[Sorry for the lateness of this review. Had a busy 2 weeks]
On Sunday 19th May, there was a panic around the internet. It was found out that the Blu-Rays containing this episode had arrived to some households in the US. Thanks to the good people in the US, the episode managed to stay offline and most people didn't leak much information about the episodes. I just wanted to start my review by thanking these people as the episode had much more of an impact getting to see it live on BBC One.
Anyway, onto my review. The episode started off with a stellar pre-titles sequence. Ever since I watched the DS9 episode, Trials and Tribble-ations, I have hoped that Doctor Who would do something like that and I was so happy to see it done here. There were bits where it looked a bit ropey but thats mainly down to putting 2012 footage into the quality footage they did. It worked brilliantly and it was especially nice to see The Doctor and Susan stealing the TARDIS from Gallifrey
This episode deals with 2 main things. The Doctors secret and the mystery of who is Clara Oswald. The majority of people presumed that the Doctors secret would be his name but at the end of the episode it was revealed not to be the case. The Name did play a part in the episode of course though as that was the password to open the tomb of the Doctor. I was happy that the Moffat did not reveal the Doctors name as I think that this would take away some of the remaining mystery around the show. I'd rather this never be revealed.
I remember a few months back, Moffat saying that if you think you have guessed who Clara is, you are wrong but this was not the case with most fans. Alot of us had thought that Clara would be splintered across time and this was nearly the case with the solution. That said though, I was still happy with the resolution but that could be down to the joy of seeing Clara with past Doctors.
This episode saw the return of the Paternoster Gang and River Song. River this time around was placed after the library episodes. I was rather dreading this when I heard in DWM that this was going to be the placement as I had hoped that Steven would stay away from setting any episode after them but I think that it worked. It made the scene in the Tomb even more emotional with the "I thought it would hurt me" speech. Part of me thinks that it would be nice to see River back again but this episode would be the perfect final episode for her.
I had been looking forward to the cliffhanger ending for a while. I'd heard loads of rumblings about things it could be from David Tennant to multiple TARDIS's arriving. Since I had heard that John would be the Doctor on the Gallifrey Base spoiler thread, I thought that he would be involved but I was not disappointed with the ending. It was a great introduction to this new Doctor and it has left us with more questions than ever. They better be answered in the 50th
This story was definitely the best episode of the second half of Series 7 and it was a great way to end Matt's final full series. 10/10
