The Day of the Doctore Review Thread (Spoilers?)

[Pavonis]

"The Power of Three" takes place in 2016-2018? I don't recall the dates being mentioned, and I can't find the mentions in any wikis.

Oh well, so what if Clara is from the 2020s? It's not as though it's unusual for the Doctor to have companions from other times, and the 2020s aren't particularly futuristic. Hell, Sarah Jane was supposed to be from the 1980s during the Third/Fourth Doctor's era, wasn't she?

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Except that the Fifth Doctor's sonic screwdriver was destroyed in the episode "Four to Doomsday." So they're not continuous incarnations of the exact same one unless the Fifth Doctor had a backup somewhere.

So? It only had to be continuous from Hurt's Doctor's screwdriver to Smith's Doctor's screwdriver. The War Doctor initiated the calculation, and the Eleventh Doctor's screwdriver finished them. The Fifth Doctor's screwdriver doesn't factor into the matter.

Tennant's screwdriver was destroyed twice. Once in the hospital on the moon episode and once in "the eleventh hour". I'm going to assume the Tardis keeps a copy of the software.

Smith's Doctor gets his new screwdriver directly from the TARDIS console at the end of "The Eleventh Hour", so the software definitely comes from the TARDIS herself.

 

[Count Zero]

The real crime was how the story absolved the Doctor of the guilt for using the Moment, but then making him forget that he didn't so he carried that guilt for 400 years. Hurt's Doctor got to be acknowledged as the Doctor, yet he promptly forgets this fact and his subsequent incarnations see him as anathema. Moffat gives us a warm-fuzzy ending then yanks it away. The story doesn't have the courage of its own convictions.

Some people in this thread have stated the same, namely that the Doctors from Hurt to Ten won't remember. Did I miss something because Eleven says to Hurt that he will remember that he tried to do the right thing but that he won't know whether it's worked. The dialogue isn't clear on whether they'll forget everything. In fact Eleven does remember the Fez thing at the beginning of the episode and Moffat has had the Doctor remember stuff from encounters with other incarnations before ("Time Crash"). Also, Ten states that they are about to rewrite their own personal timeline. So I take it as time having been rewritten. Moffat has basically rebooted modern Who, now with less angst and guilt-trips. Only we don't get to see it as the show will continue with Eleven and Twelve.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, it was John Guilor as the First Doctor's voice; I saw his name in the credits the second time around, as well as on the DW wiki.

Hang on, the story ends with the Doctor radically changing his past. What we see near the end isn't what originally happened; the War Doctor originally used the Moment by himself, and burned Gallifrey. But earlier on, we see that Eleven remembers some of what's going to happen, so it must always have happened....YE GODS, I'M SO F***ING CONFUSED, SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!!

No, what we see is what really happened all along; it's just been misinterpreted. And the War Doctor forgot everything he experienced alongside his other selves, because of the timestreams being out of sync. So his last clear memory would be of standing over the Moment about to push the big red button. He just assumed he'd gone through with it and destroyed Gallifrey. So nothing's actually been changed. This is what always happened; the Doctor just didn't know it until now.

And what's the deal with the Curator looking like an older Fourth Doctor? Is that supposed to mean something?

It means they wanted an excuse to bring Tom Baker back. So Moffat made up the idea of some future incarnation of the Doctor "revisiting" faces from his past somehow.

Forgot to mention how awesome it was to see the original opening titles on the bug screen! I just wish they played the whole thing instead of cutting it short.

Actually it lasted just about as long as the opening titles originally would have in '63, because back then they didn't show the episode title/credits until after the episode had started.

The bit with Strax doing the no phones and be quiet bit at the start of the screening was a hoot.

Same here on all counts. The intro with Smith was equally great.

I hope those get released online soon.

There are some niggles, though. The Elizabeth I scenes appear to happen a couple of years too early in the Doctor's timeline (unless the wedding scene happens two years after the rest of the episode for him).

Based on what? The Doctor had no companion, so I assumed this was during the "specials" phase after Donna left.

It's going to take me a little while to process this but I do have this to write. It seems as if everyone is saying Rose wasn't our Rose but I beg to differ. Given she had the whole of The Time Vortex within her and that she scattered clues for her self through out time and space it's not all that unlikely that she would have appeared to The War Doctor.

The Moment said that it selected an image from the Doctor's life. But Vortex Rose did seed "Bad Wolf" throughout time and space, so it's not surprising that one such "seed" would've ended up connected to the Moment.

 

[The Wormhole]

"The Power of Three" takes place in 2016-2018? I don't recall the dates being mentioned, and I can't find the mentions in any wikis.

Those exact dates are not mentioned in the episode, but rather are figured from deductive reasoning.

Hell, Sarah Jane was supposed to be from the 1980s during the Third/Fourth Doctor's era, wasn't she?

Maybe yes, probably no.

 

[The Wormhole]

There are some niggles, though. The Elizabeth I scenes appear to happen a couple of years too early in the Doctor's timeline (unless the wedding scene happens two years after the rest of the episode for him).

Based on what? The Doctor had no companion, so I assumed this was during the "specials" phase after Donna left.

Tennant says he's 904. The End of Time implies his fling with Liz I was in between Waters of Mars and The End of Time, and he does tell Wilf in TEOT he's 906.

Maybe there's two years between Waters of Mars and End of Time? RTD's original intention was for a much longer gap to be between the two specials.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Clara is in her mid-to-late 20's, plenty of time to procure some sort of degree before we met her. Just because it wasn't previously established that she had teaching credentials doesn't have to mean this episode took place in 2018 or whatever, after she got a degree. And who knows? If it does take place in the future, maybe she just WANTS to live in a new timeframe? Like, she and the Doctor visited 2020 London once and she liked it there and stayed.

They must have some sort of arrangement. Wasn't that the Doctor's motorcycle she was riding?

 

[Kira's Mom]

Loved it. I actually squealed when I saw Capaldi's brief appearance. I loved the Curator. I was glad that "Rose" wasn't really Rose.

 

[The Wormhole]

Clara is in her mid-to-late 20's, plenty of time to procure some sort of degree before we met her. Just because it wasn't previously established that she had teaching credentials doesn't have to mean this episode took place in 2018 or whatever, after she got a degree. And who knows? If it does take place in the future, maybe she just WANTS to live in a new timeframe? Like, she and the Doctor visited 2020 London once and she liked it there and stayed.

They must have some sort of arrangement. Wasn't that the Doctor's motorcycle she was riding?

It's implied in The Bells of St John she had practically no computer skills, and teachers these days need to be experts with computers. Hell, were she attending university within the past five years she'd need to practically be a computer expert.

 

[Pavonis]

Tennant says he's 904. The End of Time implies his fling with Liz I was in between Waters of Mars and The End of Time, and he does tell Wilf in TEOT he's 906

Oh, please, the Doctor doesn't know how old he is, and that's all there is to it. He's never been firm about his age, all the way back to at least the Third Doctor, who at least once claimed he was "thousands" of years old. So what's two years, or four hundred, to a Time Lord?

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Actually at least fourteen.

How?

That wasn't the fourth Doctor, it was the Nth Doctor.

What about the Valeyard? Technically also a "Doctor" according to the Master. Or we have to wait for Smith to become Capaldi before we talk about him? Lol jk


I thought the episode was great. However that Zygon subplot though.... Uh a resolution would've been nice. Or was it just filler to pad out the episode?

Who Knows?

 

[Count Zero]

I thought the episode was great. However that Zygon subplot though.... Uh a resolution would've been nice. Or was it just filler to pad out the episode?

The resolution was to make them negotiate a fair treaty. It reminded me of the peace conferences during the Third Doctor's era. Finally, we saw one succeed. In that vein it also harkened back to a time when the Doctor was more innocent, before he'd turned into a warrior. I might overinterpret it but I like my interpretation so I'm sticking with it.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Oh, please, the Doctor doesn't know how old he is, and that's all there is to it. He's never been firm about his age, all the way back to at least the Third Doctor, who at least once claimed he was "thousands" of years old. So what's two years, or four hundred, to a Time Lord?

Well, the Sonic Screwdriver knows there was four centuries between Hurt and Smith. So there's that.

If there was three hundred years between Tennant (at 904) and Smith (at 12-something), then working backwards, Hurt regenerated at 8-something meaning Eccleston had a good long life. Tennant is one of the shorter-lived incarnations.

The resolution was to make them negotiate a fair treaty. It reminded me of the peace conferences during the Third Doctor's era. Finally, we saw one succeed. In that vein it also harkened back to a time when the Doctor was more innocent, before he'd turned into a warrior. I might overinterpret it but I like my interpretation so I'm sticking with it.

I hadn't thought of it that way. Now I'm reminded of the Sontaran/Rutan peace conference in The Infinity Doctors and the Doctor's (unintentional) solution to getting them to negotiate. He accidentally locked them in the TARDIS (it was an accident, the universe was threatened with imminent destruction), and in the state of temporal grace the Sontaran and the Rutan couldn't kill one another, nor could they escape. They had no choice but to talk, and they did, fashioning a peace accord and ending the war.

That's such a fantastic book.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

So, how long until the Doctor clears out UNIT's Black Archive? There's no way he would allow UNIT to hold all of that, especially after Kate attempted to nuke London because of it.

Speaking of which, unless the nuclear device beneath the Tower of London were stupidly overpowered, an underground nuclear detonation would not destroy the city. All UNIT needs is something to vaporize the Black Archive and cause the Tower to implode into the hole. A low-yield bunker buster would suffice.

 

[Mitty]

70's or 80's depending on the protocol. With one foul swoop the Unit Dating Controversy wiped clean

 

[Leonardo T. Dragon]

The preshow was bad. The episode was wonderful.

I'm willing to bet no one in that pre-show panel has ever watched a classic Who episode.

As for the special itself, it was poorly plotted with too much slapstick comedy and not enough substance. John Hurt could have been replaced by Paul McGann and it would have made more sense. (Let's not talk about Moffat's cliché prequel.)

As a long-time fan I felt it wasall flash and no real story, just like most of the Moffat "big event" episodes. (Let's Kill Hitler, Pandorica, Wedding of River Song)

 

[Australis]

Oh fuck- watch the Five-ish Doctors on Red Button, and then re-watch Day Of The Doctor...

And if you can't get Red Button?

The episode is up on the BBC website and it's not geo-locked. I just watched it and I'm not in the UK, either.

Ahhhhhhh, thank you for that! Very much appreciated!

More thoughts on it all soon.

 

[Leonardo T. Dragon]

I enjoyed it in the moment. I went to a Doctor Who viewing party in Baltimore, and there were about 100 people there in a make-shift theater. Moffat's Who is tailor-made to be watched with a crowd. It makes for a good communal activity.

When I stopped to think about it, it falls apart.

There are some interesting implications to the story. It cleverly rewrites the RTD era by rewriting the assumptions of the era but leaving the text itself intact.

But on a narrative level, it was setpieces in search of a plot. The Zygon plot existed long enough to function as a MacGuffin and was then dismissed for the real meat of the story -- the Doctor's culpability for the Time War. (That's not unusual for Moffat; the Daleks were important in "Asylum of the Daleks" to the extent that they let Amy and Rory's relationship problems play out.) The tenth Doctor had no significant narrative function that I could discern except to be part of the MacGuffin.

I guess the "present" in the 2020s, which means that Clara is from the 2020s. Either that, or she's older.

Hurt's Doctor could have been Eccleston or McGann. I defended the casting of Hurt as an unknown incarnation of the Doctor, but in execution this felt like an excuse to cast a name actor as the Doctor. And I was disappointed by the regeneration at the end, though dialogue suggests there's about 100 years between that event and "Rose," and I'm fine with that.

The real crime was how the story absolved the Doctor of the guilt for using the Moment, but then making him forget that he didn't so he carried that guilt for 400 years. Hurt's Doctor got to be acknowledged as the Doctor, yet he promptly forgets this fact and his subsequent incarnations see him as anathema. Moffat gives us a warm-fuzzy ending then yanks it away. The story doesn't have the courage of its own convictions.

In the final analysis, except for a few throwaway moments, this was largely a culmination of Doctor Who post-2005, as it resolved a number of outstanding issues from the past eight and half years.

Moffat did what he does best -- he delivered popcorn entertainment. And when consumed as popcorn, like Brannon Braga's best Star Trek work, it went down fine. It's when you stop and think about what you've eaten that you start to wonder what it is you've eaten and you have second thoughts.

AMEN!

 

[Christopher]

Tennant says he's 904. The End of Time implies his fling with Liz I was in between Waters of Mars and The End of Time, and he does tell Wilf in TEOT he's 906.

Maybe there's two years between Waters of Mars and End of Time? RTD's original intention was for a much longer gap to be between the two specials.

I'm with Pavonis on this -- the Doctor's age has never been stated consistently. Heck, the Seventh Doctor was supposed to be 953, but then the Ninth came along and claimed to be 900. And he was inconsistent about whether that was how old he was or how long he'd been traveling.

Here's a hypothesis: The first eight Doctors counted their age by how long they'd lived, but the post-War Doctors -- the ones who considered the Hurt incarnation to be not a Doctor at all -- decided instead to count their age on the basis of how many years they'd spent as the Doctor. Maybe he didn't adopt that title -- make that promise -- until he was already a century or two old, so that's why Nine's count was lower than Seven's.

Still, a time traveller's measure of time is bound to be a little erratic -- especially considering that different planets have different year lengths.

It's implied in The Bells of St John she had practically no computer skills, and teachers these days need to be experts with computers. Hell, were she attending university within the past five years she'd need to practically be a computer expert.

Except that in that very episode, she got computer expertise uploaded into her brain, and there was no indication that she lost it.

Well, the Sonic Screwdriver knows there was four centuries between Hurt and Smith. So there's that.

Not specifically. We only know that the program needed "centuries" to run -- it was never specified how many centuries. For all we know, it finished running a hundred years before "Chinny" thought to check for it.

So, how long until the Doctor clears out UNIT's Black Archive? There's no way he would allow UNIT to hold all of that, especially after Kate attempted to nuke London because of it.

By the way, I'd forgotten that the Black Archive was actually introduced in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Nice to get a nod to that spinoff. (Not sure whether to count Jack's vortex manipulator as a Torchwood nod, since it was introduced in DW and mostly used there.)

Speaking of which, unless the nuclear device beneath the Tower of London were stupidly overpowered, an underground nuclear detonation would not destroy the city. All UNIT needs is something to vaporize the Black Archive and cause the Tower to implode into the hole. A low-yield bunker buster would suffice.

It'd suffice to collapse the Tower, but we're talking about a room full of advanced alien technologies that might be able to brush off a low-yield nuke with minimal damage.

I'm willing to bet no one in that pre-show panel has ever watched a classic Who episode.

You'd lose that bet. Here's an interview with Grant Imahara wherein he says he began watching with Tom Baker and initially "resisted the reboot," though he now considers Tennant his favorite Doctor.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

So, how long until the Doctor clears out UNIT's Black Archive? There's no way he would allow UNIT to hold all of that, especially after Kate attempted to nuke London because of it.

Speaking of which, unless the nuclear device beneath the Tower of London were stupidly overpowered, an underground nuclear detonation would not destroy the city. All UNIT needs is something to vaporize the Black Archive and cause the Tower to implode into the hole. A low-yield bunker buster would suffice.

Maybe they felt a high-powered warhead was necessary to "make sure" everything in the archive was destroyed.