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Doctor Who S07 E14: The Name of The Doctor
The Doctor has many secrets, but not the least of them is his real name. Other than The Master and other Gallifreyans, few folks are aware of it. River Song knows it, and she’s back in tonight’s season finale. Will we at last learn “The Name of The Doctor”? Find out in my review, after the jump…
The Impossible Girl
Did you hear that “squeeeee”? Yeah, that was me watching the pre-credit sequence of this episode. We see The First Doctor, yeah baby, William Hartnell, and his granddaughter stealing a faulty TARDIS on Gallifrey… before being stopped by Clara Oswald. Then it gets better.
Her voiceover claims she was made to save The Doctor, and then encounters the Colin Baker version, Tom Baker, then Sylvester McCoy, Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, Peter Davison, then finally Matt Smith, then the other shoe drops.
She says she entered the world on a leaf, the leaf that caused her parents to meet, fall in love, and have her. She’s the Impossible Girl who was born to save The Doctor. Roll credits. If the rest of the episode holds up to the opening, Steven Moffat, you are The Man.
The Conference Call
Through the magic of dreams, ‘where time travel has always been possible,’ several old friends return in a magical unconscious conference call. Among them are Madam Vastra, Jenny, and Commander Strax (where’s our spin-off??!), as well as Professor River Song and Clara Oswald.
A murderer has traded his life for a secret to Vastra, one of The Doctor’s secrets. Unfortunately, new monsters, called The Whisper Men, attack the conference call and capture our Victorian London trio. Once again, Moffet has created couchworthy monsters.
Trenzalore
Clara returns to The Doctor, relates the tale of a secret The Doctor will take to the grave, that is discovered, and of the place called Trenzalore. It upsets him greatly. Of course he’s upset. When you’re a time traveller, there is one place you must never go. Trenzalore is where The Doctor’s grave is. Whoa.
Hard to get there, as the TARDIS refuses to go, but eventually The Doctor and Clara arrive on Trenzalore. There, surprise surprise, the villain of the second half of season seven reveals himself, Dr. Simian, possessed by the Great Intelligence. He’s holding Vastra, Jenny, and Strax captive in the tomb of The Doctor.
The Open Wound
Once inside the tomb, which is the TARDIS of course, albeit super-sized because all the paradoxes that make it bigger on the inside are broken, they encounter The Doctor’s corpse. It’s not a body, but an energy signature of all his trips through time, an open wound in the fabric of time itself.
The Great Intelligence, in a bid to destroy The Doctor once and for all, enters the wound, destroying all of The Doctors all at once, reversing all of his victories into defeats, and erasing The Doctor from history. If you’re following along, you know what happens next.
Yeah, enter the Impossible Girl. She counteracts the Great Intelligence at every turn, saving The Doctor as we’ve seen her do multiple times in different incarnations – and as we saw in the pre-credits scenes of this very episode.
Goodbyes and Hellos
Just when we thought even in death, River Song gets the short end of the stick, she gets a proper goodbye and a hot goodbye kiss, along with a juicy ‘spoilers’ line. Then The Doctor jumps into his own timeline after Clara. Yeah, crazy sumbitch thinks he’s going to save her.
That’s when things get bad. While The Doctor is looking for her, she keeps seeing ghosts of old Doctors. These visions, as well as those in the beginning, including colorized versions of the first two, are very well done by the way.
The Doctor finds her, inside his own time stream, haunted by ghosts of the past and the future. That’s when they encounter John Hurt, credited as The Doctor, and whom Matt Smith names as not acting in the name of The Doctor. Could this be another evil future incarnation of The Doctor, like The Valeyard referenced earlier this episode? Or could it be the incarnation who performed unspeakable acts in the Time War? Time will tell.
Next
The Doctor (perhaps several different ones) returns in November for the big 50th anniversary, and hopefully some answers… And if you can’t wait until then, you could always go see Star Trek. What’s that you say? You missed Noel (Mickey Smith) Clarke in Star Trek Into Darkness? You better get to the theater and see him, great flick!
Guest Blogger Robin Renee’s A South of the Border Salute to Stompin’ Tom
Stompin’ Tom button by artist Steve Rolston
Musician and writer Robin Renee remembers Canadian legend Stompin’ Tom Connors, please check out this very special memorial after the jump.
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Age of Ultron: Off the Rails
Everything has changed in the Marvel Universe of the Age of Ultron maxi-series. In a bid to save everything, Wolverine has traveled to the past and murdered the Avenger Hank Pym before he can create the artificial intelligence known as Ultron – who in the present has conquered the planet and decimated mankind.
One continuity, wiped from time by Ultron, a second, marred by the berserker Wolverine trying to set things right. Now we find ourselves in a world unlike either before it, one where Wolverine and the Invisible Woman are prisoners of an Iron Man who rules this planet. What’s next? Find out in my review of Age of Ultron Book Eight, after the jump…
Trailer Time: The Full Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Trailer
Just days after the announcement that this Joss Whedon series is on the schedule for ABC, we now have the complete trailer. Presenting “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Check it out, folks!
Trailer Time: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
This week, the network television new season line-ups were revealed, and at the front of ABC’s offerings was the Avengers television spin-off “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” And we have not one, but two sneak peeks!
Doctor Who S07 E13: Nightmare in Silver
Last year, fan favorite genre writer Neil Gaiman brought the TARDIS to life in the episode “The Doctor’s Wife.” Now Gaiman not only breathes new life into classic “Doctor Who” villains/monsters the Cybermen, but he also introduces The Doctor himself as a new Who foe. It’s Matt Smith vs. Matt Smith! Check out my spoiler-filled review of “Nightmare in Silver” after the jump…
Iron Man: Super-Villain?
By the end of this weekend we’ll probably all have seen the third installment of the Iron Man film series, Iron Man 3. The armored avenger seems to be more popular now than ever before. He wasn’t always this popular though, even to comics fans.
When I was a wee one, I didn’t even know who Iron Man was, beyond the guy in the armor in the Avengers. My very first impression of him, my first comic book with him in it… was a wild one. It was a comic that showed me a whole different side of Iron Man, or at least in the memory of a six year old boy. I’ll be back after the jump with my memories and thoughts on The Incredible Hulk #131 from 1970.
Doctor Who S07 E12: The Crimson Horror
This week’s episode features the return of some of the more intriguing recent additions to the “Doctor Who” mythos. Last seen building reputations as great but mysterious detectives in “The Snowmen,” the Silurian Madame Vastra, her human companion Jenny Flint, and her Sontaran valet Strax return to confront “The Crimson Horror,” but where are The Doctor and Clara? Check out my recap and review, after the jump…
