I know it’s taken me about four months to finally blog about the Doctor Who season 6 finale, but in my defense, it took me a little while to get my head around it and decide whether or not I liked it. Before I get into a quick recap, though, can we talk about Matt Smith’s hair for a second? It’s much too long in this episode. Much. Too. Long. That is all. SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP.
So this episode was something of a time-traveling acid trip, which in a lot of ways was a lot of fun. The episode begins with all of time happening at once, with Churchill and Dickens and Cleopatra all existing in the same moment. We find out that this has happened because River Song tried to rewrite a fixed point in time and everything went to hell. The episode then proceeds to follow the Doctor through the events that led up to his death and the events that happened as a result of River trying to avoid said death. Lots of silly and epic things happen, then it’s revealed that this question that will cause silence to fall is what the Doctor’s real name and that the Doctor uses the shape changing robot thing from Let’s Kill Hitler to escape death. The only person who knows he is alive is River, because he whispers it to her when they get married, but at the end of the episode, some months later, she reveals it to her parents and everyone is happy.
First I have to say that I really like that the Doctor faking his own death because he’s gotten “too loud,” because if you remember from the first episode of the new series (“Rose” with Christopher Eccleston) he started as more of a secret. And that seems to suit him, the mystery.
There were a lot of things to like about this episode. Sassy headless Dorian, Churchill and the Doctor fighting off the Silence as the Doctor tells his tale, eyepatch Amy and Rory who find each other even when all of time has gone wonky, the reunion at the end where River tells Amy and Rory that he’s alive, and Dorian yelling “DOCTOR WHO? DOCTOR WHO?” as the Doctor trots to the TARDIS.
Unfortunately, there were a lot of things I didn’t like about this episode as well. I didn’t like the reveal that the Doctor used the tesselecta to escape death because it seemed way too simple to warrant the entire season, I didn’t like that everything worked out absolutely perfectly, and I didn’t like the wedding.
Kyle Anderson, my favorite Who blogger, discusses his dissatisfaction with the whole tesselecta thing, so I won’t go into it here, because instead I want to talk about my two biggest problems with this episode: the wedding, and the question.
First, the wedding. Why? Why was there a wedding? It didn’t have anything to do with the events of the episode, it doesn’t make anything (but River’s ability to break out of prison) clear from the previous seasons, and as far as I can see, it won’t add anything to future seasons. There is no reason or gain to have the Doctor and River get married, so why did they do it? Why couldn’t he just whisper the “look into my eye” line to River, make out with her, and then continue on as planned? Literally nothing would have changed as a result. This also begs the question, when David Tennant meets River for the first time, in the library, on her death day, what does she whisper to him to make him trust her? If Moffat is planning on dragging THAT out for another season, he’s more clever than I gave him credit for. I don’t think he is, though. In fact, I think he’s forgotten all about it. That AND the TARDIS exploding at the end of last season. It’s like he added all this cool foreshadowing but then either forgot about the storylines or got bored. And that’s frustrating, as a fan. Shame.
Next, “the question.” “The first question.” Doctor…. who? So apparently this big scary question, the “first” question, the question that drives the religious order the Silence, the question that means the Doctor must die, is what the Doctor’s name is. I’m sorry, what? I get that a Time Lord’s “real” name is important for some reason (in the new series it’s a bit unclear as to why, though), but is it really that important? Also, there were plenty of Time Lords older than the Doctor before he killed them all, so why is HIS name the “first” question, and why is it of such interest to the Silence? I don’t get it, and honestly, I don’t think Moffat does either. I’ll give him that it was cute, having sassy headless Dorian yelling the title of the show at the end of the episode, but as far as it will enhance the future of the show, I’m not so sure.
Final thoughts: the episode had fun elements but ultimately fell flat in the grand scope of the last two seasons. It answered very little and didn’t seem to care.
Other Who news: The Christmas Special was…. interesting, new episodes aren’t coming out until next October (NOOOOO), and sometime next season, the Doctor will be getting new companions. FINALLY. I love Amy and Rory and they’ll always have a place in my heart, but the Doctor, not to mention Matt Smith as an actor, needs a new companion. Half the fun of the Doctor is that he remains very much the same while the people around him change. That all said, the next companion(s) has a lot to live up to.
