Doctor Who Rewatch: “The Day of the Doctor” (S7:S1)

Recapping the Eleventh Doctor’s time in the TARDIS

How much does our past weigh? As much weight as we give it. For the Doctor, with hundreds of years and decisions that resulted in billions of deaths, the weight of the past can be unbearable.

Matt Smith’s run as the Eleventh Doctor allows the Doctor to confront and even correct some of those past mistakes, but those choices continue to hold sway over him until his last moments prior to regeneration.

In many ways, Matt Smith’s run as the Eleventh Doctor is the high-water mark for the modern version of Doctor Who. He appeared as the Doctor for four of the 10 most watched episodes of the new run—“The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe,” “The Time of the Doctor,” “A Christmas Carol,” and “The Day of the Doctor” (which we’ll talk specifically about later). But he was never supposed to be the Doctor.

Both the writers and the network planned to choose an older man to follow David Tennant. Instead, they picked the youngest person to ever play the role. But Smith somehow simultaneously plays the Doctor as old and young. He’s odd and quirky with a youthful exuberance, but his eyes seem as if they’ve seen years, like they have stories.

During series five, Smith’s first, the Doctor promises to rescue little Amelia Pond but doesn’t return until she’s the grown-up Amy Pond. In series six, he continues to make Amy wait with the heartbreaking episode “The Girl Who Waited.”

In his final series, the Eleventh Doctor opens with a Narnia-inspired episode that sees him reunite with Amy and Rory. The trio go on fun romps around the universe and through time until the Weeping Angels return. Rory becomes trapped in the past, and Amy chooses to leave the Doctor by having the Angel touch her and send her back to Rory. Distraught, the Doctor hides in Victorian London and refuses to help anyone until Clara Oswald convinces him. She’s killed, but he realizes she is somehow alive at various points in his timeline. Finding a modern-day Clara, she becomes his companion for the second half of series 7 and the two specials that end Smith’s run.

Jenna Coleman’s “Impossible Girl” Clara works well as a companion, but she fits much better next series with Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor. Smith’s Doctor always worked best with Amy Pond. But Clara is with the Eleventh Doctor in many important moments during his final stretch. Part of her character is that she was with the Doctor through all his important victories, as she spreads herself across his timeline to help defeat the Great Intelligence. Clara is with him right before he regenerates.¹ She also inspires him to find a different path to avoid his greatest regret.

As part of an unseen backstory between the Eighth Doctor and the reboot with the Ninth Doctor, he ended a universe-threatening Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords. In the moment, the only solution he saw was destroying everyone involved. He killed billions of people, not only his greatest enemy the Daleks, but billions of his own people. That decision has weighed on the Doctor since then. In that moment, he chose to be something different than the Doctor.

In “The Day of the Doctor,” the 50th anniversary special, the Doctor revisits that choice to find a way to live up to the name he chose for himself.

Previous rewatch episodes

• “Father’s Day” (S1:E8)

• “The Satan Pit” (S2:E9)

• “Blink” (S3:E10)

• “Midnight” (S4:E10)

• “The Eleventh Hour” (S5:E1)

• “The Girl Who Waited” (S6:E10)

Our Identity Matters More Than Our Past

Two things we often spend our lives running away from or trying to live up to—our past and our name. As a time traveler, the Doctor’s past is complicated, but his previous choices still impact him. Additionally, his name matters because it’s one he chose for himself to establish his identity.

While some do, many in modern Western contexts don’t feel the pressure that comes with a name.² But if you read through Scripture, you can see how in other contexts names carry great importance and significance to identity. Abram, the childless man ironically named “Exalted Father,” becomes Abraham, the father of many nations. Jacob, the deceiver grabbing at his brother’s heel, becomes Israel, one who grapples with God. Jesus comes as One to proclaim the Lord saves.

The actual name of the Doctor has been a long-running mystery of Doctor Who. Very few people know his birth name. River Song whispers it to him the first time he meets her to prove she can be trusted. Other Time Lords, like his archnemesis the Master, know it because they grew up with him. But in place of his given name, he has a chosen name: the Doctor. He tells Clara he chose the name because it serves as a promise.

The Hippocratic Oath of physicians is often shorted to “do no harm.” The idea is that doctors must serve the interests of their patients. As the promise that goes with his name, the Doctor swears to be “Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in.”

Steven Moffet, the showrunner of Doctor Who during “The Day of the Doctor,” has an apt quote about who the Doctor is.

When they made this particular hero, they didn’t give him a gun, they have him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn’t give him a tank or warship or an X-wing fighter. They gave him a call box from which you can call for help. And they didn’t give him a superpower or pointy ears or a heat ray, they gave him an extra heart. They gave him two hearts. And that’s an extraordinary thing. There will never be a time when we don’t need a hero like the Doctor.

But there was a time when the Doctor believed the universe needed a different hero. In his darkest moment, he chose to be a warrior, the War Doctor.