Odd coming from me I know but there's a lot there I'm very sceptical about. For one thing Chris Chibnall has confirmed he's writing a script for Series 8, so Moffat's not the only one working on it. In fact it seems more like someone taking every single Moffat related rumour of recent times and putting them all together. Which isn't to say that there aren't big problems down Cardiff-way, because there clearly are.
^ That's precisely what it seems like someone has done. Taking all the most juicy rumours and compiled them together in a "report". No doubt that there are real problems going on behind the scenes, but I doubt what was in the article is even remotely true.
Not quite... He's been asked but whether can do it depends on timing... ie Broadchurch II. But point holds.
Ask Ridley Scott. Hurt was a last-minute substitute on Alien when his original choice for Kane, Jon Finch, had a diabetic attack on the set in the first days of filming.
Eh?? at that point he was just another jobbing actor??? Yes he had done a few important TV roles but completely different context.
How else did he wind up in Frankenstein Unbound and Monolith? A few years back he did an episode of that Master of Science Fiction series so why not the anniversary episode of Doctor Who?
There was an interview with Hurt from within the past two weeks. In it, he said that he had never thought about Doctor Who but that the opportunity to work with Tennant was too tempting to pass up. Ah, here it is. Based on that, I genuinely doubt Whistleblower's assertion that Hurt is somehow a stand-in for Moffat's feelings on Eccleston.
I may have been readiing a chain of causes into something that correlates. I do find it notable that the blurb focuses on Tennant. Nothing about working with Matt Smith. Nothing about Moffat's script.
He says that he likes Tennant as an actor. I don't think we should read any more or less into that comment.
I have a hard time believing the BBC can't 'sack' Moffat (or move him to just Sherlock) if they truly feel he's endangering the show. This ain't 1984 anymore, Doctor Who's a national treasure at this point. As for Hurt's character being some kind of personal "FU" to Eccleston, bear in mind Moffat claims he's had a plan for "The Fields of Trenzalore/the Fall of the Eleventh" for years now. If the latest post from whistleblower is to be believed, Spoiler: Spoilers, Sweetie... Hurt's "REAL Ninth Doctor" will be introduced to shocked audiences in the last minute of "The Name of the Doctor." Which was shot months before the special. Which means his character was created and written well before Eccleston decided whether he was gonna be in the special or not. Now if that's the case, it truly doesn't matter whether Eccleston's in or out where that particular character is concerned, and I'm sure Moffat wrote the script with that in mind.
Not necessarily. Moffat says in the latest DWM that they just finished filming "The Name of the Doctor." Assuming that wasn't written in December, then he's referring to more recent filming, such as a day during the Anniversary Special filming. Moffat's Who is shot more like a film than a television series. Jenna-Louise Coleman recently revealed that her TARDIS scenes were shot months after she filmed other scenes from the same episodes. (Probably because the set was still being constructed.) My guess, assuming Whistleblower is correct, is that Moffat originally planned for Eccleston to be the surprise cliffhanger in "The Name of the Doctor," but due to Eccleston's decision not to return, it's now going to be Hurt instead.
I really can't see him going down the road of a REAL Ninth Doctor (I'm not spoiler-coding guesses in a thread full of guesses) because regardless of what has gone on behind the scenes there is no upside to such a mean-spirited reveal.
TBH, I suspect that if Hurt's going to be a "lost" Doctor, he's going to be an alternate Doctor who never left Gallifrey (until the Time War trashed it, at least)...
How do you see that working? The alternate Doctor who never left part? That Hartnell's Doctor never left and spent his whole life on Gallifrey? Interesting idea and comparison if that's true. Mr Awe
Making Hurt the "real" Ninth Doctor would not negate Eccleston at all. It would just mean Eccleston would acutally be the Tenth Doctor, Tennant the Eleventh and Smith the Twelfth. It'd be one hell of a mindfuck, and with implications that would split fandom to epic degrees. But it's not really insulting to Eccleston or anyone. Now the idea that Hurt's character is meant to be some sort of meta commentary on Eccleston does sound unnecesarily mean-spirited, but there's no reason to believe that at the moment.
I could see Moffat doing it for exactly that reason. He was fourteen when fandom was in turmoil over "The Deadly Assassin" and how Robert Holmes got Gallifreyan society all wrong from what we saw in "The War Games." Modern Who hasn't done anything that controversial. The only thing that approached that is, arguably, the half-human revelation of "Enemy Within," but that never stuck. Adding an extra Doctor and upsetting the fanon theories about the Time War? Yeah, that would be fandom turmoil on the scale of "The Deadly Assassin." And it would be awesome to watch.