So today is the last performance of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor and it is telling that one of the themes of todayвЂ™s episode was making it count, because that is exactly what he did. David Bradley should really be commended for giving a wonderful performance channelling William Hartnell with his mannerisms, but also bringing something of his own to the performance. So he says some things that were fine in the 1960s, but really not today, like that he is glad Bill (Pearl Mackie) is here because the Twelfth DoctorвЂ™s TARDIS needs a good dusting. They have brought the First Doctor back, and they have also brought him back as he was, not as what we would like to think he was. I do have to give the writers credit for walking a very fine line here in the episode. Another bonus, other than having Mark Gatiss give a beautiful performance, is that it helped to give context to how out of time the First Doctor feels when compared to the Twelfth Doctor. Which is why ripping him out of time and place is such a big issue, because in the moment you are prepared to die, but what if you are taken away from imminent death for a bit, have time to think and ruminate on the past and then get thrown right back there again. While he has hope that things will turn out for the best, he knows deep down that this is probably the end. When we are introduced to him he is sitting in a crater with a gun trained on a German Officer (Toby Whithouse) deeply lamenting the fact that the other guy canвЂ™t speak English and that he canвЂ™t speak German.

Firstly, because it allows you to have one more вЂњ but itвЂ™s bigger on the insideвЂќ joke, but also because he provided the heart to the episode.

It is really important to the episode that we do have that WW1 soldier in the narrative and so it is not just the two Doctors musing about the end of life. What a wonderful performance from David Bradley Now from here on in, there may be some as we look at the episode as a whole so just be warned for those who have not seen it yet. It is here where we catch up to the end of The Doctor Falls, both Doctors fighting regeneration and the South Pole, when suddenly time freezes and there is an officer from World War One (Mark Gatiss) wondering around out of time and place. This was a really interesting and effective technique to bridge the gap between the very different film styles of 19. To do this old footage from The Tenth Planet was used, shifting from black and white to colour and expanding in resolution size when we jump into the new material. We open todayвЂ™s episode not with the Twelfth Doctor, but with a flashback to the First Doctor. However, when you approach the end things tend to coalesce, do you rage against the dying of the setting sun, do you sit calmly accepting your fate, or do you say bollocks to all of that and instead decide to find out the motive of the Glass Lady (Nikki Amuka-Bird) messing with the timeline?

However, while there are references and nods to the past, and villains return, but rarely does the show go back and visit Doctors of the past, bar on big occasions, and this is one of them.ДЄs one can imagine todayвЂ™s story is all about death, because we have two Doctors who are desperately trying to hold on and not let go, even though regeneration is of the Timelords defining features. Look when you can do a show about time travel it can be very easy to become self-indulgent and always be digging back into the past to re-visit episodes that have come before. But the TARDIS did not just take The Doctor to any random snowy planet, for indeed waiting for him there was none other than the first ever incarnation of The Doctor (David Bradley). So to set the scene, at the end of Season 10 ( see review) Bill (Pearl Mackie) is off exploring the universe as an alien entity, and The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) is slumped on to snowy planet after being mortally wounded by Cybermen. So today we look at the last story of the Twelfth Doctor, and a new story of the First Doctor, and also the first story of the Thirteenth Doctor, it was a packed episode. It is the end of an era as Peter Capaldi and Steven Moffat say goodbye to Doctor Who (this is not a spoiler because this was announced 6 months ago) but while it is the end, it is also the start, and that is what is amazing about Doctor Who. TL DR вЂ“ The beginning of the end, and the start of the new beginning, this shows what Doctor Who can be when it is firing on all cylinders.

Twice upon a time doctor who cast