Doctor Who: 10 Beautiful Things About 'The Time Of The Doctor'

9. Handles Means More Than You Think

There have been plenty of parallels between Sherlock and the Doctor, especially during last year's Christmas special, when Eleven impersonated Holmes. It's only natural when you look through Steven Moffat's writing credits and notice two rather large peaks. But does the Doctor's Cyberman head, Handles, remind you of Sherlock's skull? If you wish to make a more literary comparison, I offer you Yorick, of Hamlet. And if you've never read/seen Hamlet, try The Lion King first. No Cyber heads in that, but lots of Hakuna Matata. What I'm trying to get at, is that there's a significance in the Doctor carrying around a skull, whether it's a sci-fi skull or not. Skulls are often used to evoke the theme Memento Mori ("Remember you shall die" in English); they're not just used for funereal effect, they're there to show how ephemeral and fleeting life can be. Handles didn't just supply the most surprisingly sad moment of the episode, he brought the Doctor closer to death, in imagery at least. Genius.