Twice Upon a Time (Doctor Who) facts for kids

"Twice Upon a Time" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, written by Steven Moffat, directed by Rachel Talalay, and was broadcast as the thirteenth (and to date final) Christmas special on 25 December 2017 on BBC One. It features the final regular appearance of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor, the first official appearance of Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, and guest-stars David Bradley as the First Doctor, having previously portrayed original First Doctor actor William Hartnell in the 2013 docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time. Pearl Mackie guest stars as the Twelfth Doctor's former companion Bill Potts, while his other companions make guest appearances – Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald and Matt Lucas as Nardole.

This episode is a continuation of events after "The Doctor Falls", addressing the cliffhanger that it ended on, and takes place during the final serial of the First Doctor, The Tenth Planet (1966), which ended with the introduction of the concept of a Doctor regenerating; footage from The Tenth Planet is used in the special. "Twice Upon a Time" is Capaldi's fourth and final Christmas special as the Twelfth Doctor, and the last Doctor Who story to be written and produced by Moffat, who had served as the show's executive producer and chief writer since taking over from Russell T Davies in 2010. After the special's broadcast, Moffat was succeeded as executive producer and showrunner by Chris Chibnall. It is also the last episode to have music composed by Murray Gold, who had composed music since the series' revival in 2005 and was succeeded by Segun Akinola in Series 11. The special has received generally positive reviews from critics.

Plot

Synopsis

Wandering back to his TARDIS through the South Pole in 1986 after leaving his companions behind, the First Doctor refuses to regenerate. He encounters the Twelfth Doctor outside his own TARDIS in a similar state of mind. The pair are soon approached by a confused and injured First World War British captain (Mark Gatiss), displaced from December 1914 while in a gun-point stalemate with a German soldier. All three are then forcibly taken into a large spaceship. Inside, they meet with Bill Potts. The Twelfth Doctor, however, doubts she is the real Bill. Upon encountering the ship's glass-like holographic pilot, they are offered freedom in exchange for allowing the ship to return the Captain to the moment of his death. Refusing to allow the Captain to die, they escape and take the First Doctor's TARDIS to the planet Villengard in the far future.

Alone, the Twelfth Doctor meets with the rogue Dalek Rusty, who has taken refuge from other Daleks hunting it. Given access to the Dalek Hivemind, the Doctor learns that the pilot and its ship, known as Testimony, were created on New Earth, designed to extract people from their timelines at the moment of their death, and archive their memories into glass avatars. "Bill" is one such avatar, created from her memories. Seeing no evil to fight, the Doctors agree to return the Captain to his timeline. Upon arrival, the Captain asks the Doctors to keep an eye on his family, introducing himself as Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart (implying that he is the ancestor of the Doctor's frequent ally and lifelong friend, the Brigadier, and his daughter Kate Stewart). As time resumes, the Doctors watch as soldiers on both sides begin singing "Silent Night". The Twelfth Doctor explains to the First that he deliberately shifted the Captain's timeline forward to the start of the Christmas truce, to ensure his life would be spared.

With the Captain saved, the First Doctor informs the Twelfth that he is now prepared to regenerate and says his goodbyes before returning to his TARDIS. He returns to the South Pole for Ben and Polly and finally regenerates into his second incarnation. Now alone with Bill's avatar, the Twelfth Doctor adamantly contends she is not really Bill, but she argues that memories are what defines a person. Bill's avatar restores the Doctor's memories of Clara Oswald before they are joined by Nardole's avatar. The Doctor, however, refuses to give the avatars testimony of his life. They respect his wish to be alone and leave after he embraces them both. The Doctor then returns to the TARDIS and decides to regenerate, but not before relaying some personal advice to his next incarnation.

After the newly regenerated Thirteenth Doctor examines her own reflection, the TARDIS suffers multiple system failures due to damage caused by the delayed regeneration. Falling out of the tumbling ship, the Doctor watches in horror as the time rotor and the console room explode, and the TARDIS dematerialises while she plummets towards the Earth below.

Continuity

"Twice Upon a Time" takes place towards the end of the First Doctor's final serial, The Tenth Planet (first broadcast in October 1966), some of which is shown at the start of the special. During the last episode's final moments, the Doctor leaves his companions Ben and Polly and returns to the TARDIS; they find him collapsed in the console room, where he undergoes his first regeneration. Derek Martinus, the episode's director, reportedly cut a line from the original script which suggested that the Doctor was refusing to give in to the regeneration process. Steven Moffat's 2017 story creates an extended narrative around that part of the story, in which the First Doctor delays his regeneration and encounters his future self — the Twelfth Doctor — in the snowy wasteland.

When Testimony shows the First Doctor images of his future incarnations, clips from both the classic series and the revival are used, including the Third Doctor from Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974); the Fifth Doctor from Arc of Infinity (1983); the Seventh Doctor from The Happiness Patrol (1988); the Eighth Doctor from "The Night of the Doctor" (2013); the Ninth Doctor from "The Parting of the Ways" (2005); and the Tenth Doctor from "The Waters of Mars" (2009).

Testimony also lists several of the Doctor's future titles: "The Shadow of the Valeyard" (from The Trial of a Time Lord, said to be a distillation of the Doctor's darker side), "the Oncoming Storm" ("The Parting of the Ways"), "the Imp of the Pandorica" (a reference to the Eleventh Doctor story "The Pandorica Opens"), "the Beast of Trenzalore" ("The Time of the Doctor"), "the Butcher of Skull Moon" and "the Doctor of War" ("Hell Bent"). "The Destroyer of Skaro" refers to the destruction of the planet in Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), although Skaro was later restored, as explained in "Asylum of the Daleks" (2012) and shown in "The Magician's Apprentice" (2015).

The Weapons Factories of Villengard were originally mentioned in "The Doctor Dances" (Steven Moffat's first Doctor Who story), where the Ninth Doctor implied that he was responsible for their destruction.

Helen Clay, who would become Testimony's glass pilot, was from New Earth and lectured at "New Earth University," a reference to the Tenth Doctor stories "New Earth" and "Gridlock".

Production

Filming

The episode was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay, who wrote and directed the two-part finale of the tenth series, "World Enough and Time" / "The Doctor Falls", respectively. In January 2016, Moffat announced that he would step down as the programme's showrunner after the tenth series, to be replaced by Chris Chibnall beginning with the eleventh series in 2018, but a 2017 Christmas special was not mentioned in the plans at that time. The change in showrunners almost caused the annual episode to be cancelled, as Moffat planned to leave after the tenth series finale and Chibnall did not want to begin his run with a Christmas special. When he learned of Chibnall's plans, Moffat elected to stay long enough to produce one final episode, as he was concerned that the show would lose the coveted 25 December slot in the future if it missed a year. As a result, he had to rewrite his plans for the tenth series finale to allow Capaldi to appear in one more episode.

Near the end of the special, the two Doctors part company and return to their respective TARDISes to undergo regeneration. The First Doctor's regeneration is shown, using original footage from "The Tenth Planet". Although the last episode of the 1966 story is one of the missing episodes of Doctor Who, the regeneration sequence was preserved when it was used in a 1973 edition of the children's magazine programme Blue Peter.

The final scene of "The Doctor Falls" involving David Bradley was filmed as part of the filming of "Twice Upon a Time" in June 2017. Production for "Twice Upon a Time" started on 12 June 2017, and concluded on 10 July 2017. However, the final scene of the episode, in which Whittaker makes her debut as the Doctor, was not filmed until 19 July. The episode had been reportedly titled "The Doctors", before it was announced at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con that it would officially be titled "Twice Upon a Time".

Commercial releases

Home media

The episode was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Region 2 on 22 January 2018, in Region 4 on 7 February 2018, and in Region 1 on 13 February 2018.

"Twice Upon a Time" is also the first Doctor Who episode to be released on the Ultra HD Blu-ray format. It was released in North America on 25 September 2018.

In print

A novelisation of the story, written by Paul Cornell, was released in paperback by BBC Books on 5 April 2018. Also on the same day, a digital edition was released, both as part of the Target Collection.

See also

In Spanish: Twice Upon a Time (Doctor Who) para niños