The Day of the Doctore Review Thread (Spoilers?)

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by Brefugee, Nov 23, 2013.

?

So what did you think?

Poll closed Dec 21, 2013.
  1. Brilliant: Geronimo.

    188 vote(s)
    77.7%
  2. Very Good: Bow Ties are Cool!

    38 vote(s)
    15.7%
  3. Ok: Come along Ponds.

    10 vote(s)
    4.1%
  4. Passable: Fish Fingers and Custard.

    5 vote(s)
    2.1%
  5. Terrible: Who da man?

    1 vote(s)
    0.4%
  1. JoeZhang

    JoeZhang Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Were they ever in to start with? we've know for a long time there were children on Gallifrey - why would the Doctor need a crib and we saw both the Master and the Doctor as Children plus the third doctor mentioned being a young boy then of course you have Susan.
     
  2. Timelord Victorious

    Timelord Victorious Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Afraid not. I can't quite place it right now in a specific episode but i'm fairly certain that it is from the Amy Pond era.
     
  3. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

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    It's "I am the Doctor"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D-QPDGhCtM


    They used it ALOT in the special with a few of the variations over the last few years
     
  4. Timewalker

    Timewalker Cat-lovin', Star Trekkin' Time Lady Premium Member

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    In many different universes, simultaneously.
    The stories where the Doctor, Harry, and Sarah Jane were traveling together all qualify as UNIT stories, since Harry Sullivan worked for UNIT.

    In "Shada" Romana II makes reference to something she learned "when I was a Time Tot." That means that at some point, Lady Romanadvoratrelundar was a child.

    And it would be pretty bizarre for the Doctor to have a granddaughter who was created as a full-grown adult.
     
  5. The Nth Doctor

    The Nth Doctor Infinite Possibilities... Premium Member

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    Has anyone heard what the final viewing figures are? Also, what about box office gross? Box Office Mojo doesn't have anything.
     
  6. dansigal

    dansigal Captain Captain

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    So if we're really breaking down the phrasing, the explanation may be in the voice of the narrator. In the first part, when he references the 900 years, he says he's been running all his "lives" purposely using the plural to distinguish each incarnation as a separate life. But in the penultimate sentence he uses the singular "life". Since it's 11 that's narrating, and he's "The Man Who Forgets", its probably referencing just his life as the doctor. So to say it's the day he's been running from all his life isn't an overstatement, it's just a reference to the way 11 has chosen to live his incarnation, running from that day.
     
  7. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    I don't think the final UK viewing figure will be out to next week to allow the +7 via DVR to be included.
     
  8. Photoman15

    Photoman15 Commodore Commodore

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    Jeez...the Timelords/Gallifreyians had children. That loom crap is just that non-canon crap. I don't believe the Cartmel Master Plan said there were no kids. I saw his interview the other day, and it didn't mention a kidless, loomed society.

    Please stop with the loom. It's ridiculous and whoever wrote that must have been high.
     
  9. inflatabledalek

    inflatabledalek Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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  10. Bob The Skutter

    Bob The Skutter Complete Arse Cleft In Memoriam

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    UK Box office for after the first showings were £1.7m but I don't know about the later showings. No final viewing figures for 2 weeks but there's a peak of 10.6m on the overnights.
     
  11. Tom

    Tom Vice Admiral Admiral

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    No, it is not, there is a build up to to it, you can here a little bit of it in this clip:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHnAnBmEbcc

    I have all the soundtracks and i just can't place that exact peice of music .
     
  12. Emperor-Tiberius

    Emperor-Tiberius Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, then Moffat's an idiot. I'm sorry, but he's wrong. The Doctor normally wouldn't do that, yes... but this was war. At the end of the day, the Doctor will make the hard choice if there's absolutely no other path to take. Cause that was the crux of the Doctor's characterization in at least the first four and a half years of the show. That he, a good man, DID do that. That he really, really DIDN'T have a choice. That at the end of the day, the Time Lords and the Daleks were each on the brink of destroying the universe. And what is the first series, if not the Doctor's steady return to form following the war?

    I'm sure he means it in a good nature, but honestly it makes his own story far worse. It totally undermines the element of choice, by having Eleven not make a decision based on his experience, but one based on his memory. This isn't Blink, Moffat!

    Anyway, as I don't take his reasoning seriously, I don't support his argument. Thus, I disagree with him.

    Wow.
     
  13. Kolrad

    Kolrad Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I would have to rewatch all the episodes (oh! too bad... :P ) to see if the Doctor ever said anything about Gallifrey's destruction that contradicts "Day of the Doctor," but on the occasion I remember most, here's what he said:

    It may be that the one of the first things the Doctor saw after regenerating into Ecclestone was the destruction of Gallifrey from a distance. He only had to travel to the right place and time to catch the light from the explosion as it passed, and he surely has the technology to get a good look at it-- just, obviously, not good enough to tell that the Daleks were destroyed by each other rather than the planet exploding. ;)

    The other thing I remember him saying is that he knew the Time Lords were dead because if they were alive, he'd be able to sense it "in here" (pointing to his head). Suspended animation in a pocket universe evidently does the trick too.

    I'm trying to remember if anything else he said conflicts with what we've seen.


    Oh, on a different topic, this episode also "fixed" something that had bothered me about "The End of Time." In that episode, the justification for the Doctor's decision to destroy Gallifrey seemed to be that the Time Lords were beyond saving-- they had been so twisted and driven mad by the war that they were no better than the Daleks (with the exception of the two council members who stood against the majority).

    That seemed to me like a departure from the way the Doctor spoke about his people in earlier episodes. For instance, in "Father's Day," when the Reapers were attacking because of the paradox created when Rose saved her father's life, he said something like "My people would have put a stop to this." While he may have disagreed with them in the past, he still seemed to see them as having a powerful impact for good on the universe.

    "Day of the Doctor" showed that it was only Rassilon and most of the council who were corrupted to that degree (and I expect the Doctor will have to deal with them if he finds Gallifrey)-- the rest of the planet was not involved.
     
  14. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

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    If he didn't have a choice and there was no other path to take, how did he so successfully pull it off in the 50th anniversary?
     
  15. Kolrad

    Kolrad Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I don't see that. The element of choice was still central to the story. In fact, not only the War Doctor, but also Ten and Eleven were presented with the choice of whether to destroy Gallifrey, and for the first time they took full ownership of it, instead of condemning and repressing the memory of the War Doctor (denying him even the name "Doctor") as they had both been doing until then.

    Eleven wasn't making the decision based on memory. Both Ten and the War Doctor forgot what they did at the end of the episode. The new option essentially occurred to all three of them at the same time.

    You can certainly raise the criticism that sometimes there is no "third option" that allows you to escape the impossible choice. But that criticism remains the same whether this is what the Doctor "always" did or not. And it's very much in the Doctor's nature not to give up until he finds that impossible third option.
     
  16. Timelord Victorious

    Timelord Victorious Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Watched the ending again.
    Right before the Curator shows up, Clara enters the TARDIS.
    I wonder how long Jenna had to stand around in the box until they were done filming the scene.
    When the camera cuts to Matt's face you can still see her red skirt through a crack in the door.
     
  17. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

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    It's bigger on the inside. They have the backstage in there.
     
  18. M.A.C.O.

    M.A.C.O. Commodore Commodore

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    Please everyone remember the context of the Doctor's decision. In the "End of Time" Rassilon revealed his plan to initate the "Final Sanction". Which would've cause the timelords to become beings of pure consciousness. Free of time and cause and effect. This would have also wiped out the whole of creation.

    That was the deciding factor for the Doctor. The loss of 2.47 billion timelord children lives is indeed tragic. However, are those lives more important than the lives of the trillions of innocent beings across the universe?
     
  19. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Perhaps, but if the price of saving Gallifrey was the Doctor having to carry the burden for a few years of believing he had killed them all, I'm sure he would gladly take it.

    He still had to sacrifice a huge part of his soul in the process, after all, which is no small thing.

    And Eleven also had no way of knowing if their gambit is what saved Gallifrey or ultimately caused it's destruction. For all he knew, this was the way Gallifrey had always been destroyed and he was simply fulfilling his part of history. Which is why everyone seems so uncertain afterward, until the Curator finally suggests at the end that their plan worked.
     
  20. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Mar 15, 2001
    Well, I think the idea in the novels was that Susan was the last child on Gallifrey, or something. Anyway, you're right -- there have been prior references in the modern show to Time Lord children, but I didn't realize the significance of them until now.


    Good point. Assuming that transcript is accurate, then you may be right.

    And when he says "Our future depends" on that moment, the initial impression is that he mean everyone's future, humanity's and the universe's in general or something like that, but he probably meant either the Doctors' future or the Time Lords/Gallifreyans' future.