Vagabond Prime here: My 12-year-old daughter-unit, BabyGorinkaBot, is quite the Doctor Who fan. So much so, that my meager fandom can barely orbit hers, constantly in danger of being yanked into its gravitational pull. The Name of the Doctor has a lot going on, here’s BabyGorinkaBot with her thoughts:
The final episode of this season of Doctor Who aired yesterday in America, and sadly we have to wait until November 23 to see more. Here is my summary of this episode, with some spoilers.
In the intro, it shows Clara falling through space, with a monologue about saving the doctor. She sees each incarnation of him, and tries to help him in some way. It goes back to regular, with Jenny and Vastra. They call a conference with Strax, which involves a weird trance. Clara is making a soufflé, or at least attempting it. She sees a piece of mail, from Vastra, and opens it up stairs, which puts her under the spell trancy thingy as well.They all meet in the trance with River, and talk about a weird omen. Jenny dies, and Strax and Vastra wake up.
Clara wakes, and sees the Doctor. They go to Trenzalore, as the ominous man told, and River is linked with Clara’s mind. They’re attacked by classy faceless dudes (that looked like the Gentlemen from Buffy in my opinion) and go into a secret catacomb entrance in River’s grave. Did I mention she was apparently buried there too? Well, she’s not. They find their way to a giant version of the TARDIS, from the future, where Vastra, Jenny (Strax healed her), and Strax are being held up by the Great Intelligence (from the snowmen, will that guy ever go away?) and some more creepy stylish dudes. They all go into the giant TARDIS, and the Doctor explains that when it kinda broke all the bigger on the inside stuff seeped out and made it all big. GI goes into the Doctor’s time stream, which is like his corpse, and reverses every good thing that ever happened. Clara realizes that before she has saved him, and goes in there too, to revert everything again. That’s why she has to save the Doctor in the intro. The Doctor comes in to save her, and they show his darkest secret, who is another Doctor. This dude is played by John Hurt, and then it’s over!
Well, that was longer than expected. I really liked this episode! I like all Doctor Who though, but Moffat left us another BEHEMOTH cliff hanger, like in Sherlock. There is much speculation already about what regeneration of the doctor he is, if he is the real 9th doctor, which makes Smith the 12th, or if he is #12. I, on the other hand, am not going to speculate on this, and just wait. One annoying thing: They didn’t even reveal what the Doctor’s name is!