Only the First 50 Story Notes are shown below - Click to Show All Story Notes
 This story is BBC One's annual Christmas Day Doctor Who story for 2013. It was broadcast just one month after the Fiftieth Anniversary Special "The Day of The Doctor".
After the events that took place in "The Day of The Doctor" we now know that The Doctor is in his final incarnation. The Doctor is also aware that his ultimate end awaits him on the planet Trenzalore, having already visited his own grave in "The Name of The Doctor". This story reveals how he overcame the seemingly impossible hurdle of being able to continue regenerating. It is the last to star Matt Smith (as the Eleventh Doctor) and saw him hand over the role of The Doctor to Peter Capaldi (the Twelfth Doctor).
This story is the third instalment in a loose trilogy of stories, following "The Name of The Doctor" and "The Day of The Doctor", which together serve as the Eleventh Doctor's swan song. This story addresses numerous plot threads developed over the course of Matt Smith's tenure, including the prophecy of The Silence and The Doctor's fate on the planet Trenzalore. This story is also the 800th individual episode of Doctor Who, the ninth Christmas special since the show's 2005 revival, and Matt Smith's fourth and final Christmas Special as the Eleventh Doctor.
This is the second time that the Cybermen have appeared in a regeneration story (following the 1966 story "The Tenth Planet") and the second time the Cybermen have appeared in a Christmas special, after "The Next Doctor" in 2008.
On the 23rd November 2013, the teaser trailer shown after "The Day of The Doctor" revealed that the Daleks, Weeping Angels, and The Silence would be appearing in this story. Sontaran ships are also visible on a poster and trailer, Silurian ships are also seen. Also revealed in the trailer is The Doctor's return to Trenzalore and the tagline 'Silence Will Fall', which has been repeated throughout the Eleventh Doctor's era.
The Doctor is accompanied by Clara Oswald who is played by Jenna Coleman. Joining them is Orla Brady as Tasha Lem, a character who is an old friend of The Doctor's. Orla Brady is best known for her role as Elizabeth Bishop in the US television series Fringe. She has also appeared in The Deep, Sinbad and Poirot.
This story guest stars Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and introduced Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. Both appear at the very end of this story. The scene with Peter Capaldi was shot on Thursday 3rd October 2013. Peter also shot his cameo appearance for "The Day of The Doctor" at the same time.
Also starring is Tessa Peake-Jones who is best known for her role as Raquel in Only Fools and Horses. She has also appeared in Holby City and Marchlands.
Rob Jarvis, who played the regular role of Eddie in Hustle, also guest stars.
Sheila Reid, who plays Clara’s gran, is best known for her role as Madge in Benidorm but she has also appeared in Call the Midwife, Casualty and many National Theatre productions. Doctor Who fans though may remember her as Etta in the 1985 Sixth Doctor story "Vengeance of Varos".
Elizabeth Rider - who plays Linda - previously played the part of Ellen in The Sarah Jane Adventures story "Lost in Time".
Nicholas Briggs again provided the voices of both the Cybermen and the Daleks.
This story was directed by Jamie Payne who previously directed "Hide".
This story also marked the departure of Producer Marcus Wilson who finished working on Doctor Who when Matt Smith's final scene was filmed.
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 in that film was depicted as having a thug-like buzz cut, which meant Smith had to have his hair completely shorn off. By the time the filming was underway for the special, Matt Smith's hair had not grown back enough to fill out the Eleventh Doctor's hairstyle. He therefore had his head shaved bald and donned a Eleventh Doctor hairpiece, which also made it easier for makeup artists to apply ageing effects by using older-looking hairpieces.
The read through for this story took place in Cardiff on Wednesday 4th September, 2013. Filming then began on Sunday 8th September 2013 and the final day of the shoot came a little under a month later on Saturday 5th October.
On the 10th September 2013 Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman were seen filming on location in Cardiff. The location was Lydstep Flats, which have been previously used in Season Twenty Seven (New Series 1) and Season Twenty Eight (New Series 2) as the Powell Estate where Rose Tyler lived with her mother Jackie.
On the 19th September 2013 scenes were being filmed in the evening at Puzzlewood where fake snow was used.
The final day’s filming mainly involved Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman in the TARDIS but the very last sequence to be completed featured Matt Smith on his own. Straight after the wrap, Steven Moffat - who had been on set to see the historic final moment - paid tribute to Matt Smith and his time on the show.
In this story The Doctor faced some of the more formidable foes that he has encountered in his most recent incarnations, including the Cybermen, The Weeping Angels, the Silence, and - of course - the Daleks! Also mentioned are the Terileptils. These foes have not been seen for 31 years when they debuted in the 1982 Fifth Doctor story "The Visitation".
While the species themselves are not mentioned in this story, Judoon rockets ("Smith and Jones" and "The Pandorica Opens") and Silurian Arks ("Dinosaurs on a Spaceship") can be seen among the fleets orbiting Trenzalore.
This is the eighth story overall to feature both Daleks and Cybermen in major roles, preceded by "The Five Doctors", "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday" and "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang". Both Daleks and Cybermen also featured in the 1989 stage show "The Ultimate Adventure" and the video games "Return to Earth", "The Mazes of Time" and "The Eternity Clock".
This is also only the second time the Daleks have featured in two consecutive stories (excluding multi-part stories and flashbacks). The first time was in the 1973 Third Doctor stories "Frontier in Space" and "Planet of the Daleks" (where both stories deal with parts of the same Dalek threat). In this story and the preceding story, "The Day of The Doctor", some time has elapsed between both events and they both involve two separate Dalek threats.
The Daleks now once again remember The Doctor (see "Asylum of the Daleks") due to harvesting the information from Tasha Lem's mind.
It is revealed that The Doctor found Handles at the Maldovar Market which could be a reference to Dorium Maldovar who was first seen in the 2010 story "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang". It was Dorium who first said the line, ‘The oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight…’ which The Doctor quotes in this story.
To allow translation of the message, The Doctor uses a Seal of the High Council of Gallifrey. He states that he 'nicked it off The Master in the Death Zone.’. The event he is referring to occurred in the 1983 Twentieth Anniversary special "The Five Doctors". The Third Doctor took the object from his old enemy incorrectly assuming that the Master had himself stolen it. In that story he claimed he would return it ‘at the first opportunity’. But as The Doctor has encountered the High Council on several subsequent occasions since we can assume that this has slipped his mind!
The town of Christmas has a small graveyard with headstones identical to those in the mass grave from Trenzalore's alternate future (see "The Name of The Doctor").
In the town of Christmas a truth field is in force. It is revealed that The Doctor already knows about such fields, but hasn't encountered one for ages.
The Doctor is heard to mention Easter Island. In the 2011 story "The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon" he and River Song had a conversation in which River Song suggested that the Eleventh Doctor had been worshipped there!
The children’s game, ‘Blind man’s bluff’ has been a recurring diversion throughout part of the Eleventh Doctor’s era. We witnessed Rory playing the game in the 2011 story "Let’s Kill Hitler" and The Doctor gives it a whirl in "The Name of The Doctor". In this story it is Barnable who dons the blindfold and as with the other two instances of the game, things do not end well.
The Doctor is heard to say 'reverse the polarity' again ("The Day of The Doctor"). This was a favourite phrase of the Third Doctor.
The Doctor traps a Weeping Angel with a mirror so that it can't help but look at itself.
During the celebrations following his defeat of the wooden Cyberman, we hear The Doctor say ‘There’s me arm-wrestling a Draconian!’ The Draconians were a powerful race encountered by the Third Doctor in the 1973 story "Frontier in Space". Although that was the only adventure the species appeared in they were referenced much later in "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang".
The Cybermen are shown to use the Cybus phrase 'Delete' in one of the drawings.
A drawing of what may be one of the Racnoss is seen hanging on the wall of the clock tower.
The greatest fear in The Doctor's room from "The God Complex" is revealed to have been a Crack in Time.
The Doctor explains that the Cracks in Time and the events of the reboot of the Universe to Clara ("The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang").
The Doctor again uses the phone on the outside of the TARDIS (as he did in" The Bells of Saint John" and "The Day of The Doctor") despite having previously claimed that it is not a real phone ("The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances"). It is revealed that this is because he keeps forgetting to patch it back through the phone on the console ("Aliens of London/World War Three " and "The Beast Below").
Clara now has her own TARDIS key (see "The Rings of Akhaten" and "Hide").
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 Tyler into returning home in the TARDIS, and just like Clara, she manages to return both herself and the TARDIS to The Doctor ("Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways").
This is not the first time someone has travelled through the Vortex on the outside of the TARDIS. This was previously done by Captain Jack Harkness, in the 2007 Tenth Doctor story "Utopia", and by The Doctor himself in "Hide".
The Doctor visibly ages during the 300 years between when he sends Clara home and when she returns, gaining grey hair, 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 Clara's second and third visits.
When The Doctor and Clara visit the Church of Silence they are naked - the 'clothes' they are seen wearing are hologram clothes.
The Silence 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.
It is revealed that Madame Kovarian led a faction of the Church of Silence that broke off and travelled back along The Doctor's timeline, trying to stop him from reaching Trenzalore. Their actions failed, and in fact caused the events they feared would 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'.
Tasha Lem’s declaration that ‘Silence will fall!’ was first heard in the 2010 story "The Eleventh Hour" - The Eleventh Doctor’s first adventure. Other references to "The Eleventh Hour" include a flashback of the young Amelia Pond, the so-called crack in the wall and fish fingers and custard… The latter was the meal The Doctor enjoyed with Amelia shortly after he had regenerated into the Eleventh Doctor in "The Eleventh Hour". In this story The Doctor is seen eating this delicacy when Clara enters the TARDIS near the end of this story just before he regenerates.
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 - who was not generally referred to as The Doctor due to his actions in The Time War (see "The Day of The Doctor") - and the regeneration by the Tenth Doctor when he sent his regenerative energy into a matching bio-receptacle (his severed hand) rather than change ("The Stolen Earth/Journey's End").
This is the first time in the revived series to acknowledge the fact the Time Lords have a limited capacity to regenerate twelve times. The Eleventh Doctor previously joked about this limit in The Sarah Jane Adventures story "Death of The Doctor", claiming to Clyde Langer he could regenerate 507 times.
As well as confirming that Time Lords can only regenerate twelve times (for a total of thirteen lives), a Time Lord can also be granted a new regeneration cycle. Judging by The Doctor's reaction when this happens to him, this is uncommon. 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 ("The Five Doctors") and was apparently given one when he was resurrected to fight in the Time War ("The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords").
The Doctor refers to his Time War incarnation as 'Captain Grumpy'. He also says that he had a 'vanity problem' as the Tenth Doctor, referring to his regeneration from that body into the same one.
| |
|
|
The Firsts:
The first time in the revived series to acknowledge the fact that Time Lords have a limited capacity to regenerate twelve times.
The first 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.
Brian Minchin's first involvement in the show as Executive Producer.
|
|
(Position = 95 out of 241)
