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[Thad]

Is that a sonic screwdriver in your pocket, or are you something something?

[McDohl]

"Is that a sonic screwdriver in your pocket, and...does it work on wood?" 

[Kayma]

You're right about that fathom thing.

http://www.fathomevents.com/#!doctor-who-the-day-of-the-doctor/more-info/details

[Thad]

7:30 PM?  That's weird.  I thought it was being simulcast.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it makes a lot more SENSE to go see a movie at 7:30 PM than noon, but still.



...wait, Monday?  The fuck?

[Smiler]

Yeah only about like 15 or so theaters in the US are showing it at the for-real time, mostly because the stuff theaters use to do this kind of stuff is notoriously janky.

[Niku]

Also because you don't give up a screen for a special event for nerds on a Saturday night.

[Thad]

Except that there's no place in the United States where 7:45 PM GMT is night.  Which brings us back to the point that noon on a Saturday isn't really the optimal moviegoing time either.

[Thad]

Meant to post this a couple weeks back:

DOCTOR WHO 50th Anniversary Tribute: "The Day of The Doctor" NOV 23 BBC AMERICA

Wonder if there's any significance to 4 and 3 appearing out-of-sequence.

Meanwhile, Moffat addresses the regeneration limit and teases,

He can only regenerate 12 times… I think you should go back to your DVDs and count correctly this time. There’s something you’ve all missed.

Bleeding Cool speculates he's talking about the Clone Doctor.  Me, I'm thinking it's a reference to Brain of Morbius and its implication that there were several incarnations of the Doctor prior to the First.  Fits right in with the ending of The Name of the Doctor and its statement that there are only eleven Doctors but that he's had more than eleven incarnations.

Could be it's all a diversion and the Doctor overcame the regeneration limit ages ago.  I kinda like that idea.  Especially as it would explain what the fuck the deal was with #4's regeneration into #5 and all that "Watcher" business.

But for all that Moffat loves the show's history, he's pretty studiously ignored delving into the more obscure bits of continuity.



And finally: it appears that the 50th anniversary special will explain Queen Elizabeth I's history with the Tenth Doctor.

[McDohl]

There's another trailer out.
The Day of the Doctor: The Second TV Trailer - Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - BBC One

Spoilers for Name of the Doctor and the like.  Looks damn cool.

Here's my speculation:

[spoiler]Timeline-wise, this has to fall somewhere in Series 2, because I think Rose might have some residual connection to the Time Vortex after getting it in her brain in "Parting of the Ways".  In that trailer above, Matt Smith says "I remember this...almost remember."  So, if we go by the logic introduced in that special with D5 and D10, then this had to have happened to the actual D10, not Pete's World D10.

There's a shot of D10, D11, and DHurt walking next to each other.  I really wish that could have been Eccleston.  His doctor has had the most to say about the Time War, so if we're going back to see the Last Great Time War, then he should be there in some form or fashion.  It's a pity he didn't come back, as he's my favorite of the relaunch Doctors, though I quite love Matt Smith, and am sad to see him go.

How much you want to bet that those Paul McGann rumors from way back when turn out to be him filming the regeneration from D8 to DHurt?[/spoiler]

[Thad]

Timeline-wise, this has to fall somewhere in Series 2, because I think Rose might have some residual connection to the Time Vortex after getting it in her brain in "Parting of the Ways".  In that trailer above, Matt Smith says "I remember this...almost remember."  So, if we go by the logic introduced in that special with D5 and D10, then this had to have happened to the actual D10, not Pete's World D10.

Well, not necessarily, given that he could be remembering it from Hurt's perspective instead of Tennant's.  But then there's the bit with Tennant asking what's in his future, which pretty strongly implies he's the Real Doctor.

That and it would be totally lame if he were Parallel Universe Human Doctor.  The biggest indication that he's the real #10 is simply that that would make for way better TV.

Rose's one line is about the Moment coming; remember that's a Time War callback.  Dalton made a comment to the effect of "The Doctor still has the Moment" back in The End of Time, as one of the long string of cool-sounding nonsense phrases Davies left dangling on his departure.  Whether the Moment is some kind of artifact or just an actual crucial point in time, well, maybe we'll find out.

Meantime, I've just started reading The Coming of the Terraphiles; I'll have more to say later.  It is whimsical!

[Sharkey]

[spoiler]The screwdriver is my penis.[/spoiler]

[McDohl]

The Night of the Doctor: A Mini Episode - Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor Prequel - BBC

A mini-episode.

Get.  HYPE.

Thoughts on this: [spoiler]The Doctor says that he helps where he can in the war, but it's not his war.  Can he really say that, given what he did twice over against the Daleks, once in Genesis of the Daleks as D4, and later, in Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways as D10.  Those are just the two examples I can call to mind, I'm sure there's more out there.[/spoiler]

[Bal]

He was ordered (forced really) into the events of Genesis, and D10 happens after all of this.

I thought I was MAX HYPE already, but McGann really knocked it out of the park.

[Sharkey]

Way to canonize all the radio eps by calling out the companions.

Also: "Will it Hurt?"

lol

P.S.
I think "lol" looks like a tiny TIE fighter and read it as the sound they make.

P.P.S.
It's Paul McGann's birthday today, so good job there.

[Royal☭]

That makes me wish they'd do a spin off series of Paul McGann episodes. They can pretty much do whatever they want at this point.

[DeusExMatilda]

I had it spoiled that Paul McGann was in it without me being aware it was a spoiler; one of those "Check out the new Doctor Who vid starring Paul McGann" things. I really wish I hadn't known, because, "I'm a Doctor... but probably not the one you expected," really was an excellent introductory line.

Moffat has been more keen to embrace the original run than RTD was, and it feels like we've finally got the bridge between the two series. John Hurt regenerating into Christopher Ecclestone as the TARDIS lands in Rose Tyler's London would be my dream ending, though that's extremely unlikely.

The BBC's made a page listing the Doctor Who content they're broadcasting this week. That's not all of it, but the unlisted stuff on the periphery gets a bit beyond what any reasonable fan needs to see -- I noticed they've even made an Antiques Roadshow special with Colin Baker and Peter Purves!

Hola unblocker seems to work perfectly well on the BBC website, and I watched The Science of Doctor Who yesterday afternoon (spoiler: it's an interesting but only tangentially related hour-long science lecture with brief cutaways to Matt Smith). How much more I'll watch depends on how excited I get in the run-up to the main event.

[Thad]

He was ordered (forced really) into the events of Genesis, and D10 happens after all of this.

And in Remembrance of the Daleks, HE didn't blow up Skaro, he just set the Hand of Omega to do it.  It's not HIS fault that Davros stole it and then used it.

Still and all, perhaps just a tad disingenuous to suggest that this conflict has nothing to do with him.

I had it spoiled that Paul McGann was in it without me being aware it was a spoiler

Me too.  My thanks to McDohl for spoilertagging properly; the rest of you get a big frowny face.  Even though we've suspected this was going to happen for months.

Anyhow, really quite good; my favorite part was the inversion of the usual formula.  The Doctor swooping in to save somebody, giving the usual introductory "bigger on the inside" line, and [spoiler]having her respond with "Is that a TARDIS?  GET AWAY FROM ME!" really hammered home that the Time War is not the Doctor's usual fun time dashing about the universe saving humans and righting wrongs.  I also quite like that, while they twist the Doctor's arm to choose his regeneration and join the Time War, that's not what kills him; he dies trying to convince Cass to let him save her life, they just buy him a few extra minutes to make a decision about what happens next.[/spoiler]

Moffat's entire run has revolved around the premise that a good big bunch of the universe is terrified of the Doctor, sees him less as Doctor and more as Warrior, and has good reason to.  This was some just-about-perfect payoff on that long-running theme.

The Macbeth Witches were largely superficial and felt an awful lot like one of those lore-building things that Davies liked to throw out there and then forget about.  It could just as easily have been any group of mysterious figures.  But the bit about [spoiler]regenerations being nonrandom[/spoiler] may yet have a payoff -- see my post from last month about Moffat's thoughts on Capaldi's multiple appearances.

All in all, fucking wonderful to see McGann.

Also: "Will it Hurt?"

lol

[spoiler]And so #8 leaves the world the same way he entered it: with hamhanded wordplay about his name.[/spoiler]

Adding: [spoiler]Hurt sure looked young in that brief look we got at his reflection.  I would have to say -- given that Smith has canonically been the Doctor for over 200 years and not aged visibly -- that this is intended to show that the Time War went on for a long fucking time.  Or possibly just took a huge physical and mental toll and aged him prematurely.[/spoiler]

Also adding: when I said that acknowledging the eight prior Doctors in Brain of Morbius makes #4 the last of the original regenerations and explains the Watcher, I goofed; it's 12 regenerations, not 12 incarnations.  Going by the Morbius Doctor theory, #5 would have been the last of the original 13 incarnations, not #4.

Though I suppose you could still use that to explain the Watcher, since he would then have appeared to shepherd the Doctor into his final incarnation.  Doesn't explain how he kept going after that, though.


FURTHER ADDING: Another recurring element of Moffat's run has been the Doctor running away from confrontations until he's finally cornered and has no other choice.  This isn't exactly a new idea for the series; it goes back at least as far as War Games and the first appearance of the Time Lords.

Which strikes me as significant.

[Defenestration]

I have a huge problem that John Barrowman mentioned he isn't in anything upcoming soon. :(

[Thad]

Also:

Moffat has been more keen to embrace the original run than RTD was

Bit tough to quantify, really.  On the one hand, Moffat just gave McGann the sendoff that Davies never did; on the other, Davies gave Sarah Jane Smith her own spinoff.

It often felt like Davies really was just going down the list of stuff from the classic series that needed to be included -- season 1: Daleks; season 2: Cybermen; season 3: the Master; season 4: Davros.  He also used the Sontarans, the Autons/Nestenes, and -- any other classic monsters I'm forgetting?

Moffat hasn't gone any great length of time without using the Daleks or Cybermen, but he's also gone in for more obscure monsters like the Ice Warriors and the Great Intelligence.  It's hard to say off the top of my head that he's spent more time crafting new monsters, though.  (And of course his use of more obscure ones is also partially based on the simple fact that the show had been back for years by the time he became showrunner, and all the biggest names had already been reintroduced.)

The most memorable new monsters out of the RTD run would have to be the Ood and the Weeping Angels, the latter of which were of course created by Moffat.  I'd also add the Judoon to the list; they've got a striking and memorable design and have shown up in a number of spinoff media.  And the Slitheen showed up more than once, which makes them recurring monsters, though I'd kind of rather they never come back.

During Moffat's time as showrunner, he's introduced the Silence, and I'm hard-pressed to think of anything else that's got the same kind of potential staying power (other than the Weeping Angels which, again, predate his becoming showrunner but which are perfectly fair to count in listing his accomplishments).  The Vashta Nerada have real potential as recurring monsters, and I think they technically qualify as recurring since I believe they were in one of the PC games that came out a couple of years ago, but those are also technically from before he was showrunner and we haven't seen them again on the show.

Course, it also bears noting that this IS the fiftieth anniversary, and acknowledging the show's history is kind of important even if your stated goal is to move it forward.  And given that Smith's on his way out, nostalgia's bound to be part of the focus, with fresh and new things held back for Capaldi.

[DeusExMatilda]

I watched Fenric on Saturday and was reminded how 7's episodes generally wouldn't look out of place in the new era. Hell, even McCoy's Doctor wouldn't be out of place. Guy's almost a mirror of Matt Smith in a lot of ways; silly, old, awkward, and an outright sociopath when he needs to be.

Me too.  My thanks to McDohl for spoilertagging properly; the rest of you get a big frowny face.  Even though we've suspected this was going to happen for months.

Oh yeah, sorry about including the exact same spoiler I was complaining about in my post. Hell, even the BBC used [spoiler]Paul McGann[/spoiler] as its icon for the episode on the website. Apparently nobody was capable of keeping this thing a secret.