The Day of the Doctore Review Thread (Spoilers?)

[BrEnDoN]

Capaldi will probably stick around for about 3 seasons, I imagine Moffat would leave around then too and we'd get a new Doctor and new showrunner who would then have a few seasons themselves to tell the story of the thirteenth and final Doctor and what comes next (if anything comes next.) Of course, if Moffat didn't leave then, he would be the showrunner for the 13th Doctor and would be in a position to tell the Last Doctor story he so clearly wants to tell.

No -- Capaldi is the 13th Doctor. He's still numbered as the 12th for the reasons Gaiman explained in the above quote, but he's the thirteenth life of the Doctor, because there was one we didn't know about until now.

You're missing my point entirely. It's not about the numbering system now that we have a secret Doctor, it's that we shouldn't have. The "one we didn't know about until now" was a bad idea and only created so that Moffat come up with an excuse to make Matt Smith the 13th and final.

Matt Smith should have been the 11th Doctor and 11th life, Peter Capaldi the 12th, [insert future Doctor Who actor here] as the 13th, No secret Doctor we didn't know about, and the 'no more regenerations' storyline should be handled years down the track when we get to it and only by Moffat if he's still the head writer that far in the future...

 

[Starkers]

It's Doctor Who, not Deep Space 9, a series long war arc probablywouldn't go down that well.

 

[The Doctor]

Of course he thought of the children, but he believed he had no way to save them. And he spent the next 400 years seeing that as his greatest failure and wishing he could go back and find another way. And because of those 400 years of regret, he did find another way and he implemented it. I don't see that as shortchanging his arc, but advancing it.

This cuts right to the heart of why this episode was so special: it didn't just retconn the Time War, it built on the past eight years to tell a story of triumph and redemption.

"Just this once, everybody lives."

It's a shame that Ecclestone made his choice to be finished with Doctor Who, because it was his lines and his tortured portrayal that sprang front and center when all thirteen Doctors converged on Gallifrey. This isn't to say that Hurt's Doctor didn't add to the proceedings, he did, but the hole left by Nine was conspicuous.

Maybe that's just because he's my Doctor, I don't know.

Moffat managed to turn the past eight years into one continuous character arc. The Doctor goes from shattered war veteran to an overcompensating egoist with delusions of Godhood to the man who pretends to be doddering and even manages to convince himself half the time. They're all running from that one decision, in their own way, all of them trying desperately to 'make it all worthwhile,' while missing the real truth:

It was never worthwhile. There was another way, they just hadn't figured it out yet.

In the end, they didn't figure it out, not really. It was Clara who stopped them, who reminded them that there is always another way.

They just never thought to check if the door would be open.

It was beautiful and lyrical and completely nonsensical. But who cares? It hit me right in the feels, particularly the booming baritone of The Curator. He arrived to give Eleven hope, hope that Gallifrey was still out there, hope that Trenzalore wasn't the final resting place that it appears to be. Hope that thirteen isn't the end but, maybe, the beginning.

I loved it. It celebrated the past, set the stage for the future and actually made me interested in the casting of Capalidi as a Doctor who looks and acts a bit more like his age would suggest. It also cemented Clara as a great companion, right up there with Donna.

I've seen it twice. I'll be watching it again tonight. What a triumph.

 

[ATimson]

Something that's been irking me.

Did Murray Gold use his tenth Doctor motif in the score? I didn't notice it, nor did there appear to be a separate War Doctor theme.

I didn't notice any instances of "All the Strange, Strange Creatures". Is there a second Tenth Doctor theme I'm forgetting?

Though some music from the Tenth Doctor's era was used ("The Dark and Endless Dalek Night"), so the past wasn't completely ignored.

There definitely wasn't a separate War Doctor theme (the "No More" scene of him taking out the Daleks was set to "I Am the Doctor").

 

[Mr Awe]

I'd like to think there is a huge blackboard somewhere in the TARDIS with a 1000+ hash marks

When would he know to make a mark, though? And what does he need to know his age for?

All he'd need was a clock in the sonic screwdriver because it was made super clear, it's the same software in a difference housing.

Mr Awe

 

[Christopher]

You're missing my point entirely. It's not about the numbering system now that we have a secret Doctor, it's that we shouldn't have. The "one we didn't know about until now" was a bad idea and only created so that Moffat come up with an excuse to make Matt Smith the 13th and final.

No, Capaldi is the 13th. I don't believe that Mirror rumor.

And I think that revealing a Doctor we didn't know about is a good idea. Look at the title of the show. Doctor Who? It's a question. It's a mystery. Originally, the character was defined by his mystery. Nobody knew who or what he was, where he came from, what he was running from. Over the years, most of the questions were answered and the mysteries faded. John Nathan-Turner and Andrew Cartmel made a clumsy attempt to make him mysterious again in the Seventh Doctor era by hinting at some forgotten earlier identity, but it never really caught on. The new series began with him as a mysterious figure again -- mysterious to new audiences because they were only gradually given the answers that the veteran fans already knew, and mysterious to the veterans because he had a new backstory involving the Time War, which was also only gradually revealed. But eventually those mysteries were filled in too -- or so we thought. Now it turns out there was yet another secret about the Doctor in the Time War -- something we didn't know, didn't even suspect. I think it works very well.

I don't doubt that there were people back in 1969 who thought it was a bad idea to reveal that the Doctor was an exile from a people called the Time Lords. That was a paradigm shift comparable to this one.

 

[Mr Awe]

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.

I agree with this. And, especially would've liked it to be McGann given both his limited screen time and Eccleston not wanting to do it.

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.

I disagree here. The story is brilliant in that it doesn't rewrite history as we saw it on the series. We can still watch the old episodes and know that events unfolded the same way from the character's point of view. Eccleston's Doctor appropriately still has survival guilt because that's how he perceives it as happening.

At the same time, the special entirely changes the future course of the character and series.

And that's OK because the character of the Doctor discovers the truth as time passes. Remember that it is all one character and it takes time and events for that one character to learn the truth. Nothing wrong with that.

At first the Doctor thinks he destroyed Gallifrey but learns over time that he actually saved it.

Mr Awe

 

[RoJoHen]

Just saw it in 3D in the theater last night, and it was frickin awesome! Great story. Great fun. Loved seeing Billie Piper again. And honestly, it was the best use of 3D that I've seen used in a movie so far. That battle on Gallifrey was damned impressive.

 

[MikeS]

Gallifrey is hidden in the painting isn't it? Just as the Zygons were?

 

[Mr Awe]

I'm sure that the Doctor had his old traveling buddy, who now runs the school "arrange" for Clara's job.

While I didn't need or want a lot of cameos, one by Ian would've been great. However, it seems likely that Smith's Doctor has become reacquainted with Ian. (Although, how old would Ian be in the estimated date of 2020?!)

Mr Awe

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Of course he thought of the children, but he believed he had no way to save them. And he spent the next 400 years seeing that as his greatest failure and wishing he could go back and find another way. And because of those 400 years of regret, he did find another way and he implemented it. I don't see that as shortchanging his arc, but advancing it.

This cuts right to the heart of why this episode was so special: it didn't just retconn the Time War, it built on the past eight years to tell a story of triumph and redemption.

"Just this once, everybody lives."

It's a shame that Ecclestone made his choice to be finished with Doctor Who, because it was his lines and his tortured portrayal that sprang front and center when all thirteen Doctors converged on Gallifrey. This isn't to say that Hurt's Doctor didn't add to the proceedings, he did, but the hole left by Nine was conspicuous.

Maybe that's just because he's my Doctor, I don't know.

Moffat managed to turn the past eight years into one continuous character arc. The Doctor goes from shattered war veteran to an overcompensating egoist with delusions of Godhood to the man who pretends to be doddering and even manages to convince himself half the time. They're all running from that one decision, in their own way, all of them trying desperately to 'make it all worthwhile,' while missing the real truth:

It was never worthwhile. There was another way, they just hadn't figured it out yet.

In the end, they didn't figure it out, not really. It was Clara who stopped them, who reminded them that there is always another way.

They just never thought to check if the door would be open.

It was beautiful and lyrical and completely nonsensical. But who cares? It hit me right in the feels, particularly the booming baritone of The Curator. He arrived to give Eleven hope, hope that Gallifrey was still out there, hope that Trenzalore wasn't the final resting place that it appears to be. Hope that thirteen isn't the end but, maybe, the beginning.

I loved it. It celebrated the past, set the stage for the future and actually made me interested in the casting of Capalidi as a Doctor who looks and acts a bit more like his age would suggest. It also cemented Clara as a great companion, right up there with Donna.

I've seen it twice. I'll be watching it again tonight. What a triumph.

You got it.

Also, you just made me fantasize about the barn scene, how it'd have been as it is, but with Eccleston added. "Fantastic! What a fantastic idea!" Yep, its too bad he wasn't in this.

BUT, it wasn't detrimental. Not in the least.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I didn't notice any instances of "All the Strange, Strange Creatures". Is there a second Tenth Doctor theme I'm forgetting?

Though some music from the Tenth Doctor's era was used ("The Dark and Endless Dalek Night"), so the past wasn't completely ignored.

There definitely wasn't a separate War Doctor theme (the "No More" scene of him taking out the Daleks was set to "I Am the Doctor").

In other words, Gold didn't score any new music and they reused and chopped his musical suites to fit. Boo.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Something that's been irking me.

Did Murray Gold use his tenth Doctor motif in the score? I didn't notice it, nor did there appear to be a separate War Doctor theme.

I don't think he used a Tenth Doctor theme as such, but he definitely used a few notes of Tenth Doctor music when they introduce "England 1562."

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I didn't notice any instances of "All the Strange, Strange Creatures". Is there a second Tenth Doctor theme I'm forgetting?

Though some music from the Tenth Doctor's era was used ("The Dark and Endless Dalek Night"), so the past wasn't completely ignored.

There definitely wasn't a separate War Doctor theme (the "No More" scene of him taking out the Daleks was set to "I Am the Doctor").

In other words, Gold didn't score any new music and they reused and chopped his musical suites to fit. Boo.

Looks like it. Maybe they used that budget simply elsewhere and just used old music because it fit's well enough. What would we be willing to sacrifice from the finished special to pay for an original score?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

In other words, Gold didn't score any new music and they reused and chopped his musical suites to fit. Boo.

Looks like it. Maybe they used that budget simply elsewhere and just used old music because it fit's well enough. What would we be willing to sacrifice from the finished special to pay for an original score?

3-D. The pointless helicopter sequence. An original score would be worth more than either of those.

 

[Christopher]

(Although, how old would Ian be in the estimated date of 2020?!)

According to Sarah Jane Smith in "Death of the Doctor," it's rumored that Ian and Barbara Chesterton haven't aged since the '60s.

 

[Tom]

I didn't notice any instances of "All the Strange, Strange Creatures". Is there a second Tenth Doctor theme I'm forgetting?

Though some music from the Tenth Doctor's era was used ("The Dark and Endless Dalek Night"), so the past wasn't completely ignored.

There definitely wasn't a separate War Doctor theme (the "No More" scene of him taking out the Daleks was set to "I Am the Doctor").

In other words, Gold didn't score any new music and they reused and chopped his musical suites to fit. Boo.

Looks like it. Maybe they used that budget simply elsewhere and just used old music because it fit's well enough. What would we be willing to sacrifice from the finished special to pay for an original score?

I think there is is some new music (some tracks i just cant place, like hurts regeneration) but its mostly recut ques. Overall, I like how the music was used.

 

[Tom]

I want to know who the hand is that's coming out of the picture. It can't be Clara unless she's amazingly double jointed, the Kates are over by the table and the science girls are not wearing black. So who is it?

It looks like Clara's right hand, so...?

This is odd, it is Clara hand (see the ring placement) but it does not line up. This could just be a continuity issue the VFX. Or maybe a duplicate Clara is also exiting.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

(Although, how old would Ian be in the estimated date of 2020?!)

According to Sarah Jane Smith in "Death of the Doctor," it's rumored that Ian and Barbara Chesterton haven't aged since the '60s.

Ian's introduction on "The Crusade" video indicates otherwise.

 

[davejames]

3-D. The pointless helicopter sequence. An original score would be worth more than either of those.

I thought the helicopter sequence was freakin awesome. Maybe in a regular episode it would feel superfluous, but for the 50th special I thought it was a really cool and fun way to open the story.

Especially when edited together with that great theme.