Doctor Who

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

A lot of time has passed since NOTD and DOTD.

Clara is now a teacher (of History?).

Means Clara had to have studied her PGCE (1 year), and a relevent History Degree (if she hadn't already got one).
And has now got a job as a teacher.

Just an observation.

[JayBlanc]

I was a little disappointed that they didnt have Eccleston appear, right at the end, he regenerates and says "I destroyed my people..." or something like that to just solidify that from that point on he had no knowledge of what he had done.

I was a little disappointed that they created a new doctor just for this one off, but I suspect its because they want to deal with the whole 12 regenerations thing now rather than leave it hanging.

They didn't really have any choice in the matter, Christopher Eccleston will not have any further involvement with the franchise full-stop. It's not exactly bitter feeling but wanting to have more creative control over a role if it was going to be 'career defining', and since he couldn't get that he does not want it to be his 'career defining' role. Which would mean that poor McGann would have had to be the Destroy of Worlds. And considering that would be bringing back a Doctor barely seen, there's little reason not to have the War Doctor instead. And if they hadn't, we'd never have had John Hurt's wonderful performance.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Does mean, when the 9th Doctor helped save little Gally, he did it after Rose initially rejects his offer. Then he goes and picks Rose up.

Begs the question now: Is the Time War still time locked?

[Lord Hosk]

Is time locked really a thing? or was it the doctor protecting himself, "I cant change that, its time locked" rather than having to deal with the ramifications personally.

Easier to say "it cant change" rather than "I dont think i should save a billion lives"

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Dalek BLAH broke through the TimeLock and sent insane and had prophetic powers.

(Maybe the moment/wolf intervened as a way to help the Doctor in the future?)

[Master Gunner]

This is clearly also the only reason why Matt smith got 400 years older. Kind of like why in batman 8 years passes to give robin time to grow up.

Didn't he age 200 years or something over the Silence Arc? When they met the Future!Doctor at the beginning of the arc, he was a few centuries older than the Present!Doctor we met afterwards.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Having watched the episode, I can reason both its brilliance and its central flaw: in a single episode Moffatt has basically written an entire series' worth (or possibly several) of uber-significant plot and character development. I guess for a 50th anniversary episode the 'go big or go home' principle does apply, and I personally thought it worked- but it did feel at times like it was simply trying to do too much. It wasn't that it felt hurried so much as... dense, like a heavy sponge pudding eaten with a ladle.

Having said that, its core was pure essence of Doctor, and I really enjoyed watching it.

[AlexanderDitto]

So, does this mean Zygons are going to be co-inhabiting Earth with humans now? Oh wait that plot point never got resolved because it didn't actually matter because we were too busy having a giant boner over Galifrey, which is apparently a land of shooty gun turrets and Daleks exploding (?!?) and people shooting pointless messages into walls. :/

Sometimes it's better to not show things, because they're more terrible in our minds. I think this is one of those cases. I didn't want to see The Time War.

Maybe my initial reaction was a little harsh. But I still don't get why they had to introduce a new Doctor just for this little bit. Eight was the one who was supposed to be in the time war. McGann was clearly willing to be Doctor again, since he did the little six minute lead-in bit. Why didn't they just cast him and have it be 8/10/11?

Maybe my initial reaction was a little harsh too because Nine is like a giant gaping hole in this episode. He needed to be there, and he wasn't, and it sucks because I love Nine.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I think, what the Time War Doctor needed to do, was so unDoctorly, that there needed to be a way to make him regenerate and change personality. Sort of, reincarnate as a Wartime Lord.
-

What I liked about the 50th the most was that it interrupted Atlantis airing.

In the past, Doctor Who had been interrupted mid-series by the Eurovision Song Contest.

This time, Doctor Who did the interrupting.

Poor Atlantis.
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I like to think that Moffat dropping the Zygon plot was a massive "f you" to people who criticised his writing for being too complicated. He writes a story narrative that in plain sight mirrors the themes that are being brought up or are about to. And then he leaves it hanging because he's said what he needs to said.

VICIOUS ULTIMATUM OF BIG SACRIFICE, OR A GREATER ONE.
AFFECTS OF AN AWFUL DECISION ON THE MIND OF SOMEONE.
FROZEN TIME LIKE A PAINTING.
etc..

[Lord Hosk]

So, does this mean Zygons are going to be co-inhabiting Earth with humans now? Oh wait that plot point never got resolved because it didn't actually matter because we were too busy having a giant boner over Galifrey, which is apparently a land of shooty gun turrets and Daleks exploding (?!?) and people shooting pointless messages into walls. :/

Sometimes it's better to not show things, because they're more terrible in our minds. I think this is one of those cases. I didn't want to see The Time War.

Maybe my initial reaction was a little harsh. But I still don't get why they had to introduce a new Doctor just for this little bit. Eight was the one who was supposed to be in the time war. McGann was clearly willing to be Doctor again, since he did the little six minute lead-in bit. Why didn't they just cast him and have it be 8/10/11?

Maybe my initial reaction was a little harsh too because Nine is like a giant gaping hole in this episode. He needed to be there, and he wasn't, and it sucks because I love Nine.

I couldn't agree with this more. Nine is like a giant gaping hole in this episode. He needed to be there, and he wasn't, and it sucks because I love Nine.[/quote]

Maybe the point was to say all war is the same, but this is the last great time war, the final battle of two of the greatest civilizations the universe has ever seen. Two powers which have time travel at their disposal, and it looks like the last stand at the battle of serenity valley. The time Lords have Tardis technology, and not just the doctors tardis, they have more advanced Tardis, with full crews, are you telling me they cant phase in, drop a Uber bomb on a dalek ship then phase out?

They have to fight on the ground, with laser weapons?

Click to Expand

Lastly, yeah, they had the 8th doctor, who could easily have played the role, just take his doctor to a dark place which he clearly has the ability to do. I dont want to diminish the performance of the new 9 but it seems unnecessary.

[Robo4900]

(Alright, no longer using spoiler tags. )
Actually, the reason Eccleston didn't appear was because he refused to appear. Yes, he refused to appear, even for the 5-second part with all the Doctors, even for the fans, he wouldn't appear. :L
He was a very good Doctor, but I'm beginning to question whether Eccleston is a very nice guy(I have heard rumours that a lot of the crew didn't like him).

[Fezzul]

I have met the guy. He's not nasty, but he is a little intense, and he has very strong opinions on what should and shouldn't be with regards to acting and so on.

I was expecting him to be a bit nasty when I met him, but he was surprisingly forthcoming and gentle.

Granted, I was only in his presence for half and hour or so, but he never came across as being a dick, just as someone who really cared about what he does, and doing it well.

[AlexanderDitto]

(Alright, no longer using spoiler tags. )
Actually, the reason Eccleston didn't appear was because he refused to appear. Yes, he refused to appear, even for the 5-second part with all the Doctors, even for the fans, he wouldn't appear. :L
He was a very good Doctor, but I'm beginning to question whether Eccleston is a very nice guy(I have heard rumours that a lot of the crew didn't like him).

I know he refused to appear, and it sucks, but that's his perogative. It still impacts the way the episode was written; the episode was supposed to be about all the emotion and anguish that the Doctor experienced due to the Time War, and most of that was concentrated around 9 and 10, not 10 and 11. 9's whole reason d'etre was to be an anguished Doctor who was running from the horrors of the Time War. If they're going to write an episode that's focused on completely revamping that narrative, not including Nine makes it feel a bit like there's an elephant in the room the whole time.

Eccleston's reasons for not wanting to work with them anymore have become pretty well known in the past few years. He didn't get along with senior management, and did not like the way the senior people (directors and the like) treated the "lower down" people (the prop people, etc). He lays it out pretty clearly.

I'd say the people who aren't very nice guys are the show runners, not Eccleston, at least if what he says are remotely true. Eccleston seems like a very frank person, so I'd venture to guess he was (in that instance) telling at least mostly the truth, or what he perceives to be the truth.

I'm also not super excited about going on a "quest to find Galifrey," mostly because I find Galifrey and the Time Lords in the old series to be kind of boring. It just ends up that The Doctor has to fight beaurecratic nonsense which, while a scary monster, isn't all that interesting.


ADDENDUM: http://dead-girl.tumblr.com/post/68119566669/sardonicus69-so-lets-get-some-things

[PlasmaCow]

I re-watched it last night and still enjoyed it thoroughly.

Rather than spoiler tags, I've put further thoughts in a collapse tag.

Click to Expand

I agree that a lot of the power of "The Last Great Time War" was that we had nothing more than names and vague descriptions: The Fall of Arcadia; Davros' ship being swallowed by the jaws of the Nightmare Child; Skaro Degredations; The Could-Have-Been King; etc.
But it was clearly necessary to depict a small part of it for this story to have worked.
And if you re-frame things such that Ecclestone & Tennant lived believing they had destroyed it all because they had no choice, they are bound to focus on the greatest evils as justifications. Whereas in Day Of The Doctor the focus is instead on all the innocents, the common-man of Gallifray that he'd chosen to destroy, so we're shown their more intimate street-level struggles.

I agree though the very ending scene on the cloud didn't really make any sense, but was obviously just a chance to do a line-up, didn't like that they positioned Hartnell behind/above them though, looked very odd.

This scene still annoys me, now though because it doesn't fit either the story or follow it's own logic (camera angle following Smith out of tardis, cut to other angle and his tardis is gone, replaced by Hartnell standing there).

Plus we've also known - at least since Tennants 2-part finale - that the Time War had been time-locked by the Doctor rather than straight up destroyed.
Also Day of the Doctor, by my reckoning happens just before that 2-parter in his chronology, so it would make sense that he knew that at that point, but not before.

My bad, I missed Tennants line where he says he won't remember the events either.


As another note, we've gone from a situation where a mournful Doctor was literally the only time lord left without even any chance of the master reappearing, to one where we have a hope-filled Doctor and a chance for whole new time lord characters to make their names known.

ADDENDUM: nice addendum, it's a shame people are hating on him, but I think the story in the form we saw works better without Ecclestone's presence (obviously the story would've been slightly different if he'd been on board).

[empath]

This is clearly also the only reason why Matt smith got 400 years older. Kind of like why in batman 8 years passes to give robin time to grow up.

Didn't he age 200 years or something over the Silence Arc? When they met the Future!Doctor at the beginning of the arc, he was a few centuries older than the Present!Doctor we met afterwards.

I've just finished watching that 'the Doctor dies at Lake Silencio' arc; it's possible that he dithered around and procrastinated for a couple of centuries before sending out the invitations...

...or we could look at Rule #1, which got revamped during this very arc.

[Lyinginbedmon]

I think there's a significant few scenes where he basically admits to wandering around trying to avoid it, right up until he hears about the Brigadier.

[AlexanderDitto]

I still don't get why there'd be any street fighting on Galifrey. You are talking about a race of technologically advanced space-faring time travelers fighting a race of flying super-mecha-nazis. WHY WOULD THERE BE SOLDIERS ON THE GROUND CARRYING GUNS?! Also why are there people running around screaming on the last day of the biggest war the universe has ever seen? Like, what, the Daleks just SUDDENLY decided to attack the second largest city on the planet, on the last day of the war? And the best a race of time-travelers can do is run around the streets screaming? Surely they could just hop into their TARDIS-toilet, travel back into the past, and tell themselves not to go to soccer practice that day.

It's just degenerate silliness wrapped up in super serious trappings. Which is the problem. Doctor Who episodes are always supposed to be a little silly. People rolling around in quarries and dragging themselves through back alleys in London or crawling through department store basements. When it was just "The Fall of Arcadia," that's evocative. The magic happens in our heads, where the words come together with our imaginations. When you go and start taking yourself seriously, putting big battles like that on screen, it deflates it. It starts me asking these dumb sort of questions.

Also the Time Lord war room was so boring.... Go back to last season's final episode and look at the interior of the TARDIS. Now compare that to the war room, which was basically a table with some floaty lights on it and a bunch of people shuffling around doing... what, exactly? Not much.

I'd much rather, if they want more Time Lords, that they figure out a way to wiggle The Corsair or The Rani or The Monk or Romana out of the Time Lock (why didn't Romana have a code name? She should have had a code name) or even heaven forbid figure out a way to bring back The Master, rather than bringing back all of Galifrey and negating the dire effects of the Last Great Time War.

[Lyinginbedmon]

They'd lost every single battle TARDIS by the end of the war, it stands to reason their time-travel capabilities were pretty much gone by then. And the Daleks themselves are nothing if not thorough.

[Lord Hosk]

I have to agree with Alexander,this is the biggest baddest war EVER in a universe that has endured for 50 years, and it didnt even look as cool as the battle of serenity valley in a establishing shot on a TV show that ran for 14 episodes.

The war room, the center of the entire Time Lord effort, was overshadowed by the main console in engineering in on the Enterprise D.

And stranger to me, at the end, The doctor shows up, love him or hate him, every gallifreyan has got to acknowledge that he is powerful, further he has a tardis, If things are that dire and all other time travel devices are destroyed. "Doctor we have had our differences, but the science ministry is here, the children are here, get as many out as you can, Time lord society must not end here, spread us to the stars. "this is general whats his face to all gallifreyans, the doctor has arrived you must defend his tardis at all costs"

I mean this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbBRrK9Q-rw

[guidance]

So kind of new to Doctor Who. I've only been watching since this past summer, so I don't fully understand or know a lot of things, and there is something I just want cleared up.

Since Gallifrey is frozen in time in a pocket dimension or something. Is that where The Master gets it from, and where it is sent back in Tennant's two part finale?

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I got the impression that the Gallifrey from The End of Time was during before the last day.

It happens between the destruction and when the Doctor nicks the moment.
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My only gripe is how sinister the head Time Lord got in the last days. What's going to happen with him?

[PlasmaCow]

I got the impression that the Gallifrey from The End of Time was during before the last day.

It happens between the destruction and when the Doctor nicks the moment.

In the opening line in the first War council scene, where one of them says the High Council are formulating a plan, "To hell with the high council they've already failed us."
I got the impression from End of Time that it was pulling Gallifray from at the moment of the time-lock - i.e. they knew the Doctor was responsible for their containment.

My only gripe is how sinister the head Time Lord got in the last days. What's going to happen with him?

You mean Rassilon, Lord President - although most of the high council & parliament backed his plan.
That's most of the reason why the Doctor believes he has to destroy both sides - because, as Cass says in Night of the Doctor, "Who can tell the difference any more?".

[Lord Hosk]

I think the time lock was put in place just before the destruction of the planet, so they would be unaware that the planet wasnt destroyed, they exist in a pocket of time between when the big red button appears and when the big red button is pushed. I doubt the high council would stay in the timelock if they knew that gallifrae has been saved. It should be interesting to see how the two societies get reintergrated or if they do. The Doctor knows the council is trapped in time, but the people may not, they may assume the time lord council was killed and only they were saved. Some timelords may not have been inside the lock, or they might all have been.

One other thing to note is that Gallifrae at the time of the time war had TWO species. Galifraians and Time Lords, Time Lords are a "evolution" of gallefrian. At first time lords were simply a wise ruling class like the doctor, but by the time of the time war, they were somewhat evil overlords. Some strait up evil.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

A convincing argument I've read that explains the Doctor saying he's "running back to home" is that:

At the beginning he felt out of place on Gallifrey. I yearned to see the world.
He wasn't fond of it (even if it was home) in till the Time War.

Then Gallifrey got destroyed/lost/saved.

The Doctor has then spent 400 years "getting over" losing it.
He might not have originally liked the Timelords, but after 400 years he probably might miss home.

Especially since the Ponds have gone bye bye. He has no 'home' anymore. He had home, and he lost it. And now he wants a proper home back.

Home is home.

Summery of the theory: He has always been looking for home. He didn't consider Gallifrey home originally, so he left. He had it briefly with the Ponds. The loss of Gallifrey and the Ponds caused him to realise where home really was. Gallifrey is lost somewhere, he is now looking for it.

[Digital Dolphin]

I think I just figured out the whole Time Lock thing with regard to the 50th special and the Whoniverse in general.

In a nutshell, I don't think The Doctor was the one who time locked the time war. In fact, I think that time locking a war might designate it as a time war. It's the only way to keep one or more time travel capable races even remotely controlled during an all-out battle.

What do people think?