Twice Upon A Time

 

We reach the end of the Peter Capaldi era. But in our end is our beginning and so we start with William Hartnell in the Tenth Planet before he morphs into David Bradley. Bradley, of course, had played William Hartnell in ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’ so casting him as the actual First Doctor is clearly a sensible choice. I’d not been that impressed with the bits of Bradley doing the First Doctor even though I though he was an excellent Hartnell so I was a little worried but I think he’s pretty good in this story. He’s not doing William Hartnell doing the Doctor now. He giving us his own First Doctor.

 I do have some quibbles with some of the dialogue he’s given though. The First Doctor is made out to be a sexist twat, which I know is kind of a joke to acknowledge that the times they have a-changed but they just land badly for me. However, I like that they top and tail the first Doctor’s story with footage of William Hartnell himself. Plus there’s something very Doctor Who about starting a story with a caption ‘709 episodes ago.’ 

Both Doctors are refusing to regenerate. Each has their own reasons. But something goes wrong with time and a World War One officer turns up in the Arctic too. An officer who is being chased by something. This officer is played by Mark Gatiss and I enjoy his performance in this. There something rather true in the soft spoken, frightened but accepting Officer. 

They escape in the Twelfth Doctor’s TARDIS, which is parked 70 yards from the First Doctor’s TARDIS. This allows us a bit of comic breathing space as the Officer enters the TARDIS and the First Doctor gets to be unhappy with the new TARDIS interior. The banter between incarnations of the Doctor is always one of the joys of multi-Doctor stories and mostly it is enjoyable here. Mostly. 

They are captured and pulled into a spaceship that belongs to Testimony. About which we know nothing and who will matter very little. They demand The Officer’s return. The interactions here are great and Bill Potts returns. Sort of. It’s again filled with fantastic clashes of style between the First and Twelfth Doctors. We also get to see The Doctor described as ‘The Doctor of War’, which means one thing here but we will come to see means something different later in the story. 

The thing about Twice Upon a Time is that the story isn’t grand scale. There’s no end of the world/universe style shenanigans it is just a story about memories and friendship. Or not giving up and carrying on. 

The Doctors eventually get to the bottom of what is happening and return our Officer to his soon to be death. But The Doctor has tweaked things a little and time doesn’t quite happen as it was supposed to. We find out the Officer’s identity at this point, which wasn’t a huge surprise but I won’t spoil here. Even though I’ve spoiled loads of stuff throughout this blog.

The last chunk of the story is endings. First the First Doctor’s departure and regeneration. He’s off to find out whether the Twelfth Doctor will regenerate. The long way round, of course. 

Then we get the farewell to the Twelfth Doctor. Bill Potts appears again. Sort of. So does Nardole. And so does Clara. Returning the Doctor’s full memories to him before the end of his life. Capaldi plays all this rather wonderfully. 

We always knew he was going to regenerate in the end, but the begrudging way he excuses it to himself is nicely done. He gets a final monologue before his final line. I have never felt more that a Doctor’s final line is both a fictional final line and a real life final line. Peter Capaldi was a Doctor Who fan and playing the Doctor meant a lot to him, but I think once he was done, he was done. And ‘Doctor, I let you go’ was both for us and for him. 

I have loved Peter Capaldi’s era. My Doctor – as I have said many, many times – will always be Tom Baker but if anyone has ever come closer to stealing my affections it would be Peter Capaldi. Indeed, if it was possible to strip the comfort of nostalgia from Tom Baker it might be that Capaldi would take his place. But I can’t do that. Tom is too wrapped up in my childhood and my life to ever really be superseded. 

So, Doctor I let you go. 

But here comes a new era and in some ways a revolution. Because here comes Jodie Whittaker. The first female Doctor. 

Change my dear…