The Name of the Doctor
User Review
( vote)Andro (Nasi Voutsas): Something wrong?
Fabian (David Avery): It’s the repair shop. What kind of idiot would try and steal a faulty TARDIS?
Gallifrey
A Very Long Time Ago…
Clara: Doctor. Doctor.
The First Doctor (William Hartnell): Yes, what is it? What do you want?
Clara: Sorry, but you’re about to make a very big mistake.
Clara: I don’t know where I am. It’s like I’m breaking into a million pieces and there is only one thing I remember: I have to save the Doctor. He always looks different. I always know it’s him. Sometimes I think I’m everywhere at once, running every second just to find him. Just to save him. But he never hears me. Almost never. I blew into this world on a leaf. I’m still blowing. I don’t think I’ll ever land. I’m Clara Oswald. I’m the impossible girl. I was born to save the Doctor.
London
1893
Do you hear the Whisper Men? The Whisper Men are near.
If you hear the Whisper Men then turn away your ear.
Do not hear the Whisper Men, whatever else you do.
For once you’ve heard the Whisper Men they’ll stop. And look at you.
Clarence (Michael Jenn): One word from you could save me from the rope!
Vastra (Neve McIntosh): Then you may rely on my silence.
Clarence: I have information. Valuable information.
Vastra: Are you bargaining for your life? You have the blood of fourteen women on your hands. There are no words that can save your neck.
Clarence: The Doctor. Ah, yes. I know all about him. Your dangerous friend.
Vastra: How?
Clarence: In the babble of the world, there are whispers, if you know how to listen. The Doctor has a secret, you know.
Vastra: He has many.
Clarence: He has one he will take to the grave. And it is discovered. Well?
Jenny (Catrin Stewart): We can’t let that terrible man live!
Vastra: He lives ’til I understand what he told me. We’re going to need a conference call. I’ll send out the invitations, you fetch the candles.
Vastra: Where’s Strax got to?
Jenny: The usual. It’s his weekend off.
Vastra: I wish he’d never discovered that place.
Glasgow
Strax (Dan Starkey): Conference call. Sorry, Archie. I’m going to have to ask you to render me unconscious.
Archie (Rab Affleck): Fine.
Strax: Better use this. {hands him a shovel} It might take awhile.
The Whisper Men: The trap is set. The Doctor’s friends will travel where the Doctor ends.
Jenny: Oh! I like the new desktop.
Vastra: Mm. I was getting a little bored of the Taj Mahal. The tea should be superb. It’s drawn from one of my favorite memories. {loud thud} Strax! Good of you to join us.
Strax: It better be important.
I was in the middle of destroying some very pleasant primitives.
Vastra: I apologize for the interruption, but there is urgent news concerning the Doctor.
Strax: Who else is coming?
Vastra: The women.
Angie (Eve De Leon Allen): Oh no. You’re going to try to make a soufflé again, aren’t you?
Clara: My mum’s soufflé, yeah. Although this time I will get it right. This time I will be soufflé girl.
Artie (Kassius Carey Johnson): How can it be your mum’s soufflé if you’re making it?
Clara: Because, Artie, it’s like my mum always said, “The soufflé isn’t the soufflé. The soufflé is the recipe.”
Angie: Was your mum deep on puddings?
Clara: She was a great woman.
Vastra: Glad you could make it.
Clara: Where am I?
Jenny: Exactly where you were, but sleeping.
Vastra: Time travel has always been possible in dreams. We are awaiting only one more participant.
Strax: Oh no. Not the one with the gigantic head.
Jenny: It’s hair, Strax.
Strax: Hmph. Hair.
River popping in: Madame Vastra.
Vastra: Professor. Help yourself to some tea.
River: Why thank you. {she has a champagne bucket}
Jenny: How did you do that?!
River: Disgracefully.
Vastra: Ah, perhaps you two haven’t met. This is the Doctor’s companion. That is, his current travelling assistant.
Clara: Assistant?
Strax: Have you gone a darker green?
Vastra: Clara Oswald.
River: Professor River Song.
Clara: Oh yeah. Yeah. Of course he has, Professor Song. Sorry, it’s just that I never realized you were a woman.
Strax: Well neither did I.
Vastra: Clarence DeMarco. Murderer. Under sentence of death. He offered us this in exchange for his life.
River: Space-time coordinates.
Vastra: This, Mr. DeMarco claims, is the location of the Doctor’s greatest secret.
Clara: Which is?
Jenny: We don’t know. It’s a secret.
Vastra: The Doctor does not discuss his secrets with anyone, my dear. If you’re still entertaining the idea that you’re an exception to this rule, ask yourself one question. What is his name?
River: Well I know it.
Clara: What, you know his name? He told you?
River: I made him.
Clara: How?
River: It took awhile.
Clara: So, So you’re a friend of his then.
River: A little more than a friend, a long time ago.
Vastra: He still never contacted you?
River: He doesn’t like endings.
River: So what else did this DeMarco tell you? He didn’t just buy his life with some coordinates. How did he prove their value?
Vastra: One word only.
River: What word?
Vastra: A word I’ve heard in connection with the Doctor before. Trenzalore.
River: You misunderstood.
Jenny: Ma’am, sorry, I just realized I forgot to lock the door.
Vastra: It doesn’t matter, Jenny. What misunderstanding? Tell me.
Jenny: No, ma’am, please! I should have locked up before we went into the trance.
Vastra: Jenny, it doesn’t matter!
Jenny: Someone’s broken in. Someone’s with us. I can hear them.
Vastra: Jenny, are you all right?
Jenny: Sorry, ma’am, so sorry. So sorry, so sorry. I think I’ve been murdered.
Vastra: Jenny?!
Clara: What’s happened to her?
Vastra: Jenny, can you hear me?
Strax: Speak to us, boy!
Vastra: Jenny!
River: You’re under attack. You must wake up now. Just wake up! Do it!
Vastra: Who are you? What have you done to her?
River: You too, Strax. Wake up now!
The Whisper Men: Tell the Doctor. Tell the Doctor. Tell the Doctor.
Clara: Tell him what?
The Great Intelligence: His friends are lost forevermore. Unless he goes to Trenzalore.
River: No, you can’t say that. He can’t go there. You know he can’t. The Doctor can never go to Trenzalore!
The Doctor: Look, I’m pretty sure you have to tell me if I’m getting warm. I’m pretty sure that’s in the rules.
Clara: Doctor.
The Doctor: Ha! Clara! How are you? Don’t worry. Everything is under control.
Clara: What are you doing?
The Doctor: Oh! Um, Mr. Maitland went next door so I said I’d look after the kids. They wanted to go to the cinema, but I said no, I said, no, not until you wake up. I was very firm.
Clara: At which point they suggested Blind Man’s Bluff.
The Doctor: Yes. Where are they?
Clara: At the cinema.
The Doctor: The little Daleks!
Clara: So who was she? The lady with the funny name and the space hair.
The Doctor: An old friend of mine.
Clara: What, like an ex?
The Doctor: Yes, an ex. River asked Vastra for the exact words. What were they?
Clara: “The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave. It is discovered.” Doctor.
The Doctor: Sorry. And it was Trenzalore? It was definitely Trenzalore?
Clara: Yeah.
The Doctor: Oh damn.
Clara: Well?
The Doctor: Trenzalore. I’ve heard the name of course. Dorium mentioned it. A few others. Always suspected what it was, never wanted to find out myself. River would know though. River always knew.
The Doctor: I’m linking you in to the TARDIS telepathic circuit. Won’t hurt a bit.
Clara: Ow!
The Doctor: I lied.
Clara: Okay, what is Trenzalore? Is that your big secret?
The Doctor: No.
Clara: Okay, what then?
The Doctor: When you are a time traveller there is one place you must never go. One place in all of space and time you must never, ever find yourself.
Clara: Where?
The Doctor: You didn’t listen, did you? You lot never do! That’s the problem. “The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave. It is discovered.” He wasn’t talking about my secret. No no no, that’s not what’s been found. He was talking about my grave. Trenzalore is where I’m buried.
Clara: How can you have a grave?
The Doctor: Because we all do, somewhere out there in the future, waiting for us. The trouble with time travel, you can actually end up visiting.
Clara: But you’re not going to. You just said it was one place you must never go.
The Doctor: I have to save Vastra and Strax. Jenny too if it’s still possible. They cared for me during the dark times. Never questioned me, never judged me. They were just… kind. I owe them. I have a duty.
The Doctor: No point in telling you this is too dangerous?
Clara: None at all. How can we save them?
The Doctor: Apparently by breaking into my own tomb.
Clara: What’s that?
The Doctor: She’s just figured out where we’re going, she’s against it! I’m about to cross my own time line in the biggest way possible. The TARDIS doesn’t like it.
Clara: Now what?
The Doctor: She doesn’t want to land. She’s shut down!
Clara: So we’re not there?
The Doctor: We must be close.
The Doctor: Okay, so that’s where I end up. Always thought maybe I’d retire. Take up watercolors or beekeeping or something. Apparently not.
Clara: So. how do we get down there? Jump?
The Doctor: Don’t be silly. We fall.
Clara: You okay? Visiting your own grave, anyone would be scared.
The Doctor: It’s more than that. I’m a time traveller. I’ve probably time travelled more than anyone else.
Clara: Meaning?
The Doctor: Meaning… my grave is potentially the most dangerous place in the Universe. Shall we?
Clara: Gravestones are a bit basic.
The Doctor: It’s a battlefield graveyard. My final battle.
Clara: Why are some of them bigger?
The Doctor: They’re soldiers. Bigger the gravestone, higher the rank.
Clara: It’s a hell of a monument.
The Doctor: It’s the TARDIS.
Clara: I can see that.
The Doctor: No. When a TARDIS is dying, sometimes the dimension dams start breaking down. They used to call it a size leak. All the bigger-on-the-inside starts leaking to the outside. It grows. When I say that’s the TARDIS I don’t mean it looks like the TARDIS, I mean it actually is the TARDIS. My TARDIS from the future. What else would they bury me in? {he walks towards it}
River: Clara. Don’t speak. Don’t say my name. He can’t see or hear me, only you can. We’re mentally linked. It’s the conference call. I kept the line open.
The Doctor: Who are you talking to? We need to get— {he looks at a gravestone} River.
Clara: That can’t be right.
The Doctor: No, it can’t.
Clara: She’s not dead.
The Doctor: Oh she’s dead, I’m afraid. She’s been dead for a very long time.
River: Yeah, probably should have mentioned that. Never the right time.
Clara: But I met her!
The Doctor: Long story. But her grave can’t be here.
The Whisper Men: This man must fall as all men must. The fate of all is always dust.
River: If it isn’t my gravestone then what is it?
Clara: What do you think that gravestone really is?
The Doctor: The gravestone?
River: Maybe it’s a false grave.
Clara: Maybe it’s a false grave.
The Doctor: Yep, maybe.
River: Maybe it’s a secret entrance to the tomb.
Clara: Maybe it’s a secret entrance to the tomb!
The Doctor: Yes, of course! Makes sense. They’d never bury my wife out here.
Clara: Your what?
The Whisper Men: The man who lies will lie no more. When this man lies, it’s Trenzalore.
Strax: This place is surrounded! Lay down your weapons and your deaths will be merciful! This planet is now property of the Sontaran Empire! Surrender your women and your intellectuals!
Dr. Simeon (Richard E. Grant): I see you have repaired your pet. No matter. I was only attracting your attention. I presume I have it.
Vastra: Dr. Simeon. This is not possible.
Dr. Simeon: And yet here we are, meeting again. So very far from home.
Jenny: But he died. You told me.
Vastra: Simeon died. But the creature that possessed him lived on. I take it I am now talking to The Great Intelligence.
Dr. Simeon: Welcome to the final resting of the cruel tyrant. Of the slaughterer of the ten billion. And the vessel of the final darkness. Welcome to the tomb of the Doctor!
Clara: Where are we?
The Doctor: Catacombs.
Clara: I hate catacombs. So how come I met your dead wife?
The Doctor: Oh well, you know how it is when you lose someone close to you. I sort of made a backup.
River: I died saving him. In return he saved me to a database in the biggest library in the universe. Left me like a book on a shelf. Didn’t even say goodbye. He doesn’t like endings.
Dr. Simeon: It was a minor skirmish by the Doctor’s blood-soaked standards. Not exactly the Time War, but enough to finish him. In the end it was too much for the old man.
Jenny: Blood-soaked?
Vastra: The Doctor has been many things, but never blood-soaked.
Dr. Simeon: Tell that to the leader of the Sycorax. Or Solomon the Trader. Or the Cybermen, or the Daleks. The Doctor lives his life in darker hues, day upon day. And he will have other names before the end. Storm. The Beast. The Valeyard.
Vastra: Even if any of this were true—which I take the liberty of doubting—how did you come by this information?
Dr. Simeon: I am information.
Jenny: You were a mind without a body last time we met.
Vastra: And you were supposed to stay that way.
Dr. Simeon: Alas, I did. As you can see.
The Doctor: Still a bit of a climb. I think I remember the way. Clara? Clara! Hey, it’s okay. You’re fine. The dimensioning forces this deep in the TARDIS, they can make you a bit giddy.
Clara: I know, I know. {she stops} How do I know? How do I know that?
The Doctor: Clara, it’s okay, You’re fine.
Clara: Have we, have we done this before? We have. We have done this before, climbing through a wrecked TARDIS. You said things, things I’m not supposed to remember.
The Doctor: We can’t do this now. The TARDIS is in ruin. The telepathic circuits are awakening memories you shouldn’t even have.
The Doctor: Clara! Clara, what’s wrong?
Clara: What do you mean you keep meeting me? You said I died, how could I die?
The Doctor: That is not a conversation you should even remember.
Clara: What do you mean I died!
The Whisper Men: The girl who died he tried to save. She’ll die again inside his grave.
The Doctor: Run. Run!
Dr. Simeon: The doors require a key. The key is a word. Word is the Doctor’s.
The Doctor: Here I am, late to my own funeral. Glad you could make it. Jenny.
Dr. Simeon: Open the door, Doctor. Speak. And open your tomb.
The Doctor: No.
Dr. Simeon: Because you know what’s in there?
The Doctor: I will not open those doors.
Dr. Simeon: The key is a word lost to time. A secret hidden in the deepest shadow, and known to you alone. The answer to a question.
The Doctor: I will not open my tomb.
Dr. Simeon: Doctor. What is your name?
Dr. Simeon: The Doctor’s friends. Stop their hearts!
Strax: Madame, boys. Combat formations! They are unarmed.
Jenny: So are we!
Strax: Do not divulge my military secrets!
The Doctor: Stop this. Leave them alone.
Dr. Simeon: Your name, Doctor. Answer me!
Clara: Doctor?
Dr. Simeon: Doctor who?
The Doctor: Please. Stop it.
Dr. Simeon: Doctor who?!
The Doctor: Leave him alone, let him be.
Strax: Don’t worry, sir. I think I’ve got him rattled!
Dr. Simeon: Doctor who!
The Doctor: Please!
{the TARDIS doors open}
River: The TARDIS can still hear me. Lucky thing. Since him and doors is being so useless.
Strax: Why did you open the door, sir? I had them on the run!
The Doctor: I didn’t do it. I didn’t say my name.
River: No. But I did.
The Doctor: Is everyone all right? Is everyone okay? Clara! Clara! Clara, you okay?
Clara: That was not nice.
The Doctor: No no. I know. I’m sorry.
The Doctor: Now then. Dr. Simeon. Or Mr. G Intelligence, whatever I call you. Do you know what’s in there?
Dr. Simeon: For me, peace at last. For you, pain everlasting. Won’t you invite us in?
Clara: What’s that?
The Doctor: What were you expecting, a body? Bodies are boring. I’ve had loads of them. That’s not what my tomb is for.
Vastra: But what is the light?
Jenny: It’s beautiful.
Strax: Should I destroy it?
Vastra: Shut up, Strax.
Clara: Doctor, explain. What is that?
The Doctor: The tracks of my tears.
Dr. Simeon: Less poetry, Doctor. Just tell them.
The Doctor: Time travel is damage. It’s like a tear in the fabric of reality. That is the scar tissue of my journey through the universe. My path through time and space. From Gallifrey to Trenzalore.
First: Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?
Fourth: Do I have the right?
Second: There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things…
Nine: Absolutely fantastic.
Ten: I’m from Planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous.
Eleven: Hello Stonehenge!
Doctor: Days in, days out.
The Doctor: My own personal time tunnel. All the days, even the ones that I, uh, even the ones that I haven’t lived yet. {he collapses}
Clara: Doctor! Doctor!
The Doctor: No. No. Which is why I shouldn’t be here. The paradox is, is very bad. No. No, what are you doing? Somebody stop him!
Dr. Simeon: The Doctor’s life is an open wound. And an open wound can be entered.
The Doctor: No. It will destroy you.
Dr. Simeon: Not at all. It will kill me. It will destroy you. I can rewrite your every living moment. I can turn every one of your victories into defeats. Poison every friendship. Deliver pain to your every breath.
The Doctor: It will burn you up. Once you go through you can’t come back. You will be scattered along my time line like confetti.
Dr. Simeon: It matters not, Doctor. You thwarted me at every turn. Now, you will give me peace as I take my revenge on every second of your life. Goodbye. Goodbye, Doctor.
Clara: What’s wrong with him? What’s happening?
Vastra: He’s being rewritten. Simeon is attacking his entire time line. He’s dying all at once. The Dalek Asylum. Androzani.
Clara: What did you say? Did you say the Dalek Asylum?
Vastra: Now he’s dying in London, with us.
It is done.
Vastra: Oh dear Goddess.
Jenny: What’s wrong?
Vastra: The universe without the Doctor. There will be consequences.
Clara: The Dalek Asylum. You said it was me that saved you. How? Victorian London, how? How could I have been in Victorian London?
The Doctor: No. No. Please. Stop. My life, my whole life is burning.
Jenny: What are you scanning for?
Vastra: Local star systems.
Strax: Why?
Vastra: Because they’re disappearing.
Jenny: Disappearing how?
Vastra: The Doctor’s time line has been corrupted. His every victory reversed. Think how many lives that man saved—how many worlds! He saved your life when we met. {she turns to find Jenny gone} Jenny? Please, Jenny. No! Oh god, oh please no.
Strax: Reptile scum. You are an affront to Sontaran purity. Prepare to perish.
Vastra: We’re friends. Strax, your past is changing. But I swear we are comrades.
Strax: Die, reptile! {he disappears}
Vastra: Strax? Strax!
Clara: I have to go in there.
The Doctor: Please. Please. No.
Clara: But this is what I’ve already done. You’ve already seen me do it. I’m the Impossible Girl. And this is why.
River: Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t.
Clara: If I step in there, what happens?
River: The time winds will tear you into a million pieces. A million versions of you, living and dying all over time and space. Like echoes.
Clara: But the echoes could save the Doctor, right?
River: But they won’t be you. The real you will die. They’ll just be copies.
Clara: But they’ll be real enough to save him. It’s like my mum said, “The soufflé isn’t the soufflé. The soufflé is the recipe.” It’s the only way to save him, isn’t it?
Vastra: The stars are going out! And Jenny and Strax are dead. There must be something we can do.
Clara: Well how about that? I’m Soufflé Girl after all.
The Doctor: No. Please.
Clara: If this works get out of here as fast as you can. And spare me a thought now and then.
The Doctor: No. Clara!
Clara: In fact, you know what? Run. Run, you clever boy. And remember me.
Clara: I don’t know where I am.
The Doctor: Clara!
Clara: I just know I’m running. Sometimes it’s like I’ve lived a thousand lives in a thousand places. I’m born, I live, I die. And always, there’s the Doctor. Always I’m running to save the Doctor. Again and again and again. And he hardly ever hears me. But I’ve always been there. Right from the very beginning. Right from the day he started running.
Strax: It was an unprovoked and violent attack, but that’s no excuse.
Vastra: We are all restored. That’s all that matters now.
The Doctor: We are not all restored.
River: You can’t go in there. It’s your own time stream, for God’s sake.
The Doctor: I have to get her back.
River: Of course, but not like this.
Jenny: But how?
Vastra: Is she still alive? It killed Dr. Simeon.
The Doctor: Clara’s got one advantage over The Great Intelligence.
Vastra: Which is?
The Doctor: Me.
River: Doctor, please listen to me. At least hear me.
The Doctor: Now, if I don’t come back—and I might not—
River: Doctor!
The Doctor: —go to the TARDIS. The fast return protocol should be on. She’ll take you home then shut herself down.
River: There has to be another way. Use the TARDIS, use something. Save her, yes. But for God’s sake, be sensible! {she goes to slap him and he stops her} How are you even doing that? I’m not really here.
The Doctor: You’re always here to me. And I always listen. And I can always see you.
River: Then why didn’t you speak to me?
The Doctor: Because I thought it would hurt too much.
River: I believe I could have coped.
The Doctor: No. I thought it would hurt me. And I was right. {he kisses her} Since nobody else in this room can see you, God knows how that looked. There is a time to live and a time to sleep. You are an echo, River. Like Clara, like all of this. In the end, my fault, I know. But you should have faded by now.
River: It’s hard to leave when you haven’t said goodbye.
The Doctor: Then tell me, because I don’t know. How do I say it?
River: There’s only one way I would accept. If you ever loved me, say it like you’re going to come back.
The Doctor: Well then. See you around, Professor River Song.
River: ‘Til the next time, Doctor.
The Doctor: Don’t wait up.
River: Oh there’s one more thing.
The Doctor: isn’t there always.
River: I was mentally linked with Clara. If she’s really dead then how can I still be here.
The Doctor: Okay, How?
River: Spoilers. Goodbye. Sweetie.
Clara: I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going or where I’ve been. I was born to save the Doctor. But the Doctor is safe now. I’m the Impossible Girl, and my story is done.
Clara: Doctor? Doctor! Please! Please! I don’t know where I am.
The Doctor: Clara. You can hear me. I know you can.
Clara: I can’t see you.
The Doctor: I’m everywhere. You’re inside my time stream. Everything around you is me.
Clara: I can see you. All your different faces are here.
The Doctor: Those are my ghosts, my past. Every good day, every bad day.
Clara: What’s wrong? What’s happening?
The Doctor: I’m inside my own time stream. it’s collapsing in on itself.
Clara: Well get out then!
The Doctor: Not until I’ve got you.
Clara: I don’t even know who I am.
The Doctor: You’re my impossible girl. I’m sending you something. Not from my past, from
yours. Look up. Look. {the leaf floats down} This is you, Clara. Everything you are or will be. Take it. You blew into the world on this leaf. Hold tight. It will take you home.
The Doctor: Clara, Clara, come up.
Come up to me now. You can do it, I know you can.
Clara: How?
The Doctor: Because it’s impossible and you’re my impossible girl. How many times have you saved me, Clara? Just this once, just for the hell of it, let me save you. You have to trust me, Clara, I’m real. Just one more step. Clara! My Clara! Oh! {he sees a figure in the distance}
Clara: Who’s that?
The Doctor: Never mind. Let’s get back.
Clara: Who is he?
The Doctor: He’s me. There’s only me here, that’s the point. Now let’s get back.
Clara: But I never saw that one. I saw all of you. Eleven faces. All of them you.
The Doctor: I said he was me. I never said he was the Doctor.
Clara: But I don’t understand.
The Doctor: My name, my real name, that is not the point. The name I chose is the Doctor. The name you choose, it’s like, it’s like a promise you make. He’s the one who broke the promise. {Clara collapses} Clara? Clara! He is my secret.
The Old Man (John Hurt): What I did, I did without choice.
The Doctor: I know.
The Old Man: In the name of peace and sanity.
The Doctor: But not in the name of the Doctor.