I was thrilled when the Doctor called in his past (and future) incarnations to help save Gallifrey in the DOCTOR WHO 50th anniversary story “The Day of the Doctor,” but I was also disappointed that the sequence was so brief. Well, that problem has been solved by enterprising an enterprising YouTuber.
Yes, thanks to some clever splicing and re-editing, we have a meatier sequence of the Doctor helping himself! GALLIFREY FALLS NO MORE!
Anyone who has seen the DOCTOR WHO 50th anniversary story, “The Day of the Doctor,” knows that it is stuffed to the gills with Easter eggs for fans that drew on the entire length and breadth of the series — but writer and executive producer Steven Moffat couldn’t quite work everything he’d envisioned into the broadcast.
Moffat wanted some kind of representation of each and every Doctor Who ever — including the Peter Cushing movie version! But it was not to be, as Moffat told Doctor Who Magazine:
“When I started writing The Day of the Doctor I knew I wanted every Doctor to make some sort of appearance…. But what about Peter Cushing? Now I love those movies… but they don’t exactly fit with the rest of the show, do they? You remember that line, in the Black Archive, when Kate is explaining about the need to screen the Doctor’s known associates…. She wasn’t supposed to be looking at the Vortex Manipulator — originally, she was walking past the posters for the two Peter Cushing movies. In my head, in the Doctor’s universe, those films exist as distorted accounts of his adventures…. Sadly we couldn’t afford the rights to the posters.”
What a shame that the rights-holders apparently were more interested in a payday than being part of the celebration.
So the Cushing movies — 1965’s Dr. Who and the Daleks and 1966’s Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. — were meant to be fictional films based on the Doctor’s exploits? I like that. It sort of reminds me of the show-within-a-show Wormhole X-Treme! from STARGATE SG-1.
Most interestingly, Moffat’s gambit would have made Bernard Cribbins — who played companion Tom Campbell in DIE2150AD — part of Who canon as both an in-universe fictional character and a “real” person, companion Wilfred Mott! Now that would be meta!
DOCTOR WHO show-runner Steven Moffat confirmed to Doctor Who Magazine that the original plan for the 50th anniversary story, “The Day of the Doctor,” had Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor wiping out Time Lords and the Daleks to end the Time War — a job that eventually went to the newly created War Doctor (John Hurt).
But even in the beginning, Moffat knew there was a good chance his plans would have to change due to Eccleston’s famous reluctance to revisit the role:
“I was pretty certain Chris wouldn’t do it, although he did agree to a couple of meetings. So, instead, we had the challenge and excitement of introducing a BBC audience to a brand-new Doctor.”
Despite what he’s said in the very recent past, DOCTOR WHO show-runner Steven Moffat now insists that Matt Smith is not the 11th Doctor, but rather the 13th and final incarnation of the Time Lord.
Moffat told the Radio Times:
“We’ll find out that Matt Smith is actually the 13th Doctor. Although everyone knows that the Doctor can only regenerate 12 times. The 12-regenerations limit is a central part of Doctor Who mythology – science fiction is all about rules, you can’t just casually break them. So if the Doctor can never change again, what’s Peter Capaldi doing in the Christmas Special?”
Huh?
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War Doctor
Run, you clever boy! Show-runner Steven Moffat has found a new way to delight torture DOCTOR WHO fandom: by playing with the Doctor’s regenerations. He knows there’s enough wiggle room to fuel all sides of an argument until the end of the world, so he’s taking the hot potato and running with it!
In the wake of the events of the 50th anniversary story, “The Day of the Doctor,” the question of exactly how many regenerations the Doctor has left is wide open — meaning Moffat doesn’t have to work very hard to send Whovians into paroxysms of despair and joy.
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This DOCTOR WHO minisode is a bit shorter than “The Night of the Doctor,” and, frankly, not nearly as brilliant. It also features new characters instead of old friends. Still, it’s interesting to get a glimpse of a place that’s been mentioned in the annals of The Last Great Time War: Arcadia.
So, what did you think? At first, I was distressed at the idea that a Gallifreyan soldier would think that a single Dalek could destroy all of Arcadia, the “safest place on Gallifrey.” I mean, the Doctor alone has held off battalions of Daleks with a jammy dodger and foiled any number of diabolical pepperpots by hanging his hat on their eyestalks! And even UNIT can effectively battle them. But then I realized that perhaps the other soldier was having a little fun by following in the footsteps of the officer and scaring the rookie. He was exaggerating for effect, just to scare the n00b.
“The Day of the Doctor,” the 50th anniversary story, will be simulcast around the planet tomorrow. Here in the USA, it will air on BBC America at 2:50 p.m. ET. #SaveTheDay
It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times: The BBC is releasing a lot of video teasers for “The Day of the Doctor,” DOCTOR WHO’s 50th anniversary story — but they are all so short!
Anyway, here are two new clips that feature companions Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman), along with the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) and the War Doctor (John Hurt). I prefer the lighthearted Clara piece, but there’s an interesting sense of dread in Rose’s clip.
As always, a SPOILER warning. Theses videos are exceedingly brief and innocuous, but still, sensitive viewers might consider them unacceptable spoilers, so view at your own risk.
Clara and the 11th Doctor:
Rose and the War Doctor:
By now you should know “The Day of the Doctor” will be simulcast around the globe this Saturday. #SaveTheDay
That DOCTOR WHO executive producer Steven Moffat lies — for the good DOCTOR WHO and its fan base — is not in dispute; but would he wrangle a classic Doctor to fib about his participation in “The Day of the Doctor”?
We’re all familiar with Moffat’s denials about the involvement of this or that character/actor in this or that story, but this report is a little different, in that it claims someone is participating, instead of the usual is not taking part line.
While this report has not been confirmed by the BBC, it does come directly from the actor involved, so I will hold the info until after the cut in case anyone wants to remain pure and unspoiled in every way for the 50th anniversary story.
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Strax has filed another field report for the Sontaran military, this time looking at the Doctor’s once and future frenemy, Queen Elizabeth I.
For some reason, I never tie of Strax’s (Dan Starkey) inability to differentiate between human “boys” and “girls.” I chuckle every time. SONTAR HA!
The Doctors (Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt) will next encounter Good Queen Bess (Joanna Page) in “The Day of the Doctor,” the DOCTOR WHO 50th anniversary story, to be simulcast globally on Nov. 23.
It would appear that the BBC does have something of a sense of humor after all, releasing this parody video starring the 10th Doctor, David Tennant, just days before the DOCTOR WHO 50th anniversary story, “The Day of the Doctor.”
David poking fun at the “cheap” production values of the anniversary story is, of course, perfectly appropriate when viewed in the context of the show’s long-running (and richly deserved) reputation for wobbly sets and cut-rate visual effects because it’s a wink and nod to longtime fans who weathered the primitive years to get to the state-of-the-art version of the series we see now.
However, as far as the cheapness of the production goes, one thing was always perfectly clear: Whether the producers had $1 or $10 to make a show in any given week, DOCTOR WHO was put together with more love than almost any other show on TV. That love infuses every frame of the series, from the opening image of “An Unearthly Child” to the stuffed giant rat of “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” to the assembly of monsters in “The Pandorica Opens.” DOCTOR WHO has always been made with as much love as can be packed into the small screen. Luckily, our televisions are bigger on the inside, too.
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