The Day of the Doctor

They pulled it off. The most incredible magic trick where everyone got what they wanted. Whether you have only watched a couple of Doctor Who episodes or have seen it all, you will feel something watching this. It isn’t just an anniversary episode. It is a robust, coherent story that is both fitting and one of the best bits of writing the show has ever seen.

If it is a runaround. If it is a runaround. It is the best runaround in the show’s history. It is not just content in celebrating The Doctor’s past, but also creates a new past, all while wrapping up the first 8 years of New Who.

It feels like this level of quality comes from nowhere because the series that proceeds it is so disjointed. This story makes me hopeful about the show’s future, and grateful for what we already have as fans. It is a major milestone, following the first 50 years, which makes me wish I could sit down with Verity Lambert, or Terry Nation, or Robert Holmes, or any of the many people involved in building this incredible show, and show them The Day of the Doctor. Show them the product of their vision and all of the parts of them that are within it.

John Hurt, David Tennent and Matt Smith are phenomenal. The supporting cast around them knock it out of the park. There is no doubt that this is the show at the peak of its popularity and these talented people are lapping that energy up and making beautiful, populist television out of it. Television that feels like a monumental movie. An anniversary episode that makes me proud to be a fan.

And it’s not even just The Day of the Doctor itself. It’s The Night of the Doctor; An Adventure in Space and Time; The Five(ish) Doctors; even the bloody Aftershow. All of that makes for the most overwhelmingly joyful 50th anniversary celebration. It was the most beautiful time to be a Doctor Who fan.

If NuWho ended its television run with this special I think I would be okay with it. This is a strong and yet open ended ending. Tom Baker as the Curator near the end is a nice sight.

Loved most of it. The opening titles, the unexpected Baker and Capaldi cameos, the fantastic chemistry between Tennant and Smith. It was incredibly entertaining.

Not sure how I feel about the effects of the Time War being reversed at this moment in time though. I mean, I knew the Time Lords would be back eventually and it has the potential to make for a great arc but it just means that the previous seven years lose a bit of their luster.

No sir. All thirteen!

Prerequisites: Given that it's an anniversary celebration, I'd recommend having seen as much of the show as possible up to this point for the full experience.

Spoilers!
I'll fully admit that some aspects of The Day of the Doctor aren't my favorite thing. I would have vastly preferred the Eighth or Ninth Doctor to be the one who had actually ended the Time War, the Time War itself is portrayed a little too much like conventional warfare for my tastes, and the whole pseudo-retcon of whether the Doctor actually committed genocide is something I'm split on. Still, it's remarkable to me just how much of this special does work, and I love it to pieces. It's cinematic, bombastic, and contains some of my favorite individual moments in the entire series (Tom Baker's Curator cameo is particularly touching and respectful). This is some great stuff, and it's one of the most rewatchable episodes for me.

A few things.

I don't care that the time war happened to John Hurt, it should've happened to 8 instead. Make that dandy suffer. McGann deserves to be on screen. Can you tell I love the Eighth Doctor?

Can they PLEASE decide whether Gallifrey is blown up and dead and gone forever or alive and well? It's a whole f**kign planet. I don't think Stephen Moffat understands the scope of what a planet compared to a country is.

Pinning the blowing up and destruction of an entire planet on one guy, who is from the planet being occupied and invaded, when the invaders are, quite literally, fascist explosion genocide death machines, is.... A very interesting writing choice.

How do you celebrate 50 years?

That's the question that Steven Moffat had to answer with this TV movie and boy was he successful. The film begins with the original Delia Derbyshire opening titles and it's amazing how well they hold up today, even on a big screen (this was shown in cinemas as well as on TV). The opening features many homages to the William Hartnell era of the show, including a policeman walking past a familiar junkyard sign and Coal Hill School. My only criticism of this sequence is that they missed a trick in not having William Russell as Ian Chesterton be the one who leaves Clara with the Doctor's current address.

The plot feels like a wonderful blend of the classic and new series. On one hand, you've got Zygons trying to populate the Earth as their new home by taking on the forms of others. On the other, the end of the Time War and debate over whether the Moment is the only option or if there is another way. What is great about both of these elements is how they not only look to the past but also set future elements in motion. The Zygon plot sets up Invasion/Inversion of the Zygons and the Time War segments set up whenever they decide to return to the Twelfth Doctor's appearance alongside the other Doctors (and isn't that a great sequence? 'All 12 of them', 'No sir, all THIRTEEN').

Talking of the Doctors, all three of the main ones are as great as you would expect from such brilliant actors. John Hurt is incredible as the War Doctor, David Tennant shows why he is truly the greatest Doctor so far (in my opinion, of course) and Matt Smith is on top form as the Eleventh Doctor. Whilst the other Doctors do appear, it is as archival footage towards the end (apart from the Twelfth Doctor, who appears in new footage albeit with just his killer eyebrows in shot).

Oh, and Tom Baker is magnificent as the Curator. His voice sends shivers down any Whovian's spine when you first hear it before he appears. What's especially good here is how it is not outright stated he is a future incarnation of the Curator (although it is hinted), it is left mainly up to individual interpretation so if you want to say it's the Fourth Doctor aged due to time differential (my preferred theory), you can.

The writing is possibly Steven Moffat's best also. Day of the Doctor features some of the best lines in any film I've seen (not just in Doctor Who, although admittedly I am a bit biased) including 'Great men are forged in fire. It takes the privilege of a lesser man to light the flame' and 'Clara sometimes asks me if I dream. Of course I dream, I say. But what do you dream about, she'll ask. The same thing everybody dreams about, I'll tell her. I dream about where I'm going. She always laughs at that. But you’re not going anywhere, you’re just wandering about.That’s not true. Not anymore. I have a new destination. My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone’s. It’s taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I’m going. Where I’ve always been going. Home. The long way around.'.

Overall, Day of the Doctor is a brilliant celebration of 50 years from 1963-2013 and essential viewing for anybody, not just Whovians. My only complaint is no Ian Chesterton.

It's a little wild to think that at this point I basically have nostalgia for Day of the Doctor. It really is an ambitious story that more or less pulls off everything it is going for. Ten and Eleven are very fun interacting with each other, Tennant feels back in form right away and I love his scenes with the Queen, and the War Doctor, with virtually no build-up or established backstory, comes back fully swinging and feeling completely realized within the Doctor Who universe. John Hurt manages to give this character so much weight he feels very much like an incarnation we simply hadn't seen before, with all the weight and history an established one might already have.

This story does a lot well, with memorable set pieces and a strong use of both Billie Piper and Jenna Coleman as companions, too. It really feels like the whole emotional weight of the Moment and the Doctor saving Gallifrey hinges on Clara. And for once, without the forcible hand of overwritten crap like Clara being in the Doctor's time stream, or being the most important perfect blank slate of a character she all too often was, it just works so well here. She is just a person innately recognizing this moment is wrong, and challenging the Doctor to be the Doctor, to live up to the promise of his name that had so heavily defined the ongoing narrative at this time. It's really well done, and as overblown and Moffaty as the ending can be, I would argue by and large it works well as a celebration of all things Doctor Who. A great homage to the series itself while also being a nicely put together production, so big of an event they even showed it in theatres - and it feels pretty earned to me! There's a real cinematic quality to Day of the Doctor that gives it an appropriate amount of weight.

So much so that it really sucks Chibnall worked so hard to erase the emotional pay-off of Gallifrey living after this story and Time of the Doctor. This was something the Doctor had earned, and it was immediately burned away by inferior writing. I hope RTD can correct that embarrassment, because for all his faults as a showrunner, Steven Moffat's legacy deserved better than that. Day of the Doctor was an astounding achievement for the franchise, reopening the notion of inter-Doctor crossovers again while opening up new possibilities for the series in a thousand different ways. To be fair, neither Moffat nor Chibnall ever followed up on that opportunity meaningfully, and while I'm sure if Ecclesten had returned or if the event had a bigger budget, things could be improved.

I still just love this special for what it is and the optimism it represents. It's an easy to digest, fun piece of Doctor Who history with a lot of moments worth revisiting. The big scene with "all thirteen" Doctors was great, you have the curator, and even the Zygon negotiations, all done really well and showing the Doctor at his best in the process.