The Day of the Doctor
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janetteB 1 year ago.
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24 November 2013 at 19:13 #21414
You’d think after all this time as an actor Colin might’ve actually picked up something about how stories and scriptwriting work, and the difference between a plot point with punch and a gimmick! Chip on shoulder, much, methinks!
24 November 2013 at 19:25 #21415@scaryb – If he’d been in it, he’d probably have compared the difference between Drs’ screen time and whined about that…
He was in it anyway, under a drape. And Dr no. 6 was in it.
24 November 2013 at 19:28 #21416
24 November 2013 at 19:30 #21417s. However, it was a baggy old, saggy old beast of a script, which rather reflects the totality of Who thus far.
There was one moment when it flagged a bit for me. Then Billie turned up and all was well.
Given more time, it would indeed have been great to consider in-depth serious peace negotiations between humans and Zygons.
No. The fact of negotiations was the point. Details are for novelisations and fanwank. The Zygons were the B plot.
There are lots of interesting directions the long narrative could go in from here.
I hope it is the “the search for home” rather than the “Search for the Time Lords.” It think, in modern society, such a story could make some very pertinent points.
that there’s more to Osgood and Clara having a similar name
I think it was a thread left nicely dangling while they sussed fan reaction to Ingrid Oliver.
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?
They are in stasis. This was clearly explained. Or did you need the concept of stasis explained?
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.
Tell me, do you patronise for your country?
Fantasy (and sadly, these days, SF) is weighed down with tedious, turgid, flatulent bags of old fanwank hiding like snivelling little shits behind the phrase “world building”, the worst example to taking a simple and sensible caution (show, don’t tell) and turning it into an article of faith, and end in itself, forgetting that storytellers are not, in the final reckoning called story showers. Moffat has been a delightful antidote to that tedious load of old toss.
The first rule of editing is: “cut out the tedious shit”.
24 November 2013 at 19:31 #21418Nice cap! Now that’s what you call a passive aggressive dig ((c) asgil).
24 November 2013 at 19:35 #21419*unless of course a side effect of the Time War is to age people prematurely (but that’s a whole other theory)
You owe me a new keyboard.
24 November 2013 at 19:50 #21420Sorry if I’ve missed a thorough fettling of this particular issue, but the Osgood/Oswald thingie – it’s got to be more than coincidence, hasn’t it? The Wiki entry for the episode refers to UNIT technician Osgood from The Dæmons, so she could have a link to Who history anyway, but the sister comment must be significant, or else it’s just rather gratuitous.
I loved every damn minute of the episode anyway, and will be rewatching it soon.
24 November 2013 at 20:06 #21421@IamnotafishIamafreeman Let’s keep it civil. It’s one thing to have legitimate disagreements about a work of art or storytelling. It’s another to slip in a snide personal insult. It doesn’t do you any good. It doesn’t do me any good. No one else enjoys it. And you go down that road… you might not appreciate where it leads.
24 November 2013 at 20:07 #21422@cathannabel – I think that the sister thing might just be to emphasise the fact that ‘Yes’ Osgood ended up a slightly insecure nerd (unlike her sister but quite like a fair amount of Dr Who fans). You never know though…
A few ‘Exclusive Extended’ videos have been uploaded to Youtube…
24 November 2013 at 20:10 #21423The notion that Osgood might be Clara Oswald’s sister is an interesting one. But I’m not sure how well grounded it is. It’s just two letters of a last name in common, and a throwaway reference to a sister.
I checked the IMDB and Wikipedia, and Osgood is the only name listed for the character.
24 November 2013 at 20:11 #21424Look, there’s a difference between stating a reason for purposes of plot, and having something make sense.
Granted. But, that said, there’s also a difference between something that makes sense to you, and makes sense to a character. There’s also a difference between making sensible objections and idiotic ones – how the hell could the Elizabethans bury anything in concrete? Their concrete was only useful for cementing bricks together – they had crap concrete until 1793. And why on earth would the Elizabethans bury a highly suspicious and possibly magical object in their drinking water supply? Their drinking water supply was wretched as it was, without deliberately poisoning it.
Their instinct would be to put the dangerous ‘paintings’ in a dungeon in the strongest fortress they have. Which is what Queen Elizabeth did.
As far as I can work out, your other complaint about the Zygon invasion is that – having an entirely secure method of time-travel-via-hibernation – the Zygons chose to invade somewhere with running water, basic sanitation, central heating and factories. Fine. That’s your problem. Me, I know quite a bit about Elizabethan England – from the point of view of somebody from the 21st Century, it’s a nice place to visit, but not somewhere to stay. I have no problem thinking that the Zygons would be going ‘actually live in this midden heap? Are you kidding me, Commander? Time travel – yeah, that sounds cool.’
Steven Moffat’s an English MA – I suspect he also has a good working knowledge of life in Elizabethan England 😉
That’s storytelling failure 101.
Unfortunately, if you can’t spot a reasonably obvious parallel plotline, you’ve just failed storytelling 101. Twice, in fact, because you’ve failed to recognise that the Big Red Button is ‘show, don’t tell’.
The mechanics of ‘how this Big Red Button works’ will not make the audience care, just as I don’t care whether the gun being pointed at the child’s head is a Smith & Wesson revolver or a Luger automatic. The story is ‘sold’ to the audience not by telling them the details of exactly how Gallifrey will be blown to smithereens or imploded into a teeny black hole or whatever – but by showing the children who are going to die if that button is pressed.
That’s what affects the Doctor. Not the mechanics. He could have smothered all Gallifrey to death with pink marshmallows for all the difference it would have made – he killed the children. He loves children; he wants to protect them. He will put the entire universe to rights rather than leave a child crying. But here, he chose to kill them all.
the story broke down.
Okay, you’ve watched it twice, I’ve watched it twice. Let me go through the story for you.
In a galaxy far, far away, … damn, sorry, wrong story. Rewind.
In the middle of a gigantic war, an old man steals a weapon that can blow up a planet. However, the weapon he steals is sentient; it is intelligent, it can reason, it has a conscience and it is created by Time Lords – so it can see the whole of time, not just a particular moment. Since it also has a conscience, it wants very badly to find an alternative to the old man’s proposed plan.
Therefore, it suggests a plan. It will show the old man his future. He can see the sort of person he’ll turn into.
She’s not quite telling the whole truth: in that future there is a particular place and time where the old man will be shown – not just his future – but someone he’ll come to know well making exactly the decision he’s about to make. He will also see himself, stopping that happening. He will also, though he doesn’t know it, meet someone who was born to correct the errors in the Doctor’s time-line. He’ll meet Clara, whose job is to rewrite the Doctor’s past.
So The Moment does two things: One – she opens a portal to Elizabethan England. Two: she opens a portal from Elizabethan II England to Elizabethan I England. One brings the Smith and Tennant Doctors in contact with each other, the other takes the Hurt Doctor to meet them both.
Note that the only ‘coincidence’ required is that the Tennant Doctor, when visiting Elizabethan England, had to spot a Zygon. The Smith Doctor’s being dragged in is actually a consequence of that – he was the Doctor who got the ‘clean-up’ role once the Zygons escaped into the future. That we see the adventure with the Zygons is inevitable from The Moment’s point of view: she needs something with a future Doctor – preferably more than one – she needs Clara present and she needs a similar type of problem. Yay, Zygons!
So: they have rollicking shennanigans with Zygons, Hurt sees who he’ll be, he sees an alternative, successful solution – but he doesn’t change his decision. Which is a problem for The Moment, because quite clearly she doesn’t want this Big Red Button to be pressed. This time she opens the Time Lock on this moment (Tennant’s Doctor has a line referencing that ‘somebody’ had to let them enter this place and time) – and the other two Doctors turn up. But they’re the Hurt Doctor; all the same man, really. The casing may be different, but the software’s the same. They would make the same decision – and they do. That’s what’s killing them; the knowledge that they would make the same decision.
Clara, however, is the Outsider in the time-loop. She can instinctively spot the ‘wrongness’ in the loop and give that little fractal push. The impetus of an ‘outside’ voice, rather than the constant circling of his own thoughts, is enough to make the oldest iteration of the Doctor remember one of his alternative solutions. The one he probably came up with when he couldn’t sleep for the 100,000 night running, when he was trying so hard to forget.
End of story.
The story doesn’t break apart or fall apart – it’s simply told in three different time-streams so that you have to pick out the story logic across three strands. It’s a ‘trenzalore’ – a story about a braid. It’s epic in scope; a story about a major decision in someone’s life that then has repercussions down the centuries. We see those repercussions; the Tennant Doctor’s heroics, the Smith Doctor’s wanting to forget everything, even what’s important. The children who are going to die if he can’t find a way to rewrite his own past.
The Moment is playing the god (in the Machine) – an externalised conscience, essentially good, with supernatural powers to influence the action.
Yeah. Anyway, I’m off to watch it a third time. 🙂
24 November 2013 at 20:36 #21425Hello all, what a weekend.. Just got back from the celebration at the excel. Just wanted to share that Moffat was asked explicitly about the ‘numbering’ of the doctors and he was adamant that Capaldi was the 13th incarnation. He also said that the Doctor never gives himself a number and that neither should we. In other words, the regeneration limit issue has to be resolved and it doesn’t matter at all whether John Hurt’s character calls himself the doctor or not in terms of how many regenerations are left. (Although Hurt did call himself the Doctot anyway, and the new profile pic officially puts him in the line up). I’m happy as Larry that ecclestone didn’t want to be involved.. We got john hurt instead 🙂 and a whole better story arc… By the way, Moffat also said that the Christmas special not only features Matt Smith’s best acting performance as the doctor – but perhaps the best EVER of any doctor performance! Praise indeed and setting the bar as high as it can go! Bring on the festive season!
24 November 2013 at 21:09 #21426@bluesqueakpip – I wonder if you’ve seen The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England or read the book of the same name. Not sure if we’d even survive there unless the TARDIS was there to help
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018400g and first episode here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFNCFMT6Tas
24 November 2013 at 21:13 #21427Over all very please with the 50th even though I was trying to watch it while my children were still up so I missed bit here and there. I will be doing a rewatch tonight for sure. I am excited about the posibilities but feel now more than ever that I may need to go back and watch some of the PG episodes. Any thoughts or advice on where to focus my attention in light of 50th?
24 November 2013 at 21:14 #2142824 November 2013 at 21:23 #21429You can always find something you don’t like when you stubbornly keep looking for it. It saddens me that so many in the interwebs feel entitled to so much ARSE. Telling them what they should have done. Moffat has packed so much in this one episode. I was afraid there would not be enough time to get through it all in time but he managed it stunningly.
I felt very content when I left the cinema. And I was not alone. My whole screening room was applauding when the credits were shown. How often do people actually applause a story they decided to watch in cinema.They have done an amazing job IMO. They moved hundreds and thousands of people to interact with the story through applauding and laughing and taking part in the presented story.
@denvaldron Why can’t you see what so many others can? I agree with @bluesqueakpip . We (sorry @pedant feel yourself excluded. With we I am referring to the audience) don’t actually need to see how the ‘Moment’ works for example. The children who watch the episode don’t need to understand how exactly the ‘Moment'(a weapon of mass destruction) works. They don’t explain other weapons like laser guns or how memory filters in the black archive work. So why should Moffat feel compelled to explain a weapon he won’t even use and loose screening time on that? I see no reason whatsoever.
@bluesqueakpip I think in this case he is saved by the ‘Moment’, really. It decides to take him there, just as you said. The ‘Moment’ shows him the way out (though through Clara, I agree).
@juniperfish I don’t totally agree. It is time locked. I think we agree so far? That means the event cannot be altered or time WILL disintegrate. Time would die. Doctors 9-11 are left thinking they did it, since most Daleks and all TLs except the Master disappear.
@denvaldron @ardaraith I agree that preventing the return of the Timelords is a possible motivation/reason for the Silence. I had in fact the same idea but it slipped through my hands on my way back home. So kudos @ardaraith for coming up with it. Though I don’t think this has much more the potential to be the underlying theme for the next seven seasons.
@hudsey Yes, makes sense. So we will have 1-11, the Hurt/war Doctor and number 13. The number 12 spot is left blank.
@maudey56 This is how I see it: The Doctors up to 12 forget the Day of the Doctor due to timey-wimey distortions (they talk about that in the Tower of London). The 10th Doctor is left to believe that he did use the ‘Moment’ because that is the last thing he remembers. He therefore thinks there is no hope left and can never ever go looking for it, because it is time locked(expect for that one point in his time stream, which he doesn’t know).
@juniperfish “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.”
There will be problems and consequences for the Doctor when and if he returns home. I still would very much like to see more of where the Doctor came from. I don’t think they will into deep problems because it is meant to be a show for the whole family.24 November 2013 at 21:24 #21430Who is osgood’s sister? That’s the one question running around my head as I rewatch the special…john hurt was amazing and all 13 doctors amazing
Any thoughts on osgood?
24 November 2013 at 21:35 #21431Those who weren’t at the cinema and missed the extras at the beginning, at least one is now online starring
Strax,Smith and Tennant, er Ron Burgundy!http://uk.ign.com/videos/2013/11/22/doctor-who-confuses-and-confounds-ron-burgundy
24 November 2013 at 21:35 #21432@DelValdron
Let’s keep it civil. It’s one thing to have legitimate disagreements about a work of art or storytelling. It’s another to slip in a snide personal insult.
By all means – just as soon as you explain whether you need “stasis” explaining. ‘cos, the thing is, there’s a term for those who continue to pursue a line after a factual inaccuracy or false premise has been pointed out. I’d like reassurance that the disagreement is “legitimate” (although I must admit, trying to lecture @bluesqueakpip on storytelling is one of the more amusing things I’ve seen today (outside the flaming that poor old Viv Groskop’s getting over on the Grauniad)).
(Oh, and it is shown in the ep that Zygons took on the thoughts of whoever they duplicated. It was established as long ago as AGITF that such doors, once opened, work two ways. That’s how she knew their plan.)
24 November 2013 at 21:36 #21433Anonymous @
Right, been scanning the responses with much interest and thought I’d chuck in my ha’penny’s worth with some reactions now that I’ve watched it twice — and plan to again.
Overall I thought it was bloody marvellous — best anniversary story in the show’s history and I include The Three Doctors in that. But I do have a few reservations. I slightly share some of @denvaldron‘s misgivings about the Zygon subplot but think that he’s getting too wrapped up in them. But while it was definitely hokey I think it stands up and don’t really see it as the epic fail that he does. I think it’s meant to be hokey.
I’ve never been the world’s biggest fan of the Zygons and can’t say that I’m entirely delighted to see them back. They always struck me as a bit too generic alien monster to me. But hokey plots is what they do — invade Britain with a giant robot dinosaur? But the hokeyness is the point. It seems to me that one of the main things that this story was doing was healing the divide between the old and the new series — which is why we had an old Doctor who pointedly voiced criticisms of the ‘new’ Doctors (as if he were voicing the more lucid end of the outporings of Truckles and his ilk). The Hurt Doc was the envoy of the old series and was in the end reconciled with the new (and in a way that the recall bias brigade it seems are still steadfastly refusing to be). I think it was Moffat’s attempt to make the distinction between BG and AG Who far less pronounced, to point out that this is all the same show (although I see in the Other Place that there are still those who still flatly refuse to recognise anything post-2005.)
There were still a few plot holes though. As has been pointed out, the Zygon plot was a bit all over the place but I think it was kind of meant to be. It was old Who monsters engaged in an old Who plot married to a decidedly Nu-Who plot (i.e. Time War). I think this was part of the point really. It was meant to be a celebration of all eras of the show. No, what was bugging me more was using the sonic to implode the door. It wasn’t the same sonic — wasn’t Matt’s destroyed in A Christmas Carol and he said he was going to have to build a new one? — so the whole idea of setting it off on scanning the door wouldn’t have worked anyway, would it?
Joanna Page as Queen Liz kind of rankled for me too. I think they spent a bit too long on that whole strand. We didn’t really need to see the wedding, for instance. And I just thought it was a kind of naff performance too (instead of 10 she should be getting hitched to Gerald Flood’s King John from The King’s Demons. They were born for each other.) However, I can see that all the Liz stuff was included as a kind of celebration of the Tennant snogathon years.
But at the other end of the spectrum, I loved Hurt’s Doctor and would truly like to see more of him in action. Can’t see it happening somehow but I hope that Big Finish have been on the phone to him already because a series of audios on the Time War could surely be in the offing now? We got enough of a suggestion of how compromised and potentially bad-ass his Doctor was in the story but I’m sure there’s a lot more mileage in there. And failing that, then he’s perfect as the basis of a Mass Effect-esque computer game.
I can kind of understand Colin Baker being a bit miffed that Tom got special treatment and a place in the special but the fact of the matter is that he’s the elder statesman of the Old Doctors and the one most memorably remembered. If any of the other Doctors had shown up as The Curator it just wouldn’t have had the same impact. It had to be Tom really. Although part of me does think that in the interests of fairness it should have been the First Doctor. Having a ‘retired’ First Doc played by David Bradley would have worked narratively I think but wouldn’t have had the same resonance for the viewer. So, slightly unfair, yes, but what the hell.
I’m glad they left it ambiguous as to who Tom was exactly though. If we’re talking him being the 28th Doctor or something, then that kind of makes a nonsense of Trenzalore and indeed destroys what sense of mortal peril we have left with regards to the Doctor. If we know he’s going to live to a ripe old age then I feel something might have been lost slightly.
Gallifrey. I liked the fact that it’s back as an idea and that a burden has been lifted from the Doc’s shoulders. In fact, I would have liked it if Hurt’s Doc would be allowed to remember the events of the story. Sure, it changes how Ecclestone and Tennant have previously been portrayed in the previous stories but since Moffatt ret-conned the original series in The Name of the Doctor and put that element of doubt and change into all those stories, then I don’t see why it couldn’t be extended just that bit further.
But I want the Time Lords to stay lost personally. It’s great that the Doc has got a quest now — to find them (a trifle BSG perhaps?) and as @phaseshift says a good call-back to that line of Hartnell’s in An Unearthly Child. But I really don’t want them to found for quite some time yet. I just can’t help but feel that the Whoniverse seemed to get smaller and smaller and more and more parochial from The Invasion of Time onwards…
If all this sounds so negative then it shouldn’t. Because I loved this story — from the digs at UNIT dating to the Osgood and her scarf to the beautiful interplay between the Doctors (I particularly liked the ‘I don’t want to go’ line) — three is the right number of Doctors really, isn’t it? And I’m so glad I was wrong about Matt regenerating because I, er, don’t want him to go. I’m really happy that we’ll be seeing him for one more episode at least, dodgy syrup or not.
All in all, I think Steven Moffat did something remarkable here. He paid loving homage to the old series while offering up a narrative that didn’t get bogged down in pointless nostalgia (look at the Five Doctors — it’s 90 minutes of fun but as a story it’s largely pants and has one particularly rubbish Dalek, incredibly thick Cybermen and a Yeti that can be defeated by a sparkler) but instead drove the 50-year story of the Doctor onto the next level.
He’s done smarter stories and he’s done ones that were perhaps more satisfying in terms of pure narrative but I think this will still stand up as one of his greatest achievements during his time on Who.
24 November 2013 at 21:39 #21434(a weapon of mass destruction)
To be…er… pedantic…a “weapon if ultimate destruction”. Seriously: what more explanation does anyone need?
24 November 2013 at 21:48 #21435It wasn’t the same sonic — wasn’t Matt’s destroyed in A Christmas Carol and he said he was going to have to build a new one?
The same “at a software level”. I think Moffat was trying to restore the specialness of giving River Song her sonic (he confessed to arsing that up when he was still in Twitter).
I’m glad they left it ambiguous as to who Tom was exactly though. If we’re talking him being the 28th Doctor or something, then that kind of makes a nonsense of Trenzalore and indeed gets destroys what sense of mortal peril we have left with regards to the Doctor. If we know he’s going to live to a ripe old age then I feel something might have been lost slightly.
I think it is fairly clear and I think Moffat was making the rather delicious point that spoilers aren’t everything…. We already know that the regeneration limit will be fixed and so Trenzalore will in some way become moot. The journey is the thing…
24 November 2013 at 21:51 #21436@pedant I agree. And to be …er… pedantic ….. ( 😀 ) wouldn’t ultimate destruction include the whole universe? You cannot top ultimate. That would include everything? ;D But I am willing to give into this one. It is just nitpicking. 😉
@pedant @jimthefish I think the software might be connected to the TARDIS and is always available to any new device. So the Doctor can’t lose it.
24 November 2013 at 21:56 #21437@timeloop, should also have said in my post that Matt Smith said that he liked being the 11th Doctor, because he ‘liked the number 11’. But the Moffat was insistent that the Doctor should never have a number. Clearly this makes things confusing as a reference point for the rest of us.. (How do you refer to a particular Doctor quickly if you can’t use a number?). But it certainly says to me that this is SM’s way of avoiding discussing the fact that he had to invent a new doctor in place of ecclestone to play the part. Once the story had been devised and refused by CE, he either had to go back to the drawing board or ‘cheat’ a bit. Renumbering the AG Doctors is the compromise he had to make for keeping the story he had in mind, and I guess he can’t come out and openly say the war doctor was created just because CE turned the role down. He also doesn’t want to invite criticism for confusing the numbering. I for one think we should all formally address them by the new numbers from now on… Hurt = 9, Ecclestone = 10, Tennant = 11, Smith = 12 and the wild eyed Capaldi = 13 (as he himself said in the film)… Means changing a lot of merchandise though, right? 🙂
24 November 2013 at 22:01 #21438Ages ago the Hive Mind worked out that, derived from Old Saxon/ Old Norse
Os win = God’s power
Os wald = God’s friend
and from what I can gather Os good = God’s goodness
So it could be that Osgood is a Clara-fragment, part of a trinity of Doctor-protectors, and one which (as discussed up thread) in particular represents Who fans.
It is time locked. I think we agree so far? That means the event cannot be altered or time WILL disintegrate. Time would die. Doctors 9-11 are left thinking they did it, since most Daleks and all TLs except the Master disappear.
We have seen Gallifrey time-locked and burning in “The End of Time” two-parter (we actually saw the planet burning on-screen as the Doctor shouted “Back into the Time War Rassilon, back into Hell”) and now Gallifrey is in a bubble universe but not burning. So, I don’t think it is simply that 9-11 are left thinking they committed genocide when they never did.
There will always be a past which the Doctor remembers when he made the choice to push the red button and use the Moment, just as there will always be a past which the Doctor remembers when he made a different choice. Forgetting has been shown to be an escapist and problematic strategy (as practiced by Eleven). Hopefully the Doctor will never forget (and should never forget) that he was “The War Doctor” and “The Oncoming Storm”.
I don’t think Moffat’s narrative chess move was simply that New Who’s character up to this point was all based on “a false reality”. That would be to take away the depth of New Who Doctor and absolve him. I don’t think he would want such an absolution.
24 November 2013 at 22:02 #21439@hudsey I don’t call them by numbers. Simpler to call them by name. The Hartnell Doctor, the Troughton Doctor, etc. I think it works better, since the names have a visual association.
24 November 2013 at 22:04 #21440The same “at a software level”
Yeah, I got the ‘software’ distinction. Plus in The Eleventh Hour the TARDIS gives him a whole new one, so that’s two physical replacements since Tennant’s one. Not sure the software argument washes though unless the screwdriver has some kind of hard drive that was backed up to the TARDIS at some point and then reuploaded to the new sonic after construction. But to hell with it. I like the ‘specialness’ argument so I’m soooo not going to lose any sleep over this.
The journey is the thing…
Oh absolutely. But at the same time if we now know that the worst that can possibly happen to the Doc now is that he’s going to regenerate then that does make him a bit too superhero-ey for my liking. But as I say I liked the obfuscations and evasions around it. It might be a future regeneration or it could be something else entirely. I seem to remember that in Terrance Dicks’s novelisation of The Five Doctors that the First Doc is time-scooped from a garden that was described as a refuge or a sanctuary (maybe like a zero room-like dimension where an incarnation can prepare themselves prior to physical regeneration). I could live with The Curator as an aspect or offshoot of the Fourth Doctor that got to retire while the rest of him went off to doom-plunge off the Pharos Project.
Or maybe The Curator was The Moment once again and this time using another face that Doc 12 would relate to (as we’d seen that Trenzalore was once again on his mind and therefore his own mortality what would be more comforting for him than to be told that he is in fact going to live on to a ripe old age?)
And can I just say that I loved the whole Moment thing. In a way, it was kind of like getting my wish to see the Apocalypse Device in the show — only much better looking.
Something else that struck me is how Clara was drawn to the picture of Susan on the UNIT ‘memories’ board. Couple that with seeing her in Coal Hill School at the beginning and perhaps even the reference in RoA then there seems to be a link between them being asserted. I’m sure this will pay off in the future. Perhaps Susan is her mother.
24 November 2013 at 22:10 #21441I posted on here before but it seems to have disappeared…
Anyway I kind of agree on a theory that my brother said last night and that is where the 11th doctor meets the curator (future incarnation who looks like 4th doctor) I don’t think they were in the gallery I think they were in the future incarnations Tardis. the reason? The circles on the wall. I know it probably wasn’t because four Tardis’ in one would be a huge paradox but then again anything is possible when the doctor is involved
please don’t delete my post it
makes me
sad :'(
24 November 2013 at 22:15 #21442@juniperfish I will have to re-watch this two-parter sometime soon before I can form an opinion and if the pictures of Gallifrey suggest a different past. I would like to give an informed answer.
Do you really feel it would take away the depth? He would be dealing with the same issue. The only thing he would have is a lucky escape. It is no false reality per se . Gallifrey is still lost up to this point. It is still his doing.
24 November 2013 at 22:18 #21443i appologise guys I thought it had been deleted but it hasn’t blaming it on the internet haha
24 November 2013 at 22:19 #21444@tennantmarsters2013 blimey that’s an inspired theory, well done your bro – I wonder if the whole gallery is in fact the tardis and not just the under gallery? Certainly makes a better monument than the one on trenzalore!
24 November 2013 at 22:20 #21445Just realised that if/when gallifrey is found that the Master will be there won’t he? Just sayin’
24 November 2013 at 22:35 #21448@bluepipsqueak
Granted. But, that said, there’s also a difference between something that makes sense to you, and makes sense to a character. There’s also a difference between making sensible objections and idiotic ones – how the hell could the Elizabethans bury anything in concrete? Their concrete was only useful for cementing bricks together – they had crap concrete until 1793. And why on earth would the Elizabethans bury a highly suspicious and possibly magical object in their drinking water supply? Their drinking water supply was wretched as it was, without deliberately poisoning it.
Acknowledging that concrete or cement actually existed during this period, it would have been available to help seal away the paintings. Burying them at the bottom of a well might or might not work. Sticking them under a hundred tons of masonry. There are all sorts of ways to lock up ‘indestructible’ paintings, short of putting them on a wall in a gallery.
Their instinct would be to put the dangerous ‘paintings’ in a dungeon in the strongest fortress they have. Which is what Queen Elizabeth did.
Not exactly. And in any event, the logic fails. You have something potentially dangerous, whose application theoretically you understand… and then you situate it in a form which makes it easy to break out of?
As far as I can work out, your other complaint about the Zygon invasion is that – having an entirely secure method of time-travel-via-hibernation – the Zygons chose to invade somewhere with running water, basic sanitation, central heating and factories. Fine. That’s your problem. Me, I know quite a bit about Elizabethan England – from the point of view of somebody from the 21st Century, it’s a nice place to visit, but not somewhere to stay. I have no problem thinking that the Zygons would be going ‘actually live in this midden heap? Are you kidding me, Commander? Time travel – yeah, that sounds cool.‘
No, my complaint about the Zygon invasion is that there’s no way the Zygons could predict the future and know when or how to break out. As I’ve said, the paintings could have ended up in the bottom of a collapsed mineshaft, or in the mud at the bottom of the sea. In either case, poor Zygons. The world could have seen thermonuclear war, the collapse of civilization, various sorts of alien invasions and detonations. Any of these variables would have simply butterflied away the Zygons plans. The Zygons whole plot to invade the future was contingent on everything going perfectly for them in their absence for several hundred years. Come on.
The story is ‘sold’ to the audience not by telling them the details of exactly how Gallifrey will be blown to smithereens or imploded into a teeny black hole or whatever – but by showing the children who are going to die if that button is pressed.
Again, I beg to differ. Consider the Eastwood film, Dirty Harry. That film also showed children at risk. But consider in that same film, Eastwood’s “This is a 44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world…” speech, which has clear dramatic effect.
I’ll credit you with going in swinging real hard on the Zygon Shenanigans. But since the Moment has access to all time and space, it doesn’t especially need to pick a spot where the Matt Smith Doctor gets to deal with the long delayed and utterly inept plans of the Zygons. It could have picked any spot. There’s no thematic connection, and no ‘in story’ connection between the Zygons and the Moment that is articulated.
Maybe if the Moment was saying that it had used the paintings as a locus to locate or zero in on the Doctor at different points in his life. Maybe that would work. Maybe if the Zygons had some chronal beacon they were using that the Moment could home in on. But no…
Now, Moffat has made dramatic choices through his script. Whether you like it or not, it is entirely legitimate to question the effectiveness of his dramatic choices. Like it or not, my views and opinions are at least as legitimate as your own, and you are obliged to live with them.
You can like Day of the Doctor all you want and for any reason you want and I respect that. I like it too. But I also dislike things in it, and I’ll ask you to respect that. My disliking some aspects of the Day of the Doctor is not a personal attack on you and should not be taken in that way.
24 November 2013 at 22:35 #21449@bluesqueakpip You said of the Doctors –
The casing may be different, but the software’s the same.
I really like that.
Also like @jimthefish‘s theory that T Baker at the end might still be the Moment. (love how Gallifreyan tech seems to have a habit of becoming sentient).
Sorry to disagree with those who feel the Zygon sub-plot is weak. I agree that they are more like a band of shipwrecked pirates rather than a full-on invasion force – they no longer have a planet cos of those dam’ TimeLords and Daleks.
I really liked the whole resonance with real life that I thought vibrated all through the story, and that I posted about above. On top of the BRB moral dilemma (ultimately protect the children) there’s a story about migrants – incomers – the Zygon/human negotiations. The more you think about it, the stronger it becomes – each side has to negotiate a fair outcome when they don’t know which side they’re going to end up on. Plus – there are Zygons living amongst us. NOW. We don’t know who they are – they could be your next door neighbour… When they’re in copy mode, does that mean they also eat what the originals eat? So are really indistinguishable.
The moment when all 3 Doctors are going to press the Moment button together is wrong – we in the audience know that this doesn’t feel quite right. It’s reconciliation but not redemption. And it takes the human perspective (albeit a very special human) to point it out.
24 November 2013 at 22:38 #21450tenantmarsters2013 It’s already established that the Tardis can materialize inside itself, in those minisodes in the new series. In that case, it was trouble because the Tardis had materialized inside itself at the same moment. It had to drift out of synch a few seconds. In this case, it could well be the Xteenth Doctor’s Tardis they’ve materialized inside, it would be centuries out of synch with the other three. It’s an interesting idea, and I can’t say whether it’s the case or not, but it does hold up.
24 November 2013 at 22:44 #21451I don’t think Moffat’s narrative chess move was simply that New Who’s character up to this point was all based on “a false reality”.
Journey To The Centre of the TARDIS – the Doctor really, really died, then really, really failed, then finally succeeded. Successive reiterations of the loop. I think that episode was to show us that time can be changed for the Doctor. Possibly it was also to show us that the previous trip round the loop still exists in the minds of the participants.
He changed Time by changing his mind. Moffat found a way (unlike in Day of the Daleks) for the Doctor’s time line to be the only thing that changes; because the Doctor can’t remember he changed his own history until he reaches this point, none of his subsequent actions will change.The Claricles also have/will fix(ed) any resulting problems.
I’d agree that we saw Gallifrey burning, plus a mad seer saying only two people (the Master and the Doctor) live. That’s now been changed: but it did happen. Because if it hadn’t happened, it couldn’t have been changed – Clara only exists because the Doctor is the man created by the Time War.
24 November 2013 at 22:46 #21452In regards to Colin Baker, his comments might seem a little churlish. But then again, he was probably the worst treated Doctor of the old series. He had to endure an 18 month hiatus between his first and second seasons, his second season serial – Trial of a Time Lord, was gutted. He was saddled with a costume that he disliked and actively hurt him. He got no respect at all.
And yet, by all accounts, from fans, he seems to have been a very nice person who was always gracious and worked well with people.
Like it or not, there’s no way not to feel its something of a slap in the face that Tom gets a role and not any of the others. In a lot of these things, like the unlamented Lost in Space remake, often the old stars are invited back for cameos.
Having said that, I can understand why Tom Baker was chosen. He played the Doctor longer, in terms of years and in terms of number of stories, than any Doctor before or after. He was the Doctor who broke through in North America, and in England probably the most wildly popular Doctor of his time. If there was a single Iconic Doctor…. it’s Tom Baker. And he’s the oldest surviving Doctor, – Troughton, Hartnell and Pertwee are dead. For what Moffat wanted to do with that last scene, really, it could only have been Tom.
24 November 2013 at 22:51 #21453Hey @denvaldron – I don’t think anyone’s getting at you personally, I think they’re just (also) offering their perspectives.
I thought the show great on first viewing, then weaker on first remembering and have now re-watched and think it much better than when I first viewed it. As for the Moment choosing when to locate/snatch the Doctors, perhaps she wanted them to realise that freezing Gallifrey “like a painting” might be a good idea (hence TennantDr).
But in all honesty, I pretty much go along for the ride when watching, so can’t say my analytic judgement is much to be admired!
24 November 2013 at 22:51 #21454Just watched it again on my tiny 14 inch portable, hmmm not quite the same impact as the 02’s Skyscreen in 3D…
Still enjoyed it though, but thought I’d dust off one of my few pet theories for the 50th which I suggested ages ago. In the book ‘Summer Falls’, the story is about a painting (although technically it is bringing three different objects together in order for the Lord of Winter to make a reappearance). However in the book the Doctor is not called the Doctor but the ‘Curator’. My presumption was that it was an incarnation of the Matt’s Doctor but after the cameo, perhaps not. After all QE1 says in her letter that she is making the Doctor her curator.
On a different note, I didn’t really take it in in my first cinema watch, but there were a lot of little jump cuts certainly in the first 20 or so minutes – ie Matt’s eyes morphing into Tom’s (as indicated upstream); Matt seemingly standing behind himself sans Clara in front of the Gallifrey picture; time seemingly twitching backwards or bits repeating – which to me gave a sense that time was being rewritten as it was happening [presumably as a result of the three Doctors activities in Elizabethan England].
24 November 2013 at 22:52 #21455I don’t know how false the reality of the Doctor is. The Daleks really did get genocided. So that’s that. He does feel guilty about stuff like that. And for practical purposes, tossing Gallifrey out of the Universe in a Frozen Moment of Time in some ways is only hypothetically better than wiping it out. This is something the War Council recognized.
As for the undestruction of Gallifrey. Well, due to the temporal dislocation, neither the Hurt nor the Tenant Doctors will remember that in the end they tried to save Gallifrey. So what they know is what they know, that includes the Ecclestone Doctor. Even the Smith Doctor only knows they tried, he doesn’t know whether or not they succeeded, until the Xteenth Doctor comes along, whaps him upside the head and tells him they succeeded.
I don’t see that this invalidates any of the angst and withering of the previous seasons of the new Doctor. It just lifts a certain amount of weight off, and may provide some new motivations, for the future Doctor.
24 November 2013 at 22:58 #2145624 November 2013 at 22:58 #21457Hi @tennantmarsters2013 – lovely thought as to the final scene being inside a Tardis.
For me the hexagons on the wall looked like artwork (in the gallery) and with BakerDoc being there, made me think that regenerations of the doctor and the Tardis console room often relied on memories.
As well as something that’ll have been on their mind with Capaldi.
However – its so open ended that you can interpret it any way you (ie we) like and it be ‘right’.
Who knows
😉
24 November 2013 at 23:02 #21459In a strange timey wimey coincidence I found myself watching a bit of Spielberg’s TinTin tonight… part scripted by one S Moffat – his last job before he went off to showrun DW.
It features a mystery crossing generations, a man who has forgotten “how to be himself” (failing to live up to his ancestor’s standards). The bit that caught my attention as I was passing was when a character who thinks he’s a locked-in prisoner discovers the door is open all the time! Followed not long after by a flight in a small plane through a thick wall of dark clouds with lightning forking out of them – a monochrome time vortex looky-likey. My squealed pointing out of these exciting parallels was met by polite “so what” shrugs. ::sighs:: Back to reality 😉
::waves @hudsey:: Glad you enjoyed the Excel 😀
Just realised that if/when gallifrey is found that the Master will be there won’t he? Just sayin’
Maybe. But maybe not!
re the roundels on the wall at the end. Indeedy they would appear to be TARDIS inspired, but are they not actually like that in real life? And therefore yet another legacy of DW. (But agree, I noticed they were rather TARDISy looking too). Some of the floors at the Excel also features lines of small roundels (sorry, should’ve taken pics). They are everywhere and as a design motif that can be traced back to 1960s DW. (OK, someone prove me wrong!)
24 November 2013 at 23:05 #21460A few (read loads) of tweeters pointed out that, if the Tardis just made the Doctor a new sonic every time he lost one, as in Eleventh Hour, then giving one away to River (per SiL/FotD) was hardly as special as made out. To which he replied: Oh, er OH LOOK! KITTENS!
Now, if it is always his, with just a new case the specialness is kinda restored and he really would, most likely, be careful about who he gave one to.
Actually, that is a pretty damned clever retcon.
@All
Does anyone know if this is the first time Delia Derbyshire has got an arranger credit. My memory (and the recently shown Unearthly Child supports it) is that it was always Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
24 November 2013 at 23:06 #21461@chickenelly did the QE1 letter say that the queen was making the doctor her curator? Wow how did I miss that?
24 November 2013 at 23:08 #21462BY THE EFFING WAY PEOPLE:
You do realise that this story had a honking great, proper, full-on Deus Ex Machina in it and no-one has complained.
24 November 2013 at 23:09 #21463Well I was blown away by the DoD. In the main I thourghly enjoyed the plots and sub plots. However I did find they zygon subplot a bit unsatisfactorily resolved its main point seemed to be to ultimately enable tenant and smith to make their little speech about not allowing another person to make the same mistake their previous self made. The other plot point I was disappointed in was there was no explanation as to how Clara and the doctor got out of his time stream. And given the trailer which I’m not discussing here there needs to be some explanation as to how they got out. By the way I’m for calling the hurt incarnation number 9 as we clearly heard the future cappaldi doctor call himself the thirteenth.
24 November 2013 at 23:11 #21464I’d agree that we saw Gallifrey burning, plus a mad seer saying only two people (the Master and the Doctor) live. That’s now been changed: but it did happen. Because if it hadn’t happened, it couldn’t have been changed – Clara only exists because the Doctor is the man created by the Time War.
Agreed! And I think we are supposed to recall JCoT because that was the other episode where a big red button made a very specific appearance.
Moffat’s entire tenure is about time and what can and cannot be re-written (“not those times, don’t you dare!” as River says). Eleven rebooted the entire universe and yet Amy remembered both versions – the one in which her parents were gone and the one in which they were not.
Doubling (pregnant Amy/ not pregnant Amy, Cyber-Doctor/ not-Cyber Doctor etc.) and the double time-stream (red waterfall, green anchor, the Doctor dies at Lake Silencio/ the Doctor does not die at Lake Silencio) have been Moffat’s most persistent calling cards. And a long and fascinating thesis could be written on the question of re-writing history and what is remembered and what is forgotten in relation to Moffat’s Who (including in the context of Britain’s “place in the world”).
I like both the idea that The Curator is another face of The Moment and/ or a future incarnation of the Doctor revisiting “an old favourite” face.
24 November 2013 at 23:20 #21465I seem to recall saying to @juniperfish shortly after watching that there were at least 13 Deus Ex Machina (what’s the plural) in this. I thought there would be complaints too. Go figure?
24 November 2013 at 23:33 #21466There was even a classically style one right at the beginning. Seriously: people who try to lecture Moffat about the rules of story telling are on very sticky wickets (not least because the point of learning the rules is so that you can break them with impunity).
Moffat’s entire tenure is about time and what can and cannot be re-written
Can, cannot or should not as you particular example illustrates! There was nothing to prevent the Doctor, except River’s plea. And even then, the crafty bastard found a loophole!
What is real? is also a running theme. That and terrible, terrible loneliness.
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