Did you ever think, Doctor, that you would get so old that you would outlive your own race?
And did you ever think, Doctor Who, that your idiosyncratic charms would make you the longest-running science fiction television show ever?
Today, that longest-running show turned a 50 year corner with “The Day of the Doctor,” a multi-Doctor affair that explored one of the most theorized-about, personality-defining moments in the character’s history. We haven’t been this excited about a cultural event since the Beatles reunited in that alternate universe that we sometimes visit. Did the special live up to our expectations?
Note: We’ll be updating this post in the next couple of hours with our deeper impressions of the show, but we’ve enabled the comments for those who just finished the episode and are eager to share their view.
From this point onward, you should expect FULL SPOILERS for “The Day of the Doctor.”
Chris:
I CANNOT DEAL WITH ALL THESE FEELINGS. I was actually really looking forward to thinking a little more critically about the 50th anniversary episode. I had things that I thought might happen, which also tended to be things I was dreading. Stuff like Rose and the Tenth Doctor being handled by a Steven Moffat who has now grown accustomed to Eleventh Doctor and Whomever, or draining the meaning that the Time War gave to the rebooted show.
In fact, it was downright eerie how natural it felt to accept David Tennant back in his role, as if it hasn’t been nearly four years since we’ve seen him fall. Nothing about it felt forced, even though it was by the very measure of having an anniversary special that brought the Doctors back together. From the moment he bursts out of the TARDIS on a horse to him accusing Elizabeth the 1st of being a shapeshifting alien, and onward and onward, he’s absolutely note perfect.
I was even won over by the episode’s use of Rose as the “conscience” of the Moment. It was fairly clear from the previews that Billie Piper was going to be limited to the role of some sort of “Bad Wolf” ghost, and that she and David Tennant wouldn’t actually get to interact. Although this prediction bore out to be true, Moffat still uses Billie Piper to act essentially as the conscious of the Time War Doctor, which is more true to the character than her subsequent reappearances in Russell T. Davies’ latter episodes.
Moffat turns in an exemplary performance throughout the episode (it’s weird to call it an episode when it was of movie-length and movie-spectacle), eschewing the throw-every-weird-idea-at-the-wall style that usually makes up the keynote episodes in Moffat’s reign and just letting the story breathe every now and then. One of the hallmarks of the Davies’ era is that even when he was having the Doctor float through the air with the entire planet screaming his name he still made time to let the actors and characters play out the central human drama powering the conflict. Amidst the insanity of the proceedings, “The Day of the Doctor,” takes time over and over to just let these brilliant characters be present with each other.
In fact, it’s this careful pacing that allows the special to nail its totally batshit, wonderful, marvelous, everything-I’d-hoped-for ending. And it’s the same thrill that allows us to overlook how little the ending makes sense. So he didn’t actually kill Gallifrey, just sent it somewhere? But he remembers killing it so all that wonderful PTSD that Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant portrayed can still be valid? Fine. I am fine with this! As long as we’re not erasing the efforts of past Doctors, I’m good. Also HOLY SHIT HELLO EVERY INCARNATION OF THE DOCTOR.
It also put a nice emotional button on the proceedings. “I’ve always been going home, the long way ’round.”
Steven Moffat promised that “The Day of the Doctor” would be an episode that actually looks forward to the future of the show, and dammit… I am more excited about what’s to come than ever before.
In the end, as a Doctor Who fan, this joyous feeling is everything I wanted from the 50th anniversary special.
Emily:
Time to shriek talk about what just went down.
The entirely of Who fandom has been awaiting this moment with what seemed to be equal parts trepidation and crazed excitement and now it’s here and it was pretty damned lovely.
The original opening. YES. FOREVER YES.
Also, Clara works at a school right next to the original Foreman junkyard? Sorry, tearing up a little already.
Still not sold on actually seeing any part of the Time War. The way it was spoken about before now gave the impression of a type of war that humans could not conceive of, and that is ultimately more interesting. I suppose we can make argument that these more abstract aspects of it have already taken place, but its still a little anticlimactic to watch Gallifreyans getting gunned down in the streets.
The use of the Bad Wolf here is honestly everything I could have hoped for. (Except she doesn’t interact with Ten. Sorry, got sad again.) Sure, it’s sad that Rose isn’t really Rose, but what has been added to her mythos as a companion is something far greater. More on that later.
Man, give a second-long cameo to Elizabeth I in a Shakespeare episode and you’ll spend seasons explaining that one away. And now we finally have the whole story! The so-very-Ten story—how did we not guess that he accidentally proposed marriage as a clever ruse to expose a Zygon? Obviously. (And how happy are we that David Tennant finally got to face the Zygons like he always wanted.) Oh, Ten. He back, he’s brilliant, he’s all babbly and exactly we’ve missed. It’s like he never left.
I’m sorry, Kate Stewart is so cool. And it’s so nice to feel like the Brigadier is still around through her. The fact that she exists in general will always make me happy.
That moment of face-off between Ten and Eleven, counting Gallifrey’s dead children… we finally get a succinct point of division between the two, how Eleven has been pushing off his guilt in order to survive. And in the Zygon conflict we get to see exactly why the universe still needs the Doctor. John Hurt puts it perfectly—how many people are saved because of his regret?
At the end of the day it’s still a little sad to know that John Hurt’s Doctor was clearly meant to be Christopher Eccleston. It would have been so beautiful to have this as his personal journey accompanied by the Bad Wolf, the one who plants herself across the universe to keep him safe. The epic symmetry. Even so, John Hurt is surprisingly lovable in the role, something that I certainly didn’t expect. He brings all the gravity of an older Doctor, something that is far more reminiscent of the classic multi-Doctor episodes. (Ironic again that the younger versions of the Doctor in these specials are always the older, scoldy ones.)
ROSE. ROSE SAVED THE DOCTOR BY BAD WOLFING HERSELF INTO THE WORST PART OF HIS LIFE. I mean, it’s the Moment, but it’s also her. This is the most beautiful thing, I will never get over it, no, leave me alone here with my feelings.
And all the Doctors and OH HAI THERE PETER CAPALDI. I just screamed at the television—that is how you tease a regeneration. Nothing will ever be cooler than that.
And then Tom Baker is here and the Doctor tells himself that he goes back to his favorite faces and suddenly you can imagine all your favorites coming back, and it’s just the most uplifting gorgeous feeling, and it’s nice that they can maybe bring Gallifrey back after everything and still not remember, or not, whatever, I don’t care, life is wonderful and Doctor Who.
Doctor Who forever.
Wibble wibble… let me get my thoughts together and comment again in a bit!! That was a bit of something, eh?
Did they just set up for the end of the Doctor? They seemed to re-affirm that there’s only 13 regenerations.
Nice to see Tom Baker finding a new hobby for the Doctor to retire to.
I thought it was wicked! The inclusion of Tennant and Piper, Baker, Capaldi – to me it came full circle. Epic and funny, nostalgic and innovating. If this is not used as an opportunity to rejuvenate the mythology of the Doctor, I’m going to weep. Also, John Hurt is an absolute legend!
I thought it was cute but I should have done the rewatch as I was confused on some points but over all I liked it.
Have to watch it again there was a lot to digest.
It was brilliant! And of course, bringing Gallifrey back makes it a little less tricky when it comes to the Doctor getting a complete new life cycle of regenerations. We know that they can do that. They offered it to the Master originally in The Five Doctors and it seemed they did give him a new life cycle to bring him back for the Time War. So all the Doctor has to do is spend his time as Capaldi’s Doctor finding the Time Lords and bringing them back properly so he too, can be given a new life cycle.
@5 I agree that it looks like they are going to do something like that. Looking forward to seeing some more time lords in the future :)
Also, at last we get the story behind the very end of the second episode of series 3 ‘The Shakespeare Code’.
And I liked how they included billie piper without having to open the closed of alternative dimension, again.
I liked how the story of the three Doctors coming together was presented by the Bad Wolf/Moment acting as the Ghost of Christmas-yet-to-come. It made the melding feel a thousand times less hamfisted than it has in past multiDoctor specials. The story was really well done, and I loved how Queen Elizabeth toyed with the Doc.
But I wondered what happened in the gap between the last series episode and the special, after the Doctor reached into his own time stream to rescue Clara. I figured at the cliffhanger that we’d watch him guide her back out, overcoming some obstacle or other (or dragging her through his memory of the Time War, hopefully unscathed). Or is that where we still are?
So the Warrior got into the TARDIS and regenerated into Nine. Ten regenerated not much later at all, as this is one of the knockaround adventures he refers to when he runs into the Ood in “The End of Time.” We know Eleven is about to regenerate, too. This was a deadly little trip.
Lastly, I would very much like the BBC to find more excuses to unleash Tom Baker on the show. He still produces the world’s finest ham.
I enjoyed it! I missed Tennant. Nice to see a bunch of doctors are once. This was a fan-service episode, no doubt about it.
But….it wasn’t high-stakes and sad enough for me! Everything got tied up in a nice little bow. I think that’s why I enjoyed Ten’s run much more. In each arc, I always felt there was a ton at stake and tons of heart-wrenching moments. Like Rose getting stuck, Donna’s end, the episode Midnight, etc. I just didn’t care as much, something super bad (like a death) needed to happen so I could believe that the Doctor was going to push the button at the end. You never doubt for a second that he was not going to do it. Everything is worked out too well which Moffat’s problem I suppose.
Yeah if Moffat stays….this show will never be the show I feel in love with. RTD knew how to pull the heartstrings…Moffat is better at making episodes that make sense. If only they’d collaborate or something.
Still…amazing episode!
@8: I’m glad it wasn’t sad. Using pain and loss as a story device has been done to death — it’s predictable. Why can’t joy and triumph be just as powerful? The Doctor’s spent the past eight years moping about the Time War — I’m glad to see that weight lifted.
Loved it. Loved it. I laughed at the jokes and I cheered at the climax (well, I really laughed, I didn’t actually cheer out loud) and there was Queen Elizabeth and the Tom Baker cameo and and and…. The only thing that I think would have improved it would be Christopher Eccleston participating. But they did the best they could given his refusal.
This version of the end of the Time War seems kind of incompatible with what we were shown in “The End of Time”, but frankly I like this version better so I’ll take it.
“This version of the end of the Time War seems kind of incompatible with what we were shown in “The End of Time”, but frankly I like this version better so I’ll take it.”
It matches perfectly. TEOT is taking place simultaneously from the Time Lords POV. We’re were told in thatepisode that the Doctor has The Moment is about to use it to end the War and in this episode we see what that actually meant.
I really, really liked this episode. It opensup all sorts of possibilities with a search for Gallifrey and all sorts of loveliness.
It seemed to confirm that Tenant was 11, Smith was 12 and Capaldi is 13.
This has just been put up on the bbc dr who pages, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/po1m3kfy
Titled “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot”.
It is quite funny and has a lot of guest appearances (worth watching to the end of the credits).
But 10th doctor said himself that he won’t remember that he actually saved Gallifrey. He will only remember destroying it. Only 12th and onwards will actually know the truth, as it happened in 12th’s timeline.
In fact it’s the school that Susan was attending in the very first episode. (And which guest starred in “Remembrance of the Daleks” in the 25th season.) We got just long enough a look at the sign with the school’s name for me to notice that the Governor of its Board of Directors is one “I. Chesterton”.
And on top of all that awesome goodness, what has to be an extra shout-out to fans of Moffat’s earlier work on “Coupling”. It’s there in the picture at the top of this article. John Hurt. Moment.
I don’t think the Time War scenes were well represented either. At the very least, the Time Lord who were killed should have started regenerating, the energy of the regeneration increasing the overall destruction.
I knew Peter Capaldi would appear at some point. But I was disappointed that Eccleston wasn’t even there for the regeneration scene, so that he doesn’t only appear in the episode as archive footage, even if it is for a few seconds.
Nevertheless, awesome episode.
I’m just glad the Doctor finally learned to let Zygons be Zygons.
I LOVED this thing. So very very much. :D I totally clapped my hands and squealed like a little kid at the ending. Thank you, BBC! Thank you, Doctor Who! What a BEAUTIFUL celebration of the 50th anniversary!
Sihaya@7: “World’s finest ham”. Hee hee hee hee! I had Baker’s appearance accidentally spoiled for me but I’d TOTALLY forgotten it by the climax–and only when we got to the very end did I finally realize OH WAIT…
jere7my@19: LOL!
I have more squee over here if anybody wants to come over and visit! I’ll break out the jelly babies and jammy dodgers ->
http://www.angelahighland.com/2013/11/23/day-of-the-doctor-reaction-post/
At the end of the day it’s still a little sad to know that John Hurt’s Doctor was clearly meant to be Christopher Eccleston.
Was it? Early in Eccleston’s first episode, when the Doctor first visits Rose’s home he looks in a mirror and checks out his new face. “It could have been worse. Look at me ears.” Not something you’d expect from someone who hadn’t just regenerated recently.
@18: Regeneration isn’t a guaranteed thing. A Time Lord who’s mortally ill or wounded and on the brink of death can regenerate, but one who’s killed instantly won’t have an opportunity to do so. True, in “The Stolen Earth” we saw the Doctor shot by a Dalek blaster and linger long enough to begin regenerating, but it must have been a glancing blow.
Besides, at this point the Daleks would’ve been at war with the Time Lords for, subjectively, millennia. Surely they would’ve long since upgraded their weapons to kill Gallifreyans decisively and without the prospect of regeneration.
@19 Good one!
Regarding the episode, so many good moments, I really liked it, but I can’t really discuss it intelligently at this point, because SO much happened so fast. Moffat said it would change the direction of the show, and it really did, in a way I am looking forward to.
It seems silly to me that people try to portary the 2005 series on as being the same series as before. There’s a pretty distinct break. Dr. Who is hardly one show any more than Star Trek is.
Quick Synopsis of what we got from the theatre experience:
1. Sontaran training film about theatre etiquette (torture for using recording devices, Strax loves eating popcorn because he hears their screams).
2. Eleven welcomes us to the 100th anniversary showing in 27-D. (What, it’s only 3D? How boring). Instructs us to put on our glasses
3. Ten also instructs us, apologizes ahead of time for the chins.
3D effects were fairly rough at the beginning of the show. Episode didn’t appear to be shot at movie resolution, so some aspects were fairly rough looking.
Afterwards, we got a ~15 minute documentary about the making of the special. The narrator reveal got a nice round of applause.
Biggest cheers were for Capaldi’s 1/2 second, Tom Baker, and Tennant’s device that goes ‘BING’.
They almost gave an explanation for the Doctor being able to keep regenerating when the interface told John Hurt that his consequences for destroying everything would be to live when he didn’t want to. Maybe she/it went ahead and did it anyway.
Sure, there are holes here and there. It was still an intensely emotionally satisfying special (especially with all the doctors arriving, including Capaldi). The Tom Baker cameo especially had me smiling (he was the doctor when I first started watching as a child in Europe in the seventies).
So far, I’ve watched it all the way through twice, and I plan to watch it several more times. Plus, I taped ‘Adventures in Time and Space’ and will be watching it too.
Loved it.
So, a monster that walked out of images, smashed statues, and hid, pretending to be statues. Am I the only one who was expecting angels under the covers?
We all had dreams and wish lists for the 50th and didn’t Mr Moffat deliver!
First the time war. Wonderfully shot, effects where you could actually tell what was happening. Daleks. Lots if daleks.
As for the argument about not regenerating when shot, why do people forget that every Timelord is Gallifreyan, but not every Gallifreyan is a Timelord…..
John hurt….bought some of the gravitas of the older grouchy doctors (Mr Hartnell we’re looking at you). Love the comment about how many people had been saved because of their grief.
Rose/the moment. A nice touch. Especially “the sound of the tardis brings hope, even to you”
Tennant and Smith bounced off each other, and the scenes with all 3 were gold “sand shoes and grand dad” “the one who regrets and the one who forgets”
And the cameos. All 13 of them, plus the curator. Wow.
Nicely tied up the time war outcome too. They won’t remember saving them as the time lines are twisted and some one else had to prompt 11 with the correct title of the painting “Gallifrey falls….no more”
All in all I loved it, felt like the story that needed to be told, told perfectly. Looking forward to returning home the long way round.
There seemed to be some confusion as to where Gallifrey had got to, and when they were looking at the picture 10 and 11 said something along the lines of “So where did this picture come from”, “No idea”, “It’s nice there’s some things we don’t know eh?”.
The picture being the frozen Gallifrey is too obvious right?
I loved it. I could try and break it down into its individual components (I actually tried, but gave up because there’s too much) but it’d get rambly and ridiculous.
I laughed (loved the Doctors and their interactions together) and I shed a few tears (he gets to go home and there were 13 and that shot with the Doctors arrayed with William Hartnell at the center).
I’m one of those people who sees the Doctor as the guy with the same software, just different casing. And I thought that this sold that concept in a really fantastic sort of way. 50th anniversary episode indeed.
@28: Good point. “Time Lord” is a title, not a species name. It refers to the ruling nobility of Gallifrey. Still, has it ever been established whether Gallifreyan commoners/plebeians can regenerate or not?
And I love it that Bad Wolf Rose described the TARDIS sound as “wheezing, groaning” — which is a nod to how Terrance Dicks habitually described it in his many Doctor Who novelizations! (Although he usually called it “a peculiar wheezing, groaning sound.”)
@29: I don’t think the picture is Gallifrey, since that would indeed have been obvious — also because the picture captures a moment of the Fall of Arcadia which we know happened hours before Gallifrey was frozen. As for how it got there, presumably the “Curator” arranged for that.
Loved the comment Hurt (8.5?) made about hoping for better ears in the regen.
As someone who only came to the show thanks to Nine, Hurt worked well as the interstitial Warrior Doctor — Eccleston has a different gravitas post-Gallifrey. Hurt had more innocence, which this story needed.
I am so impressed by BBC’s DAY OF THE DOCTOR. The convergence of all time lines greatly boggled the mind. David Tennant, Billie Piper, and John Hurt outdid themselves in their performances. To simply say I enjoyed the acting of all involved does not suffice. Production values, storyline, camera angles, and the tributes that permeated the event are so much appreciated. I am a fan of this series from across the great pond and 50 years is a long time. The scarf, the Zygons, and the poignant scene of Tom Baker and Matt Smith could not have been more appreciated. As a college student in my 20s, I received an introduction to Tom Baker as the doctor back in the 1970s as my mother found it on American Public Television. Ever since, I have enjoyed the program. I kept my eyes glued to the screen and didn’t see the 3rd doctor in his Tardis. Still one other puzzle remains for me, tell me the doctor John Hurt depicted?
Time Lords CAN regenerate when shot. When Eleven gets shot, he starts to regenerate and the spaceman shoots him again to disrupt the process.
But it takes longer. When Seven gets shot at the beginning of the film he’s taken to hospital and seems DOA. It’s some time before his recovery starts to be visible. Those seen shot on Galifrey haven’t had that time.
Great episode, I don’t think there was a single wrong note.
@33: “Still one other puzzle remains for me, tell me the doctor John Hurt depicted?”
He played an incarnation of the Doctor that was unknown until now, or rather, that didn’t exist until Moffat created him this past year. He’s been retconned into the Doctor’s history as the incarnation between Paul McGann’s Doctor and Christopher Eccleston’s. The idea is that he didn’t go by “the Doctor” during this incarnation, so Eccleston was still “the Ninth Doctor” even though we now know that he was actually the tenth incarnation of the individual who usually goes by that title.
@34: As with real-life shootings, some are more instantly lethal than others. Whether by shooting or any other method, it’s what I already said: If a Time Lord is mortally wounded or ill and has time to linger, then regeneration can happen, but if death is instantaneous, then it can’t. It simply doesn’t have time to get started.
I enjoyed this special a lot. It made me happy, sad and a little confused. The Tom Baker cameo had me smiling from ear to ear ;I’m glad it ended on a happy note with a shot of all the Doctors. I’m still confused about the End of Time now ? Does this mean that Rassilon and the others did not go insane and want to destroy all of Time and Space? If that events changed what about the Master and the drums?
I suspect that all still happened.
But will Gallifrey reborn be at last free of the grasp of both Rassilon and the Master?
The humor was there (we do expect a little sniping when Doctor meets Doctor, admit it!) as well as story. The inside jokes were lovely (“I like the scarf”)…And as someone who first met the Doctor in 1975 when he had bulgy eyes and a scarf, I had a near-total nerdgasm when I heard that never-to-be-forgotten voice start up at the end scene…
Yes I wish that they could have crammed in every doctor and doctor-impersonator, doctor’s daughter, doctor’s grand-daughter, doctor’s arch-enemy/son-in-law, and micro-skirted companion, that would have made it difficult to have a tight, well plotted story; it would then just have been a Comic-Con panel.
This was as perfect as I could have wished for!
I think that from the Time Lords’ POV, the events in “The Day of the Doctor” take place AFTER “The End of Time.”
When I watched the rebroadcast of the episode, I noticed that early on, in the War Room on Gallifrey, the Gallifreyan general says that the High Council’s plans have failed and “Gallifrey is *still* in the line of fire” (emphasis mine). That “still” seems to hint that this takes place after the High Council’s attempt to move Gallifrey to Earth had failed.
Just a conjecture, of course.
@39: I’d say the events shown here bracket what we saw in “The End of Time.” There was a line in TEoT where someone told Rassilon “The Doctor has the Moment,” so that must’ve taken place after the initial War Council scenes here. Most of the stuff with Arcadia probably happened more or less simultaneously with the TEoT material. But the concluding scene with the 13 Doctors employing their endgame take place after that material.
So yes, in answer to RobinM, I’d say nothing has changed except our understanding of what actually happened in the final moment of the war. There was a final conflagration after which both Gallifrey and the Daleks were gone, and everyone thought that was Gallifrey’s destruction, including the Doctor (because the out-of-sync timestream meant that he wouldn’t remember the things he experienced alongside his future selves). But what actually happened was something else. In any case, the only thing that’s affected is the very last moments of the war. Everything we knew before about the events of the Time War is thus still in effect.
Actually, you don’t have to be Gallifreyan to be a Time Lord. So far–apart from River Song, who is a human Time Lady–only the Gallifreyans have managed it, but other species could become Time Lords too. In Mawdryn Undead, there’s a group of aliens who try to become Time Lords, and nearly succeed. The Fifth Doctor says that the final and most difficult step in becoming a Time Lord is regeneration, which means that normal Gallifreyans can’t. As Eleven explains in Good Man, it’s really more of a genetic mutation, the result of prolonged exposure to radiation from the Time Vortex.
@41: I wonder if that’s why young Gallifreyans students are really exposed to the Untempered Schism? It’s as agood a reason as any.
One slightly belated thought: I want to be the first to congratulate Steven Moffat for his “Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form” Hugo win.
I really enjoyed the 50th special. For giving Tennant his Zygons and explaining why Queen Elizabeth I was so mad at his Doctor. For bringing back Tom Baker and having Four and Eleven (my 2 favorite Doctors) together on screen. For Bad Wolf. For a new addition of the Three Doctors complete with the last Doctor not liking the current Doctor’s redorating of the Tardis. For that oh so awesome sneak peek of Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor. For John Hurt’s wonderful performance and an appearance of all of the Doctors. And especially for that final shot of all of them together.
And on the subject of Doctor’s Numbers, with John Hurt’s Doctor beginning to automatically regenerate once the Time War was ended and all of the Doctors were returned to their own timelines, I take it as he was 8.5. He was the Eigth Doctor, his completed death and Regeneration halted temporarily by the Sisterhood of Karn, making him temporarily the Warrior Doctor so the Time War could be ended. And once that was accomplished 8/8.5’s time was done and we see him regenerating into Nine.
Quoth the mighty Em in the article: “Still not sold on actually seeing any part of the Time War. The way it was spoken about before now gave the impression of a type of war that humans could not conceive of, and that is ultimately more interesting.”
Understandable, but it couldn’t afford to be abstract for the purposes of the story. We had to see actual people being actually shot and dying and suffering. A more abstract concept wouldn’t have had the weight we as viewers needed to feel to really show the enormity of what the Doctor did.
Most of the Gallifreyans we saw weren’t Time Lords, they were just ordinary people (which we know from all the way back in “The War Games” and especially “The Deadly Assassin,” do exist in plentiful number — after all, that reporter in the latter episode had to be reporting to somebody) who were being mowed down.
That was the tragedy the Doctor needed to change at the episode’s climax, and we needed to see that not just be told about it.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@44: No, I think we can take the “All thirteen of them!” line, and Hurt’s inclusion in the closing montage of Doctor faces, to mean that Hurt is the real ninth incarnation of the Doctor. But since he didn’t call himself the Doctor in that incarnation, his tenth incarnation (Eccleston) is the Ninth Doctor, his eleventh (Tennant) is the Tenth Doctor, and his twelfth (Smith) is the Eleventh Doctor. Hurt seems to be officially known as the War Doctor. Which means Peter Capaldi will be the last of his allotted 13 incarnations.
And there was nothing “temporary” about the War Doctor. As we saw in the minisode “The Night of the Doctor,” he initially regenerated into a significantly younger man, so clearly the War Doctor was around for centuries, fighting in the war. The War Doctor seems to have been the Doctor’s longest-lived incarnation since the first one.
@45: I’m all for seeing the ordinary Gallifreyan people, but I had to wonder why there were children dancing around a maypole in the middle of a planetwide Dalek invasion. Or was that symbolic? (And why did they have maypoles on Gallifrey? Well, I guess the Doctor probably introduced that custom on Earth.)
I took the scenes of the children playing and dancing to be symbolic, a memory of the Doctor’s. A contrast to the way children were suffering in the war, and would suffer endlessly in a burning time-lock if he used The Moment.
Instead, he froze the planet. This wasn’t, I think, the same as saving it. Everything stopped, perhaps a bit like a dreamless sleep, or death. But not endless suffering, burning. Better a billion children painlessly frozen than burning eternally, from the Doctor’s perspective. But still a moral calculus of war. A billion frozen children is not a good ending, it is merely one that is less horrifying than a billion children burning forever.
As for the Maypole, there are other cultures that have traditional dances involving ribbons on a tall pole. I know there is one such dance in India, although I can’t remember what it is called, I just remember seeing it performed once when I was a child. So it isn’t surprising that Gallifrey might have a dance/game along the same line (and such dances are very game-like, playing and moving together in a common goal, for fun.)
The more I think about this episode, the more I liked it.
I loved the way Elizabeth conned all the Zygons into thinking that she was their leader, that’s exactly what I would have imagined one of the most powerful women in history being able to accomplish.
I loved the Doctor to Doctor banter.
I thought they worked Rose in perfectly.
And I like the idea that the Doctor can move on from his guilt about the Time War, and the fact that he now has a mission–to find his home again. And I imagine that Gallifrey still existing will be a mixed blessing, as the Time Lords were not entirely a force for good in their final days. The mini-episode with #8’s regeneration made it quite clear that the Doctor had spent years trying to undo some of the damage that his people had wrought.
This was truly the beginning of a new era of Who, and very well done.
@47: Yes, Gallifrey is frozen, but somewhere in a pocket universe, somewhere other than where it was — just like the Zygon disappeared when it was “translated” into the Gallifreyan painting/stasis cube. It’s not still in danger; it’s safe in stasis somewhere, waiting to be found. Basically the Doctor(s) turned the whole planet into a lifeboat.
I’m not sure how safe Gallifrey is.
The freeze appears to have ben geographic – the planet. Which would include all of the Daleks that had overrun the planet, that were in the process of destroying it. It would include the High Counsil, in the process of carrying out their plans to destroy the unverse.
So Gallifery can’t be un-frozen until the Doctor, or someone else, is ready to deal with those two threats.
And if it is un-frozen, all the Daleks frozen in the middle of exterminating will be un-frozen allong with it. It won’t be unfrozen to peace, it will be un-frozen to what it was.
And the High Counsil couldn’t be what it was on its own. Evil leaders only have power to the extent that they have followers. The entire culture was on a footing of total war, and doing as the High Counsil told them, at least for the most part. Even if the planet is un-frozen and the Daleks dealt with, changing the focus of a culture from total war to something peaceful is a lot of work, and reconciling people to what they have done, and what they have supported, isn’t easy. Particularly if they see the consequences of war in their daily life, rather than having wars fought elsewhere.
Reclaiming the planet, clearing out the Daleks, rebuilding, refocusing the culture towards peaceful ends, clearing those who supported the High Council’s plans out of the government, finding effective governence from people who weren’t involved with the High Council’s government and who therefore don’t have experience. Think the de-Nazification of postwar Germany, the rebuilding of Europe, the post-war ethnic cleansing and reprisals, on a planetary scale.
One detail that didn’t fully click for me until now: I think at the very end of the episode, the museum (or, at least, part of it) was actually the Curator’s TARDIS. The classic-TARDIS pattern on the wall was a dead giveaway.
Ursula@50: Most of the Daleks destroyed one another in the sudden crossfire that occurred when Gallifrey disappeared (or at least that was the plan). The ones remaining on the planet’s surface would presumably be less of a threat.
The Daleks in orbit destroyed each other. The planet disappears, and the Daleks in orbit shooting at the planet wind up shooting at each other. That was the plan.
But the planet’s surface was already overrun with Daleks, the cities caught in what seemed to be house-to-house fighting with no chance for civilians to have evacuated beforehand. We saw it, although the Doctor(s) didn’t talk about it. And for good reason, to, as getting into the details of life as a civilian in a war-torn city is not fodder for an evening’s entertainment.
The Doctor(s) surrounded the planet, putting the whole thing, as-is, in a frozen moment in a painting. And when we saw the painting “Gallifery Falls No More”, it is a picture that focuses on a city burning, even if contains the whole planet in stasis.
It’s not peace, or victory.
But it isn’t a billion children burning forever in a locked moment of fire – a frozen moment is at least suggested to be painless, rather than unending torture by fire.
The Doctor’s original plan locked Gallifrey, and the Time War, in a moment of fire. The new plan froze Gallifrey in a painting, a painless stasis.
My main thought is that the preservation of Gallifrey may be the closest exemplar of eucatastrophe that I’ve seen in TV so far. It has the “sudden joyous turn” that seemed beyond hope, and it also has the remaining potential for the tragic, both because the Doctor still spent centuries thinking he’d sent his world into hell and because, even now that he’s rescued it, we can all see that there’s no guarantee everything will be All Right.
I noticed that everyone is referring to him as The Warrior Doctor but the prequel clearly called him The War Doctor which is another thing altogether.
The presenceof The Fourth Doctor was nice but begs the question as how he came to be. Is he yet another Doctor from another universe like the alternate Tenth Doctor?
And why did The Moment take the form of Rose?
@53: Maybe the Doctors’ calculations for the “translation” of Gallifrey included calculations excluding the Daleks on the surface from being translated along with the planet? After all, this is a technique for creating art, and artists have the option to edit what they create…
@55: The Curator hinted that in the Doctor’s future he might “revisit” some “old favorite” faces, suggesting that he’d eventually gain enough control over his regeneration cycle to choose his appearance — which also suggests that he’ll find a way to gain new lives after his 13th, though that was pretty much inevitable. And an interesting hint, given that we now know Capaldi will be his 13th life.
(Oh, and the alternate Tenth Doctor wasn’t from another universe; he was created in this universe and went to live in another one with Rose.)
It seemed that the Moment choosing the form of Bad Wolf Rose was yet another of the many Bad Wolf elements seeded throughout history by Rose when she was joined with the time vortex. Which might be a bit of circular causality, because I had the thought that maybe the reason the Doctor was drawn to Rose in the first place (thus choosing her as a companion and putting her in the position of joining with the vortex) was because he had some subliminal memory of the Moment interface, despite forgetting most of what happened.
Ursula@53: We saw one city with what looked like one squad of Daleks in it. We don’t know how many were involved in the ground assault, but I got the impression that the Time Lords and the Daleks were pretty evenly matched—including, of course, the Daleks in orbit. Gallifrey wasn’t making its last stand; if it were, if it were about to be destroyed anyway, then the Doctor did nothing wrong by destroying it.
No, the two sides had to have been violently stalemated, which means that the Daleks should be at a significant disadvantage now that their orbital fleet is destroyed. I would expect the remaining Dalek ground forces to be a matter for mopping up, not a world-ending threat. Equal opponent minus massive space fleet equals squib.
Jere7my@57:
The battle scenes we saw on the ground were described as being in ‘Gallifrey’s second city’ and a ground officer reported to the high command that the city had fallen.
The 23rd was a very nice experience; first, I never expected The Day of the Doctor to get a screening in my country, but there was, and there were so many more Whovians than I believed, and it was such a refreshing experience to sit at a genre movie and have everyone in the theater react to the same references, and that’s including the squealing at the appearance of all the other doctors and the wonderful Tom Baker appearance.
And with this special, Clara has proven to be the most insightful companion in the modern series; she understands the Doctor perfectly, in whatever case his software is working, and she keeps poking him in the right directions.
I was also thrilled to have that peek of Peter Capaldi; I’m sure he’ll be a great Doctor. Even when he appeared in th Fires of Pompeii he had a certain Doctorish quality.
Speaking for myself, I see no need to find some continuity handwave for “The Curator”. It was Tom Baker making a cameo, and that’s good enough for me. (Just like David Tennant telling Peter Davison in “Time Crash”, “You were my Doctor” was the actor talking to the actor and I’m fine with that.)
Did it?
The Time Lords interpreted the situation as the weapon called “The Moment” developing a concience.
But perhaps Rose, in her “Bad Wolf” form, put herself in The Moment, as its conscience, so that she could help the Doctor when needed, just as she acted as the Bad Wolf to warn the Doctor in season 4.
It’s interesting that the Doctor now has two companions who have spread themselves across space and time with the intent of saving him. Rose, as Bad Wolf, working within Time, and Clara, as Clara-Fragments, working within ordinary space.
With two Godesses in the machine, almost any protection or needed aide becomes possible.
My youngest son had this inked in our family planning calander from the moment he knew the date.
We watched it as a family and all loved it. I caught more of the Dr. Who ‘product placement’ than the rest of my family but then I’ve watched the show on & off since #3 (Tom B. was ‘my’ doctor); whereas they all got hooked with #9.
Thought it was a wonderful way to change their future with regards to what had to be done in the Time War. Wished we could’ve seen Hurt’s Doctor turn into Eccleston’s; but can’t have everything (& I knew it wouldn’t happen, but still…)
Thought Clara & Rose were great and loved Kate Stewart’s role. She clearly is her father’s daughter as I think the Brigadier wouldn’t have handled the situation any differently.
Absolutely loved the end with Tom Baker & am perfectly OK with it being a cameo & not a reprise (or maybe not). That’s what made it fun ’cause as a fanboy/girl, you ‘know’ he isn’t the Doctor; but then again maybe he is…
And we loved the final shot of all the doctors together. My son, the biggest fan of the show in the family, already has that image on his poster wish list. ;-)
Kato
@@@@@ 61. Ursula: The Moment interface’s dialogue does indicate that it chose the form specifically because of the Doctor. In fact: a) it commented on the fact that it was meant to be someone familiar to him, but that it got the past and present mixed up; and b) it initially thought it had taken the form of Rose Tyler, but then realised it was her ‘Bad Wolf’ persona it had picked up.
@63: I agree, but it’s possible that the Moment’s interface was influenced by Vortex Rose as part of her seeding of “Bad Wolf” throughout time and space. So it’d be a mix of both explanations.
Indeed, given that the Moment was a sentient weapon of the Time Lords, it’s quite possible that it was tied into the time vortex itself, so that it and Vortex Rose could’ve been facets of the same essential phenomenon.
Last night, I was trolling the DOCTOR WHO BBC site and found a number of goodies including a “deleted scene” shown from the point of view of one of the soldiers guarding Arcadia. The other soldier mentions that one Dalek can destroy an entire city which seems a bit over the top, but it does show that a few Daleks on the ground after the Big Freeze can be bad news.
On the up side, when the Doctors are transported into the painting of Arcadia, they kill a Dalek so there is a way to save Gallifrey before it is unfrozen.
The goodies including a FIVE(ISH) DOCTORS take-off about the WHO Doctor actors who weren’t included in the special were being added to the BBC-America site so you should be able to find them there now.
I halfway expected John Hurt to regenerate into Peter Capaldi at the end wiping out 10, 11, and 12. He would have emerged from the Tardis and Clara would have smiled at him being the only Doctor she knew. Amy and Rory would be happily married with Kids. Ditto Donna and Mickey and Rose. Martha would be having a nice career in NIS as a Doctor.
Do you folks at tor.com have nothing to say about The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot?
I watched it after the main episode and it’s a real hoot. Peter Davison’s kids just not caring, Colin Baker locking his family in the house to watch his old episodes, Sylvester McCoy going on and on about being in the Hobbit and of course John Barrowman’s dark secret.
My hypothesis is that this was a Babylon 4 like time loop – a thing that was always meant to be, created by its own existence – and ultimately, nothing changed (except what we, the audience, know). After all, none of the previous references to the time war contradicted this outcome as far as I can remember.
I also think that the Moment did not take the Bad Wolf avatar like it claims; instead, it was the Moment that was a disguise, for the Bad Wolf Rose to guide the Doctor into making the right choice. (Maybe the weapon and its legend were even created by Bad Wolf herself.) Notice how the Moment / Bad Wolf quite delicately maneuvers the Doctor into not using the doomsday weapon.
Of course, I could be wrong. Neither hypothesis is, I think, contradicted by the canon, but neither are they confirmed by it.
I giggled madly when 10 made a penis joke at 11’s expense.
So I went to the theater last night to see Thor, and ran into a thousand people in scarves and bow ties and sonic screwdrivers — I thought my city was excluded from the screening! — so I made it a double feature.
Biggest thing that took me right out of the “movie” was the sound of the dalek spaceship blasters. Here you have this epic space battle on a scale maybe never realized before for Who, and the dalek spaceships sounding like a little kid pointing his finger and going “pew pew.” Well, if that’s the biggest nitpick then obviously it was pretty good.
Although I don’t see why some reviews are saying that Tom Baker hinted or implied that he was the Doctor. From the rondels to the official appointment letter of ER to the dialog, the only way it could have been less ambiguous is if he had K9 and bag of jelly babies.
I saw this in a theater in 3D, and it was an amazing experience. It makes me wonder: why can’t they make a Doctor Who movie? Not a reboot starring some other actor, but a big-screen special related to the current series, that could be shown far and wide on big screens everywhere? Star Trek did it with the TNG movies that were made while the show was still airing.
@61, I felt like Rose/Bad Wolf had inserted a piece of itself into the Moment to be there for the Doctor in the moment (no pun intended) he most needed it. It was lovely.
I enjoyed this special so much more than I’d expected. It really celebrated all the Doctors in spirit. And Tom Baker’s appearance at the end actually made me cry. He is my perfect Doctor, with such alien intelligent eyes. Though it’s right that the older Doctors are more ‘human’. And sometimes Matt Smith has eyes that look like that too.
Also, while some fans are upset about the removal of the core of the new Doctor’s, the rewriting of canon, well, that’s what showrunners can do. It was a relatively recent development for the Doctor, so why not? And I loved seeing them give a new purpose and life to the show and in a way, return it to its roots. That was my favorite part of all of it.
I saw this in the theatre last night, in 3D, and oh my – it was amazing. In my town of 80,000 people, it was sold out, and there was people with fezzes, sonic screwdrivers, and even two Weeping Angels. The cheering, the laughter, the squeeing – fantastic, to watch a great episode in such company.
@72: No, Generations came out in November of ’94, while “All Good Things…” Aired in May of ’94. So the TNG movies didn’t start until after the series ended.
@73: I don’t think the core of the new Doctor has been removed, just reinterpreted a little. I mean, the War Doctor was much older in “The Day of the Doctor” than in the brief post-regeneration glimpse we got of him in “The Night of the Doctor,” so even without destroying Gallifrey, he was still a warrior for a very long time and must’ve experienced a lot of traumatizing experiences. He’s still a character who’s lived through a lot of hardship and pain, and who suffered the guilt of destroying his own world for centuries, even if that guilt turned out to be based on false assumptions and missing memories. What he went through in the Time War is still a part of his history. And it was his guilt, his centuries of recrimination, that led him to find an alternative solution, so it’s still a direct continuation of his character arc.
In fact, I don’t agree that the Doctor’s guilt over the Time War was ever the “core” of his characterization. It was a new twist to his character, yes, one that loomed large. But the core of the Doctor was the same as it always was: he was someone who saved people. And this time, he got to save himself. It doesn’t remove his core, it reaffirms it.
@76 Well said.
Oh. FEELINGS.
Has everyone seen Lindalee Rose’s interviews from London? Particularly her one with Jenna.
Lindalee gave Clara a new leaf. Because she had to give away her old one. FEELINGS. Cute overload.
I, too, was releieved the episode was not too sad. After “The Name of the Doctor”, I’d hoped it would not be too dark.
For me, it was a delightful, often funny, often moving episode. It opened up new possibilities an directions without making the entire Time War a “Bobby in the shower” moment.
I admire Moffat for the episode. What a challenge to write a 50th Anniversary episode!
bad wolf
Just saw this link and re-read the review.
i have a new pet theory. When Eleven tells the other Doctors he’s changed his mind about using the Moment, and thinks his plan at them, do you think he was telling them to let Capaldi Doctor do the really hard math to make it work? That way, he (Capaldi) could also find them again? I’m thinking this could be Twelve’s arc. He has to do the math to put Gallifrey in the pocket universe, which should help him bring it back out.
@81: The climax made it clear that it took all thirteen Doctors (or twelve Doctors and one War Doctor) to complete the computation. It took so many centuries to run that the TARDIS had to begin performing the calculations during the First Doctor’s lifetime and didn’t complete them until the Twelfth’s. It was an expansion of the idea they used with the sonic screwdriver in the prison cell — beginning the computation on the War Doctor’s screwdriver so that it would be completed on Eleven’s screwdriver, which was roughly 400 years older.
so the TARDIS should be running better than we have ever seen it now that it’s memory is freed up?