Day of the Doctor thread SPOILERS!

[ForumSafari]

Also remember that with the Daleks decimated (with the remnants being fought during 9,10 and 11's run) and Gallifrey brought back into the fold, the Timelords don't need to destroy the universe anymore.

I don't know, the way they were acting and the fact that not only did they plan to destroy the universe but followed through on it isn't just something you can put back in the box when you don't need it any more.

OT: I saw it, I wasn't impressed on the whole. I hated anything that had to do with the Time War, they killed the concept dead. Nothing looked particularly Time Lordy, they really scaled the time war down and the way they defeated the daleks was just stupid. The idea that the Time Lord children's blood was on his hands is defeated by the fact that he previously time locked Gallifrey so the entire Moment thing is just weird.

Having said that, cut it at the point where they nab Gallifrey and change the paintings to other scenes and it would have made a spectacular two parter to end a season on, the Zygons were absolutely brilliant and the acting was great.

Random gripe: If you don't hold your breath after using an inhaler it's damn near pointless.

 

[The_Darkness]

On a completely different topic, which I'm surprised not to have been brought up yet:

Osgood. The girl with the inhaler and Tom Baker's scarf. Her sideplot left me VERY confused.
There are 4 important scenes here:

Scene 1: When a Zygon shapeshifts to look like Osgood, it also takes the inhaler (seemingly something which can't be duplicated) then Osgood trips the Zygon up using her scarf, retrieves her inhaler and escapes using the lift, while the other Osgood (hereby referred to as Osgood-Z, since this should be the Zygon) is lying unconscious on the floor.

Scene 2: Osgood arrives at the Black Archive with McGilop-Z at the same time that Kate-Z is revealing herself to be a Zygon to Clara. During this scene, Osgood, for all intents and purposes, acts like she's a Zygon. Okay, I figured, she's acting undercover. Good for her. Clara escapes, scene ends.

Scene 3: Osgood-Z wakes up... And immediately starts acting as if she is Osgood, freeing Kate and telling her about the Zygon plans. But, if Osgood-Z really is a Zygon in this scene, she has NO reason to free Kate. So did I get confused in Scene 1, and it was actually Osgood who got knocked out and Osgood-Z that escaped? (This would imply Osgood-Z was the person in Scene 2, which would make slightly more sense.)

Scene 4: During the peace talks, the two Osgoods are chatting. One of them has an asthma attack, the other reveals that she still has the inhaler. This would imply that inhaler-Osgood is the one that escaped with the inhaler back in Scene 1. So... Is inhaler-Osgood actually Osgood, and the asthma-Osgood is therefore Osgood-Z? Can Osgood-Z even have an asthma attack since she's not the real Osgood?
Now I'm really confused.

I feel as if the Osgood plot was heading towards some sort of twist regarding identities, which never got played out, or ended up on the cutting floor. In any case, it left me needlessly confused about something that was little more than a sideshow to the main plot.
So did I miss something, or should I assume that the writers themselves got confused about which Osgood was which?

 

[Albino Boo]

Yeah, I'm going to stop you right there and assume that you're trying to tell US that classic Doctor Who didn't follow any of it's own lore because someone somewhere said it didn't. Unless you can site me events of ignored Lore outside of Moffat's run you will be henceforth known as "Albino the Parrot".

"Doctor Who never followed lore! Doctor Who never followed lore!"
Why do you say that, Albino?
"It was written in a blog!"

---

Obviously I'm assuming here... maybe you've been watching the classics since you were a kid and maybe you're not jumping on a bandwagon that appeared shortly after a crack in the universe erased four previous seasons. I doubt it, but maybe...

Ever seen that regeneration of Tom Baker into Peter Davison? How about Timelords not having any powers over appearance but when Mary Tamm left and she regenerated into Lalla Ward, the character tried out several bodies before settling on Lalla Ward. Never happend before and has never happened since. Its called having the advantage of watching those episodes when the first broadcast.

 

[Albino Boo]

I don't expect it to be the same all the time, what I want though is writing that doesn't only accomodate to new viewers, and writing that isn't just Sherlock v0.5.

I don't want them to go 100% true to the lore because that happens with comic books, and those are often a mess because of continuity.

But for God's sake just a tiny bit is enough, because the Time Lords turned evil and it was this huge thing not too long ago.

Especially the Anniversary episode, which was supposed to celebrate all of Doctor Who, not just Moffat's version of it: it was supposed to be a love letter to fans, and in some aspects it was, but in others it really wasn't.

Why not? Jonathan Nathan Turner, just did his version for the 20th anniversary episode. Each show runner does things his own way and thats that. They have always made things up as they go along. The first 2 Drs didn't regenerate they rejuvenated. It wasn't until the 4th - 5th Drs that the word regenerated was used and then with the 5th-6th the Dr was followed around by his future regeneration dressed as something that looked vaguely like a mummy for the entire story line. How about Timelords not having any powers over appearance? When Mary Tamm left and she regenerated into Lalla Ward, the character tried out several bodies before settling on Lalla Ward. Never happend before and has never happened since. They just make up stuff for dramatic effect and ignore it when it suits.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Overall, I rather enjoyed Day of the Doctor.
It's a show designed to produce a grand fangasm and in that, it definitely delivers.
It was very well acted and the dialog was well written.

(though I have issues with some of the contrivances taken, after enduring Russel T. Davies and Moffat's quasi-wonky writing, I'm actually quite used to it. Except for the especially egregious episodes....like The End of Time)

EDIT: And since this kinda came up...

Spoiler: About the Time War...SPOILERS

This wasn't a bad idea, but how Russel T Davies handled it (especially in The End of Time) just...hurt my brain. It makes sense that beings (let alone entire planets) who are able to fuck with the space time continuum haven't leveraged that into a position of dominance over the rest of the universe.

Given sufficient time, there's bound to be at least one power hungry fuckhead who wants to ruin everything for everyone else.

But I really don't like how it was handled:
Namely, all of this other shit involving "Fixed Points in Time".
Which apparently are only fixed when the writer wants them to be.

Of course, they only did that because they needed to somehow shoe in a way that Gallifrey, lead by fucking RASSILON (someone who was once portrayed as being infinitely more powerful and intelligent than The Doctor) couldn't prevent the destruction caused by the Time War, while the Doctor could.

Some may take issue with how this basically undoes the effective time lock preventing all that evil mean shit from the Time War from destroying the universe, but I think the writers got way too carried away with that. I mean, apart from the Daleks, we only ever get allusions to what other nasty things exist.

It's not like this is a big deal in the end; if the writers are so inclined to break their own rules by writing in weird ass exceptions when it suits them, they can dismiss those other "unspeakable horrors" from the Time War just as easily.

The thing that remains on my mind: What of The Master? In the End of Time, we last saw him ATTACKING RASSILON using his own life force. It was a desperate suicide attack, no questions asked. And even if he did somehow survive, it ended with him being thrown onto Gallifrey during the Time War. A doomed position.

Charming as The Master is, I seriously doubt he could talk Rassilon into not killing him, let alone saving his worthless hide.

But now that Gallifrey is preserved, spared from annihilation in the Time War and with the fixed point in time undone. Who is in charge, and is The Master alive? Just because of the character's popularity (despite being a mugging shithead. Seriously, I hate Simms' portrayal of The Master, though that could easily be attrbuted to Russel T Davies)

Or maybe I shouldn't read too far into it, considering a cult brought The Master back in The End of Time using FUCKING MAGIC.

 

[Objectable]

You know, it could have been worse. A lot worse.
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[Gizmo1990]

How is it that the Doctor could spend his whole life, since his first life, doing the maths to time freeze Galifray before the war even began?

I don't know if anyone else has responded to this, so i'll give it a shot.

I imagine they used the same trick as they did when they were in the Tower. They went back and spoke to Hartnell's Doctor, and started the calculations in his TARDIS, and just like with the Screwdrivers, immediately Smith's TARDIS has the completed math solution to hide the planet due to it running for... i don't know, a millenium? i'm not sure how old Hartnell's Doctor was supposed to be.

Thats as good a theory as I have seen so far. Of cause it bring up more problems than it solves. If they went back and talked to the first Doctor then why did they not also go back and tell the Time Lords what is going to happen? I am guessing alot of Time Lords died before the day they saved Galifray.

 

[Jace1709]

How is it that the Doctor could spend his whole life, since his first life, doing the maths to time freeze Galifray before the war even began?

I don't know if anyone else has responded to this, so i'll give it a shot.

I imagine they used the same trick as they did when they were in the Tower. They went back and spoke to Hartnell's Doctor, and started the calculations in his TARDIS, and just like with the Screwdrivers, immediately Smith's TARDIS has the completed math solution to hide the planet due to it running for... i don't know, a millenium? i'm not sure how old Hartnell's Doctor was supposed to be.

Thats as good a theory as I have seen so far. Of cause it bring up more problems than it solves. If they went back and talked to the first Doctor then why did they not also go back and tell the Time Lords what is going to happen? I am guessing alot of Time Lords died before the day they saved Galifray.

I think that would cause too widespread a change, remember, all they did was save Gallifrey at roughly the same point that it would have burned. Everyone still thinks the Time Lords and the Daleks wiped each other out, no one knows Gallifrey is still waiting to be... revived i guess. If they had warned the Time Lords that would be changing maybe millions or billions of years of Universal History.

 

[Tanis]

@Gizmo1990:
Remember when the 11th Doctor was 'killed' by River, but then it turned out he faked his own death?

Same idea.

The fall of Gallifrey MUST happen, it's time locked.
BUT, The Doctor found a way to 'cheat' by making it LOOK like Gallifrey was destroyed, thus persevering history.

 

[Generalissimo]

@Gizmo1990:
Remember when the 11th Doctor was 'killed' by River, but then it turned out he faked his own death?

Same idea.

The fall of Gallifrey MUST happen, it's time locked.
BUT, The Doctor found a way to 'cheat' by making it LOOK like Gallifrey was destroyed, thus persevering history.

i love it when time it cheated

but we all know what happens when fixed points are stopped...things get screwy. urgh. but i think it's a bit odd that gallifrey getting shunted into a pocket dimension (i think that's what happened) looks the same as it getting glassed.

 

[smartalec]

Glad that Gallifrey is still in one piece. All that angst had poisoned the show.

 

[McFazzer]

I'm no expert, but could it be that Gallifrey was ALWAYS saved? Everyone (including the Doctor due to the timeline doing some such thingamajig) just believed it was? Self fulfilling paradox or something?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

This wouldn't be the first time The Doctor has re-written a fixed point. I recall Tennant's Doctor saying; The rules of Time are mine, and they will obey me!

Apparently re-writing them is o.k, provided you do it in a way that doesn't blow up the Universe.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

That single, powerful shot of Capaldi steering the TARDIS. Oh...My...Fucking...GOD. Without a doubt the best and most intense teaser I've ever seen.

But there's one question that I ask every time they do something like this. What the hell happened to the Time Gargoyles in Series 1? Are they not canon or relevant anymore?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Time Gargoyles

Fixed points were constantly being created and destroyed, maybe they never had the chance to appear. Maybe The Moment was able to hold them back.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Time Gargoyles

Fixed points were constantly being created and destroyed, maybe they never had the chance to appear. Maybe The Moment was able to hold them back.

Fair enough, but haven't they done similar things before and still not been attacked by the Gargoyles?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

So with Tennant and Smith needing to forget John Hurt's actions, does that explain why Matt Smith was so angry to see John Hurt at the end of The Name of the Doctor?

Overall, I really enjoyed the episode. I don't get too strung up on regenerations or continuity, since trying to sort those out would be a headache. I mean, you can either regenerate from nearly dying, from getting your hand cut off, getting your regenerations from your future wife, or drinking a witches potion. And with Galifrey now existing again, the doctor might as well just get all his regenerations from them making him immortal or something.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Fair enough, but haven't they done similar things before and still not been attacked by the Gargoyles?

Perhaps the severity is taken in to account. Rose saved her father and they appeared. River saved the Doctor and blew up the Universe.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Overall, I really enjoyed the hell out of it.

Loved the chemistry. John Hurt was incredibly. Squeed like a tiny pre-pubescent girl at least a dozen times. FUCKING CAPALDI. FUCKING TOM BAKER. Cried ***** tears at Tennant's farewell. Laughed my ass off at "It's his grunge phase. He grows out of it" along with most of the other dialog.

I did have a few issues. The Zygons felt like an afterthought and weren't really resolved. The whole alternate plan to not use The Moment was utterly idiotic.

For one, even assuming the Dalek fleet DOES destroy every one of its ships by some miracle, there's still planets and planets FULL of Daleks that get to rampage around the universe.

In addition, Tennant mentioned a whole slew of horrors in The End of Time. I can't remember the specifics, but he had a list of terrible things that were going to come through along with Galifrey. If those weren't destroyed by The Moment, they should be destroying the universe.

Also screw Christopher Eccleston for being so whiny that he wouldn't even do a cameo.

Other than that, I enjoyed the hell out of it.

On a completed unrelated note, I've been thinking about the numbering of the Doctors and I have a question for more knowledgable fans: In the episode where the Daleks steal Earth, Tennant gets shot by a Dalek and regenerates, but does the thing with the hand and doesn't change his face. Still, he absolutely used a regeneration. So doesn't that mean Tennant, who factoring in Hurt is actually 11, is also 12, Smith is 13 and Capaldi will be 14?

 

[Corven]

On a completed unrelated note, I've been thinking about the numbering of the Doctors and I have a question for more knowledgable fans: In the episode where the Daleks steal Earth, Tennant gets shot by a Dalek and regenerates, but does the thing with the hand and doesn't change his face. Still, he absolutely used a regeneration. So doesn't that mean Tennant, who factoring in Hurt is actually 11, is also 12, Smith is 13 and Capaldi will be 14?

I think it boiled down to since the hand was cut off while the doctor was stabilizing from recently regenerating, it still had some residual regeneration energy locked up inside it, so he was able to use it to heal himself rather than regenerate.