Eleventh Doctor

The Eleventh Doctor is whimsical and energetic, but also brooding and manipulative. His number one rule for his Companions is that the Doctor always lies, which takes the sneakiness and deceitfulness the Seventh Doctor to another level. Though he initially feels out of place with humans, not understanding basic elements of social interactions, the Eleventh Doctor eventually becomes downright domestic (in his way) with River and, after his relationship with her progresses and she heads to the Library, he becomes quite leery in his interactions with his female allies and Companions. He’s impatient and easily bored, struggling to sit still at any given moment while valuing stability for his Companions in a way he hasn’t previously and traveling with Companions who have (comparatively) normal home lives separate from their multiple-story adventures with him.

Many versions of Clara have existed in the Doctor’s timeline. The first incarnation that we meet is Oswin Oswald (“The Asylum of the Daleks”), the Junior Entertainment Manager of a spaceship that crashed onto the Asylum of the Daleks who has been turned into a Dalek herself, but has created a fantasy/coping mechanism that she is hidden in her ship making souffles. Next is Clara Oswin Oswald (“The Snowmen”), a governess in nineteenth century London who moonlights as a barmaid. The final version we meet is Clara Oswald (“The Bells of Saint John” onward), the original and a babysitter in 21st century London. All three have had adventures with the Doctor, during which the first two both died. The Doctor brings Clara with him onto the TARDIS in the 21st century in the hopes of discovering more about who she is and how and why she keeps showing up in other times.

Kate Stewart is one of the leaders of UNIT, rising through its ranks to become the Head of Scientific Research and working to restructure it to follow her father’s advice that, “science leads”.

Craig is an everyman from the small town of Colchester. When we meet him, he is stuck in a rut, constantly just on the verge of confessing his love for his close friend Sophie (Daisy Haggard), but always afraid of rejection. Looking to rent out an extra room in his apartment, he is surprised to hear a knock at the door before he has even advertised the room. And on the other side of that door is his new roommate: The Doctor.

Kazran Sardick was raised by an abusive father, Elliot, who was absolutely focused on profit. Kazran, like his father before him, controls the airspace of Sardicktown and has grown into a very Ebenezer Scrooge-like character when he first meets the Doctor, who needs his permission so the crashing ship Amy and Rory are on can safely land. The Doctor, presumably inspired by A Christmas Carol (he is a Dickens fanboy, after all), decides to give Kazran the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future treatment, rewriting much of his childhood, to turn him into the kind of man who will allow the ship to land.

River Song is an archaeologist, time traveler, and adventurer whose connection to the Doctor is only revealed slowly over time. When we first meet her in “Silence in the Library”, she has known the Doctor for a long time, and though that adventure ends up being their last together from her perspective, it is only the beginning for the Doctor.

It is implied, over the course of her tenure, that River is the Doctor’s lover (and, if you count an alternate timeline ceremony, his wife) as well as the daughter of his longtime companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams. River and the Doctor, both being time travelers, never meet in the right order, so they rely on River’s TARDIS-blue diary to calibrate themselves and avoid “spoilers”.

Doctor Who may be an international phenomenon, but when it comes to specials, particularly multi-Doctor specials, it doesn’t have the best track record. The Three Doctors (1972-73) , which kicked off the 10th season of the show, is fun, but lacks any significant emotional punch. The Five Doctors (1983), the 20th anniversary special, is a bit of a lark but it not only fails to live up to its title (the Fourth Doctor only barely appears, in one looped clip), it wastes most of its special guest stars. Then there’s The Two Doctors (1985), which doesn’t carry the extra burden of being an anniversary special but still fails to leave much of an impression, despite being an entertaining outing. Throw in the modern series’ spotty history with Christmas and Gap Year specials and current showrunner Steven Moffat’s season seven struggles with pacing, payoffs, and character and “The Day of the Doctor” looked to have a lot riding against it, despite the much-touted return of Tenth Doctor David Tennant and Billie Piper, who played fan-favorite Companion Rose Tyler. Fortunately with “The Day of the Doctor”, all of these fears are proven to be unfounded, as Moffat and director Nick Hurran deliver an exciting, emotional special.

In the last five years of Doctor Who, the Daleks have pulled the Earth out of its orbit and dragged it across the galaxy. The Doctor has witnessed the end of the universe, pulled into nonexistence by the explosion of his TARDIS, and saved only by a bold and completely ludicrous plot to reboot everything with a “Big Bang 2.0.”. The Doctor has survived his own death, despite it being a fixed point in time. He has romanced a woman who he cradled in his arms during her infancy, befriended his future mother-in-law when she was a child, and been saved from a villain infecting his entire timeline by a pretty girl willing to do the same. Doctor Who is, to put it gently, completely nuts, a ludicrous hour of television that bends suspension of disbelief until it begs to break.

Rory is a nurse from Leadworth who has grown up hearing stories of the Doctor from his friend Amy. Assuming him to be an imaginary figure, he is thrown for a bit of a loop when he meets the Doctor in “The Eleventh Hour”.

Jenny is a Victorian-era maid who is involved with Madame Vastra when we first encounter her. They eventually are married and begin functioning as detectives in London, providing the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes and Watson, along with fellow Eleventh Doctor ally Strax, their butler.

Amelia Pond is a child when the TARDIS crash lands in her back yard. When the Doctor attempts to hop the TARDIS forward 5 minutes and overshoots by twelve years, Amy grows up with the Doctor as her childhood imaginary friend. She has somewhat of a difficult childhood, acting out and insisting that the Doctor is real to the point where she’s put into therapy. Amy is incredibly close with her best friend Mels and becomes good friends with Rory as well, and the two eventually start dating. Amy is working as a kissogram and still living in the same house when she next encounters the Doctor as a late teenager.

Strax was a commander in the Sontaran fleet when he encountered the Doctor. To restore the honor of his clone batch, the Doctor sentenced him to service as a nurse, constantly having to help others recover from their wounds rather than inflict them, and this role actually suited him well, despite the bluster he initially demonstrates. Strax quickly grew into a firm ally of the Doctor, a wholly individual Sontaran, unlike his clone batch brethren. Thus far, Strax appears to be an anomaly- all the other Sontarans we meet are solely focused on conquest with very little if any unique or defining characteristics.

We meet Vastra in “A Good Man Goes to War”, when the Doctor calls in his favors to save Amy from the Silence, Madame Kovarian, and the Headless Monks at Demon’s Run. She owes the Doctor for stopping her from going on a rampage through London (and presumably, being killed) after being awoken by construction on the London Underground. Eventually, she managed to build a life in Victorian England, marrying her maid Jenny, becoming a detective, and assisting Scotland Yard with their particularly difficult cases (such as Jack the Ripper).

Madge is a mother of two and wife to Reg, a bomber pilot in WWII. After stumbling across the Doctor and helping him, she falls upon hard times (Reg and his plane go missing over the English Channel). When she wishes that she could give her children one final happy Christmas (before breaking the news of his disappearance to them), the Doctor returns to repay his debt, whisking them off to a winter wonderland (Androzani Minor, of The Caves of Androzani fame) only to become embroiled in a dangerous adventure.

We know a lot of things about The Doctor, even as we still know so very little. We know he travels through time and space in a Police Box that’s bigger on the inside. We know he fights for justice wherever he lands. And we know he hates to travel alone. Throughout the vast majority …