They respect his wish to be alone and leave after he embraces them both. The Doctor, however, refuses to give the avatars testimony of his life. Bill's avatar restores the Doctor's memories of Clara Oswald before they are joined by Nardole's avatar. 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. He returns to the South Pole for Ben and Polly and finally regenerates into his second incarnation. 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. 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. As time resumes, the Doctors watch as soldiers on both sides begin singing ' Silent Night'. 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). Seeing no evil to fight, the Doctors agree to return the Captain to his timeline. 'Bill' is one such avatar, created from her memories. 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. The special has received generally positive reviews from critics.Īlone, the Twelfth Doctor meets with the rogue Dalek Rusty, who has taken refuge from other Daleks hunting it. 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. After the special's broadcast, Moffat was succeeded as executive producer and showrunner by Chris Chibnall. '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. 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. 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. 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. ' 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. Expression error: Missing operand for <=.

Doctor who twice upon a time