The Name of the Doctor wrapped up a season of speculation about Clara, the impossible girl, and had both good and bad aspects. I liked that Clara's specialness was based on something she did, rather than on being just super special, but the involvement of the Great Intelligence felt rushed. After their appearance in The Snowmen, it felt as though they were somehow supposed to have been a recurring menace like the Silence or Bad Wolf, but in fact they never showed a snowflake until popping up to be the Doctor's great nemesis. That was a failing.
Now, unlike many people, I didn't think Name ended on a cliffhanger; Clara chased the Great Intelligence through the Doctor's timestream, undoing the damage it caused by becoming a succession of short-lived Claras throughout his lives, and the Doctor fished her out into a conceptual space where she caught a glimpse of the War Doctor.
The Day of the Doctor I have discussed elsewhere in great detail. Again, I was less troubled by it than many people.
And that brings us to The Time of the Doctor, which wraps up the entire Eleventh run from the crack in Amelia Pond's bedroom wall onwards. There is a story in there that I really liked, about the Doctor giving up his final life to defend something that, in many ways, doesn't need defending, except for the handful of lives in danger. He's not guarding the Time Lords, or the door to Gallifrey, but the people of Christmas/Trenzilore, and that I liked. I also liked the resolution of the name plot: "His name is the Doctor." Well, of course it is.
But... And what a characterisation of this trilogy that word is. But, in this case, and as with the others in many ways, what it doesn't do well is tie up the loose ends. It's as if the last Season (and two specials) has been struggling with two or even three Seasons worth of plot ideas, and doing none of them well because they won't do without any of them.
The Papal Mainframe is yet another not-entirely-matching view of the Church marines, and why it's led by a flirty chick in heavy eyeliner is unclear, except that apparently everything in the nuWho future is run by flirty chicks in heavy eyeliner who fancy the Doctor.
The Doctor tricking the wooden Cybermen was something I liked a lot. If felt very Doctorish, and we don't get a great deal of that some days.
I liked Handles, but again, I really wanted to have seen his genesis; even if it was just as a piece he'd picked up at the end of Nightmare in Silver. That would have made a connection and made the eventual 'death' of Handles more affecting (although it kind of would have done already).
Finally, I'm not sure about the ending. It was a bit token for the end of the Doctor's final lifetime (and I'm leaving aside here that I would have liked to have seen at least a nod to the Valeyard somewhere) and I've never been a fan of the regeneration of mass destruction.
All in all, I think it was probably time, but in the end the series didn't tie together enough to earn this ending. It's a shame, because Eleven opened with such promise.
And now Twelve, or perhaps Doctor 2.1. I guess we'll see what they manage with him.
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