Here ends the saga of the Eleventh Doctor. It has been an erratic journey, with many failures in story telling, buttressed by a fine performance by Matthew Smith as the most alien of the Doctors, the old man in the young body. In fact, that may be a major cause of the trouble: so much of the past three series has been involved with the weird shtick that Matt Smith performs so engagingly that story logic has given given scant shrift.
And so we come to the Christmas Special set in a town called Christmas: the death of the sun and the quickening of the new one; a Doctor that is wounded in one leg like the Fisher King; a Doctor out of regenerations, fighting the end of his old world.
However, nothing can be born until something dies, and anyone who goes to watch this episode knows that there will be another Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi. First, though, all the forces of the old times must be faced: Daleks, the Silence, the Cybermen, Weeping Angels, the Cracks in Space and Time, the Time Lords of Gallifrey and, most terrifying of all, naked death.
The story of this special is a story told in mythic terms. There has been a lot of bafflegab and fast-talking nonsense to get through a lot of stories in the past, but this episode, by using the mythic idea of the True Name, series runner Steven Moffatt has produced an episode that will annoy most fans.
Most fans think they know how the world works, how Doctor Who works. However, the essence of mythic story telling is mystery, death and rebirth. It's directly contrary to the way most people think of Doctor Who, which is supposed to be Science Fiction. Stop looking in your physics textbooks for the answers. Don't concern yourself with what's written in astronomy texts. Look instead in Joseph Campbell's work. For starters, take a look at THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. We've seen a baker's dozen now. here are plenty of faces to go.
And so we come to the Christmas Special set in a town called Christmas: the death of the sun and the quickening of the new one; a Doctor that is wounded in one leg like the Fisher King; a Doctor out of regenerations, fighting the end of his old world.
However, nothing can be born until something dies, and anyone who goes to watch this episode knows that there will be another Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi. First, though, all the forces of the old times must be faced: Daleks, the Silence, the Cybermen, Weeping Angels, the Cracks in Space and Time, the Time Lords of Gallifrey and, most terrifying of all, naked death.
The story of this special is a story told in mythic terms. There has been a lot of bafflegab and fast-talking nonsense to get through a lot of stories in the past, but this episode, by using the mythic idea of the True Name, series runner Steven Moffatt has produced an episode that will annoy most fans.
Most fans think they know how the world works, how Doctor Who works. However, the essence of mythic story telling is mystery, death and rebirth. It's directly contrary to the way most people think of Doctor Who, which is supposed to be Science Fiction. Stop looking in your physics textbooks for the answers. Don't concern yourself with what's written in astronomy texts. Look instead in Joseph Campbell's work. For starters, take a look at THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. We've seen a baker's dozen now. here are plenty of faces to go.