Doctor Who: Steven Moffat's Timey-Wimiest Episodes

The Name of the Doctor is another finale episode, concluding Matt Smith’s last year as the Doctor. It was far from the show's most popular season, but one of its highlights was the clever way it wraps up the "impossible girl" story arc, with the mystery of Clara's multiple appearances and deaths.

It's revealed that one of the Doctor’s enemies, the Great Intelligence, has discovered the Doctor’s grave--a pulsating shard of energy that represents his entire time stream. The Intelligence uses this to try to destroy the Doctor at every moment in his life. Clara courageously follows after, and is thus fractured into countless copies of herself, planted throughout history with the singular goal to save the Doctor.

This is visualized through a delightful Forrest Gump-style reworking of classic footage, in which Clara encounters the Doctor in all his incarnations, including a brand new scene of the First Doctor meeting Clara as he is fleeing Gallifrey.

The final moments of the episode add to its significance by leading directly into the 50th anniversary celebrations that were coming soon after: Clara discovers the Doctor's darkest secret--a heretofore undisclosed incarnation of the Time Lord, who had forfeited the right to be called the “Doctor” when he brought about the final moments of the Last Great Time War…