Retrospective: The 11th Doctor

Encountered Villains and Monsters

The Silence

The Silence was an organisation that had plagued the Eleventh Doctor throughout his entire tenure. They believed that the First Question (Doctor Who?) must never be answered on the Fields of Trenzalore. Their first attempts at stopping the Time Lord was in ‘The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang’ where they tried destroying the TARDIS. Their second attempt was through River Song. They kidnapped her in ‘A Good Man Goes to War’ and slowly engineered her to become his killer during a fixed point at Lake Silencio. Both attempts were foiled by the Time Lord and his second escape led to them believing he actually died and therefore stopped chasing him until the events of ‘The Time of the Doctor’ were they at last made their long-awaited return. Their origins were finally explained with their order attempting to stop the Eleventh Doctor reaching Trenzalore to prevent the approaching bloodshed currently occurring in their timeline due to the Doctor’s abilities to bring back the Time Lords. In the end they decided to aid the Time Lord in preventing his enemies attacking Trenzalore.

The Daleks
The Doctor’s greatest enemy managed to survive their apparent destruction in ‘Journey’s End’ after one of their ships escaped the carnage of the Meta-Crisis Doctor. In ‘Victory of the Daleks’ the three surviving members managed to lure the Eleventh Doctor into a trap. Due to them being impure, i.e. having been bred by Davros’s own DNA, they required the Doctor’s testimony in order to give birth to a new breed of Daleks known as the Paradigm. The Paradigm consisted of the Supreme, Eternal, Strategist, Scientist and Drone. The Paradigm destroyed the inferior models and made their victory by escaping to the future to rebuild their empire. The Paradigm made a cameo appearance in ‘The Wedding of River Song’.

In ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ it had been revealed that the Paradigm had succeeded in rebuilding the Daleks empire, along with the re-establishment of the Time War Dalek design becoming the bulk of the empire, and now formed as part of the Daleks parliament. They brought the Eleventh Doctor before them to aid them in destroying the Dalek Asylum which was riddled with the most insane specimens of the Daleks race throughout time. The Daleks returned in ‘The Day of the Doctor’ were their carnage during the last day of the Time War was displayed at the fall of Arcadia. Their eventual and apparent destruction was shown after they destroyed each other in a cross-fire after the thirteen Doctor’s transported Gallifrey to safety.

The Daleks returned again in ‘The Time of the Doctor’ as the main villain who wished to prevent the Eleventh Doctor from bringing back the Time Lords. In the end they were the last of the Doctors enemies left alive in the battle for Trenzalore but were eventually destroyed by the Time Lords newly granted regeneration energy.

The Weeping Angels
The lonely assassins returned in ‘The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone’ when a lone Weeping Angel crashed the Byzantium in order to use the energies of the Time Crack to restore an army of Weeping Angels on Alfava Metraxis. In the end the Eleventh Doctor sent them all falling into the Time Crack and erased from existence. They made a cameo appearance in ‘The God Complex’ by forming one of the nightmare scenarios in one of the hotel rooms.

The Weeping Angels returned to plague the Eleventh Doctor a second time in ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’ by conducting a sinister plan of harvesting a battery house in New York. The unfortunate people to fall into this trap was forced to live their lives out in a lonely hotel room after being sent back in time over and over while the Angels drained their time energy. The Eleventh Doctor put a stop to this but at the cost of losing Amy Pond and Rory Williams.

They returned in ‘The Time of the Doctor’ and nearly caught the Eleventh Doctor and Clara in the snowy forest on Trenzalore.

The Silurians
Homo-Reptillia made a reappearance in ‘The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood’ when another batch of their clan attempted to resurface and wage war against humanity in order to reclaim their home-world. This time, after yet another battle, the Doctor finally managed to settle an alliance between the Silurians and humanity, which would take place 1000 years after the events of the story to allow humanity time to adjust and prepare for the idea.

The Silurians made a brief cameo in ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’ were they were seen in an old message played on a computer. It was discovered that their Arc was overrun by Solomon and they were all killed one by one after the space-pirate discovered they held Dinosaurs as their cargo.

The Alliance

The Alliance was made up of the Doctor’s greatest enemies which included the Paradigm, the Cybermen, the Sontarans, the Nestene Consciousness, the Autons and many others. These enemies came together in ‘The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang’ in order to prevent the Eleventh Doctor from apparently destroying the universe through the Time Cracks by trapping him inside the ultimate prison, the Pandorica.

The Cybermen
The cybernetic creatures made a cameo appearance in ‘A Good Man Goes to War’ where the Eleventh Doctor destroyed the Twelfth Cyber Legion in order to discover the location of Demons Run and to prove a point of his capabilities to the Silence holding Amy Pond hostage.

The Cybermen returned in ‘Closing Time’ where a crashed Cyber-ship underneath a shopping centre awakened and unleashed a group of damaged Cybermen upon the innocent. The Eleventh Doctor with the help of Craig Owens managed to defeat this batch of Cybermen before they could do any real damage.

The Cybermen were reborn in ‘Nightmare in Silver’ were they upgraded themselves into a higher form and attempted to kill everyone on Hedgewick’s World of Wonders. They even nearly converted the Eleventh Doctor into their new Cyber-Planner. In the end the planet was destroyed with them apparently all on it. They returned in ‘The Time of the Doctor’ as one of the many enemies trying to prevent the Time Lords return on Trenzalore.

The Great Intelligence
The Great Intelligence made a long awaited return in ‘The Snowmen’ where the creature slowly possessed the mind of Walter Simeon in order to prepare its plans for world domination with the aid of its Snowman army. The Eleventh Doctor apparently destroyed the creature after its mind link with Francesca caused it to turn to tears due to her sadness over Clara’s death.

The creature returned in a cameo in ‘The Bells of Saint John’ when it was revealed that the Great Intelligence was behind Miss Kizlet’s evil schemes of trapping people within the Wi-Fi of the world with the Spoonheads. In the process of this scheme the Great Intelligence grew stronger through the intelligence it absorbed from those him and Miss Kizlet captured.

The Great Intelligence returned one last time in ‘The Name of the Doctor’ where the creature kidnapped the Paternoster Gang in order to lure the Eleventh Doctor to Trenzalore, the place of his burial. The Great Intelligence then forced the Eleventh Doctor to open his tomb with his name, though at the last second River Song answered the question off-screen, and then attempted to enter the Time Lord’s time-stream; rewriting everything within it in order to gain his revenge for all of his defeats at the Doctor’s hand. Clara Oswald defeated the creature once and for all after she entered the time-stream afterwards and prevented all of the Doctor’s defeats at the Great Intelligence’s hand.

The Ice Warriors
The Martians made their long waited return in ‘Cold War’ when Grand Marshal Skaldak awakened from his frozen entombment and attempted to kill everyone onboard the Firebird during the Cold War. In a suicide attempt, Skaldak tried to bring the end of mankind after declaring war on Earth and believing himself to be the last of the Ice Warriors. The Eleventh Doctor placed him in stalemate when the Time Lord threatened to blow up the Firebird with his Sonic Screwdriver if Skaldak tried to fire a missile. Skaldak eventually was rescued by other members of the Ice Warriors after they received his distress-signal.

The War Doctor
The Doctor had a deep, dark secret: an incarnation that he forgot and despised because of the actions that were caused during that incarnation. The Eighth Doctor was forced to regenerate in ‘The Night of the Doctor’ after being caught in a crash. He attempted to prove himself as the good man and not a corrupted Time Lord like the rest of his race fighting within the Time War and so stayed aboard the ship till the very end. The Sisterhood of Karn persuaded the Eighth Doctor to choose his next regeneration in order to join the battlefield against his will. Throwing away his title of ‘Doctor’ the Eighth Doctor chose to be a warrior and became the War Doctor in his ninth incarnation. The War Doctor fought within the Time War and was the one who eventually decided to bring an end to the carnage by using the Moment to kill both the Daleks and the Time Lords together. The Moment showed him his future and in the end showed him the future he needed to see and finally received redemption for himself and for his future selves who finally came to accept him as the Doctor and not a shadow of his former self. After his long ordeal the War Doctor finally met with peace as old age took him and he regenerated into the Ninth Doctor.

The Three Must See Episodes

• 3. ‘The Wedding of River Song’
• 2. ‘The Rings of Akhaten’
• 1. ‘The Name of the Doctor/The Day of the Doctor/The Time of the Doctor’

Special Mentions to:

• ‘Victory of the Daleks’
• ‘Amy’s Choice’
• ‘A Christmas Carol’
• ‘The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon’ ‘The Doctor’s Wife’
• ‘A Good Man Goes to War’
• ‘The God Complex’
• ‘The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe’ ‘Asylum of the Daleks’
• ‘A Town Called Mercy’
• ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’
• ‘The Snowmen’
• ‘The Bells of Saint John’
• ‘Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS’

First Words

Legs! I’ve still got legs!! Good. Arms, hands. Ooh, fingers. Lots of fingers. Ears? Yes. Eyes: two. Nose… eh, I’ve had worse. Chin – blimey! Hair… I’m a girl! No! No! I’m not a girl! And still not ginger! There’s something else. Something… important, I’m… I’m-I’m… Ha-ha! Crashing! Geronimo!!

The Incarnation Speech

Okay then. That’s what I’ll do. I will tell you a story. Can you hear them? All these people who lived in terror of you and your judgement. All these people whose ancestors devoted themselves, sacrificed themselves to you. Can you hear them singing? Oh you like to think you’re a God but you’re not a God. You’re just a parasite, eat now with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others. You feed on them. On the memory of love, and loss and birth and death and joy and sorrow. So…So…Come on then. Take mine. Take my memories! I hope you’ve got a big appetite because I have lived a long life and I have seen a few things. I walked away from the Last Great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out. Moment by moment until nothing remained; no time, no space. Just me! I’ve walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man! And I’ve watched universes freeze and creations burn! I have seen things you wouldn’t believe! I have lost things you will never understand and I know things! Secrets that must never be told! Knowledge that must never be spoken! Knowledge that will make parasite Gods blaze! So come on then! Take it! Take it all baby! Have it! You have it all!

Last Words

We all change…when you think about it. We’re all different people all through our lives. And that’s okay, that’s good, you’ve got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.

The Regeneration

The Eleventh Doctor regenerated due to extensive old age after his long battle on Trenzalore in ‘The Time of the Doctor’. He was drawn to Trenzalore due to a secret message being sent across the stars and it called him to answer the First Question: Doctor Who? By giving his name he would’ve been able to allow the Time Lords safe passage back into reality. Knowing this would cause another endless bloodshed like the Last Great Time War he decided to remain on guard over the Time Crack for hundreds of years. In this time a battle raged on as his greatest enemies tried to prevent the Eleventh Doctor answering the First Question.

In his crippled state of age, the Eleventh Doctor decided to face the Daleks (the last of his enemies still fighting against the Time Lord and the Silence) one last time. After Clara pleaded with the Time Lords through the Crack to help him change his future of death (after using up all of his regenerations) they gave the Eleventh Doctor a new set of regenerations. The energy given to him was used by the aged Time Lord to destroy his enemy. Clara then returned to the TARDIS to find the Eleventh Doctor now reduced to his younger self and said his farewells to Clara, informing her that he wouldn’t forget a single moment of his current self and would look back on it in happiness. Through a hallucination he saw Amy Pond one last time in both her younger self and her older self. Clara then expressed her sadness in not wanting him to leave and within a blink of an eye the regeneration was completed and the Twelfth Doctor arrived.

It’s the end….

It has been a long road but sadly this concludes my long retrospective series. We have looked over each individual Doctor, their character, origins, era, companions, enemies, best moments and speeches. We have delved into what has made the show so brilliant and iconic, looking at the companions, the villains, the TARDIS, the gadgets, the theme tune and the Doctor himself. If there’s one thing we have learned through this series it’s that the show is forever. It will live on no matter what and change if necessary, adapting into its latest form in order to grow stronger and to progress the story of the Doctor.

We have already seen the show survive a hiatus that lasted from 1989 all the way till 2005 with the ‘Doctor Who’ TV movie being the only new transmitted episode within that gap. The show is unique and has survived for 50 years and in all that time has only grown bigger and stronger. At this point in time it has never been more popular and with the elements of both ‘The Day of the Doctor’ and ‘The Time of the Doctor’ put into place I’m sure we will see the show last another 50 years and reach its 100th Anniversary. All I want to say is thank you for reading my series and joining in on the fun of celebrating the show’s legacy. Let us join together one last time in giving Doctor Who a round of applause for its success and wish it on into its new era as Peter Capaldi takes the reins as the Twelfth Doctor.