Recap / Doctor Who 2013 CS "The Time of the Doctor"

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The Time of the Doctor

It's time to say goodbye to Matt Smith.

Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Jamie Payne
Air date: 25 December 2013

"And now it's time for one last bow. Like all your other selves. Eleven's hour is over now. The clock is striking Twelve's."

— Clara Oswald

The one where the Doctor gets naked, and dresses back up as the guy he saved in Pompeii.

The 2013 Doctor Who Christmas special. It features the final regular appearance of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, and the first regular appearance of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor.

Orbiting a quiet backwater planet, the massed forces of the universe’s deadliest species gather, drawn to a mysterious message that echoes out to the stars. And amongst them — the Doctor. Rescuing Clara from a family Christmas dinner, the Time Lord and his friend must learn what this enigmatic signal means for his own fate and that of the universe.

This Christmas... Silence Will Fall.

Trailer 1. Trailer 2.

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Tropes:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: A variation. While a huge part of the episode is made up of the Doctor's fast-paced confrontations with old foes, there's plenty of calm sequences when he's enjoying himself with the townsmen of Christmas or having heartfelt conversations with Clara.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • The Doctor now refers to his Time War incarnation as "Captain Grumpy".
  • The Doctor refers to the Cyberman head/A.I. by the name "Handles".
• The Ageless: Per the Doctor, Tasha "doesn't do ageing".
• All There in the Manual:
  • Why the Doctor starts walking with a cane and a limp midway through the episode is never actually explained. Reading the spin-off short story collection Tales of Trenzalore reveals that the Doctor actually loses a leg at one point due to a blind Tsunami Snake and spends the remainder of his life using a wooden leg. References to the wooden leg were deleted from the episode. That plot point was meant to serve as a cover for the fact Matt Smith injured his leg during filming.
  • The above book also serves to fill in at least a few blanks regarding what the Doctor gets up to during his exile on Trenzalore.
  • The book Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe (2017) confirms that the booming Dalek voice heard in the climax was the same Supreme Dalek from "Victory of the Daleks" and "Asylum of the Daleks", with the Parliament of the Daleks from the latter participating in the Siege of Trenzalore in their saucer, Nacrana Va Hateen ("The Highest Authority"). When the Daleks regained their memories of the Doctor, the Prime Minister had a Freak Out which led the Supreme to deem it insane, exterminating the Prime Minister and taking control of the Dalek forces. Ultimately, it is the Nacrana Va Hateen which looms over Trenzalore and is destroyed by the regenerating Doctor, killing the Supreme and the original five members of the New Dalek Paradigm. In-Universe historians consider that this may have been the final end of the Daleks.
• All There in the Script: Ken Bones, who portrayed the Time Lord General in "The Day of the Doctor", provides the voice asking the Question, "Doctor who?" A connection between the voice and the General was never made explicit, although the subtitles on the Blu-Ray and DVD identify the voice as that of "the General".
• And Starring:
  • As with the previous new series regeneration stories ("The Parting of the Ways", "The End of Time", "The Night of the Doctor"), Peter Capaldi gets an "And Introducing" credit.
  • Karen Gillan also gets one in the credits as Amy Pond.
• Arc Symbol: The crack in the wall from Series 5 comes back.
• Arc Words:
  • "Silence Will Fall", which had permeated the Eleventh Doctor's entire run.
  • "Doctor Who?" is the question that must never be answered.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • The Daleks consolidate this status: in the end, they've outlasted every other race above Trenzalore, including Cybermen, Sontarans and the Weeping Angels.
  • The Silence subvert this, as in the end they ally with the Doctor and help him and the Church soldiers stand against the Daleks for centuries. Indeed, it is revealed that the Silence on the whole are not evil villains at all (only a faction were).
• Ascended Fridge Horror: Some people pointed out the Time Lords returning would mean the Time War beginning again due to the Daleks. This is the threat that is being staved off here, with the addition that a lot of other races would like to see the Time Lords dead.
• Aside Glance: The Doctor seems to throw one during his "when the Doctor was me" line.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The Doctor versus his greatest foes in all-out war. Merry Christmas. The Doctor spends over 900 years defending the town of Christmas from all of his enemies. From Clara's perspective, it takes place over the course of a few hours on one Christmas Day.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • Maybe "like" is a better term here, but despite their somewhat adversarial relationship, Tasha Lem still takes time to... keep the Doctor supplied with marshmallows.
  • invokedAlthough they'd been flirting throughout the season, this is the episode where it becomes clear that Clara fancies the Doctor, in part because for the first time she actually says so in dialogue (and under the influence of a truth field, yet). Word of Saint Paul (Jenna Coleman, speaking at a convention) is that Clara finally realizes she's in love with the Doctor during this episode (specifically just before he regenerates).
• Backwards-Firing Gun: The Doctor convinces the wooden Cyberman that he has converted its weapon into one of these with his sonic screwdriver. When the Cyberman reverses its gun to correct this, it shoots itself in the chest, because, while the Doctor did send the signal, he failed to mention that it didn't do anything to the Cyberman's wooden body.
• Badass Cape: The Doctor starts the episode with a mauve cape, brandishing a Dalek eyestalk around like a wise king with his sceptre.
• Bamboo Technology: There is a wooden Cyberman on Trenzalore, allowing them to get around the technology ban in place.
• Battle Trophy: When boarding one of the alien ships, the Doctor brings a Dalek eyestalk with him as proof of his courage. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a Dalek ship. He also does the exact same thing with Handles the Cyberman Head on a Cyber-ship.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: The Doctor and Tasha Lem are hinted to have been involved at some point in their pasts, and those feelings haven't exactly vanished.
• Big Bad: The Daleks are the last ones standing of the enemies that invade Trenzalore, functioning as the Final Boss.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Time Lords, indirectly. Just as all hope is lost and the Doctor is about to die from old age, the crack appears in the sky and gives the Doctor regeneration energy. It's enough to start a whole new cycle.
• Bigger on the Inside: The Doctor repaired a barn for one of the children's fathers this way. He tries to keep this information secret because otherwise everyone will want one.
• Biting-the-Hand Humour: Even after Clara has had an expert's computer skills uploaded into her brain, and figured out how to use Jack Harkness' Vortex manipulator on her own, she still can't work out how to use BBC iPlayer.
• Bookends:
  • The Doctor ends this regeneration cycle in the form of an old man with long, white hair who looks very similar to the First Doctor. Bonus points for both the First and Eleventh Doctors regenerating in a "Base Under Siege" story featuring the Cybermen raiding a snowy settlement.
  • The Eleventh Doctor's time begins and ends with him seeing Amy Pond, first as a child, then as he last knew her.
  • The Eleventh Doctor's life began with the TARDIS out of control and crashing. So does the Twelfth Doctor's. Likewise, both Ten and Eleven put their TARDIS in flight just before their regenerations kick in.
    • On a similar note, Clara's adventures with Twelve starts off much as her adventures with Eleven did: with the two of them on board a crashing vehicle which he asks if she knows how to fly.
  • The Twelfth Doctor is no longer the War Doctor, the Last of the Time Lords, or the "last" Doctor. He's starting again: an aged, runaway Time Lord in a TARDIS he doesn't know how to fly, with a companion who teaches at Coal Hill School.
  • The Eleventh Doctor's run began in "The Eleventh Hour". It ends atop a clock tower, as the hands strike Twelve.
• Break the Cutie: Clara is clearly broken after being returned to Earth, thinking she'll never see the Doctor again.
• Brick Joke:
  • The Doctor tells Handles at the start of the episode to remind him to patch the telephone device back through the TARDIS console unit when a random number, expressed as a quantity of minutes is elapsed. Handles finally does remind him when he dies, 300 years later.
  • For one of the longest Brick Jokes on Doctor Who, the Doctor uses the Seal of the High Council. In his third incarnation he took it from the Master in the Death Zone in "The Five Doctors", thinking the Master had stolen it and saying he'd return it. It turns out he never did.
  • The fact Clara points out the Eleventh Doctor's light eyebrows opens the door for the contrast of Twelve's definitely-not-light set.
• Bring It: The Doctor screams that if his worst enemies want him, they'll have to come and get him.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • The Silence make their first appearance in over two years.
  • The Time Crack, not seen since the end of Eleven's first season, not only returns, but its nature is finally explained.
• Call-Back:
  • It's finally revealed that it was Madame Kovarian who blew up the TARDIS back in 2010.
  • The Doctor's final resting place (until Clara alters events) ends up being on Trenzalore.
  • Room 11 from "The God Complex" returns and is shown to house a crack.
  • The Dalek puppets make another appearance.
  • The Doctor mentions his tenth regeneration once used up one extra transformation.
  • The Doctor has met the Papal Mainframe before.
  • The Doctor produces the seal of the High Council that he confiscated from the Master back in "The Five Doctors". It is perhaps not coincidental that this was the episode in which the concept of the High Council granting an extension/renewal of a Time Lord's regeneration cycle was first introduced.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: The entire town of Christmas, due to the truth field the Time Lords are transmitting through the crack. Even with the truth field, though, the Doctor manages to tell a lie; he tells a cyberman that he reversed the polarity of his gun so it will fire out the back end. He simply neglected to mention that even though he sent that signal, it didn't work because it doesn't work on wood.
• The Cavalry: Just when all hope is lost, the Time Lords send a brand new set of regenerations to the Doctor, thus giving him enough energy to destroy the attacking Daleks, and save the day.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • One of the longest in Doctor Who, taking 30 years to go off. In "The Five Doctors", the Time Lords claimed they could give another regeneration cycle. This is what happens here.
  • Another example from "The Five Doctors": The Seal of the High Council, which returns here and is used to translate the message from Ancient Gallifreyan.
  • After the Daleks are destroyed, Clara returns to the TARDIS to see the external phone hanging from its cord. We don't see how that happened until the next episode, "Deep Breath".
  • The joke about the Doctor pretending to be Clara's boyfriend comes back in "Deep Breath", when we learn he didn't think it was a joke at all.
• Christmas Episode: The Siege of Trenzalore takes place in the Town of Christmas.
• Church Militant: The Papal Mainframe has its own army, and declares its purpose to prevent the Time War from starting again.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • The new Doctor doesn't like the colour of his kidneys, and seems to have forgotten how to control the TARDIS.
  • Clara acts like this a little. Here is a woman who splintered herself though history to save multiple versions of the Doctor, who on several occasions is shown mastering alien tech without so much as a manual handy (the speeder bike in "The Rings of Akhaten", the vortex manipulator in "The Day of the Doctor"), yet she panics when faced with cooking a turkey, and, if the Doctor is to be believed, she uses the TARDIS instead of bothering to learn how to make BBC iPlayer work.
  • The truth field makes both the Doctor and Clara act like this at first.
• Companion Cube: During the Doctor's stay in Christmas, Handles becomes like a cherished pet akin to Wilson. It's a real heart-render when time finally takes him.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The Narrator of a Christmas Special makes a big proclamation to their assembled underlings while "Final Days" plays in the background, just like "The End of Time".
  • The stand-off at the start is quite similar to the amassed army of the Doctor's enemies in "The Pandorica Opens".
  • In "Asylum of the Daleks", the Doctor previously tried to get someone who was converted into a Dalek puppet to regain their own will. This time, he's actually successful.
  • One of the alien races above the planet are the Terileptils.
  • "The Doctor is required."
  • The Doctor sports the same outfit he wore in "The Snowmen", the 2012 Christmas special.
  • A puppet of a Monoid is seen.
  • The Doctor plays Punch and Judy again.
  • This isn't the first time the Doctor's kept a piece of Cyberman technology around as a pet/PA. At one point, Handles says "affirmative", the Catchphrase of K9.
  • The Doctor repeats his drunk giraffe dance from "The Big Bang".
  • The Doctor says to Clara he's got a plan, with an emphasised nose tap.
  • The Doctor has sent companions home via TARDIS before when he thought he was going into a battle he couldn't win. Clara circumvents this by hanging on to the outside of the TARDIS.
  • The sonic screwdriver still doesn't do wood.
  • When Barnable sits by the TARDIS and tells the Doctor he'll wait for him, a melody of "Amy in the TARDIS" [1] plays (specifically the melody around the 1:30 mark). Another kid who waited.
  • Like Melody, the Doctor uses regeneration energy as a weapon.
  • The Doctor thinks he's dying, and changes clothes.
  • During Eleven's regeneration, he eats fish fingers and custard for the last time.
  • The Doctor's body brought him back to his original form before regenerating just like how his previous incarnation had healed from his wounds and lacerations, before starting the regeneration. More depressingly, this is mistaken for a reprieve in both cases.
  • This is not the first time the Doctor interacted with someone only he could see, but this time it's Played for Drama.
  • The Doctor bought Handles from the Maldovar Markets, as in Dorium Maldovar.
  • The Doctor briefly mentions a story where he arm-wrestled a Draconian.
  • The Doctor remembers Amelia as "the first face this face saw."
  • The Doctor has Handles decode a message sent by the Time Lords, using an algorithm embedded in a Seal of the High Council of Gallifrey, which he mentions that he "nicked off the Master in the Death Zone".
  • The Doctor mentions "Captain Grumpy".
  • In "Let's Kill Hitler", as the Doctor is dying from Melody's poisoned lipstick, he mentions that the kidneys are always the first to go. Here, he gets new ones.
  • Music:
    • The Doctor's theme from the Series 4 soundtrack makes a reappearance in a slightly rearranged track during the Doctor's regeneration reset.
    • Similarly, a rearranged "Final Days" comes back over shots of the massing armies, as do "Four Knocks" and a variation of "This is Gallifrey" at the end.
    • And of course, the song "Trenzalore" plays when the Doctor remarks he's running out of time, and then again when Clara returns to the TARDIS to witness the Eleventh Doctor give a final speech to her.
    • Eleven regenerates to "Infinite Potential", an instrumental version of "The Long Song", which contained the lyrics "Rest now" followed by "Live, wake up" and are very appropriate for a regeneration.
    • "All the Strange, Strange Creatures" also makes its first full appearance in a long time, when Tasha Lem founds the Order of the Silence.
• Contrived Coincidence: Clara pulls a Christmas cracker with the Doctor. Inside there is a poem which is so specifically about the Doctor's current situation that it's impossible to imagine what the poem was actually supposed to be about in-universe.
• Creepy Souvenir: Of a sort: the Doctor winds up brandishing parts of one of their dead comrades to first the Daleks, then the Cybermen.
• Cry into Chest: Clara, when the aged Doctor asks her for "one last victory".
• Cutesy Name Town: The town of Christmas on the planet Trenzalore.
• Darkest Hour: The Daleks are bombarding the town of Christmas until the Doctor comes out so they can kill him. He's dying of old age, and has no plan and no regenerations. The only reason Tasha brings Clara over is to comfort him.
• De-aged in Death: The Eleventh Doctor defends Trenzalore in a war so long that he eventually dies of old age. As this was his thirteenth and final life^note despite being the eleventh incarnation in the official numbering system, he spent two additional regenerations: one to become the War Doctor, who didn't consider himself "the Doctor" until the very end of his life, and another after being shot by a Dalek in "The Stolen Earth", diverting the regenerative energy into his severed hand to avoid changing his appearance, he would've been Killed Off for Real, but the Time Lords grant him a new regenerative cycle that allows him to keep going on. After spending the first half of his regeneration taking out a Dalek fleet, he reverts back to his initial youthful appearance before completing the process, which is treated in-universe as the death of one incarnation and the birth of the next.
• Deer in the Headlights: Clara has these when the Eleventh Doctor (rather quickly) regenerates into the Twelfth Doctor.
• Despair Event Horizon: The aged Doctor seems to want to pack it in, just before the Time Lords give him a new regeneration cycle.
  The Doctor: [to the Daleks] Knock yourselves out. I've got nothing this time.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Due to nearly three hundred years without any maintenance, Handles stops functioning in the Doctor's arms.
• Dirty Old Woman: Clara's grandmother just can't take her eyes off the naked Doctor at the Christmas party.
  Granny: Are we going to play Twister now?
• Do Not Go Gentle: Even in the fate of just growing old and dying, the Doctor simply would not stand down or go down without a fight.
• The Dreaded: Even when he's dying of old age, the Daleks are still too afraid of the Doctor to Just Shoot Him, something the Doctor calls them out for.
• Dying Dream: The Eleventh Doctor's final moments, seeing Amelia, and then Amy, could be interpreted partially as a hallucination, as he describes to Clara that he can see "the first face this face ever saw". He then imagines Amy saying a version of the last words she ever spoke to him, but in a much more comforting and happier tone than the time she actually spoke them:
  Amy Pond: Raggedy man... good night.
• Easter Egg: Peter Capaldi's face is very slyly hidden in one of the promotional images◊ for the special.
• Enemy Mine:
  • The Doctor teams up with the Silence to stop the Daleks. It turns out the ones he fought before were a Renegade Splinter Faction.
  • Handles the Cyberman head helps the Doctor as well, but he may have been reprogrammed by the Doctor.
• Europeans Are Kinky: How does Clara explain to her family why her "boyfriend" came naked to their Christmas dinner? By claiming he's Swedish.
• Evil Gloating: The Daleks spend a long time gloating about how they're finally going to kill the Doctor, during his last stand, instead of going ahead and shooting him. This is because they're still scared that the Doctor's got some sort of plan waiting and he shouts this up at them.
• Evolving Credits: While the intro itself wasn't changed, beginning with this episode, Jenna-Louise Coleman began to be credited as simply Jenna Coleman.
• Exact Words:
  • The Doctor stands off against a wooden Cyberman, and tells it he just sent a signal to reverse his weapon via his screwdriver. Because of the truth field, he can't be lying. The Cyberman confirms the nature of the signal that was sent by scanning the screwdriver, and flips its weapon, expecting it to reverse again when it tried to fire it.
    The Doctor: I probably should have mentioned, this doesn't work on wood.
  • The Doctor promises Clara he'll never send her away again. Instead, he just leaves the TARDIS when she's not looking, and the TARDIS takes her back home.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Tasha Lem's exposition of the Papal Mainframe's battle with the Daleks eventually results to The Reveal that she and almost everyone in the Papal Mainframe have been converted into Dalek puppet units.
  Tasha: I tried. I died in this room screaming your name. [Beat] Oh. I died. It's funny the things that slip your mind.
• Extra-Long Episode: The story clocks in at a solid 60 minutes, around 15 minutes more than the standard Revival Series episode.
• The Extremist Was Right: Tasha Lem and the Papal Mainframe want to stop the Time Lords returning to prevent the Daleks restarting the Time War. When the Daleks show up, they confirm that this is exactly what they'd do if the Time Lords came back.
• Failed a Spot Check: The Doctor misses all the "Dalek bumps" on the first spaceship he beams on to, partly because he's too busy hamming it up.
• Fake Relationship: Clara gets the Doctor to pretend to be her boyfriend for her family Christmas dinner.
• Fake Shemp: Young Amelia Pond was not played by Caitlin Blackwood as in previous episodes, presumably as she'd aged too much for the cameo to work. To disguise the fact that they obviously used another actress, Amelia's face was obscured with drawings.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The people of Christmas wear what look like folk costumes from Eastern Europe.
• Final Battle: This is the battle where the Doctor was told he would die, in "The Name of the Doctor". Dorium first mentioned Trenzalore way back in "The Wedding of River Song". This is the "Fall of the Eleventh" that the Order of the Silence was trying to prevent. A centuries-long siege of all the nasties in the universe vs. the Doctor.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: The Doctor sounds an ominous bell when his enemies enter the battle.
• Foregone Conclusion: The tension over the Doctor's supposed death is rendered moot by the previous episode, "The Day of the Doctor", which gave us a glimpse of the Twelfth Doctor, as well as the museum curator, who was heavily implied to be another future incarnation. (In the real world, Capaldi's casting as the Doctor was so heavily publicized that even those few who missed the anniversary special would know it was coming.)
• Foreshadowing: The Doctor having the Seal of the High Council, which he took from the Master when the Master was performing a mission for which he had been offered a new regeneration cycle. At the end, the Doctor is given a new regeneration cycle by the Time Lords.
• Fully-Clothed Nudity: The Doctor and Clara actually spend much of the first act of the episode naked, but what they see and what we see are holographic clothes. One exception is when we learn Clara's family doesn't and so react as if the Doctor is nude. A Deleted Scene would have also reminded Clara that the Doctor was nude when she hugs him.
• Glasgow Grin: The cracks in Handles' mouthpiece resemble one. Even so, he's just as emotionless as any other Cyberman.
• Go Out with a Smile: The Doctor is at peace at the end of his eleventh incarnation because he had had time to come to terms with his death but instead was granted new lives, he saved the town of Christmas, and his last sight is that of his first companion.
• Grand Finale: Everything set up in Series 5 and onwards comes to a conclusion, making this a Grand Finale for Matt Smith's run.
• Group Hug: The Doctor gets one from the Christmas children.
• Hand Blast: Tasha Lem, turned into a Dalek puppet, has a gunstick in her hand and fries three Daleks with it.
• Have a Nice Death: The two Sontarans get one of these when they're incinerated.
  Papal Computer: The Papal Mainframe apologises for your deaths. The relevant afterlives have been notified.
• Headbutt of Love: The Doctor gets choked up when Handles finally shorts out from old age.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Tasha starts out as (presumably) a human and an ally of the Doctor, then gets converted into a Dalek agent, but is swiftly converted back to the side of right by the Doctor, at which point the door appears to stop revolving with Tasha a Face again, even though she's technically now a Dalek.
• Heel–Race Turn: The Silence and the Papal Mainframe, both previously depicted as evil and corrupt, respectively, are revealed to be benevolent; it was factions of the two controlled by Madame Kovarian that acted negatively toward the Doctor.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The Doctor is willing to spend the rest of his life on Trenzalore, fighting an endless war and watching generations of friends grow old and die, to protect the Time Lords and the people of Christmas.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: When the Doctor is explaining to Clara about the Time Lord's regeneration limit, he mentions the Tenth Doctor's aborted regeneration, which still counts.
  The Doctor: Number Ten once regenerated and kept the same face — I had vanity issues at the time.
• Hope Spot: Following his apparent regeneration on the clock tower, the Eleventh Doctor shows up, youth restored and seemingly healthy, in the TARDIS, to Clara's relief. But he's still regenerating, his body's just resetting itself before the change.
• Hostage Situation: The Daleks threaten to have Clara killed if the Doctor tries to bring back the Time Lords. The Doctor doesn't back down, and neither does Clara, as they are both well aware that the Daleks plan on killing them anyway.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Third episode in a row to be named "X of the Doctor", forming the final part of a trilogy that signals the end for the Eleventh Doctor. Fourth if you count "The Night of the Doctor".
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When the Doctor realizes the Daleks have converted Tasha into a puppet, he talks her back into coherence.
• I Meant to Do That: The Doctor describes his "plans" as "Talk very fast, hope something good happens, take the credit."
• Indy Ploy: The Doctor suggests he never has a plan (despite saying he has a plan) and just makes stuff up as he goes along, as he goes up to the bell tower to confront the Daleks for what is probably the last time.
• Insult Backfire: The Doctor likes his "rocket fin" ears.
• Internal Homage:
  • To "Orbis", where the Eighth Doctor gets trapped on the planet Orbis for 600 years, (though he points out in this story he doesn't always use Earth years) and protects the people from monsters. Finally, his companion is flown in the TARDIS to this world by a woman.
  • Not the first time that the Doctor has had a robot sidekick... though Handles is in no way as autonomous as K9.
• Invisibility Cloak. The Sontarans' use one that malfunctions. Appropriately, they're from Strax's clone batch.
  Sontaran: Commander Skarr. That's the detection warning. Our invisibility cloak is compromised.
  Skarr: What's wrong with it?
  Sontaran: I don't know. I can't see it.
• Irony:
  • Just before the Doctor regenerates, he makes a promise to remember his past lives. He then forgets how to fly the TARDIS.
  • The Doctor believes that he's destined to die in the battle of Trenzalore. The siege goes on for centuries, but in the end he is about to die of old age.
• It Makes Sense in Context: When the Doctor first sees Clara this episode, he's naked. Why? Because he's going to church. This isn't explained to the viewers (or to Clara) until the Doctor and Clara are invited aboard the Papal Mainframe, where it's implied that it's traditional to be naked when on board.^note To spare their blushes, Clara and the TV audience get holographic clothing projected onto their eyes.
• Kinda Busy Here: The Doctor takes a call on the TARDIS telephone from Clara, who urgently needs him to turn up for Christmas dinner and pretend to be her boyfriend. The Doctor is in the middle of investigating this week's mystery, and, being the Doctor, he doesn't stop to finish the conversation before barging onto a spaceship without checking to see if it's full of Cybermen. Clara, having Seen It All as the Doctor's companion, has equally Skewed Priorities.
  Clara: I need you. I'm cooking Christmas dinner!
  The Doctor: I'm being shot at by Cybermen!
  Clara: Well, can't we do both?
• Large Ham: To say Eleven is excited about his new set of regenerations would be a massive understatement.
  The Doctor: IF YOU WANT MY LIFE... COME... AND... GET IT!
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: If you've watched the 50th anniversary special, then you know that the Doctor's imminent demise isn't going to stick ^noteThe special featured a cameo by the Twelfth Doctor (played by Peter Capaldi)
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Several instances:
  • Matt Smith's shaved head for the film How to Catch a Monster required use of a wig in his final episode, which gets incorporated into the plot. Because so many fans and viewers have taken great care to notice that he has near-invisible eyebrows (or even think he's got none at all), Clara also pokes fun at his eyebrows, which he defends as delicate.
  • The second is the Eleventh's final speech, which like before, has the Doctor speak lines that can be interpreted as the actors referring to themselves as the Doctor. He also appears to look directly into the camera when he delivers the last line.
    The Doctor/Matt Smith: I will not forget one line of this. Not one day, I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.
• Literal-Minded: When the Doctor asks Handles (rhetorically) to give him a reminder, he does so a few seconds later. When he then asks him to pick a random time interval and remind him then, he waits several hundred years.
• Loophole Abuse: The Doctor gets around the Truth Field by using Exact Words when telling the Wooden Cyberman that his sonic screwdriver sent a signal to reverse the direction of its flamethrower; a statement which on the surface is true. What he omitted to mention was that his sonic screwdriver doesn't work on wood.
• Losing Your Head: The Doctor runs around with a disembodied Cyberman head for part of the episode.
• Make Room for the New Plot: It is clear that Steven Moffat wanted to use the episode as a way to finish up most of the Eleventh Doctor's running plot lines, so the incoming era of the Twelfth Doctor could start from a relatively clean slate. Most notably, the backstory behind the Cracks and the Silence are somewhat hastily explained in a few lines of dialogue.
• Meaningful Echo: With "The End of Time". There, the Doctor regarded regeneration as a form of death and something to fear and resist. Now, he sees it as a source of hope and something to embrace. He also borrows another one of River Song's declarations, "not one line".
• Meaningful Name: (Na)Tasha is a Russian name traditionally given to girls born on or near Christmas Day. It is an appropriate name for a character appearing in a Christmas Episode set largely in a town named "Christmas".
• Medieval Stasis: Over nine centuries of siege and many active battles, the culture and buildings of the town called Christmas don't change at all. It is mentioned that a ban on advanced technology was instituted during the Siege, so that is justified, and rural, isolated places tend to change much more slowly than urban ones with lots of contact with other places.
• Mexican Standoff: All of the invaders have weapons pointed at Trenzalore, and the Doctor only needs to say his name to bring Gallifrey back. This allows for an uneasy peace for a few centuries before the Daleks decide to just invade the planet and be done with it.
• Misfortune Cookie: The poem in the Doctor's Christmas cracker acts as the foreshadowing type. It's not necessarily a misfortune, as it foreshadows that the Doctor will end up regenerating again instead of dying. It's still a somber note, but just not bleak.
• Moment Killer: Clara, scared by the Silents, bursts in on the Doctor and Tasha Lem just as things are getting really flirty. Since it's the Silents, she promptly forgets why she just ran in.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The first 20 minutes or so of this episode are very humourous, but after the Doctor discovers the time crack in the clock tower, the episode starts to get darker and darker.
  • The end of Eleven's regeneration. He takes off his bowtie, slow music begins playing, Clara cries for him not to change... and just as the audience is expecting a dramatic explosion of regeneration energy like the previous Doctors' big finales, he throws his head back and his appearance literally flashes over in less than a second.^note This makes sense in a Fridge Brilliance kind of way, since the Doctor had an immense regeneration explosion several minutes prior that crashes a Dalek mothership and blew up a bell tower. This was apparently his reset button for a new regeneration cycle and finished most of the process with just the change itself left over. Fast Celtic-style music starts to play, the Doctor complains about the colour of his new kidneys, the TARDIS begins crashing and the Doctor's forgot how to fly it.
• Mundane Solution: The Doctor defeats a Weeping Angel by simply hanging a mirror in front of it. Signed "With Love from the Doctor!"
• Mundane Utility:
  • The Doctor and Clara use the heart of the TARDIS to cook Clara's Christmas turkey, and that isn't the only mundane thing Clara's used the TARDIS for:
    The Doctor: You can't keep using the TARDIS like this.
    Clara: Like what?
    The Doctor: Missed birthdays, restaurant bookings, and please, just learn how to use iPlayer.
  • Inverted with the Silents. Turns out that their terrifying ability to vanish from your memory as soon as you turn away was originally intended as a way of protecting the privacy of people giving confessions to priests.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The page quote is one, as Matt Smith started his tenure with "The Eleventh Hour", and his "hour" finally runs out here.
  • To Scream of the Shalka — may also count as a Continuity Nod, though the canonicity of that that story is up for debate.
    Clara: I may have accidentally invented a boyfriend.
    The Doctor: Yeah, I did that once, and there's no easy way to get rid of an android!
• The Nth Doctor: Matt Smith transitions into Peter Capaldi as the Eleventh Doctor gives way to the Twelfth Doctor at the end.
• Naked People Are Funny:
  • Clara is flustered at the Doctor's nudity, which is Played for Laughs when he embarrasses her by appearing naked in front of her family.
  • When Tasha reveals that everyone in the Church is trained to see past holographic clothing, Clara rolls her eyes and mutters "Oh great..."
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer for the episode makes it appear as if Tasha is a villain. In particular, the scene in which she projects her face in the sky over Christmas and says the world will burn and the Time War will begin anew; as it actually plays out, she is actually pleading with the Doctor not to utter his name and allow the Time Lords to return and, other than becoming a Dalek puppet for a bit, she actually ends up being an ally.
• New Old Flame: Tasha Lem, the leader of the Papal Mainframe, has had intimate relations with the Doctor in the past.^note On his end, however, it seems he last saw her at the very latest prior to the events of "The End of Time", given she makes it clear in her first scene she's never met Eleven before.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • How much of this could've been avoided if the Doctor didn't have Handles translate the message going through the cracks in the universe from the Time Lords?
  • Tasha Lem's conversion of the Papal Mainframe into the Order of the Silence basically gave rise to all the problems the Doctor was facing for most of Series 5-6. Although considering it's results, (i.e. the Kovarian faction engineering the very cracks through which Gallifrey was able to contact the Doctor and grant him his new regeneration cycle, and the existence of River Song), it was Nice Job Fixing It, Villain as well.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: For the whole "Silence" and cracks arcs — it's mentioned that Kovarian splintered from the Papal Mainframe to make sure the Doctor would never reach Trenzalore, even engineering a psychopath to kill him. All of these things led to the blowing up of the TARDIS, creating the cracks that Gallifrey was transmitting through in the first place, and the Doctor married the "psychopath". He even admits he'd never have made it to Trenzalore without River. If Kovarian had just sat tight, the crack would never have existed, none of the armies above Trenzalore would have even shown up and the Doctor would have likely been killed much earlier on in his incarnation.
• Noodle Incident: Whatever the events were that led to the Doctor owning a relatively friendly Cyberman head are, we don't learn them. The first we see of Handles is him hooked into the TARDIS console, helping the Doctor find information.
• Nostalgia Heaven: The Eleventh Doctor has visions of his first companion, Amy Pond, as he starts to regenerate. The inside of the TARDIS also fills up with drawings made by generations of the children of Christmas.
• Obligatory Joke: The Doctor makes one when talking to Handles the Cyber-head:
  The Doctor: Use your head; it's not like you've got a lot of alternatives.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Most of the centuries-long battle between the Doctor and his enemies, as well as the battles between the enemies themselves, occur off-screen out of necessity. The episode's only an hour long, after all.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The Doctor teleports onto a spaceship, wielding a Dalek eyestalk as proof of courage and comradeship. Oh, Crap!, the ship is full of Daleks. A bit later, the Doctor teleports onto another spaceship, carrying Handles the Cyberman head. He has the same reaction when he sees it's a Cyberman ship.
  • This is the look on Clara's face when the Doctor tells her she can't enter the Papal Mainframe with any (real) clothes on.
  • When the Doctor is informed by Clara that there is a "statue" (in reality, a Weeping Angel) buried in the snow right underneath him.
  • The Doctor's expression darkens with horror and a sunken grimace when he spies the final crack in the universe.
  • The look on the Doctor's face when he's told he's on Trenzalore.
  • The Daleks when they realise he's regenerating.
    Daleks: [panicked] Emergency! Emergency!!! The Doctor is regenerating! The Doctor is regenerating!!! Exterminate! Exterminate the Doctor!!!
  • At the end, when the TARDIS is flying out of control, and the new Doctor has apparently forgotten how to fly it. Deer-in-the-headlights expression for both of him and Clara.
• Ominous Floating Spaceship: The Dalek mothership over the town of Christmas.
• Oracular Head: Handles figures out that Gallifrey is appearing on Trenzalore before the Doctor.
• Out of Continues: The Eleventh Doctor is forced to face the reality that he can't regenerate anymore after ignoring it throughout his run.
• Outside Ride: Clara accidentally hitches a ride on the outside of the TARDIS, who is consequently 300 years late back to Trenzalore because she had to extend a force field to protect Clara, who's not immortal like the last person to do this.
• Overly Pre-Prepared Gag: The Doctor needs to be naked before he can go to the Papal Mainframe. He also needs to holographically project clothes. Why? So that he can accidentally not transfer that perception to anyone but Clara, therefore inadvertently shocking her family by showing up to them butt naked.
• Pet the Dog: Near the apparent end of the Doctor's life waging a (now)-700 years war, Tasha Lem pilots the TARDIS in order to fetch Clara back to comfort him. This ends up being just what was needed to save the day.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Seconds before the Doctor fully regenerates, Clara tearfully begs him not to change.
  Clara: No... No... Please don't change.
• Prayer Is a Last Resort: Invoked. It's the Darkest Hour and the Doctor is hobbling out to face the Daleks for the last time, and Clara's final solution is "praying"... to the Time Lords. And in lieu of a miracle, the final crack closes!
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: The Doctor gets one an instant before destroying the entire Dalek force with his newly granted regeneration energy:
  The Doctor: Love from Gallifrey, boys!
• Prophecy Twist: The Trenzalore prophecy that drove previous seasons turns out to have been made by a Renegade Splinter Faction of the Silence that travelled back in time to try and prevent the war. Which means it was actually just a worst-case scenario they feared, rather than what actually ends up happening.
• Rasputinian Death: Tasha Lem is implied to have suffered a lengthy death after her initial defeat by the Daleks.
  Dalek: Information concerning the Doctor was harvested from the cadaver of Tasha Lem.
  The Doctor: Bet she never told you how to break the Trenzalore force field though. She'd have died first.
  Dalek: Several times.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Matt Smith shaved his head for his role in the film How to Catch a Monster over the preceding summer and his hair hadn't grown back enough to replicate the Doctor's coif, forcing the actor to wear a wig. Steven Moffat incorporated this into the story, not only providing the episode with a number of gags, but also the fact the Doctor is wearing a wig allows for the direct resolution of a major dilemma faced by the characters (how the Doctor was able to recall the TARDIS without a key on his person).
• Really 700 Years Old: According to the Doctor, Tasha Lem is "against" aging.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: The Silence from series 5 and 6 are revealed to have been part of the Papal Mainframe but went rogue by taking far more extreme action than Tasha Lem recommended.
• Reverse Psychology: When Tasha Lem is turned into a Dalek puppet and holding Clara hostage, the Doctor berates Tasha and her religion, negatively compares her to Clara... all of which rouses Tasha's real mind and spirit to reclaim her now Dalekized body and use her new Dalek weapons to kill the present Daleks. Fortunately, she doesn't decide to zap the Doctor too for good measure.
• Rise from Your Grave: The Weeping Angels rising from the snow.
• Robot Buddy: Handles is a Cyberman head working with the Doctor in this particular Christmas special.
• Saved by Canon: The Twelfth Doctor's early appearance last episode (plus that of the mysterious Curator) is a clear giveaway that the Doctor is going to get more regenerations.
• Saved by the Church Bell: The triumphant moment when the Doctor is given the ability to regenerate and live a new life is marked with the giant bell behind him beginning to ring. It only gets louder as his body starts firing regeneration energy like an erupting volcano and destroys his seemingly invincible enemies.
• Saying Too Much: When first in the truth field, this happens to both the Doctor and Clara. The Doctor admits that he ran away from home with a stolen vehicle and has been flouting his people's principal law for ages. Clara lets slip that she ran away with the Doctor because she fancied him, and that her bubbly personality is just masking her Control Freak nature.
• Scenery Censor: When Clara finds the Doctor naked in the TARDIS, the console blocks the view of anything that's not suitable to be seen before the Watershed.
• Ship Tease:
  • The subplot in which Clara enlists the Doctor to be her "pretend" boyfriend, with the next episode establishing that the Doctor didn't see it as pretend.
  • invokedIt takes Christmas' truth field to get her to say it, but Clara finally states outright that she fancies the Doctor. (Word of Saint Paul — Jenna Coleman — is that it's in this episode that Clara realizes she's in love with the Doctor.)
  • She's only a one-off character, but there is plenty of ship-teasing involving the Doctor and Tasha Lem, as well.
• Shirtless Scene: Much like the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor in "Journey's End", Eleven gets a naked scene.
• Shoo the Dog: This is what the Doctor attempts to do with Clara by having the TARDIS drop her back off at home; twice.
• Shout-Out:
  • Handles is strikingly similar to the character Wilson in the 2000 film Cast Away. As the main character who is stranded somewhere talks to him, both have faces and not bodies, and they both "die" (as in Wilson's case, the main character loses the ball when he builds a raft and tries to head back to land) reducing the main characters to tears.
  • When the Doctor battles the wooden Cyberman, there's a Spaghetti Western style face-off including the requisite close-ups on the eyes before a Quick Draw.
  • The Doctor criticises Clara for using the TARDIS for restaurant bookings and watching TV shows she missed, telling her she should learn how to use iPlayer. In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Reg uses his time machine to let Richard book a restaurant for tonight three weeks in advance, and says that he wouldn't use it at all if he could work out his video recorder.
• Single Tear: Clara is quite moved when her gran tells of how she met her husband.
• The Slow Path: The Doctor takes it this time. Clara is sent back to her family every time the Doctor thinks it's getting too dangerous, and every time she returns he's aged considerably. According to the e-book Tales of Trenzalore, this ultimately amounted to over 900 years. For Clara, the entire course of the episode takes place over a single day, maybe even just an hour or two.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • The events of series 5 and 6 are revealed to be one. One of the cracks in the fabric of the universe is transmitting a question that, if answered, will allow the Time Lords a way back into the universe. In an attempt to prevent this from happening, Madame Kovarian's branch of the church split off the Papal Mainframe and blew up the TARDIS, which was what caused the cracks in the first place.
    The Doctor: It's the destiny trap. You can't change history if you're part of it.
  • This potentially extends as far back as the Time Lords having survived the Time War sealed in a pocket universe, as without the threat of their return through the cracks that the Silence themselves created and the war restarting, the Silence would never have established the fixed point in time of the Doctor's death at Lake Silencio. This means Gallifrey always had to survive the Time War to ensure this fixed point occurred.
  • And another thing: thirteen Doctors were involved in saving Gallifrey. The eleven numbered Doctors to that point, plus the War Doctor, make twelve. With the revelation that the Tenth Doctor wasted a regeneration, that means Gallifrey must have realized that they needed to grant the Doctor more regeneration energy in order for there to be thirteen Doctors to finish the calculations to freeze and save Gallifrey.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The Doctor goes out in one very massive explosion of explody-ness; it's so big that it blows up all the Daleks (both in a ship and on the ground), and destroys Christmas town's clock tower.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Tasha Lem, for River Song. Apart from being Mother Superious and being converted into a Dalek puppet, pretty much every line of her dialogue could easily have been spoken by River. She can even fly the TARDIS. This has led to some speculation regarding who Tasha Lem is, or whether she was a straight-out replacement character for River, maybe due to Alex Kingston being unavailable; Steven Moffat is on record as saying he wanted River to appear alongside Amy and Rory during the regeneration, at least, but Kingston was not available. It's lampshaded by the the fact River is mentioned by name and the Doctor compares Tasha to her.
• Tears of Joy: Clara, when the Time Lords rejuvenate the Doctor.
• Time Skip: Two for the Doctor over the course of the episode; by the end of the story, his body's about to give out from extreme old age.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: The Doctor visited his own grave on Trenzalore in "The Name of the Doctor", but as a result of intervention by the Time Lords, who need him alive to set them free, he's been granted a new regeneration cycle and the town of Christmas is left standing.
• Too Dumb to Live: A couple of Sontarans, unable to tell if their invisibility field is working or not on account of the fact they can't see it, are bombed from orbit immediately.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Tasha Lem is too strong-willed to be converted into a Dalek, just like Oswin Oswald.
• Truth Serum: A truth field in this case. The town of Christmas is surrounded by a field which compels all those within to speak only the truth. When they first arrive, both the Doctor and Clara blurt out random truths about themselves before they can adjust, including that Clara fancies the Doctor.
• Visual Pun: Before he begins taking out the Daleks with regeneration, the Doctor does a big arm wind up as made famous by Pete Townshend; famous for playing guitar in a band called The Who.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Tasha Lem is trying to stop the Time Lords from returning because she believes it would begin another Time War. When the Daleks show up, they confirm that she is completely right.
  • Madame Kovarian appears to have been one too... she just went way beyond Tasha Lem's orders in trying to make sure the Time War never restarted.
  • Technically the Daleks and all the other races who pose a threat to the Doctor in this episode count, as they do not want to see the Time War restarted either.
• Wham Episode:
  • The Eleventh Doctor regenerates in this episode, but not before wrapping up plot threads going as far back as "The Eleventh Hour".
  • The resolution of the question of how many lives the Doctor has resolves a piece of backstory dating back to the 1976 storyline "The Deadly Assassin", and which has been referenced in numerous episodes since (and indeed was a major plot point of the 1996 TV movie).
  • The Time Lords are trying to get back into the universe through the cracks in time, thus proving that the Doctor succeeded in saving Gallifrey.
  • The "Eleventh" Doctor is actually the thirteenth, as the Meta-Crisis from "Journey's End" and the War Doctor from "The Day of the Doctor" used up two regenerations. He is instead the eleventh distinct personality to use the title (the War Doctor renounced it at the start of his life and only reclaimed it at the end).
  • The Daleks have regained their memories of the Doctor, which they originally lost in "Asylum of the Daleks".
  • The Doctor receives a new set of regenerations from the Time Lords.
• Wham Line: Quite a few of them.
  • Fairly early on, the Doctor asks Handles what planet they're orbiting around is by analyzing the signal coming from it. The response: Gallifrey.
  • A long awaited (or should we say dreaded) Continuity Nod:
    Clara: What's wrong, Doctor? It's only a crack in the wall.
  • Later on, the first question gets a different but equally shocking response:
    The Doctor: This planet, what's it called?
    Tasha Lem: Trenzalore.
  • The Papal Mainframe declaring their purpose.
    Tasha: From this moment on, I dedicate this church to one cause: Silence.
  • Yet another from Tasha Lem.
    Tasha Lem: The siege of Trenzalore is now begun!
  • She gets another one, courtesy of the Daleks:
    Clara: How did you stop them?
    Tasha Lem: Stop them? It was slaughter!
    The Doctor: Why didn't you call me? I could have helped you.
    Tasha: I did! I died in this room screaming your name!
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Tasha vanishes from the narrative after returning Clara to be with the soon-to-die aged Doctor. She is not seen, nor referenced again, even after the Daleks are destroyed.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Invoked by the Daleks when the Doctor tells them to go ahead and kill Clara. Really an Indy Ploy to pull a guilt trip on Tasha.
  Dalek: See how the Time Lord betrays!
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: The church clock tower starts striking midnight just as the Doctor begins to regenerate — into the Twelfth Doctor, no less.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?:
  • It's lampshaded by the Doctor toward the Daleks.
    The Doctor: The trouble with Daleks is it takes them so long to say anything. Probably die of boredom before they shoot me.
  • The Doctor even taunts them with this as he's dying from extreme old age, daring them to shoot him and even admitting that he has absolutely no plan this time around. The Daleks still don't try, as they're too skeptical to believe him.
    The Doctor: But you're still too afraid to shoot me! You're still worried I've got something up my sleeve!
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: This was a concern of the Papal Mainframe. The Time Lords can't broadcast their return without summoning each of their rivals in the universe to that spot. Tasha has every reason to fear that the Time War would just flare up again.
• The X of Y: The Time of the Doctor. The 124^th episode to use this naming convention, and the fourth in a row to use "... of the Doctor" following "The Name", "The Night", and "The Day of the Doctor" (as the four episodes form an arc).

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"I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me."

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"KIDNEYS! I GOT NEW KIDNEYS! ...I don't like the color."