Starring:
Matt Smith, David Tennant, John Hurt, Jenna Coleman, Billie Piper, Joanna Page,
Jemma Redgrave
Written
by: Steven Moffat
Directed
by: Nick Hurran
Zygons have invaded 16th
century England; something terrible is happening underneath the National
Gallery; and in a far-away time and place, a very old man is about to make a
choice that might change the universe forever. The Day of the Doctor has
arrived.
By this stage, I’m going to assume that anyone with any
interest in the matter has seen the special at least once…but nonetheless:
Still here? Excellent!
It took a while for the celebrations to really get going – I
still say that the BBC missed an obvious trick by not broadcasting classic
episodes throughout the year, which would have been simplicity itself – but
we’ve had a veritable embarrassment of riches throughout November. The clip
shows and the like have been fun if…well, typically clip show, but the Beeb has
surpassed itself in the last few weeks. Mark Gatiss’ drama, ‘An Adventure in
Space and Time’ was a glorious, heartfelt and moving tribute to the pioneers
who created the show, while the online short ‘Night of the Doctor’ was a
wonderful surprise, bringing Paul McGann back to film his regeneration, and is
sure to have won him a whole host of new fans. Perhaps taking pole position for
best of the side projects was Peter Davison’s ‘The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot’,
the epic tale of three former Doctors – Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and
Davison himself – doing everything they can to get involved with the 50th
special. But of course, the jewel in the crown was always going to be the
anniversary special itself.
It’s something of an understatement to say that there was a
certain amount of expectation for ‘The Day of the Doctor’. Fifty years worth of
expectation, in fact. Would it honour the history? Ignore it completely in
favour of a dramatic story? How many Doctors would there be? Would it answer
all the questions Moffat has raised over his time at the helm? Well..yes, no,
not as many as you might have hoped, but more than you might have expected, and
no. Of course not. We’ll probably never get all the answers to Moffat’s plots –
he didn’t even fully resolve the cliffhanger from the last episode, for
heaven’s sake. And perhaps he made a rod for his own back with the last series
of episodes, which were distinctly hit and miss.
It’s ok. Whovians the world over have been reminded that
actually, Moffat is a bloody good writer. And just as important, he knows his
stuff when it comes to ‘Doctor Who’.
First things first. The main question. John Hurt – Who he?
Speculation has been rampant since his appearance at the end of ‘The Name of
the Doctor’, although answers seemed to be suggested from the ‘Night of the
Doctor’, proving him to be a regeneration after Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor,
and therefore the Doctor involved in the Time War that has so dominated the
show’s history since its return in 2005. Given his billing as the War Doctor,
for all the build up as the person who did something so horrific that
subsequent incarnations of the Doctor have refused to even acknowledge his
existence, never mind that he could be a Doctor, you might be forgiven for
expecting a character something like the Timelord equivalent of Bruce Willis
than the weary old man we see. True, utilising the TARDIS as a battering ram is
a rather more aggressive action than we’ve seen in recent years, it takes a
while for his teeth to show. It isn’t a criticism of Hurt, who is as good as he
always is – it isn’t necessarily a criticism at all, merely an observation that
expectation is not always met, particularly by Steven Moffat. It should also be
mentioned that there is perhaps a fundamental flaw in positioning Hurt’s Doctor
as the one who committed unspeakable acts, given that Smith’s gloriously
be-fezzed and wacky Doctor has at least three on-screen acts of genocide to his
name. And of course, the Doctor – whether portrayed by Christopher Ecclestone,
David Tennant, or Smith – has not been shy about reminding people, largely his
enemies, that he ended the Time War. See one of the more famous quotes from Smith’s
run, in ‘The Doctor’s Wife’:
“Fear me; I’ve killed hundreds of Timelords.”
“Fear me; I killed all of them.”
So there is a certain lack of logic in Hurt’s Doctor’s very
existence…but then, to borrow another line from Smith, “Never apply logic to
Who!” Certainly, I wasn’t pondering this question while watching. His scenes
with Billie Piper are powerful stuff, and he seems to draw the best out of
Piper, who has improved greatly as an actress since leaving the show (not that
she was bad then). Fittingly though, it is his scenes with Smith and Tennant
that see him at his best; in fact, they are easily the finest moments of the
episode.
But more of that later. Although the Time War and the War
Doctor are the dramatic focus of the episode, they are held within a framework
of other plots that bring in the other two Doctors. Tennant’s strand, set in
the past as Ten romances the Virgin Queen, is the weakest; fun but disposable,
and let down by a lacklustre performance from Joanna Page as Elizabeth 1st.
Tennant himself makes up for that somewhat, getting many of the episode’s
funniest lines, with his romantic swagger turned up rather inappropriately to
eleven, but taken apart from the wider arc, it’s rather daft, almost slapstick,
without decent chemistry to anchor it. Smith’s strand, with mysterious
shenanigans underneath the National Gallery, is far more interesting. Jemma
Redgrave, one of the better guest stars of recent years, makes an excellent
return, getting to turn in two decent performances for the price of one, not to
mention one of the more compelling moral debates. The Zygon invasion plot,
although weak in its initial stage, is actually a fascinating idea, and would
have benefited from an episode or two dedicated purely to it, rather than
utilising it as a sub-plot.
Of course, it was unlikely that the episode was going to
focus on anything other than the Time War, no matter what might have been
speculated, and what we see doesn’t disappoint. True, it might have been nice
(in that horrifying way that global destruction can be entertaining when
fictionalised) to have seen something more imaginative; much of the action that
we see is Daleks fighting people in odd outfits with laser guns, and is
therefore little different to any other SF action scene, which is disappointing
given the four dimensional nature of it, but you have to make allowances for
budget and time. Besides, the real interest is in the discussions, the moral debate
over how to end the War, and whether it will be worth it.
Really, that is what so much of the show has been about, at
root, since the revival eight years ago. But as the War Doctor would say, ‘No
More’. Debate will probably rage until the hundredth anniversary about whether
the change is justified; without going into too much technical detail, it seems
to me to work perfectly well as an explanation of previous canon, rather than
an alteration. More importantly though, it feels like a change for the better,
and a change that is incredibly appropriate for this milestone.
I do not claim to be an expert on the show’s history and
canon prior to the modern era, but it is definitely a darker, more dramatic
beast than it once was, and this is in large part because of the Time War. The
show may never have been sunshine and butterflies, but when it returned, it returned
with a brooding protagonist quite clearly suffering from PTSD following the
genocide of his entire people – including, as this episode shows, 2.47 billion
children. And that was fine, and has been the background responsible for some
of the show’s greatest moments…but it isn’t the entire character. The Doctor is
not just the person who ended the Time War. Yes, ever since the show started,
he has had a long tradition of stopping conflict, but he isn’t a warrior –
hence the entire plot of ‘Day of the Doctor’. He’s a healer, an explorer, an
adventurer. And in ‘Day of the Doctor’, Moffat has managed to fully reconcile the brooding, damaged, all-conquering myth with the grumpy old man who just wanted to see
the universe.
The Doctor has hope again. What could be a better 50th
birthday present?
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