An enigmatic warning from a serial killer leads Madame Vastra to initiate a psychic conference with Jenny, Strax, Clara and River Song. But the Paternoster Gang has fallen into a trap set by the Great Intelligence, who despatches his monstrous Whisper Men to kidnap them. He plans to lure the Doctor to Trenzalore -- the planet which, at some point in his future, will become the Time Lord's last resting place. There, the Great Intelligence will take his ultimate revenge, while the mystery of Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl, will finally be unravelled. But not before the Doctor's darkest secret is laid bare...

From the outset, Doctor Who executive producer Steven Moffat knew that the final episode of Season Thirty-Three would have to accomplish two major goals. First, it had to wrap up the mystery of the “Impossible Girl”: how the Doctor could have met distinct versions of Clara Oswald in the season premiere, Asylum Of The Daleks; the 2012 Christmas special, The Snowmen; and the first 2013 adventure, The Bells Of Saint John. But perhaps even more importantly, the finale would serve as a launching pad for a special episode which would air later in 2013 as a celebration of Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary. Moffat was keen for this event to do more than just look back on the programme's first five decades; it would also introduce original elements to the mythos and thrust the narrative into fertile new territory.

As such, Moffat began to contemplate the Time War: the apocalyptic conflict between the Time Lords and the Daleks devised by his predecessor, Russell T Davies, as an unseen event which had taken place between Doctor Who's cancellation in 1989 and its return in 2005. The Time War had culminated in the Doctor committing a heretofore unspecified act, which had seemingly wiped out every Time Lord and Dalek. As a result, in addition to relieving the revived Doctor Who of burdensome continuity, the Time War had framed the character arc of the Ninth Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston, who worked through his survivor's guilt with the help of his companion, Rose Tyler. Echoes of the Time War continued to be felt throughout David Tennant's tenure as the Tenth Doctor -- most notably in his final story, 2009's The End Of Time, which saw the temporary resurrection of the power-mad High Council of the Time Lords. However, since Matt Smith had become the Eleventh Doctor, the Time War had seldom been mentioned.

Steven Moffat found it difficult to envisage any Doctor resorting to genocide

Moffat felt that revisiting the Time War would be an effective hook for the anniversary special. It had now played out its role in helping to make Doctor Who accessible to a wide audience, and he was concerned about the lingering implications for the Doctor's character. Fundamentally, Moffat found it difficult to envisage any incarnation of the Doctor resorting to genocide, even in the face of overwhelming odds. As such, he began to formulate a storyline wherein the Eleventh and Tenth Doctors travelled back to the climax of the Time War to confront the Ninth Doctor. It would ultimately be revealed that the Doctor's recollection of his actions at that moment would not reflect what had actually occurred.

The last episode of Season Thirty-Three, then, would inspire the Doctor's return to what he believed to be the worst decision of his lives. The pivotal action would take place on the planet Trenzalore, which Moffat had previously referenced in the closing moments of the Season Thirty-Two finale, The Wedding Of River Song, as part of a prophetic statement about the Doctor's future. In Moffat's original conception, the Doctor would explicitly identify the time rift in his tomb on Trenzalore as leading back to the final day of the Time War. Clara would emerge from it on her own -- rather than being rescued by the Doctor, as in later iterations -- and would start screaming that she now knew who the Doctor really was. This convinced the Doctor to return to the Time War via the rift, leading into the anniversary special.

The title of the Season Thirty-Three finale was always The Name Of The Doctor, and Moffat's first draft was completed at the start of November 2012. To add to the burgeoning sense of celebration, Moffat was eager to revisit various elements of Doctor Who's past. This would include the Paternoster Gang -- Vastra, Jenny and Strax -- who had last been seen in The Crimson Horror two episodes earlier, as well as River Song, whose most recent appearance was in the mid-season finale, The Angels Take Manhattan. Furthermore, the main villain would be the Great Intelligence, whose return in the form of Dr Simeon had been foreshadowed by a cameo in The Bells Of Saint John. As a reimagined version of a classic nemesis -- having originally debuted in 1967's The Abominable Snowmen -- the Great Intelligence was representative of Doctor Who in both its twentieth-century and twenty-first-century incarnations. Ever determined not to dwell solely on the past, however, Moffat also wanted The Name Of The Doctor to introduce a new monster, which led him to associate the Great Intelligence with the macabre Whisper Men.

A distinguishing feature of The Name Of The Doctor would be the copious use of clips from old episodes, into which Clara or the Great Intelligence would be inserted. Amongst them, Moffat suggested using Amy falling from the Pandorica in Season Thirty-One's The Big Bang and the Doctor being shot at Lake Silencio in Season Thirty-Two's The Impossible Astronaut. In both cases, a crewmember had inadvertently appeared in shot, and Moffat thought that carefully-staged cutaways could give the impression that this was actually Clara.

An abandoned notion was the arrival of an earlier version of the TARDIS on Trenzalore

Moffat's first draft depicted Clara living in a remote cottage, where the TARDIS lay abandoned in the garden. There she would awaken from dreams in which the various echoes of herself interacted with the many incarnations of the Doctor. As of the second draft, this setting was replaced by an empty void. Another abandoned notion was the arrival of an earlier manifestation of the TARDIS on Trenzalore, from which an unidentified figure emerged. Moffat also considered resolving the puzzle of the help-line woman who had provided Clara with the TARDIS phone number in The Bells of Saint John. He contemplated revealing that this mystery figure was, in fact, an aged version of one of Clara's echoes, but he eventually decided to wait until Season Thirty-Four to revisit the mystery.

At one point, there would have been more substantial appearances by Oswin -- the version of Clara introduced in Asylum Of The Daleks -- and the nineteenth-century Clara of The Snowmen. Oswin would have told her mother about feeling that she belonged amongst the stars, leading to her decision to join the Space Corps. Similarly, the Victorian-era Clara would have realised that she was meant to be caring for children -- referring to the original Clara's role as a nanny to the Maitland family -- prompting her decision to seek work as a governess.

The majority of The Name Of The Doctor was made as part of the eleventh and final recording block for Season Thirty-Three. The director was Saul Metzstein, for whom this would be his final Doctor Who episode; he had recently completed Block Six, which consisted of The Snowmen and The Crimson Horror. As with the three previous episodes to go before the cameras, Denise Paul took over as producer. The job's regular incumbent, Marcus Wilson, was busy laying the groundwork for the anniversary special, and would be credited as series producer.

Both scheduling constraints and the finale's complex requirements meant that the production of The Name Of The Doctor would be unusual in several respects. First, it was decided that Block Eleven would overlap with the last week of work on the season's penultimate story, Nightmare In Silver, which was being made as Block Ten. Furthermore, the episode's concluding moments would not be recorded until Spring 2013, during the making of the anniversary special. For this reason, and because many major details of the special had not yet been finalised, the shooting script ended at the point where River disappeared and the Doctor entered the rift.

The first day of filming for The Name Of The Doctor was November 16th, with Strax's pub brawl taking place at the Coal Exchange in Cardiff Bay. Metzstein had to organise the early part of his shooting schedule very carefully, to account for the days when Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman would still be needed for Nightmare In Silver. The next week was confined to Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff. November 19th was spent on Vastra's psychic conference, and the 20th on the Paternoster Gang's confrontation with the Great Intelligence and the Whisper Men at the crypt entrance. Various inserts were taped on the 21st, after which it was back to the crypt entrance on the 22nd for the arrival of the Doctor and Clara. Recording on November 23rd and 24th took place in the Doctor's burial chamber -- a redressed version of the standing TARDIS set. The 23rd not only marked Doctor Who's forty-ninth anniversary, but also the end of Richard E Grant's involvement as the Great Intelligence.

After a day off on Sunday the 25th, work on November 26th focussed on a residence on Beatty Avenue in Cardiff, which posed as the Maitland home. Some inserts in the burial chamber were also completed at Uskmouth Power Station in Newport. The 27th was spent at Roath Lock, where Metzstein captured shots of Clara's many echoes appearing throughout the Doctor's timeline. Some of this footage was achieved by recording on physical sets, with stand-ins representing various incarnations of the Doctor -- as well as his granddaughter, Susan -- while other instances were created using green screen effects to insert Coleman into archival Doctor Who footage.

November 27th also saw the recording of the first of two prequels for The Name Of The Doctor. Entitled Clarence And The Whispermen -- although the monsters' name was elsewhere spelt as two words -- it depicted the serial killer, Clarence DeMarco, obtaining the coordinates for Trenzalore. Intended for inclusion on the Season Thirty-Three DVD/Blu-ray release, the prequel was made by Nightmare In Silver director Stephen Woolfenden at Cardiff Castle in Cardiff. Accordingly, Vastra's meeting with Clarence for The Name Of The Doctor was filmed at the same location on the 28th, alongside scenes in the catacombs. Earlier that day, material in Vastra's home was recorded at Merthyr Mawr House in Merthyr Mawr.

The end of principal photography on The Name Of The Doctor drew the production of Season 33 to a close

All of the remaining work for The Name Of The Doctor took place at Roath Lock. On November 29th, Metzstein taped shots of Clara spinning through the void against a green screen, and of the nineteenth-century Clara as a baby and a child. The latter role was played by Sophie Downham, who had appeared as the modern-day Clara's younger self in the online prequel for The Bells Of Saint John. The rest of the day was spent on the surface of Trenzalore; this work continued to the 30th, when sequences in the lower level of the tomb and in the TARDIS were also taped. The TARDIS set remained in use on December 1st, alongside the Gallifreyan workshop. Metzstein also taped more glimpses of Clara's echoes, including the shot of Oswin looking out on a futuristic city. The end of principal photography on The Name Of The Doctor drew the production of Season Thirty-Three to a close.

As the calendar advanced into 2013, plans for the anniversary special were beginning to coalesce. In mid-February, however, Eccleston informed Moffat that he had decided against reprising his role as the Ninth Doctor. Moffat briefly considered positioning Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor as the incarnation which had ended the Time War, but he felt that these actions were inconsistent with McGann's performance in his only televised appearance, Doctor Who (1996).

Ironically, the solution to Moffat's conundrum was prompted by an earlier Doctor Who anniversary special: 1983's The Five Doctors. Although it had been developed with the intention of bringing together all of the Doctors who had appeared in the programme to that point, these plans were foiled from the outset by the fact that William Hartnell, the First Doctor, had passed away in 1975. The production team of the day elected to recast Hartnell's role, with Richard Hurndall taking over as the First Doctor. Moffat had come to feel that, while Hurndall had largely failed to recreate the First Doctor, he had succeeded in introducing an entirely new and credible incarnation, which could have been a hitherto unknown Doctor. This inspired the notion that the Doctor who had ended the Time War could have been an incarnation referred to nowhere else -- indeed, one who had turned his back on being “the Doctor”, tying into the themes already seeded into The Name Of The Doctor.

Moffat recognised the opportunity not only to cast a big name as this new Doctor -- bringing extra lustre to the anniversary special -- but also to revisit the classic image of the Doctor as an older man. Within a month, the role of the “War Doctor” had gone to John Hurt, an Academy Award nominee for both Midnight Express and The Elephant Man who had become a science-fiction icon as Kane, the astronaut who died when an extra-terrestrial burst out of his chest in Ridley Scott's seminal 1979 thriller Alien. On television, Hurt had become a household name following his landmark portrayal of Quentin Crisp in the 1975 telefilm The Naked Civil Servant.

The closing shot which introduced John Hurt as the War Doctor was completed on April 5th

Recording for the special -- ultimately called The Day Of The Doctor -- was scheduled to begin at the end of March. Immediately beforehand, additional filming related to The Name Of The Doctor was undertaken. The first matter was a second prequel called She Said, He Said, which was written by Moffat and directed by Metzstein. It took the form of two short monologues, in which Clara and the Doctor each mused about the other's secrets. She Said, He Said was recorded on March 25th, on a “dreamscape” set at Roath Lock which incorporated elements from various Season Thirty-Three stories. Most of the closing scene for The Name Of The Doctor, set on the “battlefield” of the Doctor's timeline, was then recorded in the studio on the 26th. A sequence ultimately omitted from the day's work would have seen Clara glimpse the Eighth Doctor's regeneration into the War Doctor; instead, these events would be depicted in an online prequel for The Day Of The Doctor called The Night Of The Doctor. Finally, the closing shot which introduced Hurt as the War Doctor was completed on April 5th, during work on The Day Of The Doctor at Roath Lock.

The finished version of The Name Of The Doctor boasted a cornucopia of video and audio clips from throughout Doctor Who's long history. Most notably, in the sequence where the Gallifreyan version of Clara prompted the First Doctor to steal the TARDIS, Hartnell appeared courtesy of two colourised shots from the second and fourth episodes of 1964's The Aztecs, together with dialogue from part five of 1965's The Web Planet. Clara and/or Dr Simeon were also inserted into clips featuring the Second Doctor (from The Five Doctors and 1968's The Mind Robber), the Third Doctor (also from The Five Doctors), the Fourth Doctor (from 1978's The Invasion Of Time), the Fifth Doctor (from 1983's Arc Of Infinity), and the Seventh Doctor (from 1987's Dragonfire), with a Yeti appearing from 1968's The Web Of Fear.

Running two hundred and eleven seconds, She Said, He Said was made available through the BBC's Red Button service after the broadcast of Nightmare In Silver on May 11th. The same day, it was discovered that a shipping error in the United States had resulted in two hundred and ten purchasers receiving the Doctor Who: Series Seven, Part Two Blu-ray set -- which included The Name Of The Doctor -- more than a week early. The BBC quickly took to social media to implore these fans not to reveal the finale's secrets, and their request was respected. Meanwhile, on the 12th, Moffat revealed to the press assembled at that evening's BAFTA Television Awards that Doctor Who had been renewed for its thirty-fourth season.

The May 18th transmission of The Name Of The Doctor fell on one of the more significant dates of the BBC One broadcast schedule, with Doctor Who leading into The National Lottery Live and then the 2013 Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest. With Season Thirty-Three at an end, The Voice UK would become the next regular occupant of the Doctor Who timeslot. Meanwhile, the 18th also saw the BBC confirm Moffat's announcement that Season Thirty-Four had been commissioned. But first, there would be The Day Of The Doctor, and various other commemorations of Doctor Who's half-century that had not yet been revealed to the public. As the first glimpse of the War Doctor's countenance faded from television screens, it was clear that the Season Thirty-Three finale's seismic revelations were just the start of the festivities surrounding the golden anniversary...

• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #37, Autumn 2014, “The Name Of The Doctor” by Andrew Pixley, Panini UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #38, Autumn 2014, “The Day Of The Doctor” by Andrew Pixley, Panini UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #74, 2018, “Story 239: The Name Of The Doctor”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks Ltd.