The Day of the Doctor

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  • #21271
    PhaseShift @phaseshift
    Time Lord

    After 50 years of adventures in Time and Space, it’s time to the Doctor to confront his own dark past in the 5oth anniversary special.

    #21342
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    Hi all, am back from my travels in real life with some of you lovely people. We had some issues with launching this new topic after the show aired so if you want to copy over any posts from last night to here please do.

    I thought this was an excellent special. Lots of fun and lots of character. For me the line that summed it up was when Matt said “This is what I’m like when I’m alone”. That’s what it was, the different aspects of the Doctor’s character challenging each other, as they always do inside his head. The internal made external.

    Great comedy and pathos, just as all good drama should have.

    And I’m glad the script actually referenced my “big red button” and, as I thought might happen, the tale of redemption also saw an alternative way to end the time war. Will have more thoughts later after a re-watch.

    #21343
    Abzorbaloff @abzorbaloff

    Wow I must say I’m surprised that there are not more posts here regarding last night’s 50th Anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor…

    Anyway, I have to say I was mightily impressed with the whole episode.  I especially liked the way we were treated to some brilliant comic lines from Sandshoes, Grandad and Chinny which for me did not detract from the intense storyline.

    In all I think that everyone involved has done credit to the 50th anniversary of Who…

    However….

    I’m sure there are going to be many questions arising from this and to set the ball rolling here’s my little conundrum…

    If we accept the Hurt Doctor is Eighth Doctor aged (as we see Hurt regenerate into Ecc) that means that he and McGann are one and the same. How then could they both be involved in the saving of Galifrey and wouldn’t that then mean that there are only twelve incarnations rather than thirteen as Capaldi shouts when he joins the fray?

    Alternatively, is Moffat suggesting that Hurt is actually the real Ninth doctor thereby shifting everyone subsequent up a notch?

    I await comments with bated breath…. 🙂

    #21344
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @absorbaloff – you first need to watch the mini-episode The Night of The Doctor.

     

    #21346
    Magnetite @magnetite

    Mark Gatiss has just tweeted ‘Happy Boxing Day’.

    That’s what this feels like, except for two things:

    1. We can relive The Day again

    2. We have another Christmas Day coming up in just over a month’s time!

    Woot!

    #21347
    Abzorbaloff @abzorbaloff

    @ bluesqueakpip – Whoa I missed that! Thanks for sharing, it clears things up for me.:)

    #21348
    Timeloop @timeloop

    Taking Craig’s offer

    May I just say: Wow! LOVED IT

    Just got back from the cinema. Same as @wolfweed. The hive mind was whooping and laughing and even applauding at two or three points in the cinema. Especially at the 1213 Doctors. Several cosplayers as well. I saw a TARDIS, a 7, a lot of 10s and 11s. And many screwdrivers. One came as a human Dalek like in the Asylum of the Daleks.
    At the mention of the ‘Moment’ I actually went “Ha!”. Very loudly. Was worth it.

    It was just a really amazing piece of art, pun intended. 3D was just stunning as well. Especially the picture(s)!

    I can’t come up with any coherent thought yet. Looking very much forward to your thoughts!

    Cheers,

    Timeloop
    P.S.: Where does that leave the Doctor and Clara?
    Regeneration issue of thirteen? All of them knew how and why and therefore it wasn’t addressed?
    The idea with the thinking was brilliant.
    He used the same idea like the two stream facility. Very clever. Don’t you always say he uses test-runs before he uses the idea in something big?

    _______________________

    Is it okay to talk about the Christams teaser in here as well? @scaryb and @others Would you feel that is overstepping into ‘Spoilers’?

    @abzorbaloff Most members here take pride in a sound analysis of the episode. I am sure once they came around analyzing it all there will be a vivid discussion about implications of the movie.

    I do like how they used Rose. Very good acting on her part. And they positioned 10 as a player(a man who has lots and lots of superficial female relations) further AND qualified his “I don’t wanna go”

    And again the two streams facility idea is brilliant. You have to live it one way first so you can then alter it in a different way. Just as brilliant as the calculations and 13 Doctors figuring out how to put Gallifrey into a painting. It also explains how 11 can not remember it since 10 is bound to forget it all.

    Going to re-watch it now.

     

    #21349

    Couple of bits (including some haul-ins from the old thread):

    1. A pity Eccleston turned out to be every bit the pompous prig I suspected (I so wanted to be wrong), but also worth remembering the conveniently-airbrushed-snottiness of one T Baker for several years after he left;

    2. Huge props to Bille Piper for a stellar performance;

    3. A LOST SHOE REFERENCE!

    4. “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman…but so did she!”

    5. We still don’t actually know who Clara is. But an older doctor coming in, with a fresh-faced sidekick..;

    6. Too many delightful references to catalogue. Absolutely spot-on review at Den of Geek;

    7. Love the idea that the Doctor will one day retire to become The Curator (rather than The Gardener or The Bee Keeper);

    8. A little wary of the return of Gallifrey for reasons well-delineated in this discussion between RTD and Verity Lambert;

    9. The brilliant use of silence during the “big decision”. Silence fell. Utterly, utterly brilliant. The whole universe holding its breath;

    10. “Timey..what?” and Ten denying responsibility;

    11. 10.61m in the overnights. Take that Truckles.

    12. I think Jemma Redgrave really is a Lethbridge-Stewart (in one of her “behind-the-scenes” she casually mentions that her dad was an actor (Corin)-  A REDGRAVE! In Dr Who!)

    13. Clara’s despair at seeing her Doctor ready to push the button, and her Doctor making her explain before he did it, giving jaw-jaw time to outflank war-war.

    13 for 13.

     

    #21350
    janetteB @janetteb

    It is late, and will not have time until tomorrow to read through all the posts. Has been a busy weekend, making souffles, and mock fish fingers etc before racing down to the city to see the film. The cinema was packed and they had thrown in extra sessions since we booked. Lots of people in costume, everyone massively excited. It was a great atmosphere but there was also aprehension too, would it meet expectations. After the long build up we were afraid that the film would not deliver.

    From Strax doing the “turn of your mobiles” blurb, it was one joy after another. I loved the original credits, the Coal Hill School sign, the Tardis being helicoptered to the Tower. (Especially as that was a “yes I guessed it” moment.) The Zygon story was fun, classic Who, set against the darker, deeper Nu Who of the time war and the two, totally different but similiar stories were so beautifully woven together. (by different I mean tone not actual story). I was also rather chuffed to have been almost right as to what the story would be about, saving the civilians/children of Gallifrey and I am still clinging to my theory that the children will end up on earth being cared for by Claricles though 2 billion is rather a lot of children even for someone with multiple reincarnations.

    Tennant and Matt Smith were superb together. They surely are identical twins, with slightly altered appearances that is. John Hurt was wonderful, striking just the right note of superior, aged, fan. He gave voice to some of the most common fan gripes, over use of the sonic, childish language, and of course all the snogging. Scarf girl was great. Ok so there was nothing in the name after all. MOffat just likes obscure dark ages names. Fine so do I. Kate Lethbridge Stewart has more than earned her status as the Brig’s daughter. I hope she will have many more appearances in the series.

    In the last few days I became convinced that we were going to see Capaldi in this. I did think that he was one of the three doctors referenced as Hurt was not a Doctor. I was wrong but thrilled all the same when he made his brief appearance. I loved the way the old series was referenced, over and over; the school at the beginning, the images in the Tower and of course with all the Doctors at the end. They were all there as they should have been. I did not want to see them as they are now… and so,

    When I saw the back of that all too familiar head at the end, my heart sank. I did not think it would work but clever, clever Moffat proved me wrong and at the same time explained that uncanny likeness the 13th regeneration has to a certain Roman whom he encountered in his past. I noted that Capaldi calls himself the 13th not the 12th. Only realised that in the car on the way home.

    So to wrap up, the entire family were captivated. The audience in the cinema applauded when it finished. A success? Yes!

    Now for the full lenght feature film. Just please please let it be produced by the BBC…

    Cheers

    Janette

     

    #21351
    Juniperfish @juniperfish

    Well I hope everyone is recovering from their 50th anniversary celebrations, whether that be on your sofa or cinemas from Mexico City to Mars.

    @phaseshift did you manage to quaff cocktails from Doctor 5 to Doctor 11 and stay standing? I’m not surprised the “Great Green Vampire” for Doctor 4 proved strong medicine – it is based on Hemingway’s famous cocktail “Death in the Afternoon” after all 🙂

    So to the episode, also a question of death, and rebirth; just as all the Egyptology symbolism earlier in the season promised.

    Remember the great pyramid which housed the Old God at the Rings of Akhaten – the parasitic old god who fed on the memories of others? A narrative parallel for the Eleventh Doctor, as we noted at the time, who has slowly been forgetting his own past because he doesn’t want to remember the Time War, more precisely the 2.74 billion children he burned at Gallifrey?

    Remember the Doctor “destroyed” at Trenzalor by the Great Intelligence and scattered through his own time-line, just as Osiris was destroyed by Set and his body parts scattered? Well, just as the magician-goddess Isis searched for Osiris’ body parts across the land of the Nile and put them back together again, so Clara (who wore a phoenix necklace in the Rings of Akhaten as I think @Shazzbot pointed out originally on these boards) searched for the Doctor across the tracks of his time-stream and saved him.

    Moffat delivered a rebirth of the Doctor (meta-narratively speaking certainly a Christ-figure of the small screen) for the 50th from his dark past as a war criminal and an architect of genocide; a dark past which has, of course, served the show well.

    As the brain-child of Russell T. Davis,  Ecclestone’s Doctor burst onto our screens in 2005 as the “last of the Time Lords” with a terrible secret in his hearts. Ecclestone, Tennant and Smith have carried that darkness with them through all the years since.  The Eleventh Doctor could not forgive Khaler-Jex in “A Town Called Mercy”, a doctor who resorted to war crimes in an attempt to save his people, and neither has he been able to forgive himself.  The darkness in our New Who Doctors has resulted in wonderful additional layers for the character and some fine acting from those who have played this era’s madman in a blue box, but Moffat wanted the sun to rise on the next fifty years, and who can blame him?

    The Doctor is beloved by children, has been beloved by children for fifty years. He’s always been a bit of a Pied Piper figure, dressed like a jester, calling them away to adventure. So what could be more terrible than the deaths of all the children on Gallifrey he is responsible for? And what could be more fitting than that the first young companion he took with him following the Time War, Rose, and the most recent, Clara, should together, help him choose differently.

    Et in Acadia Ego (I [death] am here, even in Paradise) is the famous title of two paintings by Nicholas Poussain. a painter alive at the time Elizabeth the 1st was on the throne.  And it is through a painting we revisit Acadia, Gallifrey’s second city, as Hurt Doctor makes the decision to summon The Moment when he writes “no more” on the walls there.

    Of course, it is also the phrase he writes the second time around, when he and his future-selves decide that “Gallifrey shall fall no more”. Eleven now remembers it both ways. He is the Time Lord who burned his people and the Time Lord who saved them – a duality, self and shadow-self finally integrated together. I would say, the one who wears the red bow-tie and the one who wears the blue bow-tie at last combined into the one who wears the spotty bow-tie, but people will probably throw shoes at me 🙂

    I am not quite sure how this fall of Gallifrey fits with the fall of Gallifrey we learned about in “The End of Time” (Tennant’s last hurrah). It doesn’t really, but that must be thanks to the tweak of a Clara-fragment in the Doctor’s time-stream, right?

    Then it was a revived Lord Rassilon’s proposal, endorsed by a vote in the chamber of the High Council to “end time itself”, which prompted the Doctor to time-lock Gallifrey and end the Time War with the effective genocide of his own people. The High Council in the “Day of the Doctor” seemed more bewildered than intent on becoming non-corporeal entities. This made Hurt Doctor’s choice grittier of course, because he was not faced with a mad President intent on the annihilation of everything, but with children running through burning streets.

    John Hurt was instantly the Doctor. He played the part with absolute generosity of spirit – never stealing it, but providing it with deft touches of rocket fuel. His scenes with Billie were among the most marvellous of the episode. She was golden, flirtatious, terrible and kind; a Bad Wolf-Rose replicant to die for, an oracle at Delphi fit for a Time Lord.

    Certainly the favourite line of The Doctor Who Forum posse who chewed over the episode in London last night agreed that the best line was “Allons-y!” “Geronimo!” followed by Hurt’s droll “For Christ-sakes!”

    I may have squealed when Tom Baker appeared (even though I’d inadvertently seen a spoiler to that effect on the interwebs a couple of days ago).

    I think @ardaraith is right, the geek-girl scientist wearing the Fourth Doctor’s scarf at Unit was definitely a representative of the fans and that was, surrounded as we were by fantastic cos-players at the Excel 50th celebrations (many of them, indeed, in 4th Doctor scarves), a really nice touch, particularly as it honoured the female fans of the show, blowing away the cobwebs of that dusty old myth that Who is “for boys”.

    Oh, and we met Linda Lee! But that’s a story for another post.

     

     

    #21352
    soundworld @soundworld

    I watched on TV as there isn’t a cinema for 60 miles where I live, but it was just amazing.  Visually, the scenes with the paintings worked so well in that it looked 3D and you could see the depth in the painting even on a flatscreen.  I shall be watching again later when time permits!

    I’m with @timeloop and @juniperfish – really like your analysis.  Definitely a healing of the past (lives) so that our Dr can move on free from guilt.  The two timestreams idea works so well.  Loved the scenes with John Hurt in the desert shack.

    And presumably, once Gallifrey is found and restored, the grateful High Council will bestow a batch of fresh reincarnations?

    But first – return to Trenzalore…

    #21353
    Timeloop @timeloop

    On a re-watch I must admit it is not the idea of the two streams facility. This event is time locked. Up until 11 the Doctor only thinks he has done it which brings along his change. In no reality did he ‘burn’ Gallifrey.

    @juniperfish “The end of time” still makes sense. But instead of trying to escape the time lock they look for a way out of the bubble/pocket universe. And we have seen the war council and not the high council, right?

    #21354
    Timeloop @timeloop

    @soundworld I did modify what I said earlier. Amy denied herself to be rescued the first time around. She then allowed her younger self  to flee when she was in line to play the old Amy.

    The Doctor never did it in the first place. He only thought he did. I therefore feel there is a difference in the story. He still has to live 400 years until he can find a different solution, but it is the same one. He already did it the first time around.

    I think that creates an important difference.

    #21355

    A couple of follow-ons:

    – Right at the start, in the National Gallery, where the eye-close up switched between Matt and another – those were Tom Baker‘s eyes, not Hurt’s.

    – Shout out to Martha re the need for more batteries;

    -Hadn’t appreciated just how funny the running “inhaler” gag was – a genuine, warm-hearted shout out to over-excited fans down the ages deadpanned brilliantly by Oliver and Redgrave;

    – Osgood’s prettier sister;

    -Had noticed just how ecclesiastical the barn where War Doc met Bad Wolf looks (also, nice otherworldly plough in the background).

    And just how fucking good is Moffat at mis-direction? Gleeful Clara was the real thing.

    #21361
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    Just had a 2nd rewatch. Still not diminished. I’m too exhausted to give a proper analysis right now, though.

    If it wasn’t for Chris Ecclescake’s decision, we wouldn’t have got our brand new Dr, so thanks, Chris.

    I hope that the 2 cinema bits ‘Cinema Etiquette’ and ‘3-D Glasses’ make it on to the inter -web at some point.

    Only the joys of watching the Afterparty repeat tonight to go, then I can catch up on all the Who magazines & comics & books I’ve had no time to attempt.

    z

     

     

    #21362
    GroovyLord @groovylord

    Terrific episode, epic! Really delivered the goods. I love how John Hurt’s Doctor ended up being often a more humorous character, making fun of his future versions, showing us more to his personality than the war stuff, which makes him feel more like the same guy as the other two.

    And the new direction, while a bit comic booky in undoing a big previous tragic event, feels fitting for this show, and opens up some fun new plot potential.

    If I had one nitpick, for Smith’s run getting to it’s end this episode didn’t have enough character stuff with him and Clara, hard to believe they won’t be a duo after next month.

    Also one thing’s for sure, the original version of the theme song is still the most badass.

    #21364
    wolfweed @wolfweed
    #21365
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    I confess to disappointment. Ultimately, I don’t think that the Day of the Doctor stands as a successful work, and certainly not as an epic work. Perhaps no story could have borne up under the weight of expectation, but Day of the Doctor feels scattered and oddly insubstantial.
    There is much to like, I will acknowledge that. Tenant and Smith are terrific together, they have chemistry, they bounce off each other effectively. It was a joy to see them working together, and it’s kind of heartbreaking that this is going to be the only Tenant/Smith crossover story.

    John Hurt is a terrific counterpoint to them, grizzled, war torn, jaded, but still with some humour and compassion. I kind of expected him to be a monster given Smith’s description. But instead, he just seems full of battered posh gravity.

    It was nice to see Billy Piper back as a kind of avatar of herself.

    And it’s interesting to see Kate Lethridge-Stuart move so decisively into Canon. Kate Lethridge-Stuart, the Brigadier’s daughter first appeared in Downtime, a Reeltime productions video, 1995, that also starred Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier, Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane, Deborah Watling as the Troughton companion Victoria Waterfield, Jack Watling as Troughton companion Professor Traverse, and the Great Intelligence and its Yeti. She returned in Reeltime’s Daemos Rising, from 2004. Both times played by Beverly Cressman. The actress has changed, but still visibly the same character.

    It’s terrific to see Tom Baker doing a turn as the Xteenth Doctor, retired.

    And of course, the 3D paintings you can step in and out of were seen in Nightmare of Eden, another Tom Baker serial.

    Lots of wonderful moments, but do they add up?

    Now to the downside –

    Two big problems. First, the three subplots or plots don’t really mesh up well at all. Subplot one seems to be the Doctor’s Romance with Queen Elizabeth and the Zygon invasion in Elizabethan times… That’s two subplots I suppose, but we’ll call them one for purposes of economy. The Elizabethan one is played for comedy, the Zygon one fails to amount to anything. Subplot two would be the Zygon invasion/takeover in the modern era, which at least goes to some sort of resolution. The final plot is of course the arc of the War Doctor.

    Well, let me ask some questions about the Zygons. Are they the most lacksadaisical alien invaders ever? I mean… come on, they’ve had their invasion plot going on for two or three centuries? Jesus, talk about low impact, or low energy. They’re slackers.

    And part of their plot is to stick agents in three dimensional paintings so that at the appropriate point they can jump out centuries later and…. Do what exactly? Just hope that the paintings will be stored in some secret archive which will give them indirect access to super-weapons? Or on the off chance that there might be something useful at some point? And how do they even predict? What kind of a plan is that?
    It would make sense if it was established that the Zygons were precognitive, or had some kind of time manipulation or sensing abilities, or had some window into a place in the future so that they could have some expectation. But none of this is established for Zygons either in their original appearance or in this episode.

    So what the hell?

    And for that matter, if the Zygons or their technology have no particular time sense, or function as a time anchor…. then we have to take their appearance and proximity in both eras, where the time portal opens up for both Tenant and Smith to be complete utter coincidence. Whaaaaaaaaat?

    Now, I could forgive all this, if it wasn’t for the failure of the main plot.

    Look, how many year have we been waiting to see the Time War, how many years have there been all these hints and implications, entire species and worlds unmade, wiped from existence, the Degradation of Skaro, the Nightmare Child, the Probability Army, all these amazing, evocative references. The hints of immense, universe reshaping scope.

    Maybe when you build it up that much, there’s just no way to meet those expectations. Anything you try to show will come across as trite.
    Still, it would have been nice to have seen the attempt made. But there seems very little effort at Epic Scope.

    Okay, yeah, this is the last day, there’s billions of Dalek spaceships surround Gallifrey, Arcadia is falling, and in a boardroom on Gallifrey people are having a meeting. Okay, sure, maybe this is satisfactory for a standard interplanetary war. This is a Universe Reshaping Catastrophe. Maybe talk it up a bit???

    Same thing with the ‘Moment’. Okay, it’s an ultimate weapon…. But what does it do? How does it do it? Does it rewind the Big Bang? Implode a galactic cluster? Does it unmake reality? For an utterly feared sentient weapon with the power to end the greatest time war ever and destroy Gallifrey…. Maybe a little more detail, a little more build up???
    In the end though, I think the problem is the focus on the last day, not even the entire last day, this is the last moments. In a sense, its too close to the dramatic focus, and that drains tension. A predicted dramatic focus. We need to see more of the War Doctor, we need to see or at least hear about the awful things he did in the war, how he finally came to the end. Hard to do in one episode.

    But they didn’t even try. They just kind of wasted most of their time with comic relief queens and zygon shenanigans that make no sense.
    Disappointment.

     

    #21366
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    Lines from Hollywood movies

    #21367
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @juniperfish – great review!! I think some on here should be writing the public reviews!  Have you read the drivel out there?

    An important update to your excellent ideas.  You say, “The High Council in the “Day of the Doctor” seemed more bewildered than intent on becoming non-corporeal entities. This made Hurt Doctor’s choice grittier of course, because he was not faced with a mad President intent on the annihilation of everything, but with children running through burning streets.”

    Yet there is one small line, at 9:52 that ties all we already know together with what we are seeing.  First, a few moments before, the single soldier with the gun radios to the High Council with the ominous report, “Priority Omega”.  Then, at 9:52, we see a commander and his team, with the caption: Gallifrey, the War Room.

    Soldier: The High Council is in emergency session.  They have plans of their own.

    Commander: To hell with the High Council.

    We see here that the scenes shown to us compliment what we already know is happening with the High Council, and also inform us that the regular folks of Gallifrey don’t know what the High Council is deciding, at that very moment–but the Doctor does.

    I adored this special.  It was full of Awesome!

    #21368
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    Of course, that begs the question as to how the Doctor knows the High Council’s plans, when the War Council has no idea.

    #21369
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    By the way, I don’t know if it’s been mentioned.  But the Hurt Doctor is not an aged McGann Doctor.   In the Minisode, Night of the Doctor, the McGann Doctor dies, regenerating into a much younger Hurt Doctor.  The Hurt Doctor was around for a very very long time.

    #21370
    PhaseShift @phaseshift
    Time Lord

    @juniperfish

    Yes – I managed the cocktails for Doctors 5 – 11 in the end, I was nursing “11” during the movie and did feel a bit whoozy. I was convinced I had broken this part of the internet when trying to set up this topic on the homepage. I’ve been informed that it was nothing to do with me, and our countdown timer acted up when it reached zero. Who says Alcohol dulls the senses? Well, me having checked most of my posts.

    I’m now in a fit state to watch it again, and can hopefully add something to your excellent ananlysis later on. Glad you enjoyed the party.

    #21371
    PhaseShift @phaseshift
    Time Lord

    @wolfweed

    The BBC Youtube sites seem to be uploading loads of content from around the world at the moment. Unfortunately my own internet download speed seems to be as sluggish as me today, so I’m not trawling the content. I did see this one for Strax though, very short with advice for users of social media about “the movie”. Not sure if this is the cinema one:

    #21372
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @denvaldron – I believe the Doctor was ON the High Council.  There was a cartoon released (where was that?) that showed a member of the High Council referring to the Doctor as having gone rouge.  We do know that the war has been going on a very long time, long enough for the 9th (?? can we refer to the War Doctor as the 9th?) to know about the travesties unleashed by the Time Lords.  We know many entire planets were destroyed during the war.  In fact, they indicate in the special that the first planet destroyed was that of the Zygons. If the Doctor made the choice to engage with the Time War, they certainly would have made him part of the High Council.  After all, he was once Lord President! 🙂

    #21373

    @denvaldron

    Well, let me ask some questions about the Zygons. Are they the most lacksadaisical alien invaders ever? I mean… come on, they’ve had their invasion plot going on for two or three centuries? Jesus, talk about low impact, or low energy. They’re slackers

    I recommend you listen to the dialogue. This was quite clearly explained.

    Do what exactly? Just hope that the paintings will be stored in some secret archive which will give them indirect access to super-weapons?

    They thought they had a Zygon queen to set things up for them. They were wrong.

    As for the rest of your post, your over-focus on plot devices seems to have caused you to miss the story.

    Except:

    Look, how many year have we been waiting to see the Time War,

    Is that the Royal “we”? I really hate it when people presume to speak for me.

    But what does it do? How does it do it? Does it rewind the Big Bang? Implode a galactic cluster? Does it unmake reality?

    It’s like asking how “hard burn” on Serenity works. Who cares? It just does and it makes the ship go faster.

    If feel sorry that you let an obsession with trivia blind you to just what a staggeringly good bit of story-telling this was, but I guess Moffat’s economy and refusal to get bogged down in minutiae isn’t for everyone.

    #21374
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    OH !!! What if the Silence, as a religious order, are about making sure the Doctor never finds Gallifrey, in order to keep the Time Lords (who had committed such atrocities) out of the universe forever?  What if Elevens final act is finding Gallifrey? hmmmm

    #21375

    @ardaraith

    of the High Council referring to the Doctor as having gone rouge.

    I bet that made them blush 😉

    #21377
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan – Ha!! I hate autocorrect!!

    #21378
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    No, I watched the whole thing twice.  It’s not explained.  The Zygons are in Queen Lizzy’s time and in the 21st century because Moffat wants them there for his story, no better reason.  That thought they had a Zygon queen doesn’t answer the question – how did they know or expect that it would be useful in several hundred years, or how did they know how or when to get out of the painting.   It’s just goofy poorly thought out nonsense.

    Like it or not, it’s lousy storytelling.  Moffat left holes you could drive a truck through, failed to answer questions that he raised, and it doesn’t hold up.   This isn’t over focusing on plot devices.  This is failures of the plot.

     

    #21379
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @ardarath  OH !!! What if the Silence, as a religious order, are about making sure the Doctor never finds Gallifrey, in order to keep the Time Lords (who had committed such atrocities) out of the universe forever?  What if Elevens final act is finding Gallifrey? hmmmm

     

    I would say that would waste a lot of storytelling opportunities for the Capaldi Doctor.

    #21380
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    @phaseshift – Cheers. That’s not the cinema one. Although both bits consisted of cinema-specific gags, obsessive completists (you know who you are) will want to have them in some form. They were beautifully made, esp. the ‘Etiquette’ one and deserve to be seen by all.

    I’ll keep my eye out for them.

     z

    #21381
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @denvaldron

    the Doctor’s Romance with Queen Elizabeth and the Zygon invasion in Elizabethan times… That’s two subplots I suppose, but we’ll call them one for purposes of economy.

    It’s one subplot, and not for purposes of economy. The Doctor is romancing Queen Elizabeth because he thinks she’s a Zygon imposter. Unfortunately, it was the horse wot done it. Even more unfortunately, Moffat is riffing on the entire Martha subplot – the Tennant Doctor really doesn’t get what kind of effect he has on women, and Queen Elizabeth is now madly in love with him.

    And part of their plot is to stick agents in three dimensional paintings so that at the appropriate point they can jump out centuries later and…. Do what exactly?

    Invade a more sophisticated Earth with a tech base and a more comfortable living standard. This was explicitly stated by Queen Elizabeth. Ruling Elizabethan England, to a spacefaring race like the Zygons, would be the equivalent of having the biggest mud hut in the village. The Elizabethans were people who thought water mills were advanced technology.

    Queen Elizabeth is smart enough, once she finds out that the Zygon plot involves a bit of time-travelling, to simply make sure the indestructible paintings are safely stored and leave instructions that the Doctor is to be called immediately when they become active. No coincidences are required – both the Tennant and the Smith Doctor are present because of the effects of the Zygon plot.

    As to the Zygon plans: exactly what they did. Namely, get out of the paintings, hide, slowly take over important people. Getting access to the Black Archives was explicitly stated by one Zygon as being ‘like Christmas’. They hadn’t expected that. They were probably thinking in terms of slowly getting access to the Prime Minister, or someone high up in the MOD.

    You have forgotten what is established for the Zygon back-story; their home planet has been destroyed in the Time War. Think ‘crash-landed on a primitive island’ rather than ‘planned invasion’. Which is probably why the Doctor is relatively sympathetic; certainly enough to suggest a treaty. These are desperate shipwrecked sailors rather than invading career pirates.

    where the time portal opens up for both Tenant and Smith to be complete utter coincidence

    How? The time portal is carefully chosen by The Moment – who knows enough about the Doctor to pick a form that will become deeply important to him. So she also knows enough about the Doctor to pick a point in his future which has important parallels with his present crisis.

    But there seems very little effort at Epic Scope.

    There was probably very little money for Epic Scope. We saw, I strongly suspect, all the Time War the Production Team could afford. Given the constant complaints about Moffat overspending, I’d lay good odds we saw more Time War than the Production Team could afford.

    Same thing with the ‘Moment’. Okay, it’s an ultimate weapon…. But what does it do?

    I neither know nor care beyond ‘it will make Gallifrey burn’. We’ve had nine years of being told the Doctor destroys Gallifrey. How? He presses a Big Red Button and the machine will do the rest. Dramatically, that’s all you need to know. How it does it has no dramatic impact whatsoever; what it will do, however, is kill 2.7 billion children.

    They chose to concentrate on the impact on the Doctor of that decision. Not the decision to get rid of the lunatic High Council – he could live with that. Not the decision to kill all the Daleks. But the decision that the only way to end the war was to kill the repair technicians, the front-line soldiers, and especially the children. All the ordinary people doing their jobs; all the children who’d done nothing except be born at the wrong time. He stopped the war by sacrificing the innocents.

    And he couldn’t live with it. It killed his sense of ‘Who’ he was; he ran away into being a big hero, then he just tried to forget who he’d been and what he’d done.

    We need to see more of the War Doctor, we need to see or at least hear about the awful things he did in the war, how he finally came to the end.

    No, you don’t (and they probably couldn’t afford it anyway). You had all you needed to know in the Zygon story – the one you think was shenanigans because you spent too much time thinking you wanted more Time War and not enough time paying attention to the story you were being told.

    You saw everything you needed to know in Kate Stewart’s decision to let off a nuclear bomb in the middle of London. On Gallifrey, Arcadia had fallen. The Time Lord High Council had gone nuts. The Military High Command were fighting an invasion of Daleks that was halfway there to conquering the planet.

    In London, the Black Archive had fallen. The Zygons had access to weapons powerful enough to successfully conquer the planet. Kate Stewart sees that – if she destroys London – she’ll destroy all the invaders with it.

    The Doctor sees that – if he destroys Gallifrey – he’ll destroy all the Daleks with it.

    So Kate sets off the countdown. So The Doctor steals The Moment.

    So Kate states the brutal arithmetic. Seven million dead rather than seven billion. So The Doctor states his brutal arithmetic. One planet and people versus an entire universe.

    And then – in both plots – an outsider sees that there is another option. The button, in both cases, doesn’t get pressed. The two plots are mirror images of each other.

    That was why The Moment took the War Doctor to that precise point. He can only make the decision he’s already made. It needs an outsider to see that there’s another option. She told him she was taking him to meet his future selves; but she was really taking him to meet Clara.

    Clara. The girl who was born to save The Doctor. 😉

    #21382
    thommck @thommck

    http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/the-day-of-the-doctor-the-50th-anniversary-special/page/20/#post-21326

    My reaction of the episode can be found at the link above, along with some photos of my boys & I dressed up 😀

    #21383
    curvedspace @curvedspace

    Real Life With Toddler  often keeps me from things but I managed to participate in some of the 50th events anyway, at least the ones I could get to online. We watched the first half of the Day of the Doctor while my kid was out with her grandmother and then they came back right in the middle! We had to stop watching until she went to bed! So we had a seven hour gap in which to writhe on tenterhooks. Weather permitting, we’ll see the episode in the theater on Monday. It’ll be nice to see it all in one go, and re-watch for details.

    I loved so much about this, all of which y’all have already pointed out. 🙂

    My head is exploding about the idea upthread that Clara might be Osgood’s big sister. And I’m dying to know when in the Doctor’s timeline this took place — when we left Eleven and Clara they were inside the Doctor’s time stream at Trenzalore. The Day of the Doctor could have happened at any time, I suppose, but inside the Doctor’s time stream is the first time that Clara saw the War Doctor, so that implies that The Day of the Doctor occurs after the events at Trenzalore. (And since when does Eleven talk about the Time War with Clara all the time?) So I can’t figure out when the 50th was situated. Perhaps it’s the second half of the story, and we’ll see the first half when the series resumes.

    If Gallifrey is still around, though timelocked, might The Master still be alive? And the Doctor’s family?

    My biggest question is: how was Four there, looking old? Don’t we see Four regenerate into Five (I haven’t seen that ep; I don’t know)? If so, when and how does Four get old? And are we meant to believe that the National Gallery is in a TARDIS? Or just that Curator likes those round things?

    Niggling questions aside, I haven’t a complaint. It was everything I like best about Doctor Who, even in the wobbly bits. I don’t need my plots to be perfect as long as the story is good, so I’m quite pleased. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

    #21384
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @pedant I also heartily apologise  for using the royal “we”.  My kingdom barely extends past my front door, and even that is questionable.  However, electronic interference in translating rogue to rouge could be the result of Clara sending a message….the Doctor is a woman!  (or a cool cross-dresser)

    At the beginning of the special, when the Doctor and Clara see the painting, he says, “There is a man who commits a crime that will silence the universe.”  Silence Must Fall.  Could the Silence be a reaction against his interference in his own time stream? more to make me go, “hmmm.”

    #21387
    Juniperfish @juniperfish

    I don’t know @pedant  I think @denvaldron ‘s criticisms are valid tbh.

    I enjoyed the episode in so many ways, not least (which I haven’t mentioned yet) the cinematography. The shot which took us from planetary explosion to a coffee cup was particularly beautiful. I enjoyed most of all, the collective experience of sharing fifty years of the programme with fellow fans. However, it was a baggy old, saggy old beast of a script, which rather reflects the totality of Who thus far.

    Given more time, it would indeed have been great to consider in-depth serious peace negotiations between humans and Zygons. I would very much like Who, going forward, to explore the perspective of some of the alien races we encounter, from their POV, as very often they are simply “baddies”.

    The Elizabeth the First sub-plot was not my favourite aspect. It was mostly there for comedic effect (Ten and his sex-capades). It also tied the Doctor further back into his old history of working for the British Government (via UNIT) and really I’m not fond of the Doctor as an intergalactic James Bond.

    However, I am delighted the Time Lords are potentially back in play. There are lots of interesting directions the long narrative could go in from here. Eleven looked full of hope at the possibility of going “home”, but of course the First Doctor did run away in the first place because Time Lord society was stuffy, rule-bound and problematic. A long arc which explored nostalgia for an imagined home versus the far more conflicted and complicated reality once one returns could be fantastic.

    @ardaraith I missed the reference to the High Council – will have to re-watch.

    @timeloop In terms of whether the Doctor did or did not burn Gallifrey. I’m going with two time-streams myself.

    I don’t think The Day of the Doctor seeks to erase the Doctor’s history as the “killer of his own kind”, at least I hope not. The conscience of the Moment (Billie) does not permit Hurt Doctor to go back into his time-stream with the memory that he has encountered his future selves and chosen, this time, to “save the children”.  Time is not re-written so Ecclestone and Tennant leave the Time War secure in the knowledge that Gallifrey is safe in a bubble universe.  It is only a Ten and Eleven (although it seems we should now be calling them Eleven and Twelve) who have lived through the darkness of that genocidal choice and taken responsibility for it who are able to work with Hurt Doctor to find another way.

    #21388
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    Of course, that begs the question as to how the Doctor knows the High Council’s plans, when the War Council has no idea.

    His Mum told him. 😉

    If you think about it, @denvaldron, The Doctor is a former President of Gallifrey. The equivalent – a former Prime Minister – would retain their seat on the Privy Council for life, and so are generally on speaking terms (well, if they are on speaking terms) with the current Cabinet.

    The General’s ‘oh f*@k, not him’ reaction strongly implies that The Doctor is an Important Person.

    #21389
    curvedspace @curvedspace

    Does Hurt regenerate into Eccleston? I sure thought I saw Eccleston’s face bleeding through but it wasn’t clear, and I can’t check it just now. If Hurt doesn’t verifiably regenerate into Eccleston, then we might have another gap in which to insert another hidden regeneration. It would be pretty cheesy to do so, IMO, but Moffat does like to leave loopholes. (Certainly Hurt into Eccleston is implied with the comment about the ears sticking out.)

    And I’m definitely ready to have the nomenclature settled. Is Hurt Nine? Or outside of the numbering? It’s going to be terrible to be talking about Ten if one party means Eccleston and the other means Tennant.

    #21390
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    So some of us are maybe Zygons…
    z

    #21391
    Anonymous @

    @pedant @janetteb

    I’m still convinced – for now – that there’s more to Osgood and Clara having a similar name. (see #20793)

    Taken literally, Osgood (aka ‘Scarf Girl’ (c) JanetteB ) is jealous that her sister is prettier. However, this is Steven Moffat we’re talking about – he doesn’t do ‘literal meanings’.

    I think that ‘sister’ in this case has the ‘Sisterhood’ meaning (‘The Sisterhood of The Doctor’?) rather than being siblings. Osgood’s ‘sister’ might be prettier but that’s not the reason for her jealousy. She’s jealous because her ‘sister’ (Oswald) is travelling with The Doctor whilst Osgood’s only connection to him is through the various artifacts in the Under Gallery and the Black Archive (and, of course, her scarf – perhaps given to her by The Curator?).

    While Clara may not be aware that she’s part of this ‘sisterhood’ it’s possible that Osgood knows but is sworn to secrecy (by The Curator?).

    #21392
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @wolfweed – that explains so much!

    #21394
    Rassilon @maudey56

    Although an exceptional episode, there was one thing i was left confused by:

    In the end of time, galifrey is timelocked, said to be at the end of the timewar, and the doctor explains he did this to stop all that the timelords unleashed escaping, he then sends them back

    He also expressed his disdain for what the timelords had become, and said the choice he made was locking them in time

    So when he did that in the day of the doctor, i was confused, as id assumed he already knew where galifrey was, and that it was ok, it was only out of choice he didnt want to find them

    I dont know if ive missed something, or misinterpreted something, but id appreciate anyone who can enlighten me

    #21396
    DenValdron @denvaldron

     

    @bluepipsqueak

    Invade a more sophisticated Earth with a tech base and a more comfortable living standard. This was explicitly stated by Queen Elizabeth. Ruling Elizabethan England, to a spacefaring race like the Zygons, would be the equivalent of having the biggest mud hut in the village. The Elizabethans were people who thought water mills were advanced technology.

    Look, there’s a difference between stating a reason for purposes of plot, and having something make sense.  It’s like all those slasher movies, where the character goes  “Hmm, I think I’ll go alone into this dark scary basement.”   Well, the fact that they said it doesn’t make it sensible.  Dimensions in Time came up with some notion of the Rani creating a time tunnel thingy… still didn’t make senses on examination.

    So let’s take a look at the Zygons.  Okay, yes, that’s stated.  I find myself wondering how Queen Elizabeth knows or finds all this out in such a very short time.  Or how she was faking her way among Zygons.  Presumably, they’d be wondering why she seemed to be asking so many questions about things she ought to know.  “Hmmm can you repeat the Grand Plan that we discussed this morning?”  And presumably, wouldn’t they be wondering where the real Queen Elizabeth was?  Because they need the real one alive to maintain the image?

    The notion that they want to rule a more sophisticated Earth doesn’t really hold up.  So they’re all going to…  what, spend the next two or three centuries playing bridge with each other until its time to get on with the invasion?  Or they’re going to conceal themselves in paintings…. for an indefinite period of time…  until when, what?  How would they know when its time to get out of the painting?  How do they decide that?

    And wouldn’t a more sophisticated technically competent Earth be a lot harder to conquer and rule?  They’re risking spending their existence in all those paintings, in order to get their butts kicked when they get out.   And what if Earth destroys itself or is destroyed in the meantime?  Tough luck then.  Unless they could accurately predict or pinpoint the future, their plan has so many and such massive variables that it’s just insane.   They might as well have just spent two hundred years buying scratch and win lottery tickets, they’d have much better chances.

    And why bother storing the paintings at all.  Even if they’re indestructible, there’s nothing to stop them from being buried in concrete, or at the bottom of a well, with the location marked.   Let the Zygons invade through 1000 tons of granite.   There’s another one of those variables, where the Zygon’s need amazing foresight as to the future in order for the plan to work.

    There’s a movie called Zombie 3, made in the Phillipines, by Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei.  Fulci got sick, so Mattei took over.  But that’s neither here nor there.  Anyway, there’s a scene where a character goes into a room, opens a cupboard and a zombie jumps out and attacks him.  That sort of thing gets widely criticized.  Why is the zombie in the cupboard?  How long has it been waiting quietly in the cupboard on the off chance that someone, someday may come into the room and open the cupboard?  It’s an example of something that makes an impact when you watch it, but as you examine it, the less sense it makes.

    You have forgotten what is established for the Zygon back-story; their home planet has been destroyed in the Time War. Think ‘crash-landed on a primitive island’ rather than ‘planned invasion’. Which is probably why the Doctor is relatively sympathetic; certainly enough to suggest a treaty. These are desperate shipwrecked sailors rather than invading career pirates.

    They don’t seem to be the same group from Terror of the Zygons, hanging about in Loch Ness.

    How? The time portal is carefully chosen by The Moment – who knows enough about the Doctor to pick a form that will become deeply important to him. So she also knows enough about the Doctor to pick a point in his future which has important parallels with his present crisis.

    Both points where the Zygons just happen to be futtering about?  How exactly does that work?   I’ll acknowledge the point that the three doctors figure out how to use their gaps in time to disintegrate a door, and that this becomes the inspiration for the resolution at the end, and I’ll respect that bit of work.

    But what’s the important parallel –  is marrying Queen Lizzy an important parallel to the present crisis?

    Is a run of the mill Zygon invasion an important parallel to the last day of the Time War?   Arguably, the scene in the Tower, where the two Stuarts are waiting for a nuclear weapon to detonate might parallel the last day of the Time War…   But only superficially.  In the tower, the two sides face annihilation because they can’t and won’t trust and won’t compromise.   In the Time War, the two sides face annihilation because the Doctor’s going to end it.   The resolution in the Tower, the Doctor just wipes everyone’s memory and tells them to come together, is completely unrelated to the resolution of the last day – that solution comes from the throwaway door bit mentioned – not from the Doctor finding a way to tell the Daleks and Time Lords to call off Doomsday and talk it out.   Bottom line, is the Zygon plot threads fail to mesh effectively with each other, or with the main plot.

    There was probably very little money for Epic Scope.

    >>Same thing with the ‘Moment’. Okay, it’s an ultimate weapon…. But what does it do?

    I neither know nor care beyond ‘it will make Gallifrey burn’. We’ve had nine years of being told the Doctor destroys Gallifrey. How? He presses a Big Red Button and the machine will do the rest. Dramatically, that’s all you need to know. How it does it has no dramatic impact whatsoever; what it will do, however, is kill 2.7 billion children.

    Uh uh uh!  Nope.  First rule of storytelling is show, don’t tell.   Second rule of storytelling is that if you can’t show, then tell.   Don’t show, don’t tell?   That’s storytelling failure 101.  You always have to be selling your story to the audience.  Otherwise, there’s no reason to care.  Dramatically, this fails.  The Moment never achieves any kind of identity or presence.

    No, you don’t (and they probably couldn’t afford it anyway). You had all you needed to know in the Zygon story – the one you think was shenanigans because you spent too much time thinking you wanted more Time War and not enough time paying attention to the story you were being told.

    Nope, it really was shenanigans.  I paid attention to the story that was being told.  The whole story, the overarching story, the theme, how the subplots worked and how they related to the main story.   I was not distracted by impressive speeches to rabbits, or the chemistry between Tenant and Smith, the cool banter.  I paid attention to all that stuff, enjoyed the hell out of it….  but that didn’t distract me from the fact that the story broke down.

    Basic storytelling – if you’re going to tell an epic story about a climactic moment in the Doctors life, then tell that story.  If you can show it, fine.  If you don’t have the budget to show it…  fine, tell it another way, but don’t just go  ‘it’s epic, really’ and then try and distract with empty shenanigans.

    Look, it’s not the worst Doctor Who story ever told.  Far from it.  And there’s a lot of individual little bits to like or even love.  But the whole is less than the sum of its parts.  And given that this story has been hyped to the wazoo, its disappointing.  It failed to live up to its hype.   Compare this to ;  Last of the Time Lords; Journey’s End;  End of Time; The Big Bang;  ‘Wedding of River Song’; ‘ Name of the Doctor.’  Better stories told better.

     

     

     

    #21398
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @curvedspace  

    Does Hurt regenerate into Eccleston? I sure thought I saw Eccleston’s face bleeding through but it wasn’t clear, and I can’t check it just now. If Hurt doesn’t verifiably regenerate into Eccleston, then we might have another gap in which to insert another hidden regeneration. It would be pretty cheesy to do so, IMO, but Moffat does like to leave loopholes. (Certainly Hurt into Eccleston is implied with the comment about the ears sticking out.)

    For obvious reasons – Ecclestone not participating – it would be difficult to show that.     I think that there was a half second of Ecclestone’s face appearing.   But I do think it was a deliberate choice not to leave more than a hint.

    Moffat has left himself a bit of room for intermediate Doctors, although he may have to work a bit to explain how or where these intermediate Doctors get unremembered.    But then again, this wouldn’t be the first time that gaps in the Doctor’s history emerge…  consider season 6B.

    #21400
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @curvedspace

    My biggest question is: how was Four there, looking old? Don’t we see Four regenerate into Five (I haven’t seen that ep; I don’t know)? If so, when and how does Four get old? And are we meant to believe that the National Gallery is in a TARDIS? Or just that Curator likes those round things?

    Smith says:   “I never forget a face.”

    Baker responds:   “I know you don’t, but if you live long enough, you may end up revisiting some of those faces, particularly old favourites.”

    The Doctor has never been in control of his regenerations.  But that’s not necessarily typical.  Romana had complete control of her regeneration.  This scene implies that in the far future, the Doctor will control his regenerations, retire, and become the Curator.  It’s not the 4th talking to the Smith Doctor, it’s the Xteenth.   The existence of the Xteenth may well have an impact on Trenzalore in some way.

    #21410
    PhaseShift @phaseshift
    Time Lord

    On the one hand, you have to pity Steve Moffat for being in the position he’s in, because there are inevitably people who will be disappointed. And let’s be frank here, Who fandom has some unstable elements.

    Personally, I thought this was great, much better than I think we had a hope for. I’ve been thinking about how to mitigate the angst of the Time War and, as no big fan of the Time Lords in the history of the show, not really wanting them back as was. I think SMs solution is quite neat. Changing the nature of their fate, while keeping the visible consequence (no Time Lords, at the moment) is a master stroke. I can’t help thinking he’s given us another “Well, that’s how it all started” moment like the Five Doctors. I couldn’t help thinking of the first episode, Unearthly Child:

    Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the Fourth Dimension? Have you? To be exiles? Susan and I are cut off from our own planet – without friends or protection. But one day we shall get back. Yes, one day….The – First Doctor, The Unearthly Child

    So here he is. An exile, but knowing that he stands not as an executioner of the innocent, and that one day he could go back to them. Making Arcadia the Second City of Gallifrey is a great notion. The mention by the Time Lords at the beginning that the Capitol “had their own ideas” and the sound of contempt over Time Lord leadership leaves plenty of potential for future stories. Bringing the Time Lords back as they were seen in the End of Time wouldn’t really be an option.

    I think some people seem to assume that the quest to locate the Time Lords will fill his every waking moment from now on, but I don’t think that’s something they should rush towards. The early show managed six years before even revealing them, after all. It’s also the perfect excuse for the Doctor to actually seek an extension to his regenerations. Not for himself, but to ensure that one day he finds and frees them. Altruistic, rather than selfish reasons.

    No – like a lot of decisions he’s made, I think he’s successfully cut a tie, a limitation to the ongoing story in a subtle way, and increased the scope for future story writers, rather than add to the baggage. The future does start here, and that’s quite a birthday present.

    Hurt was magnificent, but I’ll treasure that meet up and the end. The two definitions of the “Mad Man in the Box” for me, on screen at the same time. Brilliant.

    #21411
    ScaryB @scaryb

    Just throwing in my tuppenceworth.

    For me the big story and theme of the episode is the moral dilemma – is it ever justifiable to kill a few for the sake of the many; and even more so when those “few” (well, a smaller no than the no who will be saved, to be more precise) are innocents, particularly children.

    The answer was a resounding NO.

    Anyone who thinks it is yes and carries it out, for whatever good motivations – and whatever Hurt’s Doctor is when he becomes the War Doctor – he is still part of the direct  line of Doctors from Hartnell – he might be dark because of what he’s had to do in the war (and as @denvaldron points out, in Night of the Doctor we see McGann regenerating into a young Hurt, so it’s been a while*) – but he isn’t evil – will be severely psychologically damaged/diminished by taking the action.

    What a massively powerful message for any TV programme, never mind a  “kids’ show”, to be sending out in 2013.

    In a worldwide  “event” broadcast to nearly 100 different countries.

     

    *unless of course a side effect of the Time War is to age people prematurely (but that’s a whole other theory)

    #21412
    ScaryB @scaryb

    In fact, following on from that dark theme that the perpetrators of violence are themselves damaged by their own participation – it generally takes 2-3 generations for people in countries which have suffered attrocities/revolutions/invasions etc to come to terms with it and start to move on.  We have 2 (re)generations of Doctors before he can start to deal with the personal damage to himself, caused by the War Doctor’s act.

    #21413
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    http://blogtorwho.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/colin-baker-talks-day-of-doctor.html

    “You know, all or none – that’s what I would have thought. I know Tom did it for longer than anybody else and he’s the oldest Doctor but by asking him and not us, it makes you feel like a second-class citizen, a bit.

    z

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