The War Doctor
- Thread starter Emissary of the Prophets
- Start date
The Baby Dinosaur used to like to smack him in the head with a pot and shout, "Not The Doctor, Not The Doctor"
Honestly, this entire discussion makes obvious the fact that the idea behind the War Doctor was, at best, not a bright one. Handled well enough for a time, I suppose, but whats apparent from this is that, it REALLY should've been either Eight or Nine interacting with the Moment there, and not a made-up-for-no-good-reason Doctor.
What? The War Doctor was made up for the best reason of all -- we got John Hurt as the Doctor!
Unfortunately, the execution of the War Doctor doesn't match up to the concept.
Moffat can't decide if the War Doctor is war-weary ("No more" and the shack) or chipper (almost anything during the Elizabethan interlude). Moffat can't decide if he did horrible things antithetical to the Doctor or really was the Doctor in all but name. Nor can Moffat decide if the War Doctor is pre- or post-Moment (it's rather noticeable that the tenth and eleventh Doctors believe he's post-Moment until they discover in the shack that he's not). If you try to watch "Day" from the War Doctor's perspective, the character doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. Even the War Doctor's reaction to the tenth Doctor snogging Queen Bess doesn't make any sense; Grace and Benny come quickly to mind as people the Doctor snogged in the War Doctor's past.
I've also come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that my initial read on the episode -- that the Doctor had always assumed he'd destroyed Gallifrey because he didn't remember what happened that day -- is incorrect and the Doctor did, in fact, change time.
Conceptually sound, but poorly executed. That's the problem.
The War Doctor works for promotional reasons. Revealing the existence of a mysterious forgotten Doctor makes for one hell of a cliffhanger and BBC was probably able to drum up more excitement for the special saying "featuring John Hurt as a mysterious forgotten Doctor" than they would have saying "Paul McGann returns as the Eighth Doctor."
The character was obviously meant to be Eccleston, Moffat has even admitted that. I get it, Eccleston turned it down, they had to find an alternate solution. Unfortunately, some stuff which would have worked perfectly for Eccleston was kept it even though it doesn't make much sense now. Like the above mentioned about the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors believing they're dealing with a post-Moment War Doctor as evidenced by the line "it must still be a recent even for your" while they're in the cell. Doesn't make much sense, given from the Doctor's memories, using the Moment directly led to his regeneration. Although had it been Eccleston there as the scene was originally written for, it works since using the Moment clearly hadn't caused him to regenerate.
Using Paul McGann would have been a better alternative than creating a new Doctor. Clearly, he couldn't have been a repressed memory, an incarnation the Doctor tries to pretend never happened, but otherwise he'd have had the same character arc the War Doctor had, a Doctor believed to have committed a terrible atrocity but over the course of the story manages to prevent that and redeem himself in the eyes of his successors. Hell, they could have even still have had that spontaneous regeneration at the end. Okay, a year ago folks at BBC probably believed (perhaps rightly) that they'd get more attention with John Hurt than they would have with Paul McGann. But given the positive response fandom had to McGann and his webisode, I don't think DotD would have suffered were McGann there instead.
The character was obviously meant to be Eccleston, Moffat has even admitted that. I get it, Eccleston turned it down, they had to find an alternate solution. Unfortunately, some stuff which would have worked perfectly for Eccleston was kept it even though it doesn't make much sense now. Like the above mentioned about the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors believing they're dealing with a post-Moment War Doctor as evidenced by the line "it must still be a recent even for your" while they're in the cell. Doesn't make much sense, given from the Doctor's memories, using the Moment directly led to his regeneration. Although had it been Eccleston there as the scene was originally written for, it works since using the Moment clearly hadn't caused him to regenerate.
Using Paul McGann would have been a better alternative than creating a new Doctor. Clearly, he couldn't have been a repressed memory, an incarnation the Doctor tries to pretend never happened, but otherwise he'd have had the same character arc the War Doctor had, a Doctor believed to have committed a terrible atrocity but over the course of the story manages to prevent that and redeem himself in the eyes of his successors. Hell, they could have even still have had that spontaneous regeneration at the end. Okay, a year ago folks at BBC probably believed (perhaps rightly) that they'd get more attention with John Hurt than they would have with Paul McGann. But given the positive response fandom had to McGann and his webisode, I don't think DotD would have suffered were McGann there instead.
While I thought John Hurt was awesome, I'll always think that it could have worked with McGann. Rather than a regeneration, it could have been a case of the Eighth abandoning his original costume and long locks in lieu of the more soldiery costume and shorter hair he had in "Night of the Doctor" anyway. The angst of the Time War would still be there, but there also could have been a point of how the once dashing and optimistic Eighth Doctor we saw in the '96 movie eventually became the exact opposite of that during the conflict, IMO.
Agreed. A full circle of unhappiness, brought by the Time War.
And I do love John Hurt in the role. I'm just saying, had it been at least the Eighth, it would just have been a LOT better.
Reminds me of an interview Moffat did at the time Night of the Doctor went online in which he says that he couldn't imagine the Eighth Doctor as depicted in the telemovie fighting the Time War which was why it was a plot point that the Doctor wasn't involved with the Time War prior to regenerating and becoming the War Doctor. Which I think is a missed opportunity to have shown Paul McGann play a Doctor worn out by constant stress and fighting and show just how war can change people.
I totally agree. And the irony is that in Moffat's "Night of the Doctor," we see the beginnings of how the Eighth Doctor could have gone that route.
And if he had done that I guarantee there'd now be a recurring "Moffat turned the 8th Doctor into a murderer how dare he!" theme
I do wonder how things would have turned out if Eccleston had agreed to do it. That would have made Capaldi the last Doctor of the original cycle.
I do wonder how things would have turned out if Eccleston had agreed to do it. That would have made Capaldi the last Doctor of the original cycle.
I'm inclined to think that "Day of the Doctor" would have been left largely unchanged except that Eccleston would have played perhaps a newly-regenerated Doctor about to make the fateful decision to end the Time War.
At the end of it all, if I was Moffat, I'd have him land in Cardiff in 2005 and discovering Autons lurking about there (which would bring us to the moments before the opening of "Rose").
Even if the story isn't much different plot-wise, it would change dramatically theme-wise if it were Eccleston. The idea of a secret Doctor and a past he considers shameful is quite different than what it would be if the 9th Doctor we've seen did it.
I think that would have only pertained to the final moments of "The Name of the Doctor" and the revelation of a lost incarnation.
As far as "The Day of the Doctor," though, it really would have been not that much different theme-wise with Eccleston, IMO, as it was primarily about the Doctor(s) facing what he did during the Time War.
Yeah, only The Name of the Doctor introduces the secret Doctor concept and very late, too. And with Eccleston, I'm guessing it would've been about the new Doctor wiping the slate clean with his past in the Time War - literally ending everything, with the experience of his previous, War-filled life bleeding into him. His encounter with the Bad Wolf, more than anything, seems to have been written with the Ninth Doctor in mind, as a way for Moffat to reunite Eccleston and Billie Piper for one last time (and how lovely would that have been, huh?), so the original intent seems to have been there.
And yet, McGann in it might have been an even better idea, and I say this as a Ninth Doctor fan mostly. Because the scorned/rejected Doctor card could've still been played with him - and in a meta way, it would've reflected many Who fans' own rejection of the Eighth due to the TV film's failure and such. Plus, his last appearence would essentially be a special, and a movie event, similarly but quite unlike the TV Movie. I would have loved that.
What would've been different, though, would probably be Time of the Doctor. With Smith only the second-to-last Doctor, I can't imagine the story would actually carry the same weight as it does with that being the Doctor's last stand. But, personally, I'd trade that to have either Eccleston or McGann back for The Day of the Doctor.
And yet, McGann in it might have been an even better idea, and I say this as a Ninth Doctor fan mostly. Because the scorned/rejected Doctor card could've still been played with him - and in a meta way, it would've reflected many Who fans' own rejection of the Eighth due to the TV film's failure and such. Plus, his last appearence would essentially be a special, and a movie event, similarly but quite unlike the TV Movie. I would have loved that.
What would've been different, though, would probably be Time of the Doctor. With Smith only the second-to-last Doctor, I can't imagine the story would actually carry the same weight as it does with that being the Doctor's last stand. But, personally, I'd trade that to have either Eccleston or McGann back for The Day of the Doctor.
Yeah, Day of the Doctor really didn't do anything with the "forgotten Doctor" concept, and had it been Eccleston or even McGann I don't see the end result being too different from what we got. Name of the Doctor would have had the greater impact since revealing a forgotten Doctor is the plot twist that served as the cliffhanger.
Actually, that is an interesting thought, what would the original ending to Name of the Doctor have been had Eccleston agreed to Day? Obviously, you can't sell Eccleston as a forgotten Doctor and there's no real reason Clara wouldn't have recognized him. Or would it have just been an Eccleston cameo, him and Smith exchange dialogue as a means of getting the fans' blood pumping in anticipation of the 50th?
Which kind of goes back to what I was saying about using McGann would have given them the exact same character arc as the War Doctor's.
I kind of get the impression that in the original version of Time of the Doctor, it was actually something unique to Trenzalore which prevented the Doctor from regenerating. Once the War Doctor was created, Moffat realized there are now twelve Doctors and by acknowledging the aborted regeneration in Journey's End it can be said the Doctor has regenerated twelve times and can't anymore.
How would that not actually count considering he still basically used up all the regeneration energy from that one by dumping it into the thing his other hand was in.
I think if Eccelston had agreed to do "The Day of the Doctor," it just would have been him stepping out of the shadows in "The Name of the Doctor" instead of Hurt. Not as a forgotten Doctor, but one who still "broke the promise" by what he did to end the Time War.
He'd still be the one that the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors would instinctively point their sonic screwdrivers at upon meeting.
In any case, it seemed to me that, given Moffat's own admited love for Bad Wolf, he'd have have Nine do the end of the Time Lords, in a direct parallel to his willingness to end all humanity at the end of Parting of the Ways, but with the switcheroo happening, his actions in that episode would be evocative, in a retroactive way, of The Day of the Doctor.
But I guess that can technically still count as is, but... I like the symmetry of Moffat's original thinking, too.
But I guess that can technically still count as is, but... I like the symmetry of Moffat's original thinking, too.
