"Not knowing was good. It was a relief."
IN THIS ONE... An amnesiac Doctor reads his diary and remembers.
REVIEW: To introduce almost two hours of documentary on Doctor Who to that point, they have Doc11 accidentally wipe his memory, delaying a vacation he promised Clara. She opens his diary in front of him and the documentary unfolds (though obviously, this isn't what the Doctor actually reads, I'm sure there are no interviews with actors and production staff in there). The Doctor's confusing at first makes him quote directly from the Seventh Doctor's post-regeneration scene (fun for old fans), and he asks if he's a good man (fun in retrospect for Capaldi fans). But, at this point, I'm well over the stock bouncy comedy theme they tend to lather over all these light-hearted shorts. I find it irritating an obvious.
When we come back from the memory tour, I think is where the short takes its real meaning. The Doctor is actually disappointed to have regained it all. His life has been a real horror show, marked by loss and regret, none so large as those related to the Time War, closure for which is just around the corner, only a few days from the original broadcast. I like that they end in on a bit of drama, and foreshadow Clara's role in the series moving forward - as the Doctor's CARER. It's not usually the dynamic with 11 (aside from the implications of "Name"), but her relationship with the War Doc and then with Twelve, absolutely. We get an inkling of this here, and this is therefore an interesting linking scene.
THEORIES: As placement of this would be after The Name of the Doctor, it's okay for Clara to know everything and read over the Doctor's shoulder, as it were. Notably, the Doctor only talks about 11 faces because though we've seen the War Doctor at the end of "Name", there's no way the Doctor would have written any entries on the subject. But the 1200-year diary does bring up the subject of the Doctor's age again. Since the War Doctor obviously aged between "Night" and "Day", Docs 9, 10, etc. were clearly lying about their ages syncing up so closely with 7 and 8. But does a functionally immortal time traveller really need to count the biological years of their body, or does some measure of "continuous existence" (broken by the War Doctor era) count instead?
REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The existential beat makes it transcend its origins as a fluffy bookend to a documentary.
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