The Day of the Doctor

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.