The Name of the Doctor

Dear Gary—

Probable Girl meet Rumpelstiltskin; at long last; and almost as insubstantial as I expected. However I can enjoy it on the inconsequentially entertaining level that it is.

“I don’t know where I am.” It’s a nice echo from Clara’s first story. When the Doctor first met Clara she had been uploaded into the Great Intelligence’s World Wide Web; now both she and the Great Intelligence upload themselves into the Doctor’s time stream.

It’s very amusing. I know it is done with great gravitas and dramatic effect, but it is not substantiated in any way. We are told that the Great Intelligence has jumped into the Doctor’s time stream and that this has killed him (the GI), but not before he has had the time and the ability to consciously alter the Doctor’s time line and effectively kill the Doctor over and over again in each iteration of his being. We don’t see any of this and are not offered any explanations as to how this is accomplished; we are simply to take this on faith. Likewise, we are to believe that Clara jumping in after the GI doesn’t kill her but allows her to deliberately follow after each shard of the GI that exists within that time stream and successfully thwart his every move. That is several seasons’ worth of storytelling right there, but we don’t even get a cliff notes version.

What we do get is a whirlwind of Doctor images flashing past a very That Girl looking Clara. (In fact, I wouldn’t doubt that Clara took the opportunity to be Marlo Thomas as one of her many personas inside the Doctor’s time stream.) It’s great to see the mixture of original footage and body doubles of the Doctor that whiz by in our magical mystery tour. Not for a minute do I consider that any of this compromises the long and rich history of the Doctor. Not for a minute do I wonder why I never saw a glimpse of the Probable Girl during my slow path of Doctor Who viewing. Not for a minute do I think that Clara’s interference diminishes the many accomplishments of the Doctor. Because not for a minute do I believe any of this. This is just some more Matrix tampering. I almost expect to see the action stopped mid stream to witness the Time Lords swirling around in their theater chairs to listen to a rant by the Valeyard before they turn their attention back to the screen.

If I were to stop for one minute and accept this tale as Doctor Who fact, then I would have to scratch my head at the paradox of it all. How, I would wonder, did the Doctor meet splinters of this Probable Girl before she even considered turning herself into Clara confetti? It’s timey wimey. OK. But the events of The Dalek Asylum and The Snowmen would have originally gone down very differently without the Clara flakes floating about. Yet the Doctor only knows those versions even before they were created by the Clara/GI Soufflé. It is because he knows those versions and therefore knows Clara that he travels with her to begin with and ends up at his graveside with the irritated GI on his tail.

Oh, but timey wimey. It has all been changed. Changed and re-changed. The Doctor has been rebooted. There is the original, the GI tainted, and the Clara restart. Timey Wimey.

No, I just don’t buy it.

But I can skim along the surface of the story and enjoy it.

Any episode featuring the Victorian detectives is bound to be fun, no matter how gratuitous they are. Strax alone provides tons of comic relief. Add in a return of River Song and the entertainment value rises even higher. The comatose conference call is cool, although the changing desktop bit is wearing a bit thin. I’m not really sure what the purpose of the call is either. Like so much of New Who these days, we don’t get much background information. We don’t know who this Clarence guy is or what his connection is to Vastra or why she would listen to him or how she would be able to save him from execution. He mumbles a few cryptic lines concerning the Doctor, and rather than contacting the Doctor directly Vastra and Jenny call on Strax, Clara, and River to ponder on the mysterious message: “The Doctor has a secret, you know. He has one he will take to the grave. And it is discovered.”

They accomplish nothing during this telepathic teleconference other than to assemble the guest cast together and set up the plot elements. But it is one of the highlights of the episode and greatly amusing. And while it seems most irresponsible of Jenny to have left their door unlocked, her realization that they are being invaded and that she has been murdered is very effective and moving.

I’m not so sure about the Whisper Men, however. These Silent wannabes are sprung on us out of thin air; and while creepy, they have no context. We don’t know where they come from, what their motive is, or what powers they possess. For some reason they are working for the Great Intelligence, who for some reason has an all-consuming hatred of the Doctor. For some even more inexplicable reason, the Whisper Men whisper their secret secrets to Clarence who whispers them to Vastra who telewhispers them to Strax, River, and Clara. I’m not really sure why this telephone chain game was started. It’s all to get them and the Doctor to Trenzalore, but there surely has to be a less convoluted and more certain way of doing this. But then it wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining for the audience.

The audience isn’t supposed to question any of this, of course. I’m sorry, Gary. I can’t help asking questions. Like why are Jenny, Strax, and Vastra powerless against the Whisper Men? This goes back to my previous questions about the Whisper Men. This trio has fought many an adversary. What is special about the Whisper Men? And why are our heroes unarmed? This would be a perfect time for Strax to whip out one of his grenades that he loves to mention. The Whisper Men also appear to be unarmed. Some of Jenny’s hand to hand combat experience would come in handy. But the Whisper Men prove to have miraculous powers to mend themselves cartoon like. It’s all very convenient and unlikely.

Next I wonder about the GI. Why is he doing this? He wants revenge against the Doctor. Stand in line. But OK, he wants revenge. He has an unreasoning, blind hatred that drives him to suicide just to accomplish his goal of re-writing the Doctor’s life. Now this guy obviously has the power to travel through time and space in the blink of an eye as well as to transport others against their will. Couldn’t he just as easily hop scotch his way through the Doctor’s life undoing his deeds without the aid of the Doctor’s dying time line and without destroying himself in the process? Of course he could. But then we wouldn’t have a story. And we wouldn’t have Probable Girl jumping in after the GI and we wouldn’t have this seasonal arc—and oh, Gary, I wish we could watch that season that wasn’t.

The more I think about it the less impressed I am. It’s a fun watch but that’s about it. And ultimately it’s another cheat. Another re-write of history. Oh—I guess it’s appropriate in that case that River makes an appearance. She’s all for re-writing history. The tender parting between her and the Doctor is well done. It is a shame, though, that the story is short-handed. The GI, the Whisper Men, the time altering lifetimes crammed into montage. It all seems just an excuse to wrap up some loose ends and get some cool ideas on camera. We’re given a huge framework with very few details to fill it in.

And the whole leaf thing is . . . oh, I don’t even want to dignify.

But then we get to the real reason we were all brought here—and it almost makes everything worthwhile.

“John Hurt as the Doctor.”

Doctor: “He is my secret.”

This was worth waiting for.

Doctor (not): “What I did, I did without choice.”

Doctor: “I know.”

Doctor (not): “In the name of peace and sanity.”

And here it is; here is what rips the Rumpelstiltskin out of the dreary long ‘Doctor Who?’ inanity of an arc and turns it on its head . . .

Doctor: “But not in the name of the Doctor.”

That is a punch line I can appreciate, Gary.