VIDEO: Doctor Who “The Day of the Doctor”

by · November 28, 2013

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Oh, the spoilers! Did you like it? Did you love it? Did you hate it? Were you totally indifferent? Ursa talks Doctor Who, the 50th anniversary special, another fangirl stand-in, John Hurt, David Tennant, Billie Piper, Matt Smith, Christopher Eccleston, and Peter Capaldi’s Angry Eyes. Here’s to the next fifty years!

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TV Show: Doctor Who

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  • …I hadn’t thought about Elizabeth being “Moffat companion #324143” and now I might not be able to get that idea out of my head when I think about the special.
    Oh well, at least I got through release day and the cinematic release before more than one annoying writing flaw got driven into my brain.

    • Jill Bearup

      The thing is, Moffat Companions (Female Variant) CAN be fun and entertaining to me. Just so long as they’re in small doses. Which she was, so I didn’t mind very much. :)

  • mofs

    “Rose was my favourite companion .., [and] for various other reasons which are probably very boring to you” Oh dear god you actually liked “Because We Want To”. :O

    • Jill Bearup

      Yes.

      Yes, that must be it. :D

    • david f white

      Sophia Alred was really Hot!! I had a huge Crush on her for the longest time!!!

    • I really like Rose. I don’t think she’s the ideal person, and I don’t think she even deserved to travel with the Doctor in the first place, but the progression of “Rose” Rose to “Doomsday” Rose is one of the things that really stands out to me about what traveling with the Doctor should do to a person.

  • Sofie Liv

    Now I had some time thinking about this episode.

    It’s actually a pretty interesting thing they decided to go.

    Instead of having a big grand, cinematic story, with the world being at stake.. which you would exspect from the anniversary. Technically the season finallys of Doctor who in genneral seemed to have granter scales to them, with the entire world being at stake.

    This episode focused on some-thing more compact and intimidate.. by focusing on some-thing that has all-ready happened, and we assumed has happened and accepted happened a long time ago.. the story sadly looses scale.

    How-ever, I am also glad this is the story they went with.. for a very simple reason.

    I was watching some classic Doctor who.. with Patrick Throughton and so on, and in the Throughton episode “Enemy of the world.”

    There is this moment, where the doctor simply refuses to kill.. even if it means endangering his companion, he will not kill, there is just NO bending the rules on that one.

    And so is the running theme in doctor who, no matter the situation, no matter how tight it is, how hopeless, the doctor will not use violence and certainly never go for the kill. He is the man, who will find another way. No matter how mad it is, no matter how little chance that other way has of working.. he will go for it, any-thing is better than going for the kill, in the classic series.. and also in the new series.

    Just take Ecclestons. “Rather coward, any day.”

    So here’s the good question.. how could a man like that.. blow up his own planet?

    It’s heart breaking really. But how could he even do it? This man, who was so uncompromising on this single little fact.

    How-ever, the answer as it turned out, is terrible simple. The answer is. “he wouldn’t.”

    No, he wouldn’t.. he would find another way, no matter how mad that idea is, no matter how little chance it has of succeeding, he is the man, who will rather take this way, than compromise. So it makes perfect sense really, and is compleately consisten with his character!

    The tragedy here though is, that he still had to life with this guilt for four hundred years, for some-thing he didn’t do.

    But, it’s also a guilt he was willing to carry, if it meant doing the right thing.

    So yeah, I guess what I am saying is that I liked it ^^

    Matt Smith is my doctor though, guess we have to fight over that one.. My screwdriver is bigger than your screwdriver..

    • Thomas Stockel

      I get what you are saying and I think Moffat came up with a decent explanation as to how the War Doctor could do it. In the webisode you see The Doctor pretty much manipulated into becoming an incarnation capable of doing such a thing by the Sisterhood of Karn. They had him at his absolute lowest and turned him into their weapon. I think Moffat must have realized a great many fans would have rejected the concept of The Doctor becoming a mass murderer and wrote that webisode as a sort of out.

      • Sofie Liv

        yeah, but there is still some-thing hopefull and optimistic about the thought, that even as the “Warrior doctor.”
        This man still wouldn’t do it… he just wouldn’t.

        And well, that’s a very nice optimistic thought. It’s entering a lighter era of the doctor. One of the people I went into cinema with, to watch this special even had a wonderful theory that I love.

        Maybe the reason the doctor became younger and younger was exactly because he was on a guilt trip, and tried to distance himself from the seriousness of war, even subconcious, trying to get it away from him, by playing a young fool.

        How-ever now that that burden and guilt has been removed, he is okay with looking old again, which is why he is now regenerating into an older form, now he is willing to look old and mature again.

        I thought that was a wonderful theory that I compleately buy.

        Heh, also the notion about Moffat only writing the same woman over and over again.. That’s my notion! We talked about this when we met, and I pointed it out to you Jill :P
        Glad I can influence you though X)

        • drumstick00m

          Reason I like Doctor Who: this is the counter point to H.P. Lovecraft. The cosmos are horror, yet there is wonder, and any wonder will always be worth all the horror. How that theme climaxes in ‘the Day of the Doctor’: the Doctor spent 400 years distraught by horror of what he was going to have to do. He found another way because he stopped isolating himself. He stopped focusing on the horror and instead fought with the wonder (the Earth, Clara, UNIT, the other Companions, his other selves, ect.).

          • Sofie Liv

            The unknown is wonderous and dangerous, exactly because we know nothing about it.

            How-ever, whether we meet it with naivity and wonder, or fright and hate.. is up to us.

            Neither answer is correct of cause, each new situation should be approached with caution, that’s just common sense, but… also a sense of wonder over this new thing.

            If we as human beings, could approach new unknown things, with this sense of curiousity and wonder, over some-thing new and unknown like.. different cultures, religion, people.. every-things… things we didn’t think we would like.

            Well.. the world would be a more pleasent place wouldn’t it?

            I think the trouble some-times is that we grow up. Children compleately has this sense of wonder down, and then we loose it on the way, presumable to protect us self from harm.

            But that’s just kind of sad, if we could meet knew thing with this childish wonder and openess, the world would become a lot more fun… I really like this mindset about Doctor who as well.

            Good point, that it’s pretty much opposit Lovecraft.. if you think about it, it’s kind of opposit every single ‘adult’ story, or modern horror.

            Stay away from the wonderous, it’ll kill you… man that’s sad.

          • To me, that’s really the difference between horror and fantasy. Horror is based on the deep, embedded idea in people’s mind that what you don’t know can kill you, and folklore of hundreds of cultures is based on this. Ask anybody from hundreds of years ago what happens when you get lost in the forest, for instance.

            Whereas fantasy is about a madman who thinks about getting lost in the forest and says “Fantastic!”

          • Sofie Liv

            lol! amazing observation, love it!

          • drumstick00m

            Now if only we could convince academia that stories of wonder are just as good as stories of tragedy. Anyone else ever go to school, or watch HBO (and American cop shows), and think there seems to be an imbalance there?

          • danbreunig

            These things tend to be cyclical. I’m sure all these recent years of brooding and grittiness are the result of reacting to previous several years of insane humor and cheesiness. The best to hope for is get enough collective fan backlash to the tragic stories to speed up the process so we can get back to (or even a new form of) wonder and awe and *heart* into our entertainment.

          • drumstick00m

            Given my own life experience, true, however, I was more getting at the fact that the literature we are forced to read in school seems to stay reveling in depression forever. Academia says Shakespeare’s four best plays, for example, are bloody tragedies that end with a pile of bodies on the stage (Hamlet, MacBeth, Othello, and King Lear). Why this is, see Sofie’s post from a few days back, I suppose.

          • danbreunig

            Pretty deep take there.

          • Sofie Liv

            well obviously every-thing I say is actually very deep, and should be written down for future keep sake.

            Waffle Iron.

          • danbreunig

            [cutting “Waffle Iron” out of the Forum, framing it, and setting on the bookcase]

            “And that, children, is how you preserve the legacy of the Doofy Dane.”

            I was actually being serious in the last comment, though.

            And no, Ursa, I haven’t forgotten about you–the thread just went this way. I’d surely say something about the special if I were a Whovian.

          • Sofie Liv

            I know, I’m just making fun, lets not get TO serious all of a sudden X)

            But thanks, thanks :)

  • Thomas Stockel

    A few quick comments and observations:

    Seeing John Hurt as The Doctor makes me wish I could see more of John Hurt as The Doctor. While I am at it, see Paul McGann in the webisode really makes me wish I could have seen more of him as The Doctor as well. I really like him on the Luther television series.

    I think they missed a golden opportunity when The Doctor met his two young…older selves. “Where’s the pretty girl? Usually there’s a pretty girl around with you.” Because in the entirety of Who’s run I don’t think The Doctor has ever been without one. Sometimes he’s had two.

    I’m glad to know I’m not the only person who thinks all the females in the Moffatverse seem to sound and act alike. It’s actually pretty annoying. I remember the old days when Sara Jane did not sound like Leela, who did not sound like Ramana.

    Thank God River Song did not show up. I think I would have shut the television off at that point.

    I am curious to see whether or not the large female demographic will stick around when fifty five year old Peter Capaldi takes over.

    I loved the ending. Just wished one of my asshole friends hadn’t spoiled it for me before I got a chance to see the show. Sad that for a guy who is such a big Who fan he doesn’t know what the word “spoiler” means by now.

    I thought the plot was clever, especially when you consider it is a show involving time travel. I just wish Eccleston, my favorite of the three modern Doctors, could have been involved; his one season was best by far of the new era.

    • “I am curious to see whether or not the large female demographic will stick around when fifty five year old Peter Capaldi takes over.”

      Right, because us female sci-fi fans are all dumb bimbos who only watch the show for attractive men!

      Grow up.

      • Thomas Stockel

        Okay, I had that coming. I should have said “tween demographic”. I really should do a better job of editing myself before I post.

        • Oh, I retract my waspishness, then. Ahem. Merry Christmas, good sir.

          • Thomas Stockel

            And a Merry Christmas to you as well. :)

  • Ashantai

    I get the impression that Christopher Ecclestone’s refusal to ever play the 9th Doctor again (and having only one season to boot), made them find this convoluted means of getting this show happening. If they’d managed to get all three back together they wouldn’t be a need to have an extra incarnation.

    I guessed they’d bring the Time Lords back eventually. What that actually means for the series is another matter.
    Seeing David Tennant again made me once again remember why he’s my favourite of the new series. Matt Smith is fine and all but…well…Tennant’s still my favourite.

  • Gallen_Dugall

    Plus now the Doctor’s parents can show up again.

  • quazal

    TY TY for your perspective.
    Stewing on it for a week, I can say I did like the 50th, but it felt a little rushed and could have been a bit longer to fill in some gaps. I mean on my tv it was rated 120 mins, but the last 20 mins was some silly retrospective thing, and about 25% was fast forwarding through commercials. Maybe some more time with Hurt as the war doctor. I didn’t feel connected to him, but I do think John Hurt would make a good doctor..

    The whole “look at what you will become” was kind of….underwhelming; so you change it a good looking guy with a bit of a god complex, and than kind of a funny lovable goof ball, the horror!! Yes, I know the pain Tennant’s doctor is hiding, and Smith needs to forget, but from Hurt’s point of view these two certainly didn’t look or seem that damaged, except in one small, brief scene. I don’t need to get it to go all emo, but oay.

    Lastly, The one question I wish they had raised as a carrot as perhaps next doctor quest (other than getting Gallifrey back from who knows where), is what about now being out of regenerations…officially by the TV series. IDK is this was covered in any of the books or Big Finish audio dramas, so this one as a long time fan is an interesting one I hope they don’t do with a 1 minute “aha turn the dial” finish during an episode.

    • quazal

      Oh btw, since I have watched as many episodes as I could from day 1 to current, did anyone else watch An Adventure in Time and Space and think it had a lot more emotional wait to it? I thought its production values where really good, and for a docudrama it was pretty good. Two thumbs up!

      • Jill Bearup

        Man did I LOVE An Adventure in Time and Space. I may have cried a lot though.

        Maybe.

        Ahem.

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