Twice Upon a Time (TV story)

Twice Upon a Time
Doctor:	Twelfth Doctor
Featuring:	First Doctor, Bill, Capt Lethbridge-Stewart, Thirteenth Doctor, Ben, Polly, Nardole, Rusty, Clara
Main setting:	Antarctica, December 1986 Ypres, Christmas 1914
Key crew
Writer:	Steven Moffat
Director:	Rachel Talalay
Producer:	Peter Bennett
Release details
Story number:	276
Premiere broadcast:	25 December 2017
Premiere network:	BBC One
Format:	1x60 minute episode
Doctor Who television stories
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Christmas specials
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Twice Upon a Time was the 2017 Doctor Who Christmas special. It was the final episode under showrunner Steven Moffat's tenure, and featured the regeneration of Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor, into Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth.

The First Doctor had his first full appearance on the programme since The Five Doctors. Here, he was portrayed by David Bradley, who had previously played William Hartnell himself in An Adventure in Space and Time. This was the first televised interaction between a "classic" Doctor and a BBC Wales era Doctor since 2007's Time Crash. Archival footage from The Tenth Planet is used to bookmark the First Doctor's place in this story. This was the final adventure for both the First and Twelfth Doctors. Both, in the end, regenerate into their next incarnations. The special also introduced Captain Archibald, a new member of the Lethbridge-Stewart family.

Ben Jackson and Polly Wright make a brief re-reappearance in the programme for the first time since their exit in 1967's The Faceless Ones. Bill Potts joins the two Doctors, and Captain Lethbridge-Stewart, as a Testimony glass avatar. Past companions Nardole and Clara, briefly, make similar appearances. The "good Dalek" Rusty, from Capaldi's second episode, Into the Dalek, makes his second appearance.

Synopsis

Two Doctors stranded in a foreboding snowscape, refusing to face regeneration. In the final chapter of the Twelfth Doctor's adventure, he must face his past to decide his future. It is the end of an era, but the Doctor's journey is only just beginning...

Plot

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Cast

• The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
• The Doctor - David Bradley
• Bill - Pearl Mackie
• The Captain - Mark Gatiss
• Clara - Jenna Coleman
• Nardole - Matt Lucas
• Helen Clay - Nikki Amuka-Bird
• German Soldier - Toby Whithouse
• Polly - Lily Travers
• Ben - Jared Garfield
• Voice of the Daleks - Nicholas Briggs

The Tenth Planet

• The Doctor - William Hartnell
• Polly - Anneke Wills
• Ben - Michael Craze

And introducing Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor

Uncredited

The Tenth Planet

• General Cutler - Robert Beatty
• Krail - Reg Whitehead
• Cyberman Voices - Roy Skelton, Peter Hawkins
• The Doctor - Patrick Troughton

Crew

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References

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Story notes

• The Twelfth Doctor's regeneration has a new visual effect, and even sound effect, to those used previously in the BBC Wales series. This the first regeneration for the Doctor, since the Seventh Doctor's in 1996, to use an effect which is visually distinct from that seen in The Parting of the Ways, with the Ninth Doctor.

Ratings

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Filming locations

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Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

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Continuity

• The Doctor mentions Bill's Cyber-conversion and apparent death, (TV: World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls) and Bill explains how Heather saved her. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
• Bill reminds the Doctor about Heather and the sentient oil. (TV: The Pilot)
• The Doctor is well aware of the consequences that would arise from the premature death of his predecessor and the resulting erasure of his deeds. (TV: Turn Left, The Name of the Doctor)
• The Doctor was present for the Christmas truce of 1914 earlier in his first incarnation (PROSE: The Little Drummer Boy) as well as during his fifth (PROSE: Never Seen Cairo) and ninth incarnations. (COMIC: The Forgotten)
• The Doctor once more explains why he ran away from Gallifrey. (TV: Heaven Sent)
• The Doctor meets Rusty again. (TV: Into the Dalek)
• Helen Clay is from New Earth. (TV: New Earth, Gridlock)
• The Doctor holds a Dalek Eyestalk. (TV: The Wedding of River Song, The Time of the Doctor)
• The Doctor is referred to as "the Doctor of War". (TV: A Good Man Goes to War, The Name of the Doctor, The Day of the Doctor) The Testimony also calls the Doctor by other titles, as did the Daleks, (TV: The Parting of the Ways, Asylum of the Daleks) and the Great Intelligence. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)
• The Doctor encounters his first incarnation. He has experienced such before, (TV: The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, The Day of the Doctor) and also struggles to remember the encounter. (TV: Time Crash)
• The Doctor once more pilots his predecessor's TARDIS. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
• The Doctors banter about their differences. (TV: Time Crash, The Day of the Doctor)
• The Twelfth Doctor favourably remarks about the First Doctor's desktop theme in his TARDIS. The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors did the same regarding the War Doctor's TARDIS. Likewise, the First Doctor criticises the Twelfth Doctor's desktop theme just as the Tenth did the Eleventh's. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
• The events of The Tenth Planet are referred to.
• The Testimony shows the Doctors the amount of times they have become associated with wars. Notably, events from The Waters of Mars, Journey's End, The Day of the Doctor, The Name of the Doctor.
• The Eleventh Doctor's conflict at Trenzalore is mentioned by the Testimony, (TV: The Time of the Doctor) as is the Pandorica, (TV: The Pandorica Opens) the Last Great Time War, (TV: Dalek et al.) and the destruction of Skaro. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
• The Doctor uses his astral map (TV: The Web Planet) and the Tardis databank (TV: Castrovalva)
• The Doctor mentions the Daleks' Pathweb. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks, The Time of the Doctor)
• The Doctor once more references River Song's words from her diary. (TV: Extremis, The Doctor Falls)
• The Doctors promise to check up on the family of Lethbridge-Stewart. (TV: The Web of Fear, et al.)
• The Twelfth Doctor regains his memories of Clara. (TV: Hell Bent, For Tonight We Might Die, The Pilot)
• Regeneration energy has previously dealt severe damage to the Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: The End of Time)

Home video releases

DVD releases

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Blu-ray releases

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Digital releases

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External links

• Official Twice Upon a Time page on the Doctor Who website