Secret of Doctor's name is revealed
- Publication: The Times
- Date: 2013-05-20
- Author: Andrew Billen
- Page: Times2, p. 11
- Language: English
Doctor Who
Saturday, BBC One
★★★☆☆
The mysterious Doctor we met 49 Novembers ago is not really much of a mystery today. After some 800 Doctor Whos, how could he be? We know how many hearts he has, how often he can regenerate, his native planet and why he left it. We even, under Steven Moffat's stewardship of the show, know who his wife was (although not the son or daughter who produced his granddaughter, Susan, his first travelling companion). Was there any last mystery? Moffat thought so. To close this season, he promised to reveal the secret of the doctor's name — an issue that I can't say has exactly gnawed away at me over the past half century.
The answer needed to be better than the question, and preferably sensational enough to revive a three-year ratings low in time for the golden anniversary. But perhaps the saga's longevity and the need to celebrate it has brought its own difficulties. For someone, for instance, who recalls, if dimly, the first episode, it was wonderful that the opening of The Name of the Doctor showed us — and in colour! - William Hartnell, the original Doctor, making his escape from Gallifrey (some minor time lords observed his flight on a fittingly monochrome monitor). But this will have meant nothing to ten-year-olds more interested in the affairs of his recent allies, lizard-faced Vastra, her maid-turned wife Jenny (whose fantasy, Steven, whose fantasy?), and Strax, one of the most dodgily designed of Seventies aliens now refashioned as a comical thug, a frequenter of a Glaswegian fight club.
Moffat's solution to uniting the legacy viewer and those to whom Matt Smith is the Doctor was to back-invent his latest companion Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) as the "impossible girl". Without anyone noticing she had, apparently, again and again saved various incarnations of the Doctor, including dear old Patrick Troughton, running in his fur coat through what looked like LA (would that budgets had stretched so far in his day!) That was fun for all ages.
Whether either constituency wanted to see the Doctor weep, snog River Song or gaze upon his own grave was another matter. With typically dark wit, Moffat imagined the Tardis suffering, in its death throes, a "size leak" and becoming a giant tombstone. The image was striking, but had we not seen enough of the Doctor's so-called death last year, and of David Tennant's fears of extinction before that?
When the big reveal came in the final minute it just wasn't that big. The Doctor's real name was neither Jesus nor Satan nor, for that matter, Endeavour, but John Hurt. That's right: Moffat fobbed us off with an actor's name, plastering it over the screen with the promise that we would meet him again in the autumn. To recap: the real Doctor was Hurt's evil-looking Time Lord, the shadow from which our Doctor had fled all those episodes ago. That was who he was. But could we have a name please? Having been told repeatedly that the Doctor is not good at endings, I am beginning to wonder if Moffat is so hot himself.
Caption: Matt Smith as the Doctor in the series finale
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: Billen, Andrew (2013-05-20). Secret of Doctor's name is revealed. The Times p. Times2, p. 11.
- MLA 7th ed.: Billen, Andrew. "Secret of Doctor's name is revealed." The Times [add city] 2013-05-20, Times2, p. 11. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Billen, Andrew. "Secret of Doctor's name is revealed." The Times, edition, sec., 2013-05-20
- Turabian: Billen, Andrew. "Secret of Doctor's name is revealed." The Times, 2013-05-20, section, Times2, p. 11 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Secret of Doctor's name is revealed | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Secret_of_Doctor%27s_name_is_revealed | work=The Times | pages=Times2, p. 11 | date=2013-05-20 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=12 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Secret of Doctor's name is revealed | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Secret_of_Doctor%27s_name_is_revealed | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=12 March 2025}}</ref>
