Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time – What The Papers say….
This year’s Doctor Who Christmas special was chock-full of massive moments, from the return of the First Doctor and Bill to the Twelfth Doctor’s final regeneration speech and the debut of Jodie Whittaker – but perhaps some of the most crowd-pleasing scenes came from the return of some fan-favourite characters in special cameos towards the end of the episode, that followed months of speculation about their return.
Look away now if you haven’t seen Twice Upon a Time, or risk having it spoiled forever…
Still here? Then you’ll have been one of the millions of Doctor Who viewers delighted to see the return of Jenna Coleman’s longtime series companion Clara Oswald tonight, with the erstwhile Who character back in action thanks to memory-storing aliens Testimony, who recreated a version of her (wearing the same outfit she had on at the time of her death) to allow Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor one final goodbye.
“Merry Christmas Doctor,” Coleman says in the episode as the Testimony glass woman takes her shape. “Hello. You stupid old man.”
“You’re back,” Capaldi’s Doctor replies, with the scene also serving to undo the events of series 9 finale Hell bent (when all the Doctor’s memories of Clara were wiped).
“You’re in my head. All my memories… are back.”
“And don’t go forgetting me again, because, quite frankly, that was offensive,” Clara concludes before the glass woman changes again – and now episode writer (and departed series showrunner) Steven Moffat has explained exactly how he managed to get Coleman back in the BBC sci-fi series.
“I had to phone Jenna, who was incredibly busy on [ITV’s] Victoria,” Moffat said at a recent screening for the Christmas special. “INCREDIBLY busy. A ridiculous schedule. I mean she was well up for it, but it was complicated to arrange.”
To accommodate Coleman’s schedule, the long-rumoured cameo was shot separately to the rest of the special and inserted using special effects, with Coleman actually filming her scene after Peter Capaldi and the rest of the cast had already wrapped.
“Actually, the very very last thing I shot of Doctor Who was in fact Jenna’s bit,” Moffat said. “So many times have I killed that girl off, and she was right there in my last shot! It’s absolutely extraordinary. The unkillable Coleman!”
But of course, Clara wasn’t the only former companion to make an appearance, with series 10’s Nardole (as played by Matt Lucas) also brought back for one last “cuddle” with the Doctor and Bill (even if he was a little upset to lose his “invisible hair” in this new glass iteration).
And Moffat had some difficulties explaining to one young fan at the screening how the partially cybernetic Nardole would have actually been able to be replicated from his memories, considering that subjects had to actually be dead prior to the Testimony process…
“In a complicated way…we do not know!” Moffat replied. “Remember, all those characters are still out there in the Doctor Who universe, and now under the control of our new overlord Chris Chibnall, to whom I give all respect. So it’s up to him what happens.
“At some point in the future, like everybody Nardole will die, and when Nardole dies Testimony turns up to scoop out his memories from his half-machine head, and puts them in a glass avatar.
Watch this space, Nardole fans – this might not be the last we see of him.
Doctor Who returns to BBC1 in autumn 2018
Aw brilliant!” she says, Yorkshire-ness present and correct and looking chuffed to bits. It’s hard to disagree. Jodie Whittaker becomes the Thirteenth Doctor – not unluckily, for her, or for the universe let’s hope. Though then things don’t go well, with the Tardis.
Anyway, that’s all to come and to look forward to. First there was a goodbye, a final adventure for the Twelfth Doctor, and for the First.
They meet at the South Pole, both fighting their own regeneration, Peter Capaldiand David Bradley – who takes on the William Hartnell role, is cleverly morphed into Hartnell in fact – a leap of hundreds of episodes and from flickery black and white to super HD colour.
It takes a little getting one’s head around: two dying characters meeting each other, meeting themselves because they’re the same character, frozen in time and in a frozen landscape, three actors, one actually deceased.
“You know, I really don’t think I’m following,” says the Captain (Mark Gatiss), and it’s hard not to sympathise. But it doesn’t really matter if you can’t quite place everything on a timeline (if indeed time is a line) or see how this episode, Twice Upon a Time, actually takes place during another episode, the Tenth Planet, that went out in 1966. There’s so much for the non fundamentalist Whovian to engage with and enjoy as well.
The Captain? A charming British soldier plucked from a bomb crater at Ypres in 1914 at the moment of his death. There’s a lot of death in the episode, as you would expect, but it’s far from pessimistic; the opposite in fact.
Doing the plucking are Enchanted Glass People from the distant future. You’ll see, they’ll be waiting for you at the end of your life, too, to lift you gently from your timestream and without pain or distress, duplicate your memory, so that your testimony can live on and the dead can be heard among the living. Ooh, that’s good isn’t it?
There’s so much that is good about the episode. Good jokes – mainly about the First Doctor’s embarrassing un-PC old-fashioned attitudes (“Aren’t all ladies made of glass, in a way?”). I like the second world war spoiler too. “Yes, but what do you mean, [world war] one?” asks the Captain, not understanding the unthinkable. I like Twelve’s “over to you Mary Berry” to One, just because he’s old, I think. Anyway, it’s funny.
And I like Bill Potts saying arse (she calls the Doctor a stupid bloody one) in the nation’s family living room at 6pm on Christmas Day – though some won’t, there may be complaints.
She – Bill (Pearl Mackie) – is here, to say goodbye to the Doctor, with a tender kiss. Nardole (Matt Lucas) too. And Clara – Jenna Coleman dropping in before dashing off to be Victoria at Christmas on the other side. “Hello, you stupid old man,” Clara says. Hello, and goodbye.
It’s sad, so sad. If you don’t have a lump or shed a tear too then you’re a probably a Cyberman. Because the Twelfth Doctor’s companions and friends – I include myself, that’s what he’s become over the past four years – are saying goodbye to a brilliant Doctor, which is what Capaldi has been – warm, wise, kind, funny, human.
He does get to go out in style though. Steven Moffat – also checking out (he will regenerate, less spectacularly, into Chris Chibnall, who has written for Whittaker of course, on Broadchurch) – has given him a spectacular, moving send-off. It’s not just about goodbye, and death and the fear of death, but also memories and a reminder that there can be hope even in humanity’s darkest hours. Like at the Christmas truce of 1914, when soldiers from both sides – including the Captain – emerged from their trenches, laid down their weapons, played football together and sang.
Capaldi gets a barnstorming valedictory speech. “Time to leave the battlefield,” the Doctor at last accepts – the battlefield of his life as well as this one on the western front. He steps inside the Tardis for the last time, where he has some advice, for himself, for his successor, for everyone. “Hate is always foolish, love is always wise,” he says, borrowing from Bertrand Russell. “Always try to be nice.”
Naive? No! Important, more so than ever right now. Have you seen what’s going on out there? And finally: “Laugh hard, run fast, be kind,” he says. And: “Doctor, I let you go.”
Over to you, Jodie, you’re on.
K E Y P O I N T S
- The 12th Doctor’s final episode began in the South Pole, where he met his former self, the First Doctor, who was also reluctant to regenerate
- A glitch in time left a Captain from WWI marooned with them
- The episode ended with his return to the battlefield for the Christmas truce of 1914
- Bill Potts returned and was revealed to be working for Testimony, a kind-hearted project that uses memories and time travel to “help the dead speak again”
- A visit to Rusty, “the good dalek”, uncovered Bill’s secret role and it was up to her to persuade both Doctors to regenerate
- The Captain (Mark Gatiss) was later revealed to be Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart, who must be a relative of Alistair Gordon, one of the Doctor’s greatest friends
- Clara Oswald and Nardole (Jenna Coleman and Matt Lucas) reappeared to say goodbye to the 12th Doctor
- The closing seconds saw Capaldi regenerate into the 13th Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker.
S N A P V E R D I C T
With the first ever female Doctor incoming, plenty of fresh eyes will have been on the Christmas special, but longtime fans weren’t forgotten.
An appearance from Rusty, goodbyes from former companions – “Hello, you stupid old man” – and The Captain’s identity added an extra layer of emotion for the show’s devotees, while the central story provided a reminder that it is Christmas after all.There were plenty of highlights, though these took the form of small comments and asides rather than spectacular battles. ‘Twice Upon A Time’ – to use the episode’s full title – was a fitting reminder of why Capaldi’s Doctor is one of the best as he swerved between dark-yet-humourous comments, contemplating the past and learning a final, vital lesson from Bill Potts.
The Doctor also chastised his predecessor for sexist comments, with his rebuttals also sending a clear message to any viewers who remain uncomfortable with the fact a woman will take control of the TARDIS next year.And it isn’t just Capaldi who was taking his final bow either, as Pearl Mackie’s appearance as Bill was her last, though her Testimony role means there’s every chance we may see her again in the future.
Showrunner Steven Moffat handed over the reins at the exact moment the regeneration took place and will surely be delighted with his final decisions in the writer’s room. The countdown to series 11 can officially begin.
B E S T L I N E S
The 12th Doctor:
We have a choice. Either we change and go on, or we die as we are.”
Peter Capaldi’s final words:
Laugh hard, run fast, be kind. Doctor, I let you go.”
Jodie Whittaker’s first line:
Oh brilliant.
W H A T ′ S N E X T ?
Fans are in for a long wait before Jodie’s first full season of ‘Doctor Who’, as it’s not set to air until Autumn 2018.
When the Doctor does return, she’ll have three companions alongside her in the TARDIS, played by Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh.
The series will consist of one 60-minute instalment, followed by nine 50-minute
It wasn’t so much Doctor Who (BBC One) as Doctor What-Is-Going-On? One of Christmas’s most eagerly awaited programmes turned into a turkey: overcooked, disappointing and destined to be chewed over for days.
This seasonal special, titled Twice Upon a Time, saw the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) meeting his original self, the First Doctor (David Bradley, doing a magical tribute to the late William Hartnell) in an Antarctic snowscape.
Cue an unholy mess involving frozen time, a First World War army captain (Mark Gatiss), memory-stealing glass avatars and a comeback of sorts for companion Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie).
It even threw in a gratuitous Dalek and a random swear-word for no apparent reason, before disappearing up its own space-time continuum. At least after an hour of confused plotting, Capaldi regenerated into the Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, to offer us some respite.
“Oh, brilliant!” were Whittaker’s feverishly anticipated first words. If only the episode building up to this point had been brilliant too.
The Christmas special should be a chance for generations to sit down together, stuffed with seasonal cheer. While their grandparents nod off in armchairs, children get to enjoy this precious 54-year-old institution.
However, any Who newcomers or casual viewers expecting an escapist adventure would have been left scratching their heads in bafflement. It was self-indulgent, overcomplicated and, most unforgivably, frequently boring.
Heavy on stagy dialogue and light on action, the narrative got mired in its own mythology, too busy making knowingly nerdy references to construct a coherent adventure. Ultimately, even the hero admitted there wasn’t a villain.
As the outgoing episode not just for Capaldi but also Mackie and showrunner Steven Moffat – not to mention a Christmas special climaxing in a landmark gender change for the lead character – this episode left itself with a lot to do. Perhaps trying to fulfil too many functions is why it got so confused and fell as flat as a trodden-on sprout.
It wasn’t without its pleasures: the bickering interplay between the two Time Lords had snap and wit, with a smart running gag about the Sixties incarnation saying un-PC things. The wartime trenches were poignantly evoked and the regeneration scene was shiver-inducingly thrilling.
Sparks flew in the Tardis before Whittaker emerged from Capaldi’s dying golden glow. She immediately slid out of the blue police box’s doors and fell through space, surrounded by fluttering sheets of paper.
This hopefully symbolised the end of overly wordy scripts and a new beginning of exciting escapades.
Frustratingly, it wasn’t enough. At the end of the Moffat-steered era, the wheels came off this venerable vehicle. Let’s hope that Whittaker and new head honcho Chris Chibnall can steer it back on course.
A very special character returned to Doctor Who for Peter Capaldi’s final episode. Clara Oswald, who was last seen in December 2016’s episode Hell Bent, appeared in front of the Doctor as he prepared to regenerate. But thanks to actress Jenna Coleman’s insanely busy schedule, the companion’s presence almost didn’t happen. At a special screening of Twice Upon A Time, the Doctor Who Christmas special, earlier this month at London’s Science Museum, showrunner Steven Moffat explained that the return of Clara was rather tricky thanks to Jenna’s busy filming schedule for ITV’s Victoria. Moffat said: ‘I had to phone Jenna, who was incredibly busy on Victoria … incredibly busy.
‘It was a ridiculous schedule. She was well up for it but it was complicated to arrange.’ And Moffat – who also bows out of Doctor Who with the Christmas special – revealed Clara’s return was actually his final scene on the BBC sci-fi-show. He said: ‘The very, very, very last thing I ever shot on Doctor Who was in fact Jenna’s bit … how many times have I killed that girl off and she was right there in my last shot. ‘It’s absolutely extraordinary.’
Clara appeared as a vision in the Doctor’s final moments, along with his most recent companion Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) and Nardole, played by Matt Lucas. Then, in emotional scenes, Capaldi’s Doctor had his last stand, telling viewers to ‘be kind’ before regenerating into Jodie Whittaker. Elsewhere in the festive episode, there was a treat for diehard Who fans, as Mark Gatiss’s mysterious Captain character was revealed to be the Brigadier’s grandfather. As the Captain was returned to the trenches of World War 1 – incidentally, on the day of the Christmas truce – he told Capaldi’s Doctor and the original Doctor, played by David Bradley, that his name was Lethbridge-Stewart.
Jodie Whittaker has made her debut as the first female Time Lord in the Christmas special of Doctor Who.
Given the role in July, the new Doctor succeeds Peter Capaldi to become the 13th Time Lord.
The 35-year-old Broadchurch star said she was “beyond excited” to take up the role and the offer had been “overwhelming, as a feminist”.
Whittaker will fully begin her role next year alongside Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole.
- All the Doctors, from Hartnell to Whittaker
- Doctor Who’s 13th Time Lord to be a woman
- The Doctor’s costumes through the ages
Capaldi, who has had the role since 2013, regenerated at the end of the episode to become Whittaker’s character.
When she was appointed, Whittaker told fans not to be “scared” by her gender.
“It’s more than an honour to play the Doctor. It means remembering everyone I used to be, while stepping forward to embrace everything the Doctor stands for: hope. I can’t wait,” she added.
Actress Jenna Coleman returned as Doctor Who companion Clara Oswald in the Christmas programme alongside David Bradley, playing the part of William Hartnell’s first Doctor, Sherlock actor Mark Gatiss and Pearl Mackie as companion Bill Potts.
It was the last episode for Potts and the show also marked the end for the programme’s writer Steven Moffat, who has stepped down after seven years.
He has been replaced by Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall.
If you missed Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time you can watch it on iPlayer.
‘Twice Upon a Time’ is an odd story. Like an anomaly in time, it shouldn’t really exist.
This year’s festive Doctor Who episode was written, at least in part, out of obligation, as departing showrunner Steven Moffat volunteered to fill the gap between his final series and Chris Chibnall’s debut run in 2018.
‘The Doctor Falls‘ was really Peter Capaldi’s swansong. By Moffat’s own admission, this story is “somewhere between a coda and a drumroll”, and not only does the departure of one Doctor and arrival of another inevitably mean that this episode is strongest at its climax, but the need to keep things relatively light for Christmas Day also means that a lot of what precedes the regeneration feels rather insubstantial.
Having already delivered the twelfth Doctor’s grand final stand-off, Moffat has to do something else here. This isn’t the Doctor’s last stand, this is what happens next. This is what convinces him to keep going.
Oddly enough, the presence of the first Doctor, and their shared conundrum, isn’t what convinces our hero to go through with his latest face-swap. The two Doctors both attempting to end their lives at once is key to the sci-fi gimmick that drives the plot – it’s a paradox that causes time itself to freeze. But they spend barely a couple of minutes together, as a pair, actually discussing their motives for giving up on life. (Too grim for December 25?)
Instead, in line with the frothy feel of much of the episode, the first Doctor mostly serves as comic relief, as Capaldi, the latest model, cringes at the arrogance and old-fashioned attitudes of his younger self.
‘Twice Upon a Time’ milks a good few laughs from their bantering and bickering about everything from the ambience of the TARDIS to wearing (sonic) sunglasses indoors. But it’s disappointing not to dig a little deeper – a chance for self-reflection wasted, especially since David Bradley is so perfectly cast.
His performance really is spot on – a little spiky, pompous, yet warm and humane. Bradley puts his own stamp on the first Doctor, while remaining enough like his predecessor William Hartnell to soothe the Whovian hardcore. You’re left hungry for more – for a story where Bradley’s first Doctor is more than a distraction from the main event.
Because it’s actually the other events that our current Time Lord finds himself wrapped up in, besides meeting his past self, that give him enough hope to carry on. First, there’s Bill’s quasi-return – one last chance to enjoy Pearl Mackie’s winning performance, with Moffat’s script nailing the difficult task of bringing the character back without undoing her original exit.
Then there’s the big plot reveal: Testimony’s lack of a malevolent motive and the scenes of the 1914 armistice that close out the episode. Up until this point, ‘Twice Upon a Time’ has been warm, amusing and engaging enough, but again, it’s mostly felt a little trivial, lightweight and inconsequential.
Until its final act (the epilogue’s epilogue) it doesn’t cynically try and wring every last drop of anguish out of you in the way that, say, ‘The End of Time’ did. Only once the adventure is effectively over does ‘Twice Upon a Time’ really make a concerted effort to tug on the heartstrings, and it’s here the episode really comes into its own.
It would’ve been easy to play a baffled, out-of-time World War I soldier as a caricature, but in his own Doctor Who farewell Mark Gatiss mostly resists his natural comic instincts to deliver a more understated, more sympathetic performance.
Moffat also takes a few moments amidst all the earlier explosions and sci-fi silliness to allow the character of the Captain to breathe, which ensures that you care about him even before that first emotional sucker-punch revealing his true identity.
Now, with the race to the climax properly underway, ‘Twice Upon a Time’ doesn’t let up – the Lethbridge-Stewart reveal is followed in swift succession by the “human miracle” of Christmas 1914, the first Doctor’s departure, and then the twelfth Doctor’s companions rallying around, urging him to keep on keeping on.
And if you weren’t already getting choked up, the episode’s last six or so minutes are essentially devoted to one gigantic Capaldi monologue – and if there’s one thing we’ve learnt from his time on the series, it’s that, boy, can that man deliver a speech.
Capaldi didn’t nail his Doctor straight away. He experimented a little, giving us at least three distinct versions of the same character. First there was the tetchy Time Lord, then the ageing alien hipster, but he leaves us the perfect, quintessential Doctor – funny, charming, strange, wonderful.
To quote the man himself, there were a few false starts, but he got there in the end, and we’ll certainly miss him now he’s gone.
Capaldi’s performance in his final scene is a powerhouse, and by the time this Doctor finally bows out, your heart’s shattered like glass. Moffat has acknowledged in interviews that everyone will be watching this episode “for the last two minutes” and he’s sort of right, so it’s just as well that it delivers when it matters the most.
‘Twice Upon a Time’ isn’t perfect, but in terms of its tone and its spirit, it is pretty much a perfect summation of Moffat’s era. There’s time paradoxes, plenty of gags, and, most importantly, a whole lot of heart.
That last point is something Moffat doesn’t get enough praise for – his Who too often (wrongly) dismissed as a cold, intellectual alternative to Russell T Davies’ big, warm, colourful version.
But it’s the pathos, the poignancy, the heart, so evident in this episode’s final scenes that ‘Twice Upon a Time’ will chiefly be remembered for. And never mind your “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey”, it’s what this era of Doctor Who should be remembered for too.