A busy week has kept me off the blog. I’ve been active in other areas, however. Have a look at my most recent column in The Kitchener Post. I’ve also done a lot of work for my real estate broker client, and edits to The Night Girl.
Fortunately, Erin and I were able to spend some time with Doctor Who around its 50th anniversary. We watched the dramatization of the early years of the program’s production in An Adventure in Space and Time (quite good!), we watched the 50th anniversary special on iTunes on Sunday, and we watched it again in the theatre on Monday evening.
Yes, we saw it twice and, yes, we paid good money to watch it a second time in a theatre, while wearing uncomfortable 3D glasses. Are we insane? Maybe.
But the experience was as much about community as it was anything else. The thrill of being among people in a movie theatre — people dressing up as their favourite characters on the program — the thrill of hearing that the theatre started to fill up an hour before the showing, the thrill of hearing the audience cheer as their favourite Doctors came on the screen… that’s what Monday was all about.
But the nature of this episode and the circumstances surrounding it make it difficult to review. How can I possibly treat something like this objectively? That’s a hard ask. But let me give it a try.
Please be warned that spoilers follow.
Of course, I liked it! Were you expecting anything else?
The Day of the Doctor is one great big love letter to the fans of Doctor Who, of course, as well as an epic victory lap. And why not? The number of shows that have remained viable fifty years after their production can probably be counted on fingers. So the little touches that recalled the history of the program, from the original William Hartnell opening credits, to the name checks of 76 Totters Lane and Cole Hill School (note who the head of the board of governors is) are understandable and appreciated by this fan, but I do wonder what general viewers thought of it all.
For general viewers, we are quickly treated to the sight of Clara, who continues to build a life alongside her visiting benefits with the TARDIS. Upon hearing that the Doctor is in town, she scoots over on her scooter, enters the console room, and has a joyous reunion that is quickly interrupted by UNIT. UNIT has acquired a helicopter with a TARDIS-lugging grappling hook and, apparently, a policy of just picking up random police boxes when they happen to emerge out of nowhere. I can’t think the Doctor’s very appreciative of that development.
The mystery that follows nicely works in details from the previous seven years of the revival along with new material (and an old monster from the original series) that I think the general audience will appreciate and enjoy. The Doctor and Clara are taken to the British Museum, where a 3D oil painting has been discovered, along with a note from Queen Elizabeth the First, calling the Doctor to her country’s aid. The painting shows the Fall of Arcadia and the last day of the Time War.
I will say that The Day of the Doctor offered both what I was expecting, and plenty of surprises. Was I surprised that the Time War would feature prominently here? Not at all. Indeed, I was kind of fearing that we’d be lingering on it, but since the Time War has been the elephant in the room since the revived series began, what else could I expect? My hope was, though, that the fiftieth anniversary would provide us an opportunity to finally put the Time War behind us. The casting of John Hurt as an as-yet-unnumbered Doctor made me wonder if the Doctor of the Time War would be reaching ahead to and commenting on the incarnations that survived him. In this, I was sort of right.
And even though I tried to avoid spoilers this time around, some rumours got through to me. There was the speculation that John Hurt’s Doctor (revealed at the end of The Name of the Doctor) was a Time War incarnation shoehorned in between the eighth and ninth Doctors. Then along came the surprise release of the mini-episode The Night of the Doctor, where Paul McGann put in an appearance and was given a rousing send-off. The show appeared to be going ahead according to plan, and everything was well executed. I was grateful, and suitably swept up in pride and nostalgia over the series’ 50th anniversary.
And as The Day of the Doctor shifts back to John Hurt and the Time War, my appreciation of the story kicked up a notch. Hurt plays the War Doctor with gravitas, and director Nick Hurran manages to convey the epic events with just a few sets, CGI, and extras running around, screaming. I’m able to believe that the Doctor I just met has been fighting a war for years. I’m able to believe that he has reached the end of his rope and is about to do the unthinkable. As he lugs the superweapon known as “The Moment” across alien sands, hearing the cries of birds as he heads to a mysterious shed (with, strangely enough, a massive rubber tire within it), I am swept away. Moffat and Hurran build up in quick strokes the big moment that Russell T. Davies could only hint at.
And then, suddenly, everything gets better.
By far the biggest and most pleasant surprise of The Day of the Doctor was Billie Piper. I was expecting a retread of the character of Rose. What I got was a mysterious female interface to the Moment, and an actress that played her with a freaky, enigmatic edge. It was in this instant that writer Steven Moffat catapulted me out of being merely grateful for seeing the episode live up to my expectations, to somewhat awestruck at his ability to pull surprises out of a hat even at this late juncture. As the Moment mocks the War Doctor’s proclamations of “No More”, Billie Piper is clearly having a lot of fun here, and I suspect that John Hurt is having fun with her.
The Moment is a brilliant creation by Moffat, and ably put to work by Piper. It makes sense, too: of course the Time Lords would create a super-weapon so advanced, it could develop sentience. And Piper gives the Moment a personality — one that kind of likes (and perhaps fancies) the War Doctor, sympathizes with him in some cases, but believes in its heart that the Doctor is about to make the greatest mistake in his life, and pulling out as many stops as possible to try and get him to make a different choice.
I give kudos also to Moffat for avoiding the temptation to have Billie Piper and David Tennant share on-screen time. Having Piper paired up with Hurt completely subverts our expectations, and removes any and all distractions as the three Doctors (Hurt, Tennant and Smith) play off each other and turn fans everywhere into gibbering bits of goo.
In terms of writing, I believe that Moffat has crafted a story that ingeniously weaves plot elements and themes together wisely, pairing up Kate Stewart’s decision to sacrifice London in order to save the Earth with Tennant and Smith’s regret over using the Moment to destroy the Daleks and the Time Lords. The use of the Time Lord oil paintings as both a Zygon invasion tool and a means for the Doctor(s) to save the day, are all well prepped. The use of the sonic screwdriver to vaporize the door is a nice prep to the Doctors’ ultimate plan in the climax.
I also think that Moffat has managed to enhance rather than demolish continuity with The Day of the Doctor. His explanation of how Queen Elizabeth the First viewed the Doctor as “my sworn enemy” in The Shakespeare Code works and is hilarious. And while Moffat’s take on the tone of the Doctor’s fateful decision to end the Time War differs from our understanding as presented in The End of Time (in Tennant’s send-off, the problem wasn’t just that the Time War was destroying the universe, but that the Time Lords were losing and had resolved to take the universe with them), Moffat’s solution in The Day of the Doctor, actually makes the events of The End of Time more plausible, since a frozen Gallifrey is more likely to come back from the dead than a “burnt” one.
And back in 2005, I had a theory that the Bad Wolf elements of Rose were a Time Lord weapon, put into place to ensure that the Daleks did not survive the Time War. A weapon with such temporal potential is precisely the sort of thing the Time Lords would use, I argued. Though I put this theory out there, it didn’t get much traction, so it was quietly dropped. The Day of the Doctor brings this theory of mine back into play, I think. It can’t be an accident that the Moment grabbed that particular likeness in order to address the War Doctor. I admit, this helps me like The Day of the Doctor more.
Everything culminates nicely to the War Doctor making his decision to accept his fate and end the Time War. The Day of the Doctor has a great moment where the tenth and the eleven Doctors reappear to give solace to the War Doctor. Even though they’ve just said that the decision they made was wrong, the fact that they still decided to embrace him as who he is, is still a special moment. Had the story ended there, it would have been poignant — the acceptance of a lost regeneration into the canon, the Doctor making peace with his regrets, accepting his actions during the Time War, and finally moving on.
But the episode didn’t end there, and I have to admit, I have mixed feelings. Yes, it’s good and in character for Clara to object, and yes the Doctor is the sort of person who would look for any out, and take any opportunity for that out, even if it violated continuity and narrative closure. I also have to say that I have misgivings about his idea of freezing Gallifrey in a moment of time and letting the Daleks destroy themselves in the resulting crossfire. The Time War should not end with the Daleks engaging in a circular firing squad.
But these misgivings are fleeting. Moffat has prepped key elements of the eleventh Doctor’s plan. Same software, different faces. The Doctor’s plan is so epic, it takes all thirteen incarnations to bring it into being. This is the fiftieth anniversary after all, how dare anybody think for a moment that we could just have three Doctors out of thirteen in on the climax. And, as for the Daleks: you saw how they freaked out the moment they sniffed the Doctor’s presence on the other side of a big stone wall: what do you think having thirteen TARDISes show up is going to do to them? Maybe they decided to unleash one very big doomsday weapon, attempting to destroy Gallifrey whilst sacrificing themselves and moving just a bit too late. I can buy that.
I have to. As a fan, I’m swept up by the image of William Hartnell addressing Gallifrey (how did they get that bit of dialogue in his voice?), the appearance by Christopher Ecclestone (conspicuous by his absence up to this point), and the fact that the Doctor can finally put 400 years of pain and regret behind him. Just this once, everybody lives.
What do the casual viewers say, though? Have they been swept up by the sheer verve of the direction? Or are they nodding patiently?
But for me, watching this episode on the couch with Erin, or in a theatre crowded with Doctor Who fans, do I honestly care? Right now, not a whit. And while Tom Baker’s cameo produces way more questions than it answers, it’s a time to party. The Day of the Doctor is a celebration of the vehicle of Doctor Who that has given fans far more than just hours of entertainment. The Day of the Doctor thanks the community of fandom by tying the bow around the biggest plot element the series has wrestled with since the revival began, and pointing us in a new direction. We’ve celebrated what’s come before, and we’ve been given hints about new directions to come. It’s exciting and satisfying and encouraging.
In short, it understands what being a fan is all about and thanks us for it. And I thank the cast and crew of Doctor Who in return.
Further Reading