A woman named Shona, (Seroca Davis) disappears from a department store, after the lights begin to flash in the store. Sophie (Daisy Haggard) leaves Craig (James Cordon) alone with their baby for a weekend, he can cope on his own, which the Doctor (Matt Smith) will ensure by episode's end. The Doctor is here to pay "a social call" but hates the decor. He's meant to say he's also fine and then leaves. The light flashes outside and the Doctor knows something is wrong. He knows that Craig isn't alone and the Sonic detects sulphur emissions, finding their baby. Craig is beside himself admitting he's unable to cope with the baby, Alfie. The Doctor shushes the baby from crying, but can't teach that to Craig. He's not good at being a father. The Doctor reads a children's book and laughs.
The Doctor speaks 'baby' as he tells Craig that Alfie prefers to be called 'Stormageddon'. The Doctor is only here to see him and he's on a "farewell tour." (Which is what the Tenth Doctor also did, but the Eleventh Doctor only visits Craig.) He leaves and tells himself to stop noticing the lights flashing. Then tells himself and the TARDIS he's going, "I am through saving them." Meaning humans and ends up working in the same department store where Shona disappeared, also where Craig turns up. He's got a name badge, "The Doctor - here to help." He has to live in the moment. The robot dog Yappy, isn't as fun as he remembers. A reference to K-9, and notices something flash past on the floor.
The Doctor tells Craig about the missing people. The council is putting in new cables thus the flashing lights. He fixes the 'Out of Order' lift for Craig and then finds the Cyberman. The lift resembled a teleport even before it was said. The Doctor repeats what Craig says about "someones been using a 'beam me up' Star Trek teleport." Which could be disguised as anything. The Doctor admits he loves Craig and gets close to him, in order for him to not see the Cyberman behind him. He even wants to kiss him and pouts, but Craig sees the Cyberman and the Doctor says he only loves him as a friend. You get a hint of the Cybermen music when he tells Craig what they are, the one that reminded me of being from Carry On Screaming, when something sinister was about to happen.
They linked the teleport relay to the lift but he's fused the teleport. He tells Craig to leave and he refuses. People get killed when they're not with him (and even when they are.) So he's safer with the Doctor. Telling him, "you always win, you always survive." In order for us to believe he won't this time, but that's hooey anyway, cos we're getting a Christmas special and a season 7 with our beloved Eleventh Doc. The Doctor replies, lump in throat, well kind of, "those were the days." They ain't quite over just yet!
Val (Lynda Baron) thinks they're both together - as in gay couple with baby. The Doctor tells Craig babies are sweet, that's why he's with a human, cos humans talk to you. So he takes a human with him everywhere. He calls Craig his partner, she thinks companion sounds old fashioned. She tells him about seeing a silver rat. Craig gets into trouble investigating on his own - until the Doctor happens along. Everyone likes the Doctor, who (ha) can't find the rat. The Doctor uses his "shush" on Kelly (Holli Dempsey) which works on her too, thought it only worked on babies. She tells him about Shona and the changing rooms. Craig loves him and the Doctor has never secreted any "alien gas" to ensure people like him. He calls Alfie 'Stormy', who thinks Craig should believe in himself. The Cybermat, as the Doctor calls the rat, collects power. It sucked electric energy, but why from a shop. What's happening isn't the Doctor's fault; was he trying to convince himself of that.
The Doctor sees Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) in the store, small world, as she signs an autograph for a little girl. Sure he was tempted to talk to them, but he didn't go over and found it hard to stop himself from doing that. Surprised they didn't notice him though, cos you always notice people around you in a store. The Doctor turns to see Amy's poster on the wall, she's been advertizing perfume, called 'Petrichor.' (See 6.4 The Doctor's wife). "For the girl who's tired of waiting." Doctor: "Ameila Pond."
Craig wants the Doctor to stop making noise with the Sonic but he tells him it's a Sonic, which means sound, so he can't make it quiet. He then gives him a papoose for Alfie. The Doctor catches the Cybermat, which snarls at them. George (Chris Obi) is taken by the Cyberman and killed, whilst the Doctor is stunned and passes out. He calls it being "chopped." They've repaired the teleport already (handy for what's to come) and the Cyberman's parts were damaged, they were using spare parts. The Doctor wasn't killed since he's not compatible. Everything he comes across, makes less sense. So how come they killed George and didn't want him assimilated.
Craig suggests they get back to base and the Doctor asks, "when did we get a base?" Craig needs to go out for milk and we get a scene between the Doctor and Alfie, where we're meant to get all teary-eyed. Alfie has plenty to look forward to. "Save the tears for later." The Doctor is old. "I am so old - so near the end." The Cybermat comes alive. He shows Alfie real stars in his room. The Doctor dreamt of stars when he was little. "I lived the dream, I owned the stage, gave it all." The sinister beeping is heard behind him. He runs and stuns the Cybermat, dropping the Sonic inside the kitchen. Craig returns and wrestles with the Cybermat and the Doctor breaks through the glass to rescue him, why didn't he just do that for the Sonic.
The Cybermat was transmitting electricity to the Cybership, so the Doctor's going to reprogramme it and use it as a weapon. It came after the Doctor and Craig nearly died cos of him. He's a stupid, selfish man, he shouldn't have come. Craig tells him he saved a planet. He finally tells Craig he won't be here. "My time is running out - Silence will fall when the question is asked - don't even know what the question is." He thought he'd die still trying to find out..."Tomorrow is the day I ..." Craig is asleep, as we knew he would be. He can't keep putting off the inevitable, which is what he has been doing.
Next day, Craig goes after the Doctor, he owes him. Craig: "he needs someone, he always needs someone, only he can't admit it." The bonded steel door is disguised as a wall. The Cybermen climbed up from behind the mirror in the changing room. Val thinks Craig and the Doctor need alone time so she looks after Alfie. The Doctor confronts the Cybermen, it took him a while to work things out as he had other things on his mind. Their ship came here centuries ago and was powered when the council relaid the cables. The Doctor gives them a choice he always gives, deactivate themselves, or he'll do it for them.
Craig comes to save him, but is taken as the new leader. The Doctor's brain and body molecular structure isn't compatible, but Craig is compatible and intelligent. They will take his fear and he's strapped into the device. The Doctor wants Craig to fight. The Cybermen will "cleanse his brain of emotions." The Doctor is going to die tomorrow, he tells Craig. Alfie cries and this makes Craig fight. The Doctor encourages him, it's his chance to prove he's a dad. Doctor: "Daddy's coming home." The Cybermen feel the emotional influx and are going to explode. They escape through the teleport in the lift and they hug. That was their alone time then. Ha.
The Cybermen were destroyed by a human trait, to protect human genes. Craig killed them with love, the Doctor finally agrees. They tell Val they're not together and they're not married. The Doctor leaves again. He's fixed the house when Craig returns. He went back in time and used his time for Craig and tells Craig, Stormy prefers to be called Alfie now and calls Craig dad. The Doctor must leave now and no one can help him; taking that blue stationary from Sophie. (The ones used in 6.1 The Impossible Astronaut for invites.) He's going to America and must keep his appointment. Craig gives him a Stetson, thus the Stetson in 6.1.
Outside children see the Doctor. He tells them he was here to help them. Their thoughts are heard, he seemed happy and sad, one liked his hat. River song (Alex Kingston) reads eye witness accounts. Cue Madame Kovarian (Frances Barber) and that rhyme: "tick tock goes the clock and what now shall we play, tick tock goes the clock, now Summer's gone away." (Yes it has.) One of the Silence also enters and she tells River she won't recall them. They're her owners. She was made a Doctor (!) today - the "day the Doctor dies. The Impossible Astronaut will arrive from deep and strike the Time Lord dead." The story begins here, Melanie Pond didn't escape, Kovarian made her who she is, "the woman who killed the Doctor."
"Tick tock goes the clock and all the years they fly.
Tick tock and all too soon your love will surely die.
Tick tock goes the clock he cradled and he rocked her,
Tick tock goes the clock 'til River kills the Doctor." River is in the spacesuit, floating in the water.
How can it be time for the Doctor when Amy and Rory aren't there, as they were in 6.1/6.2. At least we know where he got those blue envelopes from and the the Stetson, as he puts his plan into action. of course he's got to have a plan, he's the Doctor, otherwise he wouldn't have sent out those invites. Still think that question is about weddings, cos of the title to the final episode but then again...That question about "Silence will fall when the question is asked" sounds like it has a double meaning, as do most things, that they will be defeated.
Also River is a Doctor now too, perhaps implying she's the Doctor who meets her end, which is probably stretching the realms of Doctor Who on my part. Then again which Doctor was actually made a Doctor, the one in her own world, or the one from Stormcage. Since Kovarian says she won't recall them, this means River has been made to forget, but which part of her past. She was at the lake when the spacesuit emerged from the water. Think it's better not to ponder, let's wait and see and hopefully everything will be resolved, well it had better be!
That absurd rhyme now makes sense, as well as being audible, guess it was time for us to hear it coherently. When did the Doctor actually cradle Melody, according to the rhyme; he only held her in 6.7 and Amy had her most of the time. Oh and what sort of a name is Kovarian anyway.
All the scenes of the Doctor's impending doom feature some of Matt's best acting once again. Bringing death up a few times which was also moving. Even though he blames himself for the trouble he's brought on, as Craig rightly tells him, he's saved the planet and humanity countlessly now. The parts about his childhood are especially endearing as he tells Alfie that he loved the stars. But beneath the joviality of this episode there's the poignancy of it all. David Tennant did something similar in his time of leaving the show. Although the Tenth Doctor was only going to be regenerated - he still protested on numerous occasions that he didn't want to leave. (At times I said it was almost like he didn't want to leave the show.) Here the Eleventh Doctor seems to want it - not want, but embraces or accepts it, as he claims he's put it off long enough (right, the entire season).
Some re-used lines here when he he tells Craig, "you've redecorated, I don't like it," from the episode The Three Doctors. The Cyberman say a line from the episode The Tomb of the Cybermen: "you will be like us."
It's meant to be 200 years since the Doctor left Amy and Rory and hence his line of being a "very old man." He's aged another 200 years, but if we lose the Doctor (that'll never happen) what hope is there left for humanity. So his appearance to Amy and Rory on TV etc, in 6.1, took place after 6.1 and before 6.12.
A bit of a twist here in that River - the older version - is the one in the spacesuit in the lake: the one who kills him and not River the child. Let's call Closing Time, not just on the store but also on the Doctor. The Doctor also spoke 'baby' in 6.7 A Good Man Goes to War.
Gareth Roberts wrote the episode wanting the Cybermen to return since he felt some sort of "history about the Doctor's final battle to save the Earth before he meets his death" should be represent. He took Sophie's stationary to write and mail invites to everyone in 6.1, as well as to the younger version of himself. Let's hope the season finale is something to write about, ha, as we say a farewell to the Doctor in more ways than one, since season 7 will not be aired until 2013, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the show. Though there may be specials in the meantime. That's going to be tough on fans!
The Tenth Doctor also said his farewells to everyone when he was leaving, in the episode The End of Time. The Eleventh Doctor did much the same thing, though only to Craig and he didn't really have the heart(s) to confront Amy and Rory. Anyhoo, it can't be the end for the Doctor, we're getting a Christmas special after all...
NB this episode was written before the final episode was aired.
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