The first adventure with a new incarnation of The Doctor is often an exercise in transition.  It’s a tradition that goes back to the very first regeneration, when “Power of the Daleks” was dominated by the difficulty of both Doctor and Companions to adjust to the new status quo.  This latest spin of the regeneration wheel is much anticipated, and perhaps because of the long run-up to Peter Capaldi’s tenure, it feels a bit all over the place.

 

The flirtation between The Doctor and Clara was one of the more grating elements of the latter half of Series 7, even if it’s fairly easy to see how Clara would garner such attention.  It might be fair to say that The Doctor, since the Time War, has been regressing in a lot of ways.  His previous incarnation became more and more attached to his companions during his incredibly long span in that guise, and this was more or less addressed in “The Day of the Doctor”.  It’s a bit out of order, but The Doctor’s post-war incarnations could be associated with stages of grief: The Ninth Doctor’s anger, The Tenth Doctor’s bargaining, The Eleventh Doctor’s denial.

 

“Time of the Doctor” was supposed to have brought The Doctor out of that process and into a renewed state of being: a fresh set of regenerations taking him into the future.  But that doesn’t mean that The Doctor will regenerate without the confusion of sorting out his past incarnations, or that the unusual circumstances don’t have to be addressed.  The end result is that the episode is far more about Clara’s reaction to the change, which means that our understanding of The Twelfth Doctor is incomplete on two fronts.

 

It’s a smart move, from the Clara angle, to have Team Vastra involved in the proceedings.  Not only does it remind us all, yet again, how awesome a Team Vastra series would be, but that they have dealt with The Doctor for a lot longer.  And they are less emotionally invested in how The Doctor looks as opposed to who he is at the core.  They recognize how The Doctor’s internal psychology plays into his appearance, and even hint at how they might tie parts played by Capaldi into the overall mix (a mistake, in my opinion, but there we are).  In essence, Team Vastra is a support system for Clara, but also the audience.

 

The current dynamic serves to redirect one of the issues with Clara’s relationship to The Doctor previously: it came after a long and deep personal arc with Amy Pond, and Moffat’s way of handling that transition was to make Clara even more important than Amy in the fate of the universe.  That was an error; frankly, the massive stakes connected to companions are getting old.  With The Doctor starting more or less fresh, the dynamic needs to change: the transition is vaguely reminiscent of that for Sarah Jane between the Third and Fourth Doctor eras.  Sarah Jane was introduced at the end of the Third Doctor era, but far more remembered for her tenure with the Fourth.  With The Third Doctor, she was always in the shadow of Jo Grant.

 

What held the premiere back a bit as well was the somewhat unnecessary callback to “The Girl in the Fireplace”.  Is there a parallel to The Doctor’s constant regeneration and his apparent quest to find Gallifrey?  Sure, and it’s clear that there is more to these cyborgs that will factor into the season arc.  Therein lies the problem: Moffat’s track record with overly ambitious season arcs is hardly stellar.  The last thing I want to see is Clara taking on grand importance yet again, when simple adventures with The Doctor and Clara are all the audience really wants to see.