... and it was perfect "Doctor Who".
Making this statement is more than a little hyperbolic, obviously and I'm not really qualified to make it. I'm one of the many, many people who got into the show with the '05 reinvention and while I've been working my way through Classic Who, I still have a long way to go.
But from where I'm standing, Moffat took the time to not only pay tribute to the small references on the entirety of the show, not only did he address one of the biggest elephants in the room since the show was brought back on-air (the Time War), but also celebrated the very nature of the show and what made it last for fifty years (despite its extended absence from television during the '90s).
It's impossible not to love the references in the 50-year-special if you ever had any fondness for Doctor Who. Even I, by all means a "new" fan, smiled with everything from the Fourth Doctor's scarf on a supporting character and Ian Chesterton's (the first male companion of the Doctor) name on a plaque to Clara riding her bike past a clock set at the exact time the first ever Doctor Who episode aired those fifty years ago and an actual extended cameo by Tom Baker himself.
It's also impossible not to come out of this episode feeling confused and yet surprisingly content-- unless you're one of those insufferable assholes that will still post on Youtube comments how much Steven Moffat and Matt Smith suck and how Tennant and previous show-runner Russel T. Davies should return FOUR YEARS SINCE THEY LEFT THE SHOW.
Seriously, get a life already.
"The Day of the Doctor" stars the current Doctor, Matt Smith and marks the return of the 10th , the revered David Tennant. It's not a story about either however: it's a story about John Hurt's character, the so-called "War Doctor".
Of course, since the Doctor is one and the same person through all of his incarnations the story is essentially about all of them (Smith more than Tennant, since the latter's run is done and nothing really changes for him), but it is focused on the War Doctor's actions and decisions, the pathos is mainly his as it's his journey to finding the answers that will force his hand to bring about the end of the Time War.
As the pieces of the puzzle drop in place we can see the Doctor from different viewpoints in his life trying to cope with the guilt of burning his own people to save the rest of the Universe. John Hurt, struggling to decide whether he should burn Gallifrey seeks the answer in his future. He sees that he becomes the man who regrets and the man who forgets. He sees they're essentially just the same as he is, but they both need to deal with the consequences of their actions.
For them, burning Gallifrey is a past that haunts them. The Tenth Doctor carries a lot of rage inside; rage evident throughout the character's initial run as well and he seems to constantly be running, trying to right the wrongs he has caused.
The Eleventh Doctor, likewise, tries desperately to move on. He acts like a child out of shame and fear of what he has done and in the end, he's not even sure who he really is anymore.
But ultimately, the Doctor does what he always has: he travels the Universe in that raggedy old TARDIS of his and he saves lives. As such, the War Doctor understands that the consequences of his actions have only one receipient, only one man who will ultimately be punished indefinitely: himself. And he's alright with that.
Until he isn't anymore. Moffat is often-times bashed by fans of Russell T. Davis' run for undoing a lot of what their guy set up. All the better, so far as I'm concerned, but even then he hasn't been particularly aggressive about it. In fact, he usually just plays around the ideas that Davis left behind and just kind of reinvents them.
Davis and his team never went into much detail on the Time War, because early on they were very clear about what the Time War was: a plot device, never meant to be looked at closely, because it has no essence. It was only put in place to explain the inevitable inconsistencies and continuity errors that come with a franchise that's five decades old.
But this plot device brought about a heavy burden for the character to bear, baggage far heavier than the series ever acknowledged. Moffat did in the Special what he always does: he retconned, conveniently finding an escape from continuity conflicts.
So the Doctor doesn't burn Gallifrey, he instead locks it in an instant of time, seemingly gone forever. The War Doctor and the 10th won't remember, which leaves the show so far intact (even if it's a bit of a cop-out), but it works well for the character, who has to reinvent himself and get himself back on track.
This also explains how all incarnations of the Doctor knew what to do to save Gallifrey and the insanely awesome and near tear-worthy climax of the episode, that has all thirteen Doctors (including a cameo of Peter Capaldi's eyebrows) pilot their TARDIS to the planet and put it in the Time Lock.
It's not just a great moment for fans of the show, it's also a testament that in all those fifty years, despite all the different incarnations played by so many different actors in so many different ways, the Doctor's character is a constant. A constant that feels different, certainly one that looks different, but he's the same protagonist: a hero for all of time and space that has showed us the Universe more than a few times and remained adamant in his efforts to protect it-- or failing that, at the very least to heal it.
Which is the reason why Moffat chooses to delve into the events that led the Doctor to his decision to kill his own people and subsequently change that. The 7th Season had one constant theme, foreshadowed in the finale of Series 6: the name of the Doctor. At first, we all naturally thought he was referring to his real, Gallifrean name. But instead, the "name" Moffat was referring to was none other than that: The Doctor. Why is he called, the Doctor? He's not a physician, he never doctors really, so why Doctor? Doctor Who?
As we found out in the Series 7 finale "The Name of the Doctor", his chosen name is a promise. Clara reminds him in the special that that's what he is. "Be a Doctor", she says to him and that's what he does. He heals time and space all the time and this time, he sets out to heal himself; a doctor that can't help himself can't help anyone. That's the reasoning behind it and it works really, really well.
The War Doctor's arc also gives some more context on the character's decision to commit genocide. Before the events of this special, I always thought the Doctor wasn't part of the war. I just assumed he was still a rogue Time Lord, who resorted to the final solution when he saw what the Time War was doing to the rest of the Universe.
Alternatively, there was a good theory flying around that since the 8th Doctor was mostly meek and mild-mannered, the aftermath turned him into the harsh man we saw through the character's 9th and 10th incarnations.
But seeing the War Doctor it makes all the more sense. Not only did the Doctor fight the War, he fought it for very, very long. Even though Time Lords are granted thirteen lives, we know each one of them can indeed age. The first Doctor, played by William Hartnell, regenerated because his body gave out due to old age. This is canon.
In the mini "The Night of the Doctor", starring the 8th Doctor Paul McGann, when he regenerated into the War Doctor, he was young. Considering how slowly Time Lords age (the 11th Doctor has been around a total of 300 years at least and he still looks young), the very old and also dying-of-old age John Hurt War Doctor must had been fighting the Time War for centuries-- maybe even more than a millennium? His decision to resort to using The Moment and burn Gallifrey makes all the more sense.
Let us not forget that when John Hurt was introduced in the series, his words were "What I did, I did in the name of sanity". And after all this time warring, anyone would have gone insane. That's why it's the 11th Doctor that suggests changing his own past. He has had the time to re-think, to find another solution and most importantly, to heal. He can see things clearer now, he can see not just the wrong in his actions, but also a way to make the right choice.
It's not a perfect episode by any means. There is a subplot that returns the Zygons to the series and has the Tenth Doctor trying to uncover their plot in 1512's England with Queen Elizabeth The First. On the bright side, it sort of wraps up a loose end in the Tenth Doctor's run (as seen in "The Shakespeare Code"). However, the segment drags on for too long and ultimately doesn't seem to lead anywhere more interesting than any standard episode would.
But that's kind of its point too. It's classic Doctor Who nested a special event episode and, more importantly, it exists to create the all-to-important narrative juxtaposition between what the Doctor usually does and what he did one that one day to end the Time War.
The Doctor not-so-sublty exclaims "Peace in our time" once the subplot is resolved and it's the catalyst that leads him to change his own past.
I was also a bit confused, as the Time Lock had been referenced in the show before (particularly in "The End of Time", when the Rassilon and a few other Time Lords escaped the Lock) and it was never clear if the Doctor had actually burned Gallifrey.
With a bit of a closer look, however, it seems this isn't a contradiction. What the Doctor knew was that he did burn Gallifrey, he just put the entire war in a Time Lock to preserve the rest of the Universe. After "The Day of the Doctor", he puts the planet itself in the Lock (or something resembling one), without actually destroying it. What was stated in the show so far has been mostly unchanged, it just kind of all fits together, despite the specifics changing.
Also there isn't much that is done with the Tenth Doctor and his inclusion seems to be a nod to fans. I'm not big on the incarnation, myself, but nothing that happens in the special has any effect on him as a character.
So, if it's not a perfect episode, where do I come off saying it's still perfect Doctor Who? Because not only does it pay tribute to the history of the longest-running sci-fi series on TV, but also because it pays tribute to sci-fi in general.
People who don't like Doctor Who come back with the argument that "it's just not that good". But it's an argument that always perplexed me, because getting trapped inside the conventional confines of technical quality can be extremely antithetical to the very concept of imagination and creativity; two of science fiction's cornerstones.
Which isn't to say that Doctor Who does special or terribly original storylines, but it doesn't hold back when it comes to the very core of the show: a man who dreams of being a hero, someone who wants to see all of time and space.
Isn't that what a sci-fi fan really is as well?
This is also why I thought a lot of the Russel T. Davies run was shit on a biscuit. Despite some truly great episodes, the approach just left me cold. I got into Doctor Who later than most, but I did see the new series in order. My first Doctor was Christopher Eccleston, the Doctor I got used to the most was David Tennant.
But there was nothing remarkable about the character or the show. Everything about it seemed so restricted, so utterly pedestrian. A good chunk of the stories took place in modern-day England (London in particular) and the Doctor was acting too human, too Earthly, down to falling in love with a completely unremarkable (unless being obnoxious counts as remarkable) blonde nobody.
This show's strengths lie elsewhere, particularly in exploring the most fun and extravagant aspects of sci-fi, opening up endless new worlds and possibilities for both its characters and its viewers.
I'm sorry, but I don't see it as a coincidence that Doctor Who went down in the '80s and completely out in the '90s, when science fiction took a bleak and dark hit and everything became post-apocalyptic. In a world where technology was dangerous instead of a gateway to the future and that future itself spelt doom and gloom for the human race, there was no place for the Doctor.
(Of course, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" did run for seven seasons, so perhaps I'm talking out of my ass.)
So, yes, in that regard "The Day of the Doctor" is a perfect Doctor Who episode. Not the best, far from in fact, but perfect nonetheless. It pays tribute to the show's past, the show's current format and to the very genre that defines it.
Here is to another 50 years of reminding us why we need to look to the stars.
Making this statement is more than a little hyperbolic, obviously and I'm not really qualified to make it. I'm one of the many, many people who got into the show with the '05 reinvention and while I've been working my way through Classic Who, I still have a long way to go.
 |
| The man knows how to make an entrance. |
But from where I'm standing, Moffat took the time to not only pay tribute to the small references on the entirety of the show, not only did he address one of the biggest elephants in the room since the show was brought back on-air (the Time War), but also celebrated the very nature of the show and what made it last for fifty years (despite its extended absence from television during the '90s).
It's impossible not to love the references in the 50-year-special if you ever had any fondness for Doctor Who. Even I, by all means a "new" fan, smiled with everything from the Fourth Doctor's scarf on a supporting character and Ian Chesterton's (the first male companion of the Doctor) name on a plaque to Clara riding her bike past a clock set at the exact time the first ever Doctor Who episode aired those fifty years ago and an actual extended cameo by Tom Baker himself.
It's also impossible not to come out of this episode feeling confused and yet surprisingly content-- unless you're one of those insufferable assholes that will still post on Youtube comments how much Steven Moffat and Matt Smith suck and how Tennant and previous show-runner Russel T. Davies should return FOUR YEARS SINCE THEY LEFT THE SHOW.
Seriously, get a life already.
"The Day of the Doctor" stars the current Doctor, Matt Smith and marks the return of the 10th , the revered David Tennant. It's not a story about either however: it's a story about John Hurt's character, the so-called "War Doctor".
Of course, since the Doctor is one and the same person through all of his incarnations the story is essentially about all of them (Smith more than Tennant, since the latter's run is done and nothing really changes for him), but it is focused on the War Doctor's actions and decisions, the pathos is mainly his as it's his journey to finding the answers that will force his hand to bring about the end of the Time War.
As the pieces of the puzzle drop in place we can see the Doctor from different viewpoints in his life trying to cope with the guilt of burning his own people to save the rest of the Universe. John Hurt, struggling to decide whether he should burn Gallifrey seeks the answer in his future. He sees that he becomes the man who regrets and the man who forgets. He sees they're essentially just the same as he is, but they both need to deal with the consequences of their actions.
For them, burning Gallifrey is a past that haunts them. The Tenth Doctor carries a lot of rage inside; rage evident throughout the character's initial run as well and he seems to constantly be running, trying to right the wrongs he has caused.
The Eleventh Doctor, likewise, tries desperately to move on. He acts like a child out of shame and fear of what he has done and in the end, he's not even sure who he really is anymore.
But ultimately, the Doctor does what he always has: he travels the Universe in that raggedy old TARDIS of his and he saves lives. As such, the War Doctor understands that the consequences of his actions have only one receipient, only one man who will ultimately be punished indefinitely: himself. And he's alright with that.
 |
| And a thousand slash-fics were written on that day, the Day of the Doctor. |
Until he isn't anymore. Moffat is often-times bashed by fans of Russell T. Davis' run for undoing a lot of what their guy set up. All the better, so far as I'm concerned, but even then he hasn't been particularly aggressive about it. In fact, he usually just plays around the ideas that Davis left behind and just kind of reinvents them.
Davis and his team never went into much detail on the Time War, because early on they were very clear about what the Time War was: a plot device, never meant to be looked at closely, because it has no essence. It was only put in place to explain the inevitable inconsistencies and continuity errors that come with a franchise that's five decades old.
But this plot device brought about a heavy burden for the character to bear, baggage far heavier than the series ever acknowledged. Moffat did in the Special what he always does: he retconned, conveniently finding an escape from continuity conflicts.
So the Doctor doesn't burn Gallifrey, he instead locks it in an instant of time, seemingly gone forever. The War Doctor and the 10th won't remember, which leaves the show so far intact (even if it's a bit of a cop-out), but it works well for the character, who has to reinvent himself and get himself back on track.
This also explains how all incarnations of the Doctor knew what to do to save Gallifrey and the insanely awesome and near tear-worthy climax of the episode, that has all thirteen Doctors (including a cameo of Peter Capaldi's eyebrows) pilot their TARDIS to the planet and put it in the Time Lock.
 |
| Who said you need big muscles and guns to feel all testosterone-filled? |
It's not just a great moment for fans of the show, it's also a testament that in all those fifty years, despite all the different incarnations played by so many different actors in so many different ways, the Doctor's character is a constant. A constant that feels different, certainly one that looks different, but he's the same protagonist: a hero for all of time and space that has showed us the Universe more than a few times and remained adamant in his efforts to protect it-- or failing that, at the very least to heal it.
Which is the reason why Moffat chooses to delve into the events that led the Doctor to his decision to kill his own people and subsequently change that. The 7th Season had one constant theme, foreshadowed in the finale of Series 6: the name of the Doctor. At first, we all naturally thought he was referring to his real, Gallifrean name. But instead, the "name" Moffat was referring to was none other than that: The Doctor. Why is he called, the Doctor? He's not a physician, he never doctors really, so why Doctor? Doctor Who?
As we found out in the Series 7 finale "The Name of the Doctor", his chosen name is a promise. Clara reminds him in the special that that's what he is. "Be a Doctor", she says to him and that's what he does. He heals time and space all the time and this time, he sets out to heal himself; a doctor that can't help himself can't help anyone. That's the reasoning behind it and it works really, really well.
The War Doctor's arc also gives some more context on the character's decision to commit genocide. Before the events of this special, I always thought the Doctor wasn't part of the war. I just assumed he was still a rogue Time Lord, who resorted to the final solution when he saw what the Time War was doing to the rest of the Universe.
Alternatively, there was a good theory flying around that since the 8th Doctor was mostly meek and mild-mannered, the aftermath turned him into the harsh man we saw through the character's 9th and 10th incarnations.
But seeing the War Doctor it makes all the more sense. Not only did the Doctor fight the War, he fought it for very, very long. Even though Time Lords are granted thirteen lives, we know each one of them can indeed age. The first Doctor, played by William Hartnell, regenerated because his body gave out due to old age. This is canon.
In the mini "The Night of the Doctor", starring the 8th Doctor Paul McGann, when he regenerated into the War Doctor, he was young. Considering how slowly Time Lords age (the 11th Doctor has been around a total of 300 years at least and he still looks young), the very old and also dying-of-old age John Hurt War Doctor must had been fighting the Time War for centuries-- maybe even more than a millennium? His decision to resort to using The Moment and burn Gallifrey makes all the more sense.
 |
| Also, this happened. |
Let us not forget that when John Hurt was introduced in the series, his words were "What I did, I did in the name of sanity". And after all this time warring, anyone would have gone insane. That's why it's the 11th Doctor that suggests changing his own past. He has had the time to re-think, to find another solution and most importantly, to heal. He can see things clearer now, he can see not just the wrong in his actions, but also a way to make the right choice.
It's not a perfect episode by any means. There is a subplot that returns the Zygons to the series and has the Tenth Doctor trying to uncover their plot in 1512's England with Queen Elizabeth The First. On the bright side, it sort of wraps up a loose end in the Tenth Doctor's run (as seen in "The Shakespeare Code"). However, the segment drags on for too long and ultimately doesn't seem to lead anywhere more interesting than any standard episode would.
But that's kind of its point too. It's classic Doctor Who nested a special event episode and, more importantly, it exists to create the all-to-important narrative juxtaposition between what the Doctor usually does and what he did one that one day to end the Time War.
The Doctor not-so-sublty exclaims "Peace in our time" once the subplot is resolved and it's the catalyst that leads him to change his own past.
I was also a bit confused, as the Time Lock had been referenced in the show before (particularly in "The End of Time", when the Rassilon and a few other Time Lords escaped the Lock) and it was never clear if the Doctor had actually burned Gallifrey.
With a bit of a closer look, however, it seems this isn't a contradiction. What the Doctor knew was that he did burn Gallifrey, he just put the entire war in a Time Lock to preserve the rest of the Universe. After "The Day of the Doctor", he puts the planet itself in the Lock (or something resembling one), without actually destroying it. What was stated in the show so far has been mostly unchanged, it just kind of all fits together, despite the specifics changing.
Also there isn't much that is done with the Tenth Doctor and his inclusion seems to be a nod to fans. I'm not big on the incarnation, myself, but nothing that happens in the special has any effect on him as a character.
So, if it's not a perfect episode, where do I come off saying it's still perfect Doctor Who? Because not only does it pay tribute to the history of the longest-running sci-fi series on TV, but also because it pays tribute to sci-fi in general.
People who don't like Doctor Who come back with the argument that "it's just not that good". But it's an argument that always perplexed me, because getting trapped inside the conventional confines of technical quality can be extremely antithetical to the very concept of imagination and creativity; two of science fiction's cornerstones.
Which isn't to say that Doctor Who does special or terribly original storylines, but it doesn't hold back when it comes to the very core of the show: a man who dreams of being a hero, someone who wants to see all of time and space.
Isn't that what a sci-fi fan really is as well?
 |
| Cried like a little bitch. Admit it! |
This is also why I thought a lot of the Russel T. Davies run was shit on a biscuit. Despite some truly great episodes, the approach just left me cold. I got into Doctor Who later than most, but I did see the new series in order. My first Doctor was Christopher Eccleston, the Doctor I got used to the most was David Tennant.
But there was nothing remarkable about the character or the show. Everything about it seemed so restricted, so utterly pedestrian. A good chunk of the stories took place in modern-day England (London in particular) and the Doctor was acting too human, too Earthly, down to falling in love with a completely unremarkable (unless being obnoxious counts as remarkable) blonde nobody.
This show's strengths lie elsewhere, particularly in exploring the most fun and extravagant aspects of sci-fi, opening up endless new worlds and possibilities for both its characters and its viewers.
I'm sorry, but I don't see it as a coincidence that Doctor Who went down in the '80s and completely out in the '90s, when science fiction took a bleak and dark hit and everything became post-apocalyptic. In a world where technology was dangerous instead of a gateway to the future and that future itself spelt doom and gloom for the human race, there was no place for the Doctor.
(Of course, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" did run for seven seasons, so perhaps I'm talking out of my ass.)
So, yes, in that regard "The Day of the Doctor" is a perfect Doctor Who episode. Not the best, far from in fact, but perfect nonetheless. It pays tribute to the show's past, the show's current format and to the very genre that defines it.
Here is to another 50 years of reminding us why we need to look to the stars.
 |
| Doctor Who? That's who. |
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