This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.

Story Information

• Episode: 2013 Christmas Special
• Airdate: 25th December 2013
• Doctor: 11th
• Companion: Clara
• Writer: Steven Moffat
• Director: Jamie Payne
• Showrunner: Steven Moffat

Review

After all these years, I've finally found somewhere that needs me to stick around. – The Doctor

Well, whatever else I have to say about this one, at least there's stuff happening.

Unlike past Moffat-written finales, "The Time of the Doctor" has a lot of ground that it needs to cover. There's still a lot of standing around and explaining things, but it doesn't feel as frustrating, because the plot is actually advancing while that's going on. There's a lot of time skips that are covered by this episode, but every scene either advances the plot or is doing character stuff that feels somewhat meaningful.

Unfortunately, I think this is the worst Moffat-written Doctor Who episode.

Ironically, after Moffat's past finales suffered from the entire arc having already happened in past episodes, "The Time of the Doctor" has had none of its planned arc happen yet, which ends up meaning that so much ends up happening that none of it has much of an impact. "Time" is essentially a compressed version of Steven Moffat's original plans for Series 8, when he hoped to get Matt Smith there for it. The idea would have been that the Doctor would have ended up stuck on the planet Trenzalore for the entire series. I'm somewhat dubious of how well this would have worked, but then again, the Doctor stuck on one planet was the set up for the very successful UNIT era, so maybe it would have worked just fine. But whatever the case, compressing an entire series arc into a single episode just doesn't work.

Well, that's not entirely fair. The story being told here feels like it could fit into a single episode. What doesn't fit is Steven Moffat's desperate attempts to wrap up the entire 11th Doctor era in a single episode. Put simply there's been just enough hanging plot threads left from the past three series that we end up in the situation of a lot of this episode playing catch up. The entire plot of the Church of the Silence is explained in a way that feels very offhand. The explanations don't really matter to the episode, the episode doesn't treat them like a big deal, and they feel very much like hand waves. But it's still noticeable how the episode desperately tries to convince the audience that the long-ongoing nonsense plot that has consumed the entire 11th Doctor era actually all makes sense.

And then there's the actual plot. And on some level this is fine. The Doctor is originally unknowingly brought to the planet Trenzalore because of a mysterious message that has also drawn in the rest of the major spacefaring races. Nobody can translate the message, but everyone is still drawn to it. The message turns out to be from Gallifrey, finally explaining the origins of the First Question: "Doctor Who". It seems that the Time Lords are trying to return to the universe and, in order to make sure they're going to the right one, are asking for the Doctor's name, so that they can safely return. Unfortunately nobody but the Time Lords actually wants them to return, lest the Time War start over again, and many are just hoping to blow up Christmas and save everybody the trouble. Oh yeah, there's a town on Trenzalore called Christmas which is where the message is coming from and I guess we felt like we needed to do something with this episode technically being a Christmas special. And I said the lore wrap ups felt rote.

Fortunately we've got the church on our side. At the beginning of the episode we're introduced to Mother Superiuous Tasha Lem of the Papal Mainframe. Later on this is revealed to be the origins of the Church of the Silence, with the "Kovarian Chapter" having traveled back in time to kill the Doctor so he couldn't be alive to answer the question. But as for Tasha Lem…what if we took everything that had become aggravating about every single goddamn woman that Steven Moffat wrote at this time, then stripped away any interesting characterization he may have given characters like Amy Pond, River Song or, yes, even Clara Oswald? What would we be left with? We're left with Tasha Lem, quite possibly the worst character Moffat ever created. And a comparison to River Song feels particularly apt. We get a reference to Tasha being a "psychopath", the Doctor and Tasha have a flirty relationship and an apparent complicated past. But what's undermining this is that we've just met this woman and we're given no indication of why we're supposed to care about her on a personal level. And the flirtiness, which I always felt worked with River, just comes on way too strong here. And then she gets turned into a Dalek puppet, "Asylum of the Daleks"-style, along with most of her church and this is nothing. She is able to fight through it, in a moment that if I cared about this character I'm sure would feel impactful. I do not care about this character. In case you couldn't tell. Awful, awful character.

Also the whole involvement of the Papal Mainframe/Church of the Silence feels frustrating. There's that sense that they're only here to help wrap up the 11th Doctor's arc. And the presence of Tasha seems to infect the church with a large degree of sexuality, something that no version of this church was ever shown to have in past versions. Apparently to attend church you have to be naked. Why? Mostly for some rather uncomfortable jokes in the beginning of the episode. Oh and then some Silents show up to help the Doctor, and what started as one of the best new concepts for a villain back in Series 6 is just…nothing. We get some scenes with Clara that remind you of how effective they were when they were introduced, and then a scene later of them going into battle with the Doctor. There are Silents who are turned into Dalek puppets and absolutely nothing is done with that. I don't even think it's a particularly good idea, but it is an idea that demands something to actually happen.

But the point is, the Doctor ends up on Trenzalore. He gets stuck there because of shenanigans with the TARDIS and Clara. He's in a stalemate position where everyone's scared of the Time Lords so they want to attack but they're scared that if they do the Doctor will say his name, so they can't. The stalemate situation also gives the Doctor another reason to stay besides the TARDIS and Clara stuff and I actually quite like this setup. I do think the Doctor ends up on Trenzalore for too long though. It's something around a thousand years and that just doesn't work for me. The 11th Doctor era has this general problem with scale, where everything has to be extended to epic proportions, especially time. I had this problem with Rory in "The Big Bang" but at least there you can argue it was a necessity of using the Roman army which was integrated into the plot. Here it just feels…excessive. The Doctor's lifespan effectively doubles in length as a result of this episode (although the Doctor's age is…flexible). It just doesn't work for me.

But the larger point is, I like the 11th Doctor finding someplace where he decides he has to stay. The 11th Doctor in particular was always so hyperactive and seemed, even more than most Doctors, to be restless. And so the contrast with him being forced to stay in one place feels appropriate. And the best moments of this episode often have the Doctor in quieter moments reflecting on his situation. Over the course of the episode, the Doctor is visibly aged up, his physical appearance more and more matching the old soul of the 11th Doctor. By the end, the Doctor is an old man ranting at the Daleks in the sky in a melancholic moment.

On the subject of aging, the Doctor has a new friend for this episode. Handles is a Cyberman head who is still connected to the Cybermen's data banks but is harmless. He's the Doctor's slightly quirky robot friend, and he just kind of works. He kind of reminds me of K-9. Sure, we don't have the dog jokes to lean on, but it's still that case of a somewhat eccentric robot who really insists that he's not got emotions but clearly does. And when Handles stops working, damn it, it's actually an emotionally affecting scene. It's so bizarre, in this episode where barely anything else works, Handles, a one-off character actually works brilliantly.

Of course, the Doctor does have his actual companion in this episode. Clara's job in this episode is to continually get sent back to her home on Christmas and then return to the Doctor hundreds of years later. Okay, there's a little more going on here. Clara's status as a companion who only occasionally travels with the Doctor means that she still has a regular life, which actually gets a bit of a look in in this episode. We hear about various mundane things she's asked the Doctor for, and this episode asks him to stand in as her boyfriend she accidentally made up for her family. Speaking of which we get to know her family in this episode in the form of her awkward father, Linda, who I think is meant to be either the dad's new wife or girlfriend and comes across as a bit fatuous and Clara's grandmmother. None of these characters really grabbed me to be honest. Gran is clearly meant to be the one we like the most, as she gets moments of insight and a slightly mischievous sense of humor. She's fine I guess, but I didn't find her as likable as the episode wants her to be. Linda, meanwhile feels like a caricature and Clara's dad doesn't really get any characterization, despite being established in a few Series 7 episodes.

As for Clara's time on Trenzalore, for the most part there's very little to talk about. Arguments with the Doctor over why he keeps sending her away aside, she just doesn't do very much. That is, until the end of the episode where she talks the Time Lords into giving the Doctor a new supply of regenerations, but I'll talk more about that when I wrap up talking about the Doctor. The speech Clara gives is perfectly fine, but honestly it feels like the Time Lords giving the Doctor a new set of regenerations needed something more. Maybe it's just the fact that, because they're on the other side of the Crack (yeah, that's back too, why not), we never actually see the Time Lords, so they feel like they're not full participants. There is one more thing to note, and that's her pleading with the Doctor not to "change" right before his regeneration. You'd think that if any companion were prepared to deal with regeneration it would be Clara, thanks to the "impossible girl" stuff". Then again, maybe that's the problem. She understands how drastic the change can be more than anyone. And the 11th Doctor is her Doctor.

But yes, the Doctor spends most of this episode preparing for the end of his life. And in this case, we're not just talking about the end of the 11th Doctor, we're talking about the end of the Doctor period. Because of the 12 regenerations limit, and what with the addition of the War Doctor and the 10th Doctor's meta-crisis regeneration in the "Stolen Earth" two parter actually counting, the Doctor is out of regenerations. I do like that this was taken care of, so that the show wouldn't have to worry about it again, unless it wanted to. That being said, I don't really feel like we get much out of the Doctor's regeneration cycle coming to an apparent end. Matt Smith does a decent job conveying a sense of melancholy, and that idea of aging and death is running through the episode, so it's not like there wasn't an attempt made. But I think it's a conceit that almost requires a more low-key episode, and definitely one that isn't stuck trying to tie up every loose end of the last four years of television. Say what you will about The End of Time (and believe me, I've said it), but at the very least that story had time to establish its tone. Here, in a story that arguably could have earned the more melancholy and somber tone, we just don't fully commit to it.

Some of that is due to a lack of time for it, and some of it is due to the episode feeling the need to get a lot of Christmas schmaltziness into the episode. Normally, I think Moffat is a good fit for the Christmas special, as his writing style compliments the mood of the season, but it just doesn't work in this episode. To make another unfavorable comparison to The End of Time (a story I, as a reminder, hate), at least with that story Russell T Davies seemed to understand that if he wanted to do the grand epic finale, he had to largely leave the Christmas stuff to a background detail. What Moffat tries here, combining the two, could have worked I think, but would have required devoting more time that the episode just doesn't have.

This all leads to the Doctor standing on a clocktower ranting at the Daleks. I like this scene. The old man trying to summon up some of that old Doctor bravado one last time, and it kind of fails him. He's dying of old age, and he knows that whether or not the Daleks kill him here, he's about to die and thus Trenzalore will be overrun and the people he's devoted the last thousand years of his life to protecting will be lost. But while I enjoy Smith's performance here and the general tone of it, Trenzalore, and the town of Christmas, don't quite feel like real enough locations. It just kind of undermines the connection. That might have been alleviated somewhat if we had spent an entire Series, or at least a large portion of one, in this location, but as it is there's so little location to this place. And the fact that this takes place over a thousand year period doesn't help either. It's just too long a time period to fully connect with.

Of course the Doctor gets his new set of regenerations at the end from the Time Lords, blasting away the Daleks with his regeneration energy beams. That serves as the resolution of the plot…somehow. We do see the crack close, but why the rest of the universe is convinced that the threat is gone…I have no clue. Which, by the way, serves as the end of the arc that has dominated much of the 11th Doctor era. In fairness, Series 7 actually moved away from that arc, since the Impossible Girl storyline is kind of a separate entity. Still, no Doctor's era of Doctor Who before or since has been this centered around its arc (you could maybe count the "Cartmel Masterplan" but that never got resolved, and even then was a much smaller part of stories in the 7th Doctor era). And the results were ultimately rather disappointing. While I've complained a lot about how it was deployed there definitely could have been something in a longer term story told over the course of a single Doctor's era. But this version of that was haphazard and ultimately didn't make sense. That holds up to this episode by the way. While not the most nonsensical story of the 11th Doctor era (hello "Wedding of River Song"), "Time of the Doctor's" broader attempts to wrap of the 11th Doctor era feel very underwhelming.

And then we get the regeneration itself. The 11th Doctor gets de-aged so that Matt Smith can get his final moments as the Doctor without the old age makeup and deliver a speech. I like the theory behind this speech, but I'm not sure the reality works for me. It goes to one of my regular complaints about Steven Moffat's work, the overly poetic dialogue. Sometimes it works, but when it doesn't it feels really awkward. There's a bit in the episode where Clara and the Doctor are opening a Christmas cracker and instead of a joke, there's a poem. This concept was introduced as an example of Linda's shallow attempts at pretension, and yet is played so seriously when we actually open the cracker. And what we get is a poem that is…just about regeneration. And not just any regeneration but this one specifically. What such a specifically targeted poem was doing in a random Christmas cracker is anyone's guess. It's not even an especially deep or meaningful poem.

At least the Doctor's final speech feels like it hits the right notes. Here my problems are two-fold. One, it's too long. I like the bit where the Doctor hallucinates seeing both Amelia and then Amy, I like his focus on change as a natural part of living, "we're all different people all through our lives". But the point kind of gets beaten into the dust. The other problem I have…is Matt Smith's final performance. I've read that Moffat did the reset so that Matt Smith's final moments as the Doctor wouldn't feature him as a grumpy old man yelling into the void. And I get that, but on some level it's a much more natural performance for him. Here, while Smith doesn't do a bad job, it felt like he was trying a bit too hard to force the meaning out of the words, rather than letting the language work for him.

Which brings us to the regeneration itself. It is shockingly quick, but I've never minded this too much. After the revival had so standardized regeneration effects, it's nice to see that, while the basic idea of energy flowing out of the Doctor's arms and head remains consistent, the method it's presented changes. Here that first part of the regeneration was over and done with when the Doctor used that energy to shoot down the Daleks. That bit definitely feels off by the way, an action movie climax will never suit Doctor Who. But the quick change from Smith to Peter Capaldi kind of works for me, heart attack-inducing as it was at the time. And then Capaldi's here. And unlike Smith's first scene back in The End of Time, the shift in tone kind of works for me here. Maybe it's that "Time of the Doctor" wasn't leaning as heavily into the dark and serious tone so a slightly goofier ending works. Maybe it's that "kidneys!" remains the greatest first line for any Doctor ever. Or maybe it's just that I've come to love Capaldi's Doctor so much that, after an hour of really terrible television, seeing my 2nd favorite Doctor pop up and kind of own the scene feels refreshing. Whatever the case, it's a scene I do like.

But not an episode I care for. There are definitely moments where something hits right, and I can absolutely see a good episode peeking through. But the big issue with this episode is that it's trying to do too much, and is kind of focused on the wrong things. I'll be honest, if all of the plot threads that "Time of the Doctor" tried to close off were just left dangling, I don't think I would have minded all that much. I'm sure a lot of people would have, but I'd have much rather had an episode that really focused in on the 11th Doctor as a character, and took the time to deal with the idea of the 11th Doctor staying in one place to protect them in a way that felt focused. Instead we just have a mess of an episode.

Score: 1/10

Stray Observations

• The creation of Handles was inspired by the decapitated Cyberman head seen in "The Pandorica Opens".
• The episode was originally named "Twelfth Night", in reference to the festival that traditionally celebrates the end of the Christmas period (and gave its name to the Shakespeare play of the same name). Personally, I prefer the title we got. First because it completes the "of the Doctor" trilogy that began with "Name of the Doctor", but more significantly because it feels conceptually weird to have the title of the 11th Doctor's final episode reference the incoming Doctor.
• In between filming for this and the previous episode, Matt Smith had completed filming for a film by the name of Lost River. For that role he had had to get a buzz cut, and there wasn't enough time for him to grow back his hair enough to match the 11th Doctor's look. For this reason he's wearing a wig throughout the episode, a fact that is actually a plot point in the episode. The wig also made it easier for the makeup team to make him look older as the episode progressed.
• And on a similar note, Karen Gillan, who returned to play a vision of Amy Pond, had shaved her head for her role in Guardians of the Galaxy. For this reason, she too wore a wig for her brief cameo. Apparently Gillan regretted that she and Smith never swapped wigs.
• I actually think the wig kind of helps with the ethereal quality of the Amy vision weirdly enough.
• The younger version of Amelia was, for the first time, not played by Caitlin Blackwood, who had aged out of the part. Instead, an uncredited child played the part.
• Before filming, Matt Smith had to undergo knee surgery. At one point this would have been incorporated into the narrative, with the Doctor getting injured by the Weeping Angels. His leg would have petrified, and needed to be replaced with a prosthesis, and explaining his use of a cane. However this, and references to the Doctor's wooden leg, were cut, determined to be superfluous.
• Genuinely clever bit to get into the title sequence, as we see the TARDIS fly towards the camera, only to transition into the beginning of the title sequence, with the TARDIS flying away from the camera.
• Clara seems to be under the impression that the sonic screwdriver has "apps". Honestly, given the sheer number of functions that thing has, reasonable.
• She's also been using the TARDIS for a lot of mundane things, including using it to watch television shows she's missed because she can't figure out iPlayer. Given that Clara was supposedly downloaded with a bunch of technical knowledge in "The Bells of Saint John" you'd think she'd be able to figure out a streaming website.
• When Clara first sees the Crack she says "it's only a crack in the wall". Clara, the crack is glowing. What do you mean "only"?
• On that point, it's revealed that the thing the Doctor saw in his room in "The God Complex" was the Crack. Frankly, I have difficulty accepting that. For one thing, the whole point of the scene in the Doctor's room was that we don't see what he saw. Even setting that aside, I have difficulty with the implication that this is the Doctor's greatest fear, or even reading more into it, the thing that makes the Doctor turn to whatever his faith is.
• The Doctor has the seal of the High Council of Gallifrey. He says he got it when he "knicked it off the Master in the Death Zone". This was shown in "The Five Doctors".
• The 12th Doctor's first scene was largely improvised, with Capaldi taking the lead.

Next Time: Series 7 was split across two years. That ended up being a divide of pretty much every single aspect of the Series.

UPDATED:

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR 'LUNGBARROW BY LOOMLIGHT' FOLLOW

Hello!

I came across a list of the different versions of the Other (proto-Doctor) who appear in 'Lungbarrow by Loomlight', apparently according to the author's intentions. However, in the book itself, their identities are ambiguous, to say the least. If anyone's read it, can I ask your thoughts on these readings of the 'LbL' Others?

(For context, I'm researching as many variants of the Doctor as possible, hence the raging pedantry here.)

- Chapter Three:

"[A] younger woman, wearing a lilac headdress, thick chronocular goggles, and a plain grey tunic". It also seems to be have been taken as read elsewhere that this is a younger version of Jo Martin's Doctor. But what in the text implies that? There's no other physical description - do her lines allude to the Fugitive Doctor's dialogue? (I've never watched her stories)

- Chapter Three: The Kingmaker from 'Death Comes to Time'

Not quite the same, but what in the text implies that the Kingmaker is a version of the Other/Doctor? Is it purely the "blue gemstone [...] cupped in [...] her gnarled hands" (ie, presumably the stone later set in one of the 1st Doctor's rings), which she turns into a rose bloom (a flower associated with the Other and the 1st Doctor) - and/or Chris' "[Y]ou must be a quack" (a word one of the Others later uses to describe himself)?

- Chapter Four "(Theta Eta Cubed - Paul Hanley illustration)"

"The other’s billowing cloak shimmered like an inky mirror [...] [T]he other was wearing a male body. He was a younger man, with a quiet and brooding look in his eyes": how is this Other related to Paul Hanley's illustration? In the drawing, he wears a dark blue cloak and armour, and is bearded and (at least) middle aged. (Obviously, the version in the text could be younger, but why make the association with an existing image but not make it actually match?)

- Chapter Six "(Theta Theta Cubed - Christopher Barry)"

"[A] small man, with skinny legs. He wore a black cape, a frilled collar, and a tall cap topped with a white feather." This doesn't seem to match up: the Christopher Barry Doctor) doesn't wear a cape (or, at least, not in the 'Morbius' photos - though he does wear a cheetah-skin-lined one in Paul Hanley's illustrations, but the exterior isn't black), while a "cap" usually implies a soft hat, whereas he wears a sort of Tudor proto-top hat. It's more arguable, but "frilled collar" doesn't really accurately describe the Barry-Doctor's pleated ruff. Again, obviously any of the Doctors could change their costume, but it seems odd to allude to specific versions but then get the details wrong. (As it happens, the Christopher Baker Doctor) has a just-about-visible feather in his hat (though it's not white, and, again, the hat's not really a cap), but his collar is definitely frilly)

- Chapter Seven "(Timeship Dinner Party Flashback - Theta Iota Cubed - Robert Banks-Stewart)"

"A dark-haired lady of Blyledge sits on a high table, opposite her secret lover" - the lady is Patience (she mentions her husband, Peylix, aka Omega) and the lover is the Other. Is this connected to the Banks-Stewart Doctor because of 'Cold Fusion' or the 'Forgotten Lives' books?

- Chapter Seven "(Theta Lambda Cubed - Phillip Hinchcliffe)"

In the Other's timeship: "A young child sits on a beanbag in the wooden room held in the travelling rock. The father attends to the gleaming dials and controls" - again, what about this specifically implies the Hinchcliffe Doctor-Other? Does he have children in the 'Forgotten Lives' books?

- Chapter 8: The Blood Thief "(Barry Regeneration)"

Described as an "old man", which seems a bit unfair, as Christopher Barry was about 51 in the 'Morbius' photos - so presumably this is an aged version. Cwej breaks his neck, leading to the following, fairly cryptic scene: "The past and future danced across the peaks and crags of the mighty House. The changing reflection of its Founder’s [ie, the Other's] face winked through emerald flames, a morphing spectre cast above the graceful skeleton of whitewood. Yet another ghost was watching as the events melted down and reformed themselves anew. [...] An old man lost in Loomlight met the fading eye of his former self" - the Other who Chris killed was described as an old man, but here it's an "old man [...] me[eting] the [...] eye of his former self". This seems a bit jumbled - why is the new Other now being described as an old man? Unless, here, it means "old man" as in 'the previous man'? And who is the "yet another ghost"? Either way, an illustration of this scene shows the Christopher Barry Doctor - which doesn't clarify if he is the outgoing or incoming incarnation. Any thoughts?

- Chapter 13 "(Wedding Vision- Chris Baker or Phillip Hinchcliffe)"

The other sat at the heart of the crowning arch in an extravagant suit, hand in hand with a dark-haired lady" - neither of these Doctors wear suits, as such. This could be a wedding outfit, but, again, strange to nod at particular existing incarnations but then not match up visually. Presumably he's marrying Patience, but Chris doesn't seem to recognise her. The newlyweds "embrace, giggle, drink, and waltz" - but Chris refers to him as an "old man" again. Obviously an old man could get married and do these things, but it seems atypical enough that it would be noteworthy if this were the case

- Chapter 13 "(the aftermath of the Culling - Theta Rho Cubed)"

Why is this not the same Other (Theta Mu Cubed - the Camfield Doctor) as earlier in this narrative? There's no implication of regeneration, unless we're meant to infer that he was 'killed' in the massacre (but this isn't specified)

- Chapter 14: "θμ³ - Theta Mu Cubed (Douglas Camfield)"

Is an "old man" with "ocean-grey eyes", wearing a “military great-coat”, a “dress-shirt”, and "suede brogues"; smokes a pipe. None of the Morbius Doctors dress like this (though the Holmes Doctor smokes a pipe in Paul Hanley's illustrations); does anyone have a sense of where this (quite specific) costume may have come from? Also, Chris tells him “I saw what happened to your family, and I’m sorry… but your grandheir was saved, a future version of you rescued her” - but shouldn't the Other know this, since the supposed 1st Doctor gives the baby to the Other?

-Chapter 17 "(Theta Omicron Cubed into Theta Pi Cubed) (Hurndall?)"

The moustachioed Gallaccio Other is flung into his dying time machine; when Chris rejoins the Other, his is described as “look[ing] like an elderly magician” - but no regeneration is specified, so this could be the Gallaccio incarnation, aged by the forces of the dying timeship, no?

He also goes into a state of flux: "The man shone with the light of memories [...] and [...] rose from the ground, flickering like a ghost. [...] The glow grew stronger, consuming his features. [...] [H]is shifting face taking on a momentary aspect that reminded Chris of the Defector [ie, the 7th Doctor]. [...] [S]uddenly the changing man looked so old, so frail, so mortal." Do people interpret this as a regeneration? (His "taking on [of] a momentary aspect" seems like something different is happening)

- Chapter 22 "(Ghost of Cushing or Hartnell?)": "[T]he other’s ghost" isn't described (beyond being "old" and gendered as male); is the Hartnell assumption just because of his presence in a rose garden?

Also: a couple of more general queries:
- What do people think the Other plants among the stars, when he "strid[es] through space, using the stars themselves as stepping stones", every so often "plac[ing] something upon a star, as if planting tiny seeds in a bed of soil" (p. 41)?

- Do people interpret the ritual sacrifice of the Vampire (which activates the Looms; p. 68) with the separate Anchoring vision (p. 59)? In the former, Chris breaks the Christopher Barry Other's neck and stabs him repeatedly with the Loomlance (made of multiple needle-swords). In the latter, a single needle-sword is used to kill an unspecified Other - but this could be a self-sacrifice/suicide, like those Rassilon and his cronies commit to regenerate themselves in preparation for the Vampire sacrifice.

Thank you!

Just thinking there's plenty of similarities to this and other siege based episodes like Satan Pit and Almost People.

Hello!

Does anyone know which auditions for the Doctor have had official releases (eg, as DVD extras or online)? I'm particularly interested in actors who didn't end up getting the part.

The main ones I'm aware of are the 7th Doctor auditions, which were released on the 'Time and the Rani' DVD and Blu-ray) releases

John Sessions' and Tony Slattery's TVM auditions are also available online, but I don't know whether these were official releases.

Have there been any others?

Thank you!

Babelcolour's The Timeless Doctors is a project I have been looking forward to for many years. Its release has been pushed back time and time again. This is something I'm actually happy about, as I'm glad they're taking their time. I would not want them to rush it or, worse, resort to GenAI. I'm looking forward to seeing a project with so much attention to detail put into it.

However, even though I'm glad Babelcolour is taking their time with it, I'm wondering if anybody has any clue when The Timeless Doctor's is coming out because I keep every once in a while remembering about it and being super excited for it. Does anyone with any potential connections to people working on it know when it may be coming out? Last I heard it was meant to be coming out in 2026 over the span of 4 weeks, but of course that has not happened yet.

Calling all Shalka-heads (I don't know if that's a thing)

We've had stories from expanded media adapted into TV stories like Dalek, Human Nature and The Star Beast with different Doctors and some changes to the story.

Which of the main incarnations of the Doctor do you think would do a work best for an adaptation of 'Scream of the Shalka'? And, if you want, what tweaks would you make to the story to make it work?

(As a self confessed Shalka-head, I do love Richard E Grant and would have loved to have seen more of him, but then we probably wouldn't have had the revival so there we go)

Talk about whatever you want in this regular thread! Just brought some cereal? Awesome. Just ran 5 miles? Epic! Just watched Fantastic Four and recommended it to all your friends? Atta boy. Wanna bitch about Supergirl's pilot being crap? Sweet. Just walked into your Dad and his dog having some "personal time" while your sister sends snapchats of her handstands to her boyfriend leaving you in a state of perpetual confusion? Please tell us more.

Please remember that future spoilers must be tagged.

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Just gonna keep it simple to not reveal too much of what happens. Time War. Big finish. What if Davros was a good man who lived a good life then take that away from him.

Simply hallowing story that is in my opinion gotta be in line with the best Davros stories with Genesis of the Daleks, I Davros, and Davros. It also plainly one of the best stories that came out from the time war range of Big Finish Stories. Just horrfying, the one good Davros has to suffer through such an eldritch scheme in a war that doesn't even exist in his world.

is there an actual source for this as people online repeat this

This show experimented multiple times with the format but i was wondering what kind of concepts the show still haven't done.

For exemple, an episode like in Back to The Future 2 where the Doctor and their companions need to solve a problem/find a mcguffin/just have an adventure, during the events of a previous episode and need to do their best to not send everything off-track.

Or something like "Bad Wolf" being a sequel to "The Long Game" an episode where the Doctor come back days/weeks/months/years/centuries after the events of an adventure we actually seen (not off screen). And yeah i already know about The Wellthat's why i want it more.

An episode where we follow background characters while the Doctor do stuffs, like them we don't really know what the Doctor is doing and that could give a good idea how averages people see the Doctor.

And maybe an episode without aliens. The twist would be that, for once, it was a fake alien. Can be comedic or serious depending of the tone.

Also, more a season arc rather than an episode, but a season where the Doctor isn't able to land on Earth anymore. He has no idea why and that would be the main plot of the season. The stands alone adventures would be in space Stations and others planets.

What are your ideas?

Deadline's got the scoop on some of the interested parties who have submitted initial expressions of interest in the Doctor Who tender.
1. Hat Trick Mercurio, with Jed Mercurio attached as executive producer
2. World Productions
3. STV Studios
4. At least two BBC Studios entities
5. Another Scottish studio, with a well-known Scottish actor interested in taking the lead role.

Mercurio's a big name to have attached to any bid - the guy who made Line of Duty and Bodyguard can write his own ticket, so having him put his weight behind an offer is surely going to be a big, big deal.

I went into it with low expectations, but Invasion of the Dinosaurs is by far my favourite serial of Pertwee’s so far, I’m surprised I haven’t seen more people mention it when discussing this era.

I loved the apocalyptic feel. I loved the twist with Sarah-Jane on the spaceship at the end of episode three, and again when she finds out it’s fake. And I loved the Brigadier here, you got to see how much he trusts the doctor and the lengths he was willing to go to help him.

Despite only being Sarah-Jane’s second serial, she feels like the most well-utilised companion I’ve seen so far. Her being a journalist, her inquisitive nature and willingness to take risks on her own makes her a really intriguing character. Definitely helped by Elizabeth Sladen being a fantastic actress.

To me, this is also the first serial so far where 6 episodes felt completely necessary. There wasn’t a second wasted and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

I also saw another post about the bad dinosaur puppets but I disagree, I found them charming and I think updating the effects with CGI would look out of place here. I definitely feel like there are far worse effects in other serials.

as the title, i cant seem to find it in archive.org or any other sites i know 😉

Hi, I was wondering if anyone knew where I could find the full episodes of Classmates (2016) - the official online reaction videos for the spin-off Class (2016). They were uploaded to the official Doctor Who YouTube channel and must've been available there for roughly 10 years as earlier this year, I created my own playlist and added the videos into it, but when I checked the playlist today, all of the Classmates videos are now private, with the exception of the first one ("For Tonight We Might Die").

I distinctly remember not even ten years ago when you could walk into almost any US store and find sonic screwdrivers and figures, but around 2018 Doctor Who merch seemed to slowly disappear from US shelves, I remember my local Barnes and Noble having a giant bin of 50th anniversary 10 and war sonics, but that was around 2016/2017. Secondary question, are the old toys still sold in the UK market?

This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.

Story Information

• Episode: 50th Anniversary Special
• Airdate: 23rd November 2013
• Doctors: 10th (David Tennant), 11th, War (John Hurt)
• Companion: Clara
• Other Notable Characters: Kate Stewart, Osgood (Ingrid Oliver), The Moment (Billie Piper), The General (Ken Bones), The Curator (Tom Baker)
• Writer: Steven Moffat
• Director: Saul Metzstein
• Showrunner: Steven Moffat

Review

At worst…we failed in doing the right thing, as opposed to succeeding in doing the wrong. – The War Doctor

"The Day of the Doctor" is a hard episode to write about. It's a messy, complicated piece with two separate but intertwined plots. Aside from anything else, that just makes for a lot to account for.

So, where do we even begin? Well, this is a multi-Doctor story, the fourth one on the main television series. There's a tradition, of course, of milestone stories being multi-Doctor stories. The Three Doctors was a celebration of the show reaching its 10th Season, while "The Five Doctors" was the 20th Anniversary special. But in comparing those two stories, as well as The Two Doctors to this one, it quickly becomes clear that this is the most substantive multi-Doctor story ever.

Which isn't all that surprising. The first two multi-Doctor stories were written in a way that made it clear the main goal of the writers of those stories was to bask in the novelty of bringing back past Doctors. The Two Doctors, meanwhile, was a fairly unremarkable story that the 2nd Doctor just kind of happened to get involved in. These were stories that came out in times when Doctor Who didn't often have proper finales or climactic stories. So while there may have been a lot of lore building, there wasn't pressure for a multi-Doctor story to be a big epic.

By 2013, every Series finale had pressure on it to outdo the last in terms of stakes and scale. And if that pressure was on the finales, you'd better bet that it was on a 50th Anniversary special. Which was surely on Steven Moffat's mind when he started developing ideas for this episode in 2011. By the end of 2012 Moffat was writing the episode itself, though keeping details very secret.

The end result is, as I said, the most substantive multi-Doctor story ever. This is largely because it's built around closing the book on the Time War stuff. We actually only have one returning Doctor, David Tennant back as the 10th Doctor. Our third Doctor in this episode is The "War Doctor", first introduced at the end of "The Name of the Doctor". He's kind of the main character, but sometimes used as a stand in for the Classic Doctors and the Classic era as a whole. He reminds me a lot of how the 1st Doctor would pop up in The Three Doctors to tell off the other two. The War Doctor complains about how young the new Doctors are, about how they use their sonic screwdrivers, and just generally acts the grump. I kind of love it.

But yes, the War Doctor also kind of functions as the main character of this episode. Typically multi-Doctor stories belong to the current Doctor. And that's sort of true here as well. The 11th Doctor is used to set up the plot while the initial introductions to the other two are done via flashback. And of course he gets that final scene with the Curator and the ending monologue. But as this is an episode about the end of the Time War, the incarnation of the Doctor who fought in said War naturally takes center stage.

Though this is somewhat lessened because much of the episode is focused on the Zygon half of the plot. I've never entirely understood the Zygons' enduring popularity honestly. Terror of the Zygons is a good story, but not great. The Zygon design was good for its time, but honestly by 2013 it really does feel like it's a 38-year-old design. Still, people for years were clamoring for the Zygons to come back, including David Tennant, and it's not like I ever thought the Zygons were bad monsters. And following through on the return of a monster that fans had been hoping to see again for nearly 40 years does suit an anniversary story.

The Zygon plot is also used to get Kate Stewart and UNIT back into the show. Kate's revamped UNIT was given a solid introduction in "The Power of Three", but "Day of the Doctor" is the episode that really establishes them as a recurring part of stories set in the present day. Part of this is adding an additional regular to the group in Osgood. While Kate actually has a handful of staff in this episode, it's Osgood who really stands out. She's introduced while wearing the 4th Doctor's scarf, signalling her as a stand-in for the fans. But what could have felt like a pretty one-note character ends up feeling quite complete in limited time. She's asthmatic, has a sister whose looks she is jealous of and more resourceful in a crisis than you'd expect. A running gag where she continually forgets to grab her inhaler when she's excited or nervous feels like it imparts far more characterization than that sort of thing has any right to. And speaking of her inhaler there's a moment later in the episode where, for reasons we'll get into later, the UNIT staff are all duplicated by Zygons but no one remembers who's Human or Zygon. Except the human Osgood, who'd grabbed her inhaler off of the duplicate. She pulls the thing out but, realizing the importance of keeping up the pretense that nobody remembers the truth both she, and her duplicate (who for the purposes of this moment might as well be her) share a look agreeing not to tell.

And as for Kate herself, to discuss her in full requires an actual explanation of the actual Zygon plot. Put simply, the Zygons are invading the future from the past. They're hiding away in Time Lord art that is three dimensional, effectively paintings that are "bigger on the inside". Thanks to a tear in time, the 11th and War Doctors are sent to England in the year 1562, where the 10th Doctor is romancing Queen Elizabeth I in order (presumably) to investigate the Zygon plot. He believes that the Zygons have replaced Elizabeth with a duplicate. Turns out it was actually Elizabeth's horse, though later Elizabeth does get copied.

Which brings up something odd about how the Zygons are handled here. Their abilities aren't entirely consistent with their original appearance in Terror. For one thing the Skarasen is absent. The Skarasen was the giant creature that was the in universe inspiration for stories of the Loch Ness Monster. In actuality the Zygons fed off of its milk, and it was pretty heavily implied that they were at least somewhat dependent on the thing. But the real odd bit is their copying abilities. The thing that made the Zygons somewhat unique in their debut was that they needed to abduct their victims to copy them, and it sure seemed like they needed to keep them abducted to maintain the copy. Here however, things are handled somewhat differently. That information about Osgood's sister I talked about is learned because a Zygon copies Osgood directly in front of her, without a prior abduction. Similarly a copy of Queen Elizabeth interacts a ton with her original.

Does any of this matter? In principle, not really. It is telling how little of what made the Zygons unique in Terror makes it into this episode though. Other than being shapeshifters who create a mental link with the people they copy, the Zygons in this episode don't really have much that carries over from their debut. The larger point though is that the Zygons' invasion from the past is on its way, with Kate, Osgood and Malcolm all duplicated, but thanks to quick thinking on the part of Osgood, she's managed to escape and free the others.

And this sets up the climax of the Zygon plot. We've set up that UNIT stores much of its alien technology in a vault called the "Black Archive", a vault so secret that the staff are required to have their memories wiped when they leave and precautions are taken so that even the Doctor can never get in there. UNIT has, apparently, got a nuclear warhead under the heart of London, ready to blow it up should the contents of the Black Archive ever fall into the hands of enemies of the Earth. And so Kate, unblinkingly, prepares to sacrifice her home for the greater good of her world. And this is where the Zygon plot proves its parallels to the Time War.

On some level, this isn't anything new. Ever since the Time War and the manner that the Doctor ended it were introduced, we've seen scenes that parallel its ending. The difference is that the parallel here is made more explicit, most obviously with the 10th Doctor telling Kate "This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with!" And of course the presence of the actual incarnation of the Doctor who ended the Time War makes things a bit more obvious as well. In fact the moment where the 10th Doctor says that line, gets a look from both other Doctors. And it's made clear that the trauma of how they ended the Time War motivates how the other two Doctors deal with the Zygon plot.

But we'll return to the Doctors later. For now, I want to focus on Kate. This is probably the most intentionally morally ambiguous Kate will get, at least on the main show (someday The War Between will release in the US and I may even watch the thing then). Obviously there's the whole setting off a nuclear warhead under London thing. But of course the Black Archive is pretty sinister as well, and while it's actually Kate's Zygon duplicate that explains the thing, and I suspect the real Kate would be a lot less cavalier about it, it's still a real location that Kate maintains. Of course the moral ambiguity is the point. As Kate's going to attempt to enact her miniature version of the end of the Time War, we're priming the audience to question her judgement, and therefore to question what the Doctor did.

Of course, the Doctors don't let London get blown up and irradiated. Instead they do something pretty wild. They use the Black Archive's memory erasing technology to make everyone in the room forget if they're human or Zygons. Without knowing which side they're on, everyone is suddenly highly motivated to create an effective truce. This is where we leave this half of the plot behind, the last we see of any of the UNIT characters is the scene with the inhaler between the two Osgoods while the Kate's are arguing with each other in the background. I do think it says something about Kate that, while the Doctors have their issues with how Kate handled things in this episode, they still trust two of her to work out an effective treaty.

And I will say that this is my favorite depiction of Kate Stewart's UNIT. Admittedly, I've only seen the stuff that's been presented on the main television show, and I hear really good things about the audios. Still, I think it's the only version of Kate's UNIT that manages to balance the idealism presented in "Power of Three" with that pragmatism that existed with the Brigadier's UNIT. And that balance feels necessary to keep UNIT feeling like it has a place on the show.

Of course, as a multi-Doctor story a lot of the focus is on the Doctors here. The return of the 10th Doctor is probably the best portrayal of a past Doctor returning, though he's still pretty clearly the 3rd most important of the trio. That's largely because his story in this episode is mostly tied into the Zygon stuff. As mentioned before we first see him investigating the Zygons. He also accidentally gets engaged, and later married, to Elizabeth I. This is obviously playing off of his reputation from his era as a romantic lead, and it kind of works. Though with Steven Moffat in full control, the whole thing turns into an awkward sex comedy.

But then there's what others say about the 10th Doctor. When the Moment (more on that later) is describing the Doctors it refers to the 10th Doctor as "the man who regrets". Later Clara calls him "the hero". Starting with the latter, the 10th Doctor definitely feels like a traditional hero a lot of the time, probably more so than most other Doctors but that's a bit of a surface level take. The big thing is that the 10th Doctor probably thinks of himself as more of a "hero" than others, sometimes to the point of hubris. But then there's that other half of it, "the man who regrets". There's an obvious joke about how often the 10th Doctor apologized, but the Moment is more specifically talking about the ending of the Time War here. Since the 10th Doctor era, as a part of RTD's original run as showrunner, had a lot of Time War angst in it, you can definitely see that aspect of the 10th Doctor. The one thing I'd say is that the 10th Doctor's relationship to the end of the Time War was always a bit less straightforwards than his predecessor's.

And I also want to talk about how the 10th Doctor leaves. While the big thing people remember is the 10th Doctor's final line remaining "I don't want to go", echoing in the end of The End of Time, due to Steven Moffat not wanting to mess with what had become a beloved line in the fanbase. But the specific thing they're talking about is the 11th Doctor having seen his grave at Trenzalore. It's interesting that the 10th Doctor seems to be a bit hopeful that this fate can be avoided, in contrast to the 11th Doctor seeming resigned to his fate at this point. Sure, the 10th Doctor's hubris could be his downfall, but it comes from a place of hope that he could always make things better, even perhaps his own fate. It's just a final scene that I feel like does come from a place of genuinely understanding of lot of why the 10th Doctor worked.

Speaking of the 11th Doctor, he's kind of in a strange place in this episode. In some ways, the episode revolves around him. He's the one we follow into the Undergallery. He's the only one with a companion. He tends to take control of situations more than the others. And of course he gets the big rousing speech to end off the episode, as well as the scene with the Curator. But at the same time he's not really at the center of either half of the plot. The Time War plot, of course, belongs to the War Doctor. Meanwhile the Zygon plot is a bit more evenly divided, but still focuses more on the 10th Doctor, at least during the Elizabethan era scenes. The 11th Doctor really feels like he's mostly here as the incumbent Doctor, and more than anything else, is here to represent The Doctor, as a concept.

This is emphasized by Clara's description of him. In contrast to the other two, the 11th Doctor, to her, is just "The Doctor". Of course this comes from her perspective of having first met him, and generally being more attached to him, something that will be explored more down the line. But at the same time it does feel like, for the purposes of this episode, the 11th Doctor is meant to be "the definite article". He is, after all, the most recent Doctor and, plausibly, the culmination of all the others.

But more memorable is the Moment's description of him, "the man who forgets". This might feel appropriate. Due to the 11th Doctor era moving away somewhat from Time War angst, this Doctor just doesn't bring it up as much as the previous two. And it's tempting to leave it there…if not for a line that stuck with me from when I last watched "The Beast Below" talking about why the Time Lords are gone: "There was a bad day. Bad stuff happened. And you know what? I'd love to forget it all, every last bit of it, but I don't. Not ever". So did the Doctor lie here? Has he tried to forget after making such a big deal of how important it was not to?

This is put into sharp relief due to the scene where the Moment makes this description, where the 11th Doctor admits he doesn't know how many children were alive on Gallifrey when it was destroyed, only for the 10th Doctor, his younger self, to come back with the number. The 11th Doctor has forgotten something. Except what he actually says is that he's "moved on", presumably to the problems that his own era has put him in the middle of. And of course it wasn't the 11th Doctor who attempted to memory hole the War Doctor, that would, presumably, have been the 9th Doctor. Because lest we forget, the War Doctor is the life that the Doctor doesn't "admit to". I don't think that the 11th Doctor "forgets" at all. I think he's moved on, and tried not to let the guilt of past lives consume him. And that might be part of why he hates himself as much as he does. But the Moment, throughout this episode, is engaged in her own manipulation of the War Doctor, as it's trying to avoid being used for its intended purpose. And maybe in the moment that's what the War Doctor needed to hear.

It does create an interesting conflict between the 10th and 11th Doctors, but it's really the only one. Sure the pair tease each other over body and dress sense, as always happens in these, but it feels pretty harmless between the two. They really do mostly get along pretty well. In that later scene, the 10th Doctor gets angry at the 11th for forgetting the number of children on Gallifrey, and seems vaguely annoyed that the 11th Doctor is scratching numbers into stone. But aside from that the two get along. They do both give off similar energies, and seem to actually enjoy each other's company for the most part. Besides they've got the War Doctor around, whose presence is a constant reminder of the worst thing they ever did. A big part of this episode is about the pair coming to terms with that decision, before changing it.

And before we talk about the War Doctor, I want to go over Clara and the Moment. Clara I think does a bit better than she did previously. She's got a job teaching now, which does feel like a natural progression from her time as a nanny. Moreover she's teaching English. We've had hints that she has a love of reading and wants to share it with her charges. It feels like it gives the character a kind of direction that she's been missing. The nanny thing never really felt like it said much about Clara, in part because she admitted it was a job she was taking out of a sense of obligation more than anything else. But now that she's made that into a career it feels more significant somehow. Plus her experience in the Doctor's timeline makes sense of her ability to correctly psychoanalyze the Doctors in a way we didn't see prior. She can just look into the War Doctor's eyes and realize the thing that the other Doctors haven't: he hasn't pressed the button yet.

As for the Moment, well, it's a sentient weapon that doesn't want to be used with a psychic consciousness being played by Billie Piper. It definitely is interesting that while the Moment initially thinks the name of its form is "Rose Tyler" but corrects itself to "Bad Wolf", implying that the Bad Wolf entity had a bigger impact than we even guessed. But really the idea of a weapon that doesn't want to be used is kind of a lovely idea. It will do what it was designed to do if called upon to do so, but it's going to use everything within its power, including opening up time fissures (look, the Time Lords designed this thing) to avoid that eventuality. Which makes for a pretty unusual character. And I think this is really carried by Billie Piper, who plays the otherworldliness of the Moment really well, while still giving the character a lot of humanity. It's a hard balance to pull off, with a character that, honestly, I don't think is written all that well. But Piper makes it all work.

And of course, there's the War Doctor. For a character created largely to solve the issue of not getting Christopher Eccleston back, I actually think the War Doctor works remarkably well. It helps, of course, to have an actor of the caliber of John Hurt playing the part. Hurt plays the war-weary incarnation of the Doctor so well. As we learned in "The Night of the Doctor", the War Doctor was born to fight in the Time War, and yet even he has tired of the constant fighting. He has to end it, by any means necessary. That decision, the decision to end the Time War by killing everyone, is born out of that weariness. As he puts it, "No More". That line is, I suspect, taken from Dalek Caan saying the same thing when it decided to manipulate the apparent end of the Daleks in "Journey's End". I love the symmetry of both a Dalek and a Time Lord coming to the same conclusion: this must end, and the only way it can end is in utter destruction.

And then he's confronted by the Moment, who decides to show him the man he'll become if he goes through with his plan, setting up our multi-Doctor story. While the 10th and 11th Doctors largely don't get along, it's the interactions with the War Doctor that produce the most friction. Obviously the later Doctors are ashamed of what the War Doctor represents, but equally, the War Doctor can't recognize anything of himself in his successors. "What is it," he asks them, "that makes you so ashamed of being a grownup?", earning a look from both of them. Because, of course, he's the answer to that question.

This of course intermingles with the War Doctor's role as being a kind of representative of the Classic era. It's why the War Doctor's initial reaction at seeing the others is to wonder if he's "having a mid-life crisis". It's why he complains about the language they use ("timey-wimey") or the fact that they seem so reliant on their sonic screwdrivers. It's why he's so confused when Elizabeth and the 10th Doctor start kissing. Those are the most obvious differences between the Classic and Revival eras.

So the War Doctor is both a representative of the Classic era but also represents something in the end of the Time War that that show never would have dared suggest. It makes him a very odd character to be sure. And these contradictions are kind of felt throughout the episode. For much of the Zygon portion of the plot, he doesn't feel like he's got that much to do, other than stand around looking confused, although there are still a handful of moments. I especially like his reaction to the 10th Doctor telling Kate she won't be able to live with the decision she's about to make, the one that parallels the one the War Doctor is about to make himself. And when all the Doctors use their screwdrivers to activate the mindwipe in the Black Archive, there's a look of pure joy on his face, as he revels in being able to do some good and save some lives again, something that must seem so far removed from what his life has become at this point.

The big turning point comes when he sees his future selves build the foundation for the peace between Zygons and Humans. You might think, given that this is a parallel to the ending of the Time War, that this might cause him to try to find another way. But the thing is, his future, the show that we know, is malleable. If he chooses not to use The Moment, he could change the future. And he doesn't want to change that. "How many worlds has his regret saved, do you think?" he asks. And then later, standing back in front of the actual physical Moment, in front of the big red button he asked for, he says, "Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame."

Purely in a vacuum, these are great lines. They work really well for the story that "Day" is telling.

I kind of hate them.

"The Day of the Doctor" is a 50th Anniversary story, theoretically a celebration of the entire history of a show. To this end, the episode's climax involves a sequence with all twelve Doctors, plus Peter Capaldi's eyebrows, saving Galifrey together. As discussed, the War Doctor kind of acts as a representative of the 20th Century version of the show as a whole. And in that context…what do you mean the War Doctor is a "lesser man"? And the Doctor didn't have any trouble saving people before he was consumed by the regret of the Time War. And the thing is, I think Moffat was aware of this when writing the episode.

After all, the big shift in perspective is that when the 10th and 11th Doctors show up in the Time War, let in by the Moment, the two Doctors state "Pretending you weren't the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else. You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right". The War Doctor's whole conceit of giving up his identity to become a warrior, to become something darker, was a lie. A lie he told himself, to allow himself to become the person he felt he needed to be. The War Doctor is a great man, he doesn't need to be motivated by regret to save people. And at the end of the day, at the prompting of the others, he agrees to the far riskier plan to save Gallifrey. But those lines I quoted still stand out because of Moffat's ability to write lines that stick in your head. It doesn't matter that the episode ultimately rejects the conceit they represent, because the lines themselves become so iconic that they kind of overpower that.

But on the whole I still like the presentation of the War Doctor in this episode. And I also like the moment where the 11th Doctor decides to change the ending of the Time War. And while the involvement of those other Doctors via archival footage doesn't really make sense it's a fun visual, as well as a neat payoff of an idea built up earlier. Using the metaphor of the sonic screwdriver running the same program despite the different look, the episode makes the point that the Doctor as well is the same person throughout their many different incarnations, no matter what they look like. And that feels like it's supposed to be the main takeaway from the episode. No matter what, the Doctor is always the Doctor. This is why I've never felt like it undermines the earlier stuff centered around the Time War from the show. The Doctor will still remember ending the Time War the way we thought he did, and he was willing to do it if he couldn't find a better way. But it's not what "the Doctor", the idealized version of the Doctor that exists in his head would do. And so, given the opportunity he ultimately chooses not to destroy the Doctor because killing that many people, that many children, it's just not what the Doctor would do.

What he might do is retire and actually fulfill his promise to Queen Elizabeth I to act as curator of UNIT's Undergallery. What is there to really say about this scene? It's great. Getting Tom Baker back was wonderful, and Moffat makes the excellent choice of introducing his "Curator" character by us hearing his sonorous voice off screen. Baker absolutely owns this scene, and no matter what you think the truth behind the Curator is, it's still great to get Baker in for one last go around at playing the Doctor on television.

We then end on a final speech from the 11th Doctor which is…fine. Not something I love, but basically solid. And it does set up a fun visual of all 12 Doctors (no Capaldi, yes Hurt) standing on a cloud looking hopefully off into the distance. A good end overall.

And it's a good end to a really good story. It's probably my favorite televised multi-Doctor story, if only because it's the only one that really feels like it exists for a reason beyond just getting a bunch of people playing the Doctor at the same time. Is it everything I would have wanted? Not remotely. There's cases of Moffat's writing getting in its own way, and has kind of weird pacing. Still as an ending to the Time War era of the show, I think it does its job well, and gives us hope for the future. It's more of a celebration of the Revival era than the whole show, but we get just enough representation of the Classic era to make that feel okay. And at the end of the day, it's just an episode that I enjoy, and that's more important than anything else as far as I'm concerned.

Score 8/10

Stray Observations

• In my first attempt at writing this review, I opened with this point, but in I think it actually belongs here. This episode represents a milestone for this review series, at least on a personal level: this is the first episode of Doctor who I originally watched when it came out.
• There was a point early on where the only actor who had signed up to work on the special was Jenna Coleman. Steven Moffat had to put together an emergency plan for an episode that would only feature Clara, and no other returning cast members. The plan, referred to as "The No Doctors", would have seen an amnesiac Clara seeing alternate versions of the Doctor (played by different actors) continuing to appear in a bunch of different films, with Clara forced to put together why they seemed so familiar.
• I'm sure "The No Doctors" would have felt incredibly disappointing for a 50th Anniversary story. I kind of suspect I would have loved it.
• Christopher Eccleston was invited to return, and was sent a version of the script that had the 9th Doctor in place of the War Doctor. He ultimately turned it down. The abuse he'd suffered in the press combined with the bad memories he'd had from working on the show itself made him unwilling to return at the time, especially with a narrative he didn't feel was "strong enough" for the 9th Doctor. He later received a version of the script that had the War Doctor in place, and actually seems to have preferred that script.
• It's worth saying the Moffat also had concerns about putting the 9th Doctor in the role of the incarnation that ended the Time War, and while he was disappointed that Eccleston wouldn't be returning, it did make it easier for him to write the incarnation who did.
• From what I've been able to gather, Paul McGann was considered in the role, but ultimately rejected. There seems to be some disagreement over why, with some suggesting that the BBC wasn't interested in bringing McGann back. That being said, Moffat has pretty much stuck to the story that he didn't think the 8th Doctor should be the one to end the Time War.
• John Hurt initially turned down the role of the War Doctor. His wife overheard the conversation with his agent, and insisted he take the role.
• Tom Baker's involvement was kept secret, and he was clandestinely driven from his home in East Sussex to Cardiff in the pre-dawn morning. After his cameo was finished, he was returned from Cardiff to his home in the same way.
• Baker was mixed on his return to televised Doctor Who. He enjoyed meeting and working with Matt Smith, describing him as "darling" and "warm" but felt the rest of the crew were rather distant with him.
• While Billie Piper was set to return, Steven Moffat didn't want to use the character of Rose, feeling like her story was brought to a natural conclusion after "Journey's End" and not wanting to undermine the work of Russell T Davies. For this reason he drew on her manifestation as the Bad Wolf Entity at the end of "Journey's End" to create the Moment's interface. Billie Piper, in spite of loving Rose, seems to have agreed with Moffat's sentiment.
• There was going to be reference to the Peter Cushing movies in the script at one point, with the in-universe explanation being that some of the Doctor's former companions (presumably Barbara and Ian) had had their adventures turned into movies. This was dropped from the script due to concerns over rights issues.
• During production of this story, Jenna Coleman, who had been credited to this point as Jenna Louise-Coleman, requested that marketing and production drop the "Louise".
• The episode opens with the original opening title sequence, followed by the visual of the shadow of a policeman walking past a sign for a junkyard belonging to an I.M. Foreman. This is, of course, a pretty close duplication of how "An Unearthly Child" had opened 50 years prior. I love this. The original title sequence is a favorite of mine. It's simple, yet incredibly atmospheric and eerie.
• The sign out in front of Coal Hill School identifies the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the school as "I. Chesterton", while the Headmaster is a "W. Coburn". The first is obviously meant to be a reference to Ian Chesterton, one of the 1st Doctor's original companions. "W. Coburn" meanwhile, references Anthony Coburn, the writer of that first serial.
• Another set of opening credits (with everyone's names and the episode title) play over the 11th Doctor's theme, "I Am the Doctor". But what I really want to mention is that this takes place over footage of the Doctor holding onto the bottom the TARDIS while a helicopter flies it to its destination. The reason I mention this is that, first, the bit where Clara loses her grip on the Doctor (who was already hanging out of the TARDIS) and then is magically on the bottom of the TARDIS is a bit wonky. Second…what's he holding onto? Are there handles on the bottom of the TARDIS for some reason?
• The 11th Doctor takes a fez from a case in the Undergallery. The fez eventually ends up being left in 1562. Given that it doesn't seem to have any special properties on its own, we can surmise that the fez was placed in the Undergallery due to its connection to extraordinary events. Given that it was left in the past, the most likely explanation that the fez in the glass case is there as it was left behind by the Doctor. In other words, the fez is a bootstrap paradox.
• Kate looks up a file from her father's time, which she refers to as being from the "70s or 80s, depending on the dating protocol".
• Of course that makes this a good time to mention the new UNIT dating problem that's arrived. As I've documented in reviews of "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe", "A Town Called Mercy" and especially "The Power of Three" time gets stretched out towards the end of Amy and Rory's time on the show. It's pretty much impossible to put the year of the slow invasion, as seen in "Power of Three" any earlier than 2014, with 2019 being more realistic. The issue is that at the beginning of that year, the Doctor first met Kate Stewart and, crucially, it was pretty clear from that encounter that she was meeting him for the first time. And it's pretty verifiably 2013 based on information from "The Name of the Doctor", although it's still possible more time has passed than seen on screen.
• I should probably mention the War Doctor's TARDIS interior. It's like a weird middle ground between the RTD era TARDIS and the classic era one, with the roundels of the Classic TARDIS but a console that mostly looks like the RTD era one and the coral, also from that one. It's a surprisingly cohesive look.
• The Doctor's "promise" ("never cruel or cowardly, never give up, never give in") was adapted from a Terrence Dicks quote from his reference book, The Making of Doctor Who. Similar quotes had since appeared in several other Expanded Universe stories, including novels Timewyrm: Revelation, Love and War and the Steven Moffat-written The Curse of Fatal Death.
• For the scene in which all the other Doctors appear, archival footage was mixed with lines, largely from different episodes. One exception was the 1st Doctor's material. The clip was, naturally, taken from 1st Doctor serials (specifically The Daleks) while the audio was provided by John Guilor, who'd become somewhat popular for his impression of the original Doctor.
• The beginning of the War Doctor's regeneration is shown, but no more than that. Steven Moffat wanted to be respectful of Christopher Eccleston's decision not to participate in the special by not giving the impression that he'd filmed a regeneration scene.
• The ending credits use a new version of the theme that was, as far as I'm aware, only ever used for this episode. It's a much more upbeat version of the theme, that otherwise pretty closely resembles the Series 7B theme. We also get, for the first time in a long time, the middle 8 back. I like it, but it's a theme that really only works because it's being used as the end credits for a big celebratory episode.

Next Time: Well, now that we've got the trauma of the Time War over and dealt with, time for the Doctor to go to Trenzalore so he can make new traumatic memories!