The Name of the Doctor

This Story: Series 7, Story 14. Production Code 7.14
Overall: Story 239, Episode 804
Airdate: 18 May 2013
Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Saul Metzstein

Notes

• The cold open here is a massive throwback to the show’s past continuity.  It shows the First Doctor and Susan stealing the Tardis.
• This episode has Clara observe many incarnations of the Doctor (mostly in the pre-title sequence) via clips from past episodes.  We see her interact with the first (The Aztecs), second (The Five Doctors), third (The Five Doctors), fourth (Invasion of Time), fifth (Arc of Infinity), sixth (new footage filmed), seventh (Dragonfire), eigth (hard to tell), ninth (in the time stream), tenth (Gridlock).
• There are two prequels to this story.  The first was called “Clarence & The Whispermen” which directly leads into the plot of the early part of the story.  The other is called “She Said, He Said”, which is more esoteric in plot, and seems to take place as visualizations of the thoughts of the Doctor & Clara about each other in their minds.
• The first appearance of John Hurt as the previously unknown “The War Doctor” (although he’s not called that here).

Links

[ Wikipedia | Tardis Data Core | SPS Historium | US DVD | UK DVD | US Blu-Ray | UK Blu-Ray ]