The Doctor Who thread

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I was not aware of this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03lv3mj

A star studded special written and directed by Peter Davison. With the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who about to film, the 'Classic' Doctors are keen to be involved. But do they manage it?

[dc20willsave]

For the record, if anyone is interested in watching the 50th together in chat tomorrow, I will probably be there.

[Stavros]

I'd join you if I could escape the cinema-beating.

[Venneh]

If I can find somewhere to watch it, I'll be there.

[greenelou]

Just watched An Adventure in Space and Time, completely awesome and had me tearing up by the end!

[Delete]

The Fiveish Doctors is fucking hilarious

[damndirtyape]

I was amazed at the amount of cameos they got in it.

[Dan]

What a day. Wow.

"The Day of the Doctor" was terrific.I was actually unsure a multi-Doctor story could ever be more than just fun fanwank, but there was an actual story here.

An Adventure in Space and Time was just lovely. Beautiful work.

"The Five(ish)Doctors Reboot" was tremendous fun. It wasn't really laugh-out-loud funny, but it had its moments and I was smiling the whole time.

[Stavros]

This really was stuffed with extras. Random thoughts-

-Clara has either been to the Black Archive before and had her memory wiped or will go there in her future but everyone else's past.

-At some point the doctor revisits his old faces and retires to manage the archive. So it's not that 4 retired (as mentioned in the thread), it's that in the future he may become that face again. Implying that there may be more up with his regenerations than anyone suspected.

-It also implies that the future 4th Doctor-faced Curator was the guy who put the fez there, because why else would one be in there? I also suspect The Curator of causing the time-tunnels that lead to the whole adventure, since one opens directly in his gallery.

-All 13 Doctors! Meaning Gallifrey has knowledge of the 13th already. Which is obviously not unreasonable to assume.

-Looks like the Valeyard is out, since Capaldi will be the 13th Doctor. But he was only a potential thing anyway.

Still seems strange to me that The first doctor lived 400 years (stealing the Tardis at 200), the combined next eight get 400 years between them, 9 and 10 get another 100 to take the overall age to 900. Then 11 gets another 300 years all to himself. Whilst we know he plays fast and loose with his age, the proportion of his life spent in his first and most recent incarnations takes up the majority of his entire life.

Just a quick word on Tennant. He was never my favourite doctor, although I did like him I often found his mannerisms annoying, and I don't think he lasted as well as Smith has in the role. However I was so happy with how good he was in this, it may be among my favourite if not my favourite performance of his. Tennant and Smith were a brilliant duo and John Hurt was excellent in taking them down a peg.

[Davedevil]

From Moffat

"I’ve been really, really quite careful about the numbering of the Doctors. He’s very specific, the John Hurt Doctor, that he doesn’t take the name of the Doctor. He doesn’t call himself that. He’s the same Time Lord, the same being as the Doctors either side of him, but he’s the one who says, ‘I’m not the Doctor.’ So the Eleventh Doctor is still the Eleventh Doctor, the Tenth Doctor is still the Tenth…Technically, if you really counted it, the David Tennant Doctor is two Doctors, on account of the Meta-Crisis Doctor [in Journey's End]… It’s not a matter of counting the regenerations, but of counting the faces of the Time Lord that calls himself the Doctor. There’s an anomaly Doctor slotted in somewhere, that’s all. In the script to The Day of the Doctor, Matt’s Doctor was called the Eleventh, and David’s was called the Tenth, so the numbering stays exactly the same – and we call Peter Capaldi the Twelfth Doctor."

[Missy]

Are Kate and the Zygons still trapped in the Tower of London?

[damndirtyape]

From Moffat

"I’ve been really, really quite careful about the numbering of the Doctors. He’s very specific, the John Hurt Doctor, that he doesn’t take the name of the Doctor. He doesn’t call himself that. He’s the same Time Lord, the same being as the Doctors either side of him, but he’s the one who says, ‘I’m not the Doctor.’ So the Eleventh Doctor is still the Eleventh Doctor, the Tenth Doctor is still the Tenth…Technically, if you really counted it, the David Tennant Doctor is two Doctors, on account of the Meta-Crisis Doctor [in Journey's End]… It’s not a matter of counting the regenerations, but of counting the faces of the Time Lord that calls himself the Doctor. There’s an anomaly Doctor slotted in somewhere, that’s all. In the script to The Day of the Doctor, Matt’s Doctor was called the Eleventh, and David’s was called the Tenth, so the numbering stays exactly the same – and we call Peter Capaldi the Twelfth Doctor."

It seems weird that he is taking that stance on the numbering since he or his successor will have to address the whole issue of how many times he can regenerate and he did actually regenerate from 8 into Hurt and then from Hurt into what looked like 9. I think they digitally added 9's face in there just for a second. Or was I imagining it.

Plus that Time lord did say ALL 13 are here not 13 of THEM are here.

[damndirtyape]

What a day. Wow.

"The Day of the Doctor" was terrific.I was actually unsure a multi-Doctor story could ever be more than just fun fanwank, but there was an actual story here.

An Adventure in Space and Time was just lovely. Beautiful work.

"The Five(ish)Doctors Reboot" was tremendous fun. It wasn't really laugh-out-loud funny, but it had its moments and I was smiling the whole time.

I couldn't agree more.

[dc20willsave]

Are Kate and the Zygons still trapped in the Tower of London?

Yeah, that was the one problem I had with the episode. We have another case of what should be a historical summit between humanity and an alien race and they just kinda drop it. I know that that's technically not the focus of the story but still, a little attempt at recognition of a dropped plotline would have been nice.

[damndirtyape]

Are Kate and the Zygons still trapped in the Tower of London?

Yeah, that was the one problem I had with the episode. We have another case of what should be a historical summit between humanity and an alien race and they just kinda drop it. I know that that's technically not the focus of the story but still, a little attempt at recognition of a dropped plotline would have been nice.

I thought there was a line were 11 said for the next few hours none of you will remember who is Zygon and who is Human just to get them over the destruction of Earth bit. Once the truce was negotiated and a few hours had passed, they would realise who was who and go there separate ways in which ever way they had decided.

[Delete]

The stuff with the Zygons had already served its narrative purpose of showing John Hurt's Doctor that what comes after the time war is good for the Universe. Hence the great men forged by fire thing. So there was no need to show whatever deal UNIT and the Zygons hammered out because that was never the point of the storyline.

[KnightWing]

Yeah, it was pretty heavily implied that that whole conflict ended peacefully.

[Kenny Evil]

Yeah, the whole point of the negotiation was that, since they didn't know which side they were on and therefore what side of the compromise they'd have to live with, they'd come up with something that was truly fair to both the humans and the zygons.

[Kathryn Slater]

I love how that now means we've got Zygons woundering around earth, we can have fun with that in the future.

Also I know how Moffat has said that Capaldi is going to be 12, but I think it would be really nice for him to accept the number 13, because the Doctor at that point knows that Hurt's Doctor really was the Doctor. But I'm also aware that would screw with many peoples minds, going from 11 to 13 in with no sense of a 12.

Plus if anyone wants to confirm that they understand the story they should have to explain it to a 10 and a 15 year old... the amount of questions is endless but I am certain that I understood what was going on. It was brilliant and a proper episode and not just fanservice.

[damndirtyape]

What does everyone think about the xmas episode teaser?

Does it seem like they are going to address the silence will fall thing?

Why would he go back to Trenzalore after seeing what he's seen?

[jakob1978]

What does everyone think about the xmas episode teaser?

Does it seem like they are going to address the silence will fall thing?

Why would he go back to Trenzalore after seeing what he's seen?

The impression I got was that it was a surprise to the doctor that the planet he was in was called Trenzelore, so he didn't go there on purpose.

[KnightWing]

I'm about to watch The Name of the Doctor, The Night of the Doctor, and The Day of the Doctor back to back and see how they work together. Comments to come in 2.5-ish hours.

[Kenny Evil]

Still seems strange to me that The first doctor lived 400 years (stealing the Tardis at 200), the combined next eight get 400 years between them, 9 and 10 get another 100 to take the overall age to 900. Then 11 gets another 300 years all to himself. Whilst we know he plays fast and loose with his age, the proportion of his life spent in his first and most recent incarnations takes up the majority of his entire life.

I've been thinking about this and I think the only way to reconcile his age is that the War Doctor genuinely lost track of his age or at least stopped counting. He's only the second incarnation of the Doctor to have their regeneration triggered by old age, and, when Eight regenerated in Night of the Doctor, the War Doctor looked much younger than he did at the end of the Time War. Partly it might be that fighting in the Time War is more wearing than his normal travels, but I think that it's mostly that he wasn't planning on surviving and that he didn't count himself as The Doctor so he stopped trying to count how old he was which is how he came to 800. While I'd accept that 5 and 6 didn't get long lives, 4, 7 and 8 seemed to have extended periods where they travelled alone and would have racked up the years.

Also people seem to be genuinely confused about whether or not "The End of Time" counts and I thought it was clear that it did. As far as I could tell the events, from a Gallifrey perspective, went like this:

- Rassilon and the High Council make plans to use "The Ultimate Sanction". The War Doctor gets wind of these plans

- The Daleks throw the biggest possible assault they can on Gallifrey.

- The Doctor goes to Arcadia to raid the Omega Vault of the one weapon that the Time Lords dare not use, "The Moment"

- Rassilon and the High Council find out about the War Doctor's plan to use The Moment and realise that the events of the War will be timelocked. They work to put a gap in the Timelock by implanting a small code in The Master, which will terrify him so much that he will hide at the end of the universe. Once he's cloned himself a few billion times, the gap in the timelock is wide enough to send through the Whitepoint Star to act as a more stable bridge. Once they have that, they reverse the Master's cloning process to stop him using them as an army against them. The events carry on as seen in the episode with 10 unaware that he's already helped to save Gallifrey.

- Meanwhile the high command is overseeing the faltering defence of Gallifrey, unaware of Rassilon's plans. The Doctors get in contact and let them know about the plan to send Gallfrey into the pocket dimension, which succeeds. Gallifrey appears to have been destroyed along with the Daleks and the Moment timelocks the events of the Time War. The War Doctor and Ten lose their memory of the events which leaves Nine believing that he had destroyed Gallifrey.

[Missy]

That's exactly how I see the timeline, too.

[Dan]

The General even said something along the lines of "The High Council is doing their thing and it's already failed". They seem like they're happening simultaneously.