Doctor Who: 10 Most Underrated Eleventh Doctor Episodes
6. The Name Of The Doctor
The Name Of The Doctor suffers from a problem that's similar to the one holding down The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe: where the latter is one of Moffat's weaker Christmas specials, the former is one of his weaker series finales, and it often goes underappreciated as a result.
That being said, it does have its problems, which mainly stem from its wasted potential. The episode rushes through Trenzalore like it's a video game on easy difficulty, and it could've definitely done with an extra five or ten minutes to flesh things out. Similarly, the Whispermen could've been the show's next great bad guy, but they barely get any screen time and we learn next to nothing about them, so any other Who villain could've been plugged in here and it wouldn't have made much of a difference.
That being said, it isn't really fair that nobody ever talks about this episode, because there's so much good stuff in it. It contains one of the most spine-tingling twists in Doctor Who history when John Hurt's War Doctor is revealed, watching Clara interact with some of the past Doctors is a delight, Jenny's "death" scene is super-duper chilling, and the concept of a gargantuan TARDIS is one of the most interesting ideas in Series 7 - even though it isn't given much screen time.
Again, being a weaker finale doesn't mean it's a bad finale, and the episode is actually really satisfying overall, even if it tried to do too much with not enough time.