Clara is summoned to an impossible conference call, alerting her that the deadly Whisper Men are closing in on Vastra, Jenny and Strax. Someone is kidnapping The Doctor’s friends, leading him toward the one place in all of time and space that he should never go.
It’s a deadly trap that threatens to unravel his past, present and future.
NOTES
In this episode, it is revealed that Clara has lived thousands of lives throughout the Doctor’s history, saving him from the Great Intelligence’s sabotage in each life, finally revealing why The Doctor met two versions of her at The Dalek Asylum and in Victorian London, respectively. However, according to her, he almost never notices her. The First Doctor and the Eleventh Doctor interact with her, and the Third Doctor and Seventh Doctor appear to notice her, but only for a moment. Despite the First Doctor actually carrying on a brief conversation with her, it would appear he later forgets this as the Eleventh Doctor doesn’t recognise Clara.
This episode has the record for the most Doctors in one episode, with 11, plus the unknown Doctor played by John Hurt.
Ultimately, Clara’s companionship with The Doctor is something of an ontological paradox, The Doctor might not have invited 21st Century Clara to travel with him if he had not met the echoes of her in The Dalek Asylum and Victorian London, but if she never travelled with The Doctor, those echoes would never have existed.
This episode shows clips of different versions of Clara scattered throughout The Doctor’s timeline: advising the First Doctor to steal his Type 40 TARDIS on Gallifrey, calling out for the Third Doctor as he’s driving away in Bessie (from The Five Doctors), chasing after the Fourth Doctor on Gallifrey (from The Invasion of Time), finding the Fifth Doctor trapped (from Arc of Infinity), trying to find the Sixth Doctor on his TARDIS, watching the Seventh Doctor hang on to dear life on? his umbrella (from Dragonfire), running after the Second Doctor (with footage taken from The Five Doctors) and the Eighth Doctor, the Tenth Doctor as he stands in the Library and seeing the Ninth Doctorrun past her while she was inside The Doctor’s time stream. Also, when the Great Intelligence is in the Doctor’s timeline we additionally see the First Doctor examining the seal under the tomb of Yetaxa (taken from The Aztecs) and the Great Intelligence’s former henchmen, the Yeti, from the London Underground (The Web of Fear)
While many of these appearances are taken from actual footage of the original actors in character, many of them are lifted from different contexts than they appear here. As mentioned below, for example, there was no previous footage of the First Doctor stealing the TARDIS that would become his (or, if you prefer, the TARDIS stealing the First Doctor)! Similarly, the Second Doctor was never before seen running across a palm-tree lined beach in a fur coat, although he was seen running in a fur coat, in The Five Doctors.
The Second and Eighth Doctors had an adventure together, as evidenced by Clara observing both of them within seconds of each otheron the same palm tree-lined beach.
This story features for the first time on television, The Doctor prior to stealing the TARDIS. The event had previously been portrayed differently in the comic strip adventure:. Time & Time Again. His granddaughter Susan Foreman appears briefly when the First Doctor helps her into a TARDIS before the Gallifreyan Clara suggests he take anotherone because it will be more “fun”.
While trapped in The Doctor’s time stream, the First, Sixth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourth Doctors move past, behind, and in front of Clara. Unknown actors portrayed them, although the actor portraying the first Doctor resembles the appearance of Richard Hurndall, who replaced William Hartnell in The Five Doctors.
This is the first televised story in which we see the Doctor’s TARDIS in what appears to be its”default” form, in the scenes set on Gallifrey. We also see it flying through the vortex soon after the First Doctor steals it.
The default form is slightly different from, but similar to, those seen in the TARDIS bay on Gallifrey in The War Games during the Second Doctor’s time, though The Doctor’s own TARDIS was already stuck as a Police Box then. Plus, it has been long established that The Doctor’s TARDIS is an obsolete model, whereas the TARDISes seen in The War Games were likely more recent styles.
This is the second series finale of the revived series not to feature a Dalek (Last of the Time Lords), though The Dalek Asylum is mentioned and appears in a flashback
(Asylum of the Daleks).
This marks the first television story in the revived series to use the complete monikerof “(Number) Doctor” when Clara says “You are the “. This has arguably happened before, however, in The Three Doctors, Sergeant Benton specifically refers to Patrick Troughton’s character as “the Second Doctor” (albeit not really due to him being the second incarnation). Many previous stories, such as The Lodger or The Five Doctors have either used just the number (“Eleventh“) or regeneration (“Fourth regeneration”) respectively. John Hurt’s unknown Doctor notwithstanding, this could be seen to finally put to bed speculation as to whether the unknown faces during the “mental duel” in The Brain of Morbius were pre-Hartnell incarnations of the Doctor
This is the first episode to use colourised footage of black and white material originally filmed in the 1960s.
Clara’s position changes while held by The Doctor multiple times.
MEDIA CLIP
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