Spoiler: His real name's Susan

Yes, that's the big shocker with the revelation of the Doctor's true name, Susan: He is his own granddaughter! Wait, what? We didn't find out? Well, I still think that's roughly how much sense the reveal would have made, so maybe it's for the best.

"The Name of the Doctor" by Steven Moffat, directed by Saul Metzstein. Spoilers after the cut.

Well all in all I thought "The Name of the Doctor" was a pretty satisfying episode, a relief at the end of a dodgy series, and the Clara reveal was pretty good. I mean, it made internal sense and gave a good reason to have all those flashbacks to earlier Doctors that fit in with the upcoming anniversary. But let's not pretend the "no I'm totally not trolling with the title LOL" from Steven Moffat wasn't trolling. I am happier with the Doctor's birth name being a mystery (and essentially irrelevant) but although big secrets were revealed we were obviously being led to expect that they would be connected to the name.

It's a shame that John Hurt's role in the specials was spoilered onto the net in advance. By, er, John Hurt as far as I can tell. One upside of the title's fakeout is the way it's used to set him up as a different regeneration between McGann and Eccleston but not part of the numbering sequence - the Moff knows fans are far too fond of calling Eccleston, Tennant and Smith Nine, Ten and Eleven to give that up (besides, Moffat himself has used "Eleven" as a meme multiple times for Smith's tenure.)

I thought the timeline contained The Doctor's past and future though, so why has Clara only met eleven Doctors at the end? Even taking out John Hurt's regeneration should leave him with 11 more regenerations (one of his own plus the extra 10 River Song gave him in "Let's Kill Hitler.") I'm guessing if we do get an answer it'll be that because the work of her splintered selves is done, Clara's memory has reverted to where the Doctor's timeline was when she last left him. Because of reasons.

So the Doctor kind of told the River Song backup to give up and die? I'm not very clear on what happened there. Or on her "spoilers..." at the end. She was asking how she could still have a telepathic link if Clara was dead. And Clara wasn't dead. So... no mystery means no spoilers, surely?

Still, good one overall, now let's see if the feature-length anniversary special will live up to it or mess it up...