See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked like!

[Allyn Gibson]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

I always assumed that there wasn't a script for "Day of the Doctor" with the ninth Doctor in it, but if they got as far as storyboards then there may well have been. This leads me to wonder if there's some validity to the rumors at the time that Eccleston agreed to appear, only to withdraw from the project prior to filming.

Maybe it was optimism on Moffat's part that he could actually get Eccleston to do it. I certainly held out little or no hope of it happening though I was a little disappointed when we didn't get to see the War Doctor regenerate into the 9th.

Moffat showed us as much of that regeneration as he was comfortable with showing without having the actor present. I'd have to find his exact quote, but that's why the regeneration from the War Doctor cuts away when it does.

 

[diankra]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

I always assumed that there wasn't a script for "Day of the Doctor" with the ninth Doctor in it, but if they got as far as storyboards then there may well have been. This leads me to wonder if there's some validity to the rumors at the time that Eccleston agreed to appear, only to withdraw from the project prior to filming.

Maybe it was optimism on Moffat's part that he could actually get Eccleston to do it. I certainly held out little or no hope of it happening though I was a little disappointed when we didn't get to see the War Doctor regenerate into the 9th.

Moffat showed us as much of that regeneration as he was comfortable with showing without having the actor present. I'd have to find his exact quote, but that's why the regeneration from the War Doctor cuts away when it does.

To be blunt, I think that's spin (as Eccleston had decided not to come back, how was it respectful to show him in a short regen after using old footage; if respect was an issue, they'd have not shown him at all): they simply couldn't do a full regeneration in 3-D unless they could shoot Eccleston in 3-D. So cut it short.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

Moffat showed us as much of that regeneration as he was comfortable with showing without having the actor present. I'd have to find his exact quote, but that's why the regeneration from the War Doctor cuts away when it does.

To be blunt, I think that's spin (as Eccleston had decided not to come back, how was it respectful to show him in a short regen after using old footage; if respect was an issue, they'd have not shown him at all): they simply couldn't do a full regeneration in 3-D unless they could shoot Eccleston in 3-D. So cut it short.

I had never considered the technical issue, so I was willing to take Moffat at his word. However, that does make sense.

 

[The Wormhole]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

Ah... just because the storyboards have Nine and a little girl together, that doesn't mean that the Moment wouldn't have become Rose once Billie Piper said yes. The "from your future" line would work with Nine or War.

True, and it would have been awesome had they gotten Eccleston and Piper back together. But, it wouldn't surprise me either that had Eccleston agreed to this, they stuck with a random little girl as the Moment. It would fit with Moffat's child trope.

 

[Saul]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

Damn shame 9 wasn't in this. 8 too.... He could have easily taken the place of 9th Doctor.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

And of course this shows Moffat (not for the first time) to be a big fat liar; with his claim of having to create the War Doctor because none of the 'real' Doctors would have fought in the Time War revealed as the nonsense it always was..

IIRC he said the Eighth wouldn't have fought the Time War (which I disagree with) and that using the Ninth would have created continuity problems as (Moffat believes) Rose is meant to be his post-regeneration story, which RTD very recently debunked.

Honestly, I think there's very little that the 8th Doctor couldn't do. While it would be hard to reconcile participation in the Time War with the very young, idealistic version of the Doctor that McGann played in the 1996 movie, McGann's done some pretty dark stuff in the audios (e.g. "Zagreus," "Scherzo," "The Natural History of Fear"). Current 50-something McGann could totally pull it off just as well as Eccleston if not better.

In the end, I'm torn. While it would have been really cool to see Eccleston or McGann back (particularly since McGann has been consistently screwed over when it comes to TV appearances), I do think John Hurt is absolutely fantastic in the episode. He carries a delicate world-weariness that McGann & Eccleston are just a little too young to totally pull off. Hurt also does a good job of being something of a stand-in for a more serious, more elderly William Hartnell-type Doctor.

 

[The Wormhole]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

Honestly, I think there's very little that the 8th Doctor couldn't do. While it would be hard to reconcile participation in the Time War with the very young, idealistic version of the Doctor that McGann played in the 1996 movie, McGann's done some pretty dark stuff in the audios (e.g. "Zagreus," "Scherzo," "The Natural History of Fear"). Current 50-something McGann could totally pull it off just as well as Eccleston if not better.

If anything, seeing a darker take on the Eighth Doctor compared to what we saw in the 96 movie would actually do a better job showing how war can change people than literally turning the Doctor into a different person to fight the war.

In the end, I'm torn. While it would have been really cool to see Eccleston or McGann back (particularly since McGann has been consistently screwed over when it comes to TV appearances), I do think John Hurt is absolutely fantastic in the episode. He carries a delicate world-weariness that McGann & Eccleston are just a little too young to totally pull off. Hurt also does a good job of being something of a stand-in for a more serious, more elderly William Hartnell-type Doctor.

Absolutely, John Hurt rocks in the role, and it's great we get to see him as the Doctor. But at the same time, it wasn't really necessary to create a new Doctor when there are two actual ones who could have been used with very little change to the story. Hell, I often imagine the scene where the War Doctor asks the Chancellery Guard for his gun with McGann instead, and it's amazing how much it works, especially with McGann's worn-out look from Night of the Doctor.

 

[Galileo7]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

Damn.

Still, that's an interesting insight to see. Too bad it didn't happen, but the fact remains, it didn't happen. Oh, well.

Agree.

 

[Trevacious]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

More, please!

 

[Iamnotspock]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

Moffat showed us as much of that regeneration as he was comfortable with showing without having the actor present. I'd have to find his exact quote, but that's why the regeneration from the War Doctor cuts away when it does.

To be blunt, I think that's spin (as Eccleston had decided not to come back, how was it respectful to show him in a short regen after using old footage; if respect was an issue, they'd have not shown him at all): they simply couldn't do a full regeneration in 3-D unless they could shoot Eccleston in 3-D. So cut it short.

I had never considered the technical issue, so I was willing to take Moffat at his word. However, that does make sense.

I can't find the quote now, but Moffat's official stance was that 3D wasn't a problem ("Spoiler: Capaldi was in 2D. Who noticed?"), nor was using obvious stock footage of previous Doctors, but going so far as to fake new footage of Doctor #9 the way they had with Hartnell in 'The Name of the Doctor' might have led people to believe that Eccleston had actually been involved with the filming. Moffat claimed to respect Eccleston's decision to not be involved too much to do that.

There was also a rumour (pinch of salt...) that Eccleston's unavailability coming very late in the day (certainly John Hurt has stated that his involvement was extremely short notice) was connected in some way to Executive Producer Caroline Skinner's abrupt departure.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

In the end, I'm torn. While it would have been really cool to see Eccleston or McGann back (particularly since McGann has been consistently screwed over when it comes to TV appearances), I do think John Hurt is absolutely fantastic in the episode. He carries a delicate world-weariness that McGann & Eccleston are just a little too young to totally pull off. Hurt also does a good job of being something of a stand-in for a more serious, more elderly William Hartnell-type Doctor.

Absolutely, John Hurt rocks in the role, and it's great we get to see him as the Doctor. But at the same time, it wasn't really necessary to create a new Doctor when there are two actual ones who could have been used with very little change to the story. Hell, I often imagine the scene where the War Doctor asks the Chancellery Guard for his gun with McGann instead, and it's amazing how much it works, especially with McGann's worn-out look from Night of the Doctor.

The Time War stuff with the War Doctor on his own would have worked perfectly fine with McGann. But I'm not sure that McGann or Eccleston would have provided as much of a contrast with Tennant & Smith in the multi-Doctor scenes as Hurt did.

I'm generally of the opinion that, if you're going to do some multi-Doctor scenes, you kinda need a character-driven reason to do that. In that respect, that makes it harder for McGann to do multi-Doctor stories because his personality is so flexible that he's harder to contrast with other Doctors. Some of my friends keep saying that they want to see a McGann/Capaldi crossover. And while I'd love to see more McGann, I can't really picture how it would be interesting to see him WITH Capaldi. (I'd prefer a McGann flashback episode, which could serve as that season's "Doctor-lite" episode.)

 

[The Wormhole]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

I can't find the quote now, but Moffat's official stance was that 3D wasn't a problem ("Spoiler: Capaldi was in 2D. Who noticed?"), nor was using obvious stock footage of previous Doctors, but going so far as to fake new footage of Doctor #9 the way they had with Hartnell in 'The Name of the Doctor' might have led people to believe that Eccleston had actually been involved with the filming. Moffat claimed to respect Eccleston's decision to not be involved too much to do that.

They still did that anyway with the Eccleston clip used in the "All Twelve/Thirteen Doctors" sequence ("And for my next trick..."). Sure, it's clearly footage from another episode inserted in, but to a casual viewer (the "Not We") it could very well seem newly filmed. Him and Capaldi are the only Doctors other than Smith Tennant and Hurt to get footage used in that sequence, all the other Doctors only appear as images on the General's holo board.

There was also a rumour (pinch of salt...) that Eccleston's unavailability coming very late in the day (certainly John Hurt has stated that his involvement was extremely short notice) was connected in some way to Executive Producer Caroline Skinner's abrupt departure.

There's a lot of rumours regarding Caroline Skinner's departure, and I'm just going to leave it at that.

 

[Mr Light]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

what are the rumors? I don't know anything about it. is she the reason Eccelston quit the show?

 

[The Wormhole]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

what are the rumors? I don't know anything about it. is she the reason Eccelston quit the show?

Well, no, she certainly isn't the reason Eccleston quit the show, as she didn't even start working on Doctor Who until after Matt Smith's second year.

What's known about Caroline Skinner's departure is that it happened after her and Moffat had an argument in which Moffat threatened to "erase" her. This happened in public, many witnesses. The nature of this argument has been a source of speculation among fandom ever since, with some claiming it was about Eccleston's requests for appearing in Day of the Doctor to others suggesting shall we say slanderous things. Either Google the information or dig around the posts made on this forum back in the spring of 2013 and you'll see what I mean.

 

[bryce]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

can we not use the slur "lame"? just because someone has problems with their legs doesn't mean they a synonym for inferiority and weakness.

It wasn't really meant as a slur but as a synonym of weak - which is also ableist as a quick internet research has shown me. I've replaced it.

My ex-wife (who I am dating - looong story) is disabled - she has JRA and uses an electric wheelchair and I met her when she ran into me with her Amigo cart. And I have never heard her use the word "ableist" - in fact, I recently had to explain to *her* what it meant. And she uses the word "lame" all the time, especially when talking to our teenage kids, in fact, I'm snickering now because she told me that "ableist" is a "pretty lame thing to say".

Of course, she doesn't speak for or represent all disabled people - but she have a lot of disabled friends (and I have a mental disability myself - several, actually) - and the only people who I have ever heard use the word "ableist" then to be PC people with no disabilities...and just like men online who mansplain to women why the are so wrong when they say that they *don't* need feminism, I think treating disabled people like they are weak and need defending is a bit...patronizing.

And, of course, I have physically disabled friends who think Timmy from South Park is the damned funniest thing ever, so they tend to have a "if you can't laugh about it" attitude. Hell, I myself tell people all the time not to refer to me as "mentally ill" but a "fruity as a nutcake",..

I just get the feeling that we all walk on eggshells now days because society suffers from "offensensitivity" - and yeah, we should try not to use words like "lame", "gay", "pussy", "retarded", as pejoratives...but if we slip up and do, we're not "worse than Hitler" either. (For a long time I used "lame" as a substitute for "gay", I never made a connection between "lame" and "disabled"...ever. Until I read this post.)

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

(For a long time I used "lame" as a substitute for "gay", I never made a connection between "lame" and "disabled"...ever. Until I read this post.)

Same here. I don't know that I've ever heard lame applied to people (regarding a disability, at least). I usually think of it with animals in that form ex lame duck, lame horse.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

My Dad reckons my aunt used to date a guy with a limp, whose name was John or whatever, but my mum used to keep calling him 'Liam.' Whoops.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

Wheelchair user with cerebral palsy here....what the hell is "ableist"? And since when did lame become an insult to the disabled? I thought it meant stupid. Contrived. Dumb.

 

[Saul]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

One of my I.D. cards says "Alien" on it. I haven't taken it personally though.

My friend also called me a "F**kin b**tard!" but it was in jest.

But if something from another planet landed on earth I definitely wouldn't point at it and say "F**kin Alien B**tard!". THAT would be offensive.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Re: See what "Day of the Doctor" with Ecclestone would have looked lik

But the world loves a bastard.