barely a second's time, the Doctor has completely changed from the youthful alien Clara knew to an older-looking man with curled silver hair and the impeccable razor-sharp gaze of the Doctor that joined the previous twelve to rescue Gallifrey from the Time War. Utterly dumbfounded by this new face, Clara can only watch as the Doctor stares her right in the eyes, now as the first incarnation of his new regeneration cycle, whose first words are; "Kidneys! I've got new kidneys!" as he keels backward, clutching his waist. Suddenly, the TARDIS begins shaking, and to her horror, the new Doctor not only tells Clara that they're crashing into something, he also asks Clara if she knows how to fly the TARDIS...

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Clara - Jenna Coleman
 * Tasha Lem - Orla Brady
 * Dad - James Buller
 * Linda - Elizabeth Rider
 * Gran - Sheila Reid
 * Colonel Albero - Mark Anthony Brighton
 * Abramal - Rob Jarvis
 * Marta - Tessa Peake-Jones
 * Barnable - Jack Hollington
 * Colonel Meme - Sonita Henry
 * Handles' Voice - Kayvan Novak
 * Young Man - Tom Gibbins
 * Voice - Ken Bones
 * Cyberman - Aiden Cook
 * Voice of the Daleks & the Cybermen - Nicholas Briggs
 * Dalek 1 - Barnaby Edwards
 * Dalek 2 - Nicholas Pegg
 * Silent - Ross Mullan
 * Sontaran - Dan Starkey
 * Weeping Angel - Sarah Madison
 * with Karen Gillan as Amy Pond, and introducing Peter Capaldi as The Doctor

Species

 * The Terileptils are one of the species massing at Trenzalore in response to the mysterious signal.
 * The Cybermen, despite TV: Nightmare in Silver confirming them to be the original ones from Mondas, are shown to use the Cybus phrase "Delete" in one of the drawings.
 * The Doctor traps a Weeping Angel with a mirror so that it can't help but look at itself.

Story notes

 * This is the first televised regeneration story in which the Doctor regenerates at the end of the story to end on a shot of a character other than the Doctor and the second since The War Games not to end on the Doctor's new incarnation. In this case, this story's final frame shows Clara's reaction to the newly regenerated Twelfth Doctor, not the Twelfth Doctor himself.
 * This is the shortest story (in overall run time) to feature a regeneration broadcast on BBC1. The Night of the Doctor was only shown on Red Button.
 * The regeneration is presented differently from other regenerations shown in the revived series, with the use of a prolonged explosion of energy occurring before the actor transitions. The final transition consists of a brief flash of light around the actor's head.
 * Before filming for this special began in September 2013, Matt Smith agreed to play a role in the American film, How to Catch a Monster. His character was depicted as having a thug-like buzz cut, which meant Smith had to have his signature coif completely shorn off. By the time the filming was underway for the special, Matt's hair had not grown back enough to fill out the Eleventh Doctor's hairstyle. Choosing a quick solution, he had his head shaved bald and donned a hairpiece identical to his coif, which also made it easier for makeup artists to apply ageing effects through older-looking hairpieces. Matt's wig was also implemented into the special as a humorous scene where it was made relevant to the plot in a way well within the alien nature of the Eleventh Doctor.
 * During the filming of the special, Matt Smith suffered an injury to his leg and later had to visit a physical therapist to recuperate from the accident. This injury inspired a rumor that the script for the special would be altered to have the Eleventh Doctor lose a leg when the Weeping Angels attacked. The rumor was proven false when no such event took place in the episode.
 * This is the eighth story overall to feature both Daleks and Cybermen in major roles, preceded by The Five Doctors, The Ultimate Adventure, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, Return to Earth, The Mazes of Time and The Eternity Clock.
 * With their appearance in The Day of the Doctor, this marks the first time the Daleks have appeared in two consecutive episodes, multi-part stories and flashbacks excluded.

Ratings
to be added

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors
to be added

Continuity

 * The Doctor tricks Clara into returning home in the TARDIS, presumably using Emergency Program One, although modified in that the TARDIS was programmed to return to him after Clara's departure. The Ninth Doctor previously tricked Rose into returning home in the TARDIS, and just like Clara, she manages to return both herself and the TARDIS to the Doctor. (TV: The Parting of the Ways).
 * While investigating the Crack, the Doctor shows Clara a Seal of the High Council of Gallifrey, claiming he "nicked it off the Master in the Death Zone." This is a direct reference to the events of TV: The Five Doctors, in which the Master, tasked with locating the Doctor in the Death Zone, is given the Seal to prove his credentials.
 * The Doctor confirms to Clara that although he is the Eleventh Doctor, he has used all twelve of his regenerations, and is therefore unable to regenerate again. The two "missing" lives are the War Doctor (whose successors chose to forget because of his actions in the Time War), and the regeneration aborted by the Tenth Doctor when he sent his regenerative energy into a matching bio-receptacle (his severed hand) rather than change. (TV: The Day of the Doctor, Journey's End)
 * It is confirmed that Time Lords can only regenerate twelve times (for a total of thirteen lives), but that a Time Lord can be granted a new regeneration cycle. Judging by the Doctor's reaction when this happens to him, this is all but unheard of.  The Master had been offered a new regeneration cycle by the High Council to persuade him to rescue the various Doctors trapped in the Death Zone, (TV: The Five Doctors) and was actually given one when he was resurrected to fight in the Time War. (TV: The Sound of Drums)
 * The Doctor visibly ages during the 300 years between when he sends Clara home and when she returns, gaining grey hair and wrinkles and requiring a cane to walk. By the time Tasha Lem returns Clara once again, he has aged significantly further; it is unknown how much time passed between her second and third visits.
 * It is learned that Madam Kovarian led a faction of the 'Church of Silence' that broke off and traveled back along the Doctor's timeline, trying to stop him from reaching Trenzalore. Their actions failed, and in fact caused the events they feared to occur; trying to blow the TARDIS up caused the cracks to appear, and the assassin they manufactured to kill the Doctor - River Song - ended up being the Doctor's wife and ally. The Doctor called this the Destiny Paradox - "You can't change history if you're already a part of it."
 * The Silents are revealed to be high ranking Confessional Priests of the Papal Mainframe (later the Church of Silence), which were genetically engineered to allow people to confess their sins without remembering doing so, accomplished by fashioning the priests so anyone looking at them would forget their encounter when they looked away.
 * At the Papal Mainframe, it is considered very polite to present oneself naked.
 * As the Eighth, War, Ninth and Tenth Doctors did, the Eleventh Doctor examines his glowing hands before he regenerates. (TV: The Night of the Doctor, The Day of the Doctor, The Parting of the Ways, The End of Time)
 * The Doctor silently materializes the TARDIS on Trenzalore, something River Song did previously. (TV: The Time of Angels)
 * The greatest fear in the Doctor's room from The God Complex is revealed: it is a crack in time. The fear is a result of his guilt from feeling responsible for weakening the integrity of the universe.
 * The Doctor again uses the phone on the outside of the TARDIS (TV: The Bells of Saint John, The Day of the Doctor) once more despite having previously claimed that it is not a real phone (TV: The Empty Child). It is revealed that this is because he keeps forgetting to transfer calls to the TARDIS through the phone on the console.
 * Clara now has her own TARDIS key. (TV: The Rings of Akhaten, Hide)
 * The Doctor uses "reverse the polarity" once more (TV: The Day of the Doctor), a favourite phrase of the Third Doctor.
 * The Daleks now once again remember the Doctor (TV: Asylum of the Daleks) due to harvesting the information from Tasha Lem's mind.
 * Dalek puppets reappear. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks) Tasha Lem is able to resist her conditioning and fire on three Daleks in a way that mirrors Jenibeth Blakely. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation)
 * The Doctor eats fish fingers and custard once more before regenerating. (TV: The Eleventh Hour, The Power of Three)
 * The Twelfth Doctor's first words — "Kidneys! I've got new kidneys!" — keep to the modern tradition of new Doctors immediately commenting on their bodies. Previously, the Tenth Doctor commented on his "new teeth", (TV: The Parting of the Ways) and the Eleventh on his legs. (TV: The End of Time) Past Doctors had similar comments later on. (TV: Robot, TV: Doctor Who, TV: Rose)
 * The most lucid and frequent voice emanating from the crack in time is that of the General seen in The Day of the Doctor.
 * While regenerating, the Doctor experiences hallucinations about his past companions like the Fourth and Fifth Doctors did. (TV: Logopolis, TV: The Caves of Androzani)
 * This is the second televised story to feature a Narrator. The first time this happened was in The End of Time where the Narrator turned out to be Rassilon. In this case, the Narrator is Tasha Lem.
 * While the species themselves are not mentioned, Judoon rockets (TV: Smith and Jones, The Pandorica Opens) and Silurian Arks (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship) can be seen among the fleets orbiting Trenzalore at the beginning. Terileptils are mentioned as being one species present. (TV: The Visitation)
 * In this story the Doctor in a round-about way implies he created an android boyfriend. Although it is likely non-canonical by this point, this might be an odd reference to the Master when he was housed in an android body (TV:  Scream of the Shalka) Previously, River Song claimed to have dated an Auton. (TV: The Big Bang)
 * This is not the first time someone rode through the time stream on the outside of the TARDIS as this was previously done by Captain Jack Harkness (TV: Utopia) and the Doctor himself. (TV: Hide)

Home video releases
to be added