The Time of the Doctor vs The End of Time - a comparison
Compare and contrast:
Found the episode as a whole rather underwhelming. It desperately needed a longer run time - I think probably I would have liked it as much as Day of the Doctor if there had only been an extra 20 minutes or so to explain everything. There were some really good concepts in there, and they didn't have room to breathe. So in the end, it felt unexpectedly similar to The End of Time - mainly because it suffered from the same overstuffed suitcase of concepts. Certain moments gelled quite beautifully, just like Ten and Wilf's little chat in the middle of everything did four years ago. The few minutes of discussion at dawn on Trenzalore, and the final death of Handles were the standouts for me and showed just how much understated pathos Matt Smith can bring to the role.
I really couldn't figure out what was going on with the Church of the Mainframe or whatever it was. Still not entirely clear on where the Silence fitted into it all, and disinclined to re-watch. And while I loved the turkey gag, it added to the general sense of confusion and repetition. Plus, although I liked the general concept of the Doctor dying of old age for a change, I really can't quite accept the Eleventh Doctor's four-figure life span easily at all.
But inside all the sound and fury, there was a generally touching and interesting story striving to get out, and one that made an interesting, and probably intentional, contrast with the Tenth Doctor's demise. I think there were clear parallels being drawn. The mention of Ten's vanity issues wasn't just a throwaway line; it built on the pesona Ten brought to Day of the Doctor, positioned squarely in the midst of his disastrous borrowed time between Waters of Mars and End of Time. And I noticed Four Knocks in the score at one point as well.
It's interesting that "Everything has its time. Everything ends," is a quote so associated with the RTD era because here Moffatt really unpacks it, showing us a Doctor ultimately wearied and prepared to die. It's almost impossible to imagine such an end for the "hope I die before I get old" Tenth Doctor, who was so desperate to hang onto his attractive body and fought it all the way. When we saw Ten prosthetically aged, there was nothing organic about it - it was either a hopeless escape from reality (in Family of Blood) or a torture inflicted by the Master. Ten behaved like someone with a pathological fear of old age, running from the inevitable all through the Specials and never regaining the moral authority he lost with his botched regeneration in The Stolen Earth. Interestingly, much as I love him, Tennant has aged noticeably, and not terribly well, since 2009, and in Day of the Doctor Moffat exploited that by building up his midlife crisis playboy routine through the romantic entanglement with Elizabeth I.
What a contrast Eleven's regeneration presented, regardless of the considerably higher stakes involved. The Doctor's self-imposed exile on Trenzalore was truly self-sacrificing. He stopped running and hogging the limelight. He didn't ask whether there was somewhere better he could be, or something grander he could be doing. He just stayed put, sacrificing his companion and his TARDIS to do what he'd always done best - saving the innocent caught in the crossfire. He took the sins of the universe uncomplainingly upon his shoulders and, by so doing, made a truly epic sacrifice. All that time he knew his people were there, just a heartbeat away, calling to him, and he resisted. In his little den, with the faithful Handles, he seemed to be atoning for his shoddy treatment of Amy in The Girl Who Waited; he became the Time Lord who waited, the victim rather than the manipulator of the slowed passage of time.
Ten screamed at the universe when he was forced to sacrifice himself for one ordinary human being. Then he claimed his reward - a self-indulgent tour of his companions that seemed to put them under an an obligation to his suffering self as he lingered in the background watching their happier destinations. When we claim our own reward we frustrate the operation of grace, which is the outcome of meekness and humility (rather like the Christ we honoured yesterday, Eleven has been around for about two thousand years, clothing his power in vulnerability).
But the Eleventh Doctor demands nothing - not from the burden of assumed guilt, now assuaged somewhat by the revision of history, but simply by choice, and an element of weariness. To the very aged, even the company of dear friends can be exhausting. The end of Handles, a touching scene beautifully played by Smith, becomes representative of the loneliness common to extreme old age, as we bid farewell to our contemporaries one by one, rather hoping we will be next, rather than endure another loss. It is Clara who makes demands on his behalf - a plea for mercy that appears to be given freely, perhaps because it gives the Time Lords what they have been asking for for so long. So, when he is almost beyond desiring anything other than his end, Eleven is rewarded with a cycle of regenerations, a temporary return to youth and a reunion with Amy Pond.
To sum up, Ten's swan song was all about entitlement. Eleven's is about the operation of grace. Make of that what you will. The Time of the Doctor could also be read as a study of the perfection of identity. The Doctor is the Doctor; there is nothing more to say. He has grown fully into the name he chose for himself long ago, and from their actions it would appear that his own people accept him as such. He no longer fears that regeneration will mean the disintegration of his personality, a new man sauntering away, no longer him. The Time of the Doctor, appropriately for the follow-up to the 50th Anniversary narrative, celebrates what is essential and unchanging about the man we know as The Doctor.
But presumably, the Time Lords now know where he is and how to return. Will all hell break loose? We will have to wait and see.
Found the episode as a whole rather underwhelming. It desperately needed a longer run time - I think probably I would have liked it as much as Day of the Doctor if there had only been an extra 20 minutes or so to explain everything. There were some really good concepts in there, and they didn't have room to breathe. So in the end, it felt unexpectedly similar to The End of Time - mainly because it suffered from the same overstuffed suitcase of concepts. Certain moments gelled quite beautifully, just like Ten and Wilf's little chat in the middle of everything did four years ago. The few minutes of discussion at dawn on Trenzalore, and the final death of Handles were the standouts for me and showed just how much understated pathos Matt Smith can bring to the role.
I really couldn't figure out what was going on with the Church of the Mainframe or whatever it was. Still not entirely clear on where the Silence fitted into it all, and disinclined to re-watch. And while I loved the turkey gag, it added to the general sense of confusion and repetition. Plus, although I liked the general concept of the Doctor dying of old age for a change, I really can't quite accept the Eleventh Doctor's four-figure life span easily at all.
But inside all the sound and fury, there was a generally touching and interesting story striving to get out, and one that made an interesting, and probably intentional, contrast with the Tenth Doctor's demise. I think there were clear parallels being drawn. The mention of Ten's vanity issues wasn't just a throwaway line; it built on the pesona Ten brought to Day of the Doctor, positioned squarely in the midst of his disastrous borrowed time between Waters of Mars and End of Time. And I noticed Four Knocks in the score at one point as well.
It's interesting that "Everything has its time. Everything ends," is a quote so associated with the RTD era because here Moffatt really unpacks it, showing us a Doctor ultimately wearied and prepared to die. It's almost impossible to imagine such an end for the "hope I die before I get old" Tenth Doctor, who was so desperate to hang onto his attractive body and fought it all the way. When we saw Ten prosthetically aged, there was nothing organic about it - it was either a hopeless escape from reality (in Family of Blood) or a torture inflicted by the Master. Ten behaved like someone with a pathological fear of old age, running from the inevitable all through the Specials and never regaining the moral authority he lost with his botched regeneration in The Stolen Earth. Interestingly, much as I love him, Tennant has aged noticeably, and not terribly well, since 2009, and in Day of the Doctor Moffat exploited that by building up his midlife crisis playboy routine through the romantic entanglement with Elizabeth I.
What a contrast Eleven's regeneration presented, regardless of the considerably higher stakes involved. The Doctor's self-imposed exile on Trenzalore was truly self-sacrificing. He stopped running and hogging the limelight. He didn't ask whether there was somewhere better he could be, or something grander he could be doing. He just stayed put, sacrificing his companion and his TARDIS to do what he'd always done best - saving the innocent caught in the crossfire. He took the sins of the universe uncomplainingly upon his shoulders and, by so doing, made a truly epic sacrifice. All that time he knew his people were there, just a heartbeat away, calling to him, and he resisted. In his little den, with the faithful Handles, he seemed to be atoning for his shoddy treatment of Amy in The Girl Who Waited; he became the Time Lord who waited, the victim rather than the manipulator of the slowed passage of time.
Ten screamed at the universe when he was forced to sacrifice himself for one ordinary human being. Then he claimed his reward - a self-indulgent tour of his companions that seemed to put them under an an obligation to his suffering self as he lingered in the background watching their happier destinations. When we claim our own reward we frustrate the operation of grace, which is the outcome of meekness and humility (rather like the Christ we honoured yesterday, Eleven has been around for about two thousand years, clothing his power in vulnerability).
But the Eleventh Doctor demands nothing - not from the burden of assumed guilt, now assuaged somewhat by the revision of history, but simply by choice, and an element of weariness. To the very aged, even the company of dear friends can be exhausting. The end of Handles, a touching scene beautifully played by Smith, becomes representative of the loneliness common to extreme old age, as we bid farewell to our contemporaries one by one, rather hoping we will be next, rather than endure another loss. It is Clara who makes demands on his behalf - a plea for mercy that appears to be given freely, perhaps because it gives the Time Lords what they have been asking for for so long. So, when he is almost beyond desiring anything other than his end, Eleven is rewarded with a cycle of regenerations, a temporary return to youth and a reunion with Amy Pond.
To sum up, Ten's swan song was all about entitlement. Eleven's is about the operation of grace. Make of that what you will. The Time of the Doctor could also be read as a study of the perfection of identity. The Doctor is the Doctor; there is nothing more to say. He has grown fully into the name he chose for himself long ago, and from their actions it would appear that his own people accept him as such. He no longer fears that regeneration will mean the disintegration of his personality, a new man sauntering away, no longer him. The Time of the Doctor, appropriately for the follow-up to the 50th Anniversary narrative, celebrates what is essential and unchanging about the man we know as The Doctor.
But presumably, the Time Lords now know where he is and how to return. Will all hell break loose? We will have to wait and see.