Have you ever had something grab you that you never expected? Has a story which you enjoyed but thought nothing of come back to your mind again and again until you actually find yourself sat there thinking about nothing but it? I have done this several times with many different novels but never really with a television program. Now I’ve never watched Dr Who, which is in total contrast to my eldest sister who is Queen Whovian, but last Saturday I was pretty bored so I turned onto the Dr Who 50th special called ‘Day of the Doctor.’ I have to admit, what I found shocked me. There was a pretty decent attempt at a story line in a Universe where anything could happen, not to mention there was my not very well concealed secret crush David Tennant š Ā Ā
Ā Nom!!! š
The story began in what I imagine is a standard Dr Who beginning; the Doctor meets up with his companion, in this regeneration cycle it’s Clara Oswald, and they are whisked off to begin their Dr Who adventure. It was an interesting enough beginning but when you’re in love with David Tennants’ Doctor it’s hard to pay attention to anyone else (sorry Matt Smith š ). My attention was finally grabbed however when one point actually made me laugh…
Clara: “Some day you could just walk past a fez.”
Doctor: “Never going to happen…”
The episode then begins to flash between three different moments in the Doctors multiple lives; the present with Clara, his previous incarnation with Queen Elizabeth the First in 1562 England and an unknown Doctor with Rose Tyler (David Tennants’ Companion) on the last day of the Time Lord War. Now there had been a glimpse of this unknown Doctor in another episode and the present Doctor reacted that this was a life he forgot and never wanted to speak of. Immediately you think “whhhyyyyy???” but you are left guessing until it is revealed that the unknown Doctor plans to detonate a weapon to stop the Time Lord/Dalek war by killing and destroying everything on and around Gallifrey (the Time Lord Home World). The episode then throws the Doctors together and we realise that the story is actually about the unknown Doctor, who gets renamed as the War Doctor. It turns out the Rose he is accompanied by is actually the consciousness of ‘The Moment’ the weapon the War Doctor plans to use to destroy Gallifrey. Rose thrusts the War Doctor into the future to see the men he will become if he does decide to use the weapon. As Rose saysĀ “They’re you and what you will become if you destroy Gallifrey. The man who regrets and the man who forgets…”Ā I think this is a very poignant line and is used very well to establish the different Doctors personalities and the effect choices can have on a life, or lives.
The episode continues after the dilemma in the present as both the future Doctor’s travel back to the War Doctors time in order to share the burden of guilt for destroying Gallifrey. They realise that sometimes there is no good option, that sometimes the many must be sacrificed to save the few. It’s not until they’re all together in this time that they realise there is three of them now and that if there could be three then there could be more. So the Doctor calls on all of his past lives to come and help save Gallifrey and store it frozen in a moment of time. Once it disappeared then the Daleks would destroy themselves and the Universe would assume that they destroyed each other. At this point we are treat to an almost nostalgic look at the eleven Doctors that appeared in the series through the use of old footage, though we are led to believe that they have taken moments from their own time lines to come and save Gallifrey. Even the Commander in the Time Lord War Room comments,Ā “I didn’t know when I was well off… All twelve of them.”Ā It’s then that a booming voice rings outĀ “No sir, all thirteen.”Ā This is an excellent touch which I would openly admit had me baffled for a while as I missed this on first viewing. I spent a while trying to comprehend who the thirteenth Doctor was and if they had indeed blanked out another of his previous lives; and then it occurred to me, they had included Peter Capaldi in the Doctor stew complete with his own Tardis. Peter Capaldi is set to be the next Doctor so not only had they included all of the Doctors previous incarnations but his future one as well…
…and so Gallifrey is saved and all the Doctors return to their respective times.
The episode, despite it’s jaunts in time, flows very smoothly and the confusion is kept to a minimum (until someone tries to describe it lol.) I really enjoyed the character development and the various aspects of humour, satire and grief used to portray the very nature of the characters. You can enjoy something that’s very well written in any form and I have to say this episode caught me just as well as any novel, not to mention I liked the little references to previous series’. The language use was well developed and the casting perfect. Even though it didn’t convert me I can understand why these series are so well loved throughout the ages.
I’ve tried not to add in too many spoilers but of course there’s no way to get around the fact that time bends and we have to deal with a whole multitude of Doctors. I believe this is why the episode has haunted me for so long. The idea of time travel fascinates me. What could be done if you could go back and change it? Or indeed go into the future and help out? It’s something I always wanted to add into my own writing but have feared it will turn out stereotypical and almost corny, not to mention confusing; to which I hope I haven’t confused anyone by trying to describe this episode lol š
Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about this. Though I don’t think I’ve been converted to Whovianism I would like to thank the creators for giving me something to think of, maybe perhaps the confidence to include something like this in my own writing, and the chance to stare at David Tennant more lol š