REVIEWED
!!! Warning I'm a life long Doctor Who fanboy who ♥'s Tom Baker, so take review & rating with a huge pinch of salt. !!!
“Hi, I'm Clara! we haven't met yet” - Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman)
“I'm looking forward to it”The Doctor (John Hurt)
Wow shocked we can add this here at Letterboxd, so here goes... Steven Moffats incarnation of Doctor Who is a gloriously high camp science fantasy pantomime, that often defies DW continuity & logic in favor of being entertaining. The series took a bit of a dip when he took over a few years back as the shows creative head, and when Matt Smith took on the role of the time lord. I hated the River Song crap, thankfully this years split season featuring gorgeous new companion Clara Oswald 'Jenna-Louise Coleman' as been a triumphant return to former greatness and Matt Smith (who I initially disliked) truly grew into being a wonderful Doctor, and one I'll miss come his exit during the upcoming Christmas special.
'The Day of the Doctor' is a stand alone extended special to tie in with the shows 50th anniversary year, which also included BBC documentaries & specials like the wonderful TV movie 'An Adventure In Space And Time', royal mail commissioned stamps, toy merchandise, lampshades...
The tale interweaves three timelines and three different doctors. We get Smith's Doctor & Clara in present day London, he gets summoned to a Royal Museum that contains a black archive of alien influenced art not suitable for general public consumption. Pride of show is a Gallifreyan 3D painting depicting the Time Wars fall of Arcadia, on the Doctors home planet of Gallifrey.
This leads us to a formerly unheard of incarnation of the doctor known as the War Doctor (John Hurt who I've always had as one of my dream Doctors, thankfully hes great. Now how to get Antony Hopkins in the Tardis) and a back story of his agony at having to use a supreme weapon of mass destruction known as 'THE MOMENT' that will end the Time War & save the universe, only in using the device it will destroy his plant and his race. THE MOMENT assimilates the image of the Doctors future companion Rose Tyler to notify him of the immense power of the weapon and what the outcome will be for him if he chooses to use it.
Eventually we leads to David Tennants Doctor running around the countryside in Elizabethan England, trying to identify a Zygon pretending to be Queen Elizabeth the 1st. Due to a fissure in space & time the three doctors end up together and collectively solve both the shape shifting Zygon threat and rewrite the history of Gallifrey to save it from being totally destroyed.
Great fun filled story, the banter between the 3 doctors was hilarious. Its also littered with references to vintage Who, from the very opening when we see a sign for I.M. Foreman scrap merchants which goes right back to the first ever episode Unhealthy Child. We see Tom Bakers scarf, photos of the Brigadier and past companions even the War Doctors Tardis with its circular walls like Hartnells era... so, so many for us nerds.
I imagine the rewriting of Gallifreyan mythology will piss an hand-full of viewers off, personally it didn't bother me, if the doctor can change the outcome of pretty much every being he encounters future, then why not allow him to change one of the key aspects of his history. Be interesting how they'll work a frozen in time planet into future episodes.
[Personal Reasons For Remembering]
Tom Baker... yes the legendary Tom Baker as the great curator come doctor. He point blankly snubs offers to appear in audio plays or anniversary episodes since he left the role, and always downplays it whenever interviewed. Not sure how Moffat got him to appear, but it was a joy to see him again. Oohhh and...
“Think about it... Americans, with the ability to rewrite history? You've seen their movies” - Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave)
All I can say is it must have been Moffats savage retort at getting flack for Americanizing the show, which it undeniably as been doing during his tenure.
Originally taken from Letterboxd
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