The Day of the Doctor

It's only the original bloody music! The PROPER music. NO don't fade out, carry on!!

Black and white! A policeman! Totters Lane! Coal Hill School! Chesterton!

Lee Mahon@Lee_JM75 I was really hoping for a cameo from William Russell. Still am.

Me too; all this hanging round the school nowadays and not a peep out of him! :-(

HornOrSilk@HornOrSilk "The Caretaker" would be the episode to do it in. And they should. Hope we get it.

Lee Mahon@Lee_JM75  Fingers crossed! It would be amazing to see him. The campaign starts here! #WilliamRussellCameo

50dw50@50dw50 i suppose its tricky as Sarah Jane says he has not aged

 True. I'd forgotten that.

Lee Mahon@Lee_JM75 I'd forgotten about that. Ah well, it's only a bit of continuity, never bothered DW before!

 

Clara's a teacher now. For... reasons? She get's a call from "her Doctor" and gets on her bike... 

 

Brilliant - possibly the 2nd best - entrance to the TARDIS. (1st being the original in An Unearthly Child of course).

The TARDIS is nicked by a big crane! Kate Lethbridge Stewart and her scarf wearing buddy are at the Tower of London.  The ravens' batteries need replacing!

Too much green reflected on Matt! :-(

50dw50@50dw50 it sounds mean but since Capaldi started i have rather forgotten Matt Smith

"Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, as I'm sure your father would have told you, I don't like being picked up!"

50dw50@50dw50 gosh it looks cold and wet in london

Unified Intelligence Taskforce? Wrong. It's "United Nations", actually, no matter what the UN says!

Ooh, Gallifrey in a painting. NO MORE. Also known as Gallifrey Falls. It's the fall of Arcadia...

Even in 2D, the 3D effect looks great, you can see that painting is not how it should be!

50dw50@50dw50 the 3D really worked for the painting in the cinema, the only bit that did really

Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 I went to late 3D showing at my cinema after watching it at home on transmission, the 3D was some of the best I've seen!!

The Time War; the actual full on Time War. The Dalek fleet, Dalek attack ships (are they flying spider Daleks?)...

 

 

Capitol guards and everything...

50dw50@50dw50 they could have had a cameo of colin baker as maxel in tight trousers

...and the War Doctor. "Soldier, I'm going to need your gun."

 

 

The Daleks menace some Gallifreyan citizens, so the War Doctor bulldozes them with the TARDIS.

The Daleks - and the Time-Lords - still call him 'the Doctor', don't they?

This lot are not the High Council seen in the End of Time; they've attempted their crazy plan and failed by this point.

 

Ken Bones is brilliant as the General; he fills us in on the Moment, the Galaxy Eater...

How do you use a weapon of mass destruction that can stand in judgement over you? Only one man would even try.

Presumably the Moment sets off the Delta Wave that the 9th Doctor told us destroyed them all.

 

 

50dw50@50dw50 so War is going to a barn on the Lungbarrow Estate #Listen #NowWeKnow
John Hurt is brilliant already. Definitely the Doctor. "Why is there never a big red button!"

Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 They should've called him the Renegade during the Time War, a title far more suited to him than the War Doctor

Yes, that seemed to be in consideration didn't it? At least it was used in one of the comics, anyway. 

Rose! Except it's not Rose, it's the conscience of the moment! And it *is* a different performance from Billie. BAD WOLF.

 

 

 

50dw50@50dw50 the Rose/BadWolf idea is such a clever one, brings back Bill without over companioning the plot

No More. So when Bad Wolf said "No More" she was echoing the War Doctor... 

Now Bad Wolf is the Ghost of Christmas Future...

So now we're going to find out why Elizabeth I had a 3D painting of Gallifrey, it seems...

I bet that's the Doctor from later in the story on the phone.

Ooh, the 10th Doctor in a painting. Looking ruff. (I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...)

"It's a machine that goes ding!" And the 10th Doctor is proposing to Liz 1. The Shakespeare Code cracked! 

 

 

It's like Tennant's never been away; could just be another one of his specials. People forget how quickly Troughton was back for The Three Doctors when considering Tennant's "fast return".

Lovely faithful redesign for the Zygons, too. 

"I am the bringer of darkness, the oncoming storm, & you... are basically just a rabbit, aren't you?" 10's still got it. 

 

 

Something's escaped from the paintings... oooh...

Now the 10th and 11th Doctors together... my god, they work together SO well.

Tedious "size of your sonic" gags aside, they instantly bounce off one another. Smith's sonic screwdriver is rubbish by the way, never liked it.

No two Doctors have made such a brilliant doubleact since Troughton and Pertwee. (There's an exception, which basically goes: Davison and ANYONE).

In fact this is really having a The Three Doctors vibe in places...

"It's not working..." "We're BOTH reversing the polarity."

 

HURT! "Who are you boys? Are you his companions? They get younger all the time."

"You're me? Even that one? Am I having a mid-life crisis?"

 

"Pointing again! They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do, assemble a cabinet at them?"

"Well, this has all the makings of your lucky day!"

 

"Timey what? Timey wimey?"
"I've no idea where he picks that stuff up."

"And you can take it from him 'cause he's really checked..."

"Are you capable of speaking without flapping your hands about?"

"I demand to be incarcerated with my co-conspirators, sand-shoes and grandad."

Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 I don't miss Eccleston at all and Moffat's reasoning for the War Doctor works perfectly. The 9th is obviously the survivor of the conflict and I agree with Moff in that you can't see the 8th as the one to commit genocide, hence the War Doctor was the perfect solution to the Eccleston sized hole the special would always have.

I think that once Moffat had the idea of the War Doctor, the 9th was only ever going to be another Doctor hanging around, which is probably why Eccles pulled out; didn't want to be a spare part. 

Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 According to @DWMtweets recent special the 9th would've been in the War Doctors place, Eccleston turning it down made Moffat come up with the best solution for the show and it works.
Yeah, I read that too, and I believe a version with him was storyboarded, but I half suspect Moffat wasn't too gutted when Chris said no, because by then he'd fallen in love with the idea of the War Doctor. Definitely think it worked out for the best as I love the War Doctor & Hurt's performance.

The Zygons in this are quite scary actually. Great monsters. They always were, of course.

 

She's doing actory inhalering i.e. using it completely bloody wrongly. One puff, umpteen times, every other minute... Jeez.

The Black archive, with memory wiping tech. "My first day." "He's been here 10 years."

"Think about it. Americans with the ability to rewrite history? You've seen their movies."

"They've probably just finished disposing of the humans a bit early." The Zygons are brilliant.

"What is it that makes you all so afraid of being a grown up?" Ouch.

Only Hurt can see the Bad Wolf girl. "Did you ever count how many children were on Gallifrey that day?"

And a little tension between 10 and 11 about it...

This is where I think Eccleston would have been the one raging about forgetting the number.

50dw50@50dw50 the Doctor/Screwdriver analogy is so clever, Moff is a clever boy
Same software, different case. (Presumably the software downloads each time, maybe to the TARDIS.)

Moffat is always seeding in these thematic echoes as set-up (it's the whole point of the Zygon storyline in fact).  Moffat is always seeding in these thematic echoes as set-up (it's the whole point of the Zygon storyline in fact).

"You opened the door!" "It wasn't locked!"

The Zygons lost their world; it burned in the 1st days of the Time War... Makes a weird connection between Genesis Of The Daleks and Terror Of The Zygons doesn't it?

No offence to Joanna Page, but Miranda Richardson could still have done this, yes? 

"Is there more of this in the future?" "It does start to happen, yeah." It already started with McGann!

"Look, the round things!" "I love the round things!" EVERYONE loves the round things! Bring them back!

 

 

"Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. I'm his daughter. You think I'm bluffing?"

The War Doctor's figured it out. Stasis cubes... paintings... they don't need the TARDIS to #SaveTheDay

 

Well done, Doctors, now there's a Dalek in the black archive.

 

 

 

The memory wiping ultimatum to force peace works, but also prompts the War Doctor to make up his mind...

50dw50@50dw50why does clara not get her mind wiped?

 

"Great men are forged in fire, it is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame... whatever the cost."

Bad Wolf hits the nail on the head. Hurt is "lost"; he gave up hope in The Night Of The Doctor and is ashamed.

Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 "You know that sound..." scene from @billiepiper is just wonderful and very touching

"You were the Doctor more than anyone else. You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right."

Clara saves him again... leading the 11th Doctor to change his mind, and save the War Doctor from himself. 

The promise: "Never cruel or cowardly." *wipes away tear at the homage to the Target books and uncle Terry*

Gallifrey will be saved, but frozen and lost. The Time War still pans out the same way, the 9th Doctor is the same but Gallifrey stands. Moffat is a clever bastard. That's having your birthday cake and eating it.

 

 

He'll spend 3 incarnations believing he killed them all, but now they're saved. "What's the mad fool talking about now?"

"All 12 of them!" BOOM. There's your past Doctor cameos - honour satisfied! 

 

 

 

 

"No sir all THIRTEEN!" And then CAPALDI EYES.

"Gernimo!" "Allons-y!" "For God's sake..." LOVE the War Doctor.

The "half the man you are... Clara Oswald" line doesn't really work, does it?

And now he starts to regenerate... "Wearing a bit thin..." For a moment I really thought we'd get to see Eccleston then.

 

Now a bit of foreshadowing for Christmas and "good to know my future is in safe hands."

"I don't want to go."
"He always says that."

At this point, you're thinking this was job done in spectacular fashion... and then Tom bloody Baker turns up. And the music? The Mad Man with a Box, of course. 

Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 "You know I really think you might!" Huge lump in the throat moment #blub

 

My new favourite art gallery cameo, knocking Cleese into 2nd, Nighy into 3rd! ;-P

Tom has the secret. "It's all one title. GALLIFREY FALLS NO MORE!"

"I'm only a humble curator."

I'm SURE Tom (and Matt) wander off script here with "If I were you..." and I LOVE IT.

 

 

 

And what a beautiful idea - now he's going home, the long way round.

And that shot of all the Doctors looking up at Gallifrey... excellent.

 

 

Not perfect, these things never are, but The Day Of The Doctor can happily stand shoulder to shoulder with The Five Doctors in my book.

Lee Mahon@Lee_JM75 Not perfect but damn close! A cracking story which celebrates the 50th anniversary in fine form.

Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 Moffat did the right thing, don't think a "greatest hits" style episode would've worked, we got best of both worlds.

Yes, agreed. Think we got the best of everything across the contents of this boxset taken together - Day, The Night of the Doctor, An Adventure In Space & Time, The 5(ish) Doctors Reboot.

Nick Mellish@nickmellish This episode doesn't put a foot wrong throughout. I even forgive it the less-than-great All-The-Doctors effect at the end!

 

 

TTFN! K.

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