Steven Moffat has said that he has a number of surprises in store for The Day of the Doctor. Discounting appearances by classic Doctors or companions, any ideas as to what kind of things he's hiding?
I'm probably wrong about that, but I think we're about to witness a change in the status quo the series has not seen since 1970.
Are you thinking of "The War Games" (with the Gallifrey/Time Lord mythology) or "Spearhead" (with the format change). I can see Moffat doing the former, though he's promised game-changers in the past that weren't. I don't see Moffat attempting the latter.
^ I've stated previously that I think he's aiming for a War Games/Deadly Assassin type of addition to the mythology. As you state, he's promised game-changers before that didn't quite live up to that. But, we'll see. Agree that he won't change the format of freely travelling around space and time. He might give the Doctor a new purpose or mission as Moffatt's indicated but I doubt it'll change the format in any large way. Mr Awe
I think he'll try and make it a game changer, but it will fail again. He'll probably try and add an unknown doctor (hurt) to the mythology and basically have him as the Masters replacement now, as we were hinted on Twitter that Hurt may return with Capaldi's doctor. I think it could possibly be a game changer, but not as big as Moffat wants it to be. I don't think it will be a Deadly Assassin or Genesis of the Daleks.
If the biggest villain is a dark version of the Doctor, well that's when you know they ran out of good ideas!
I'm hoping that one of his surprises is some form of tie-in to the very beginning, a flashback alluding to just why the Doctor (and presumably Susan with him) left Gallifrey. A secondary wish would be to actually see events from the Time War, possibly McGann turning into Hurt (though I know this is not very likely).
It's possible that there may be scenes of Hurt in the time war, but unfortunately I doubt McGann will appear.
Someone had mentioned somewhere in one of the other threads that they could do a regen scene using either existing footage of McGann (editing it somehow) or using another actor (much like they did with the First Doctor in 'The Five Doctors'). But yeah, I really, really don't expect to see Paul McGann, Tom, Peter or anyone else from the old days.
I would LIKE him to add to the mythology (more than just inserting the Hurt Doctor and saying "Look everyone!"). I would like him to discuss the 13 lives thing. I would like to see references to the Doctor's early life, or scenes from the Time War. And I would like some surprises that I don't expect. Do I expect all of that? No, but it would be nice to get some of it. Then again, this is Steven Moffat. The king of building us up to let us down. That doesn't mean the 50th anniversary will be bad. It just means that it's Moffat, and we've heard all this stuff before from him. And more often than not, he chooses to play it safe.
It would be AWESOME if they took us ALL by surprise and show the Timelords forcing the Doctor to regenerate into Hurt, and the camera pans to show his face....and it's McGann. And Paul gets a line or two before regenerating into Hurt. Twitter and Tumblr would explode.
I thought the "game changer" was going to be that Capaldi's Doctor would actually be the "First" Doctor of a new cycle of regenerations after the three Doctors (Tennant, Smith and Hurt) alter the outcome of the Time War in some fashion. Moffat's mentioned recently that we've missed something to do with how many regenerations used. If you include Hurt as a missing Doctor, and the one used up by the Tenth Doctor during the start of "Journey's End", that makes Smith's Doctor number thirteen.
We know the Time Lords can give other Time Lords more regenerations. They revived the Master to be a soldier in the Last Great Time War, so why wouldn't they load up the Doctor with a whole new set of regenerations, too? If you're going to fight a war, you may as well have soldiers with more than 13 regenerations in them! Maybe the Eleventh's joke about having 507 regenerations isn't a joke at all. Why should we think a 13-regeneration limit would hold when the Time Lords were fighting for their lives against the Daleks?
^ Maybe via the John Hurt Doctor, they gave him more regens without him (now) knowing it, since the Hurt incarnation has been "cast out".
I really don't get how Day of the Doctor can be a "game-changer." There isn't much left of the game to change. After Day of the Doctor were getting the Christmas special which will introduce a new Doctor, which will have more impact on the show than anything in Day of the Doctor is sure to.
Unless Day of the Doctor introduces a new rule, such as "whatever happens, the next Doctor can't use adverbs".