I saw a CAPALDI!

[Jester David]

McGann also had amnesia after his regeneration and it was less... traumatic, being a normal one and not the first of an unknown number.
Smith had to save the Earth without the sonic or TARDIS having recently regenerated. Having Capaldi save the day without his memory would be a heroic deed.

The episode was okay. But I think following so close after the 50th didn't help. The need to add a Christmas tone likely didn't help.

It it will be interesting to see how they present Capaldi.
Smith was an old man in a young body. Capaldi's Doctor will be the oldest Doctor, possibly by a few hundred years. But he's also the first in a new set of regens. So he might feel young despite his apperance.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, how old is the Doctor now? He was 1200 as Smith, and that episode covered how many years? 300 did he say? That puts him at 1500, meaning he was Smith for about 600 years.

 

[Raunalyn]

I know it will likely never happen given that his reign was during the time war (and Moffat has said that they will probably never go into great detail about those happenings), but I would love to see a few stories that focus on John Hurt's Warrior Doctor. I know he was only in that one movie, but I absolutely loved his characterization of the Doctor.

"Again with the pointing? They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet out of them?"

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

I wonder what is the color of his kidney. I mean the man has two hearts, so perhaps his kidneys are not actually... uh... kidney colored.

Also, it has been pointed out elsewhere, that at the begining of this regeneration cycle the Doctor does not know how to operate the Tardis properly and his companion is a teacher at the Coalhill School. Which is much as things were 50 years ago.

 

[Quartz]

The Xmas episode was epic. Scottish accent. That is all.

I felt it was a dreadful, nonsensical, mess.

 

[Nellisir]

I liked it. Between this and Day of the Doctor, it feels like they wrapped up a lot of lose ends and really cleaned the slate. Matt Smith never really clicked for me; I think Capaldi will be more enjoyable.

 

[MarkB]

I liked it. Between this and Day of the Doctor, it feels like they wrapped up a lot of lose ends and really cleaned the slate. Matt Smith never really clicked for me; I think Capaldi will be more enjoyable.

I thought it was okay, but it suffered from the fact that it was more about tying up loose ends than about actually telling a story. It'll never become a classic Christmas episode - I re-watched the Christmas Carol episode on Watch earlier the same day, and was far more impressed with that one.

The Doctor just sitting in one place for three hundred years feels so out of character that it's little wonder we only see it in glimpses - any more and we'd never be able to swallow it.

The entire siege feels forced - something that might start out as a united front, but would devolve into in-fighting within weeks, not continue for centuries. Heck, the Doctor on anywhere near the top of his game would be able to engineer just such a falling-out with a few well-chosen phrases.

I think it is time for a change, but any issues I had with Smith's Doctor felt like they were at least as much about how he was written as they were about the way Smith portrayed him, so I'm not confident that a change of actor will get to the heart of the matter. Time, as always, will tell.

 

[Nellisir]

The Doctor just sitting in one place for three hundred years feels so out of character that it's little wonder we only see it in glimpses - any more and we'd never be able to swallow it.

The entire siege feels forced - something that might start out as a united front, but would devolve into in-fighting within weeks, not continue for centuries. Heck, the Doctor on anywhere near the top of his game would be able to engineer just such a falling-out with a few well-chosen phrases.

I think it is time for a change, but any issues I had with Smith's Doctor felt like they were at least as much about how he was written as they were about the way Smith portrayed him, so I'm not confident that a change of actor will get to the heart of the matter. Time, as always, will tell.

Well, yes, I mean it's a given that most of the time I want to like Doctor Who and am severely disappointed at the last minute. It's like watching Charlie Brown try to kick a football. But I liked David Tennant more than I liked Matt Smith, so hopefully I'll like Capaldi. I don't think the stories will get any better, but at least I'll enjoy the actor a little more. Small victories.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, how old is the Doctor now?

In "Day of the Doctor" he said he was 1,200, but he also said that he lost track and that he might well be lying. Indeed, he said he was so old he forgot whether he was lying about how old he was.

Obviously, we don't know how long there was between "Day" and "Time". In "Time", there's a stated 300-year gap between Clara being sent away the first time and the TARDIS returning. There's then an unknown gap between her being sent away the second time and Tasha Lem returning for her.

The pre-release spoilers said the episode spanned 900 years, which feels about right given the aging of the Doctor in the episode, but it's hardly canonical.

So... my guess would be about 2,000 years. That's a nice round number.

Oh, and also...

On my second watch-through of the episode, I spotted two things:

The prophecy that the Silence were trying to thwart was: "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered." (Emphasis mine.) So, that one didn't quite link up.

The second thing I noted was a more direct contradiction. Near the end, when the boy who isn't Barnable comes to get the Doctor, he says "don't worry; I have a plan." He then tells Clara that he doesn't have a plan, but that it makes people feel better if they think he does. The only problem is that he's standing right next to the crack in the universe, and so should be affected by the Truth Field, and of course those things can't both be true - he can't both have a plan and not have a plan.

But those are both really just nitpicks. I actually found that I enjoyed the episode a whole lot more on a second viewing, even though I watched it again immediately after watching the (IMO superior) "Day of the Doctor".

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

I missed the bit about lying to the young man at the end, about the plan. That is a good catch.