Day of the Doctor

[Morrus]

They did of course recast the First for "The Five Doctors", all those years ago. Actually, I was half expecting David Bradley to show up in the special.

Yeah, David Bradley would have been cool.

 

[Umbran]

They did of course recast the First for "The Five Doctors", all those years ago. Actually, I was half expecting David Bradley to show up in the special.

Yes, and they happened to find someone who looked the part, and had the chops to do the job superbly. How often will they get that lucky?

I imagine baker is too old to return to television

Except for how

Spoiler

he was the one who delivered the line we are discussing!

The later ones showed in the Five(ish) Doctors that they are still spry enough to do at least a bit.

 

[ggroy]

Well, the advantages to bringing back Gallifrey would include being able to bring back in some classic time lord characters, Romana primary among them. But the Time Lords did seem to gum up the works a lot when they were around. But it does allow the writers to break away from the doctor as "lonely god."

If they bring back the Time Lords in series 8 (or later), wonder if it will start to resemble a sci-fi action version of "The West Wing" or "House of Cards".

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yes, and they happened to find someone who looked the part, and had the chops to do the job superbly. How often will they get that lucky?



Except for how

Spoiler

he was the one who delivered the line we are discussing!

The later ones showed in the Five(ish) Doctors that they are still spry enough to do at least a bit.

Yes, I do realize. But to do a full series at Baker's age, even though I would love to see it, seems too much to ask.

 

[Umbran]

Yes, I do realize. But to do a full series at Baker's age, even though I would love to see it, seems too much to ask.

Ah, okay. Yes, I see what you mean, there. I wouldn't expect a full series - thus my suggestion about cameo or guest roles.

The one thing about that is that it seems like a classic "jumping the shark" - doing something spectacular to get viewers.

Aside from that, I see an issue they may want to deal with in the "Doctor Saves Gallifrey" plotline: There are Daleks back in the Universe. If he saves Gallifrey, there will be Time Lords back in the Universe. What's to prevent a repeat of the Time War? Especially with people like Rassilon around?

 

[delericho]

Yes, and they happened to find someone who looked the part, and had the chops to do the job superbly. How often will they get that lucky?

I was merely noting that it had been done; I wasn't advocating any particular agenda - mostly because I don't have one.

 

[Herschel]

One question though: Paul McGann was getting a call from his agent about being in "The Night of the Doctor," right? Why then ask about being part of the 50th? He was in it, wasn't he? And why then volunteer to join the protest, unless he was bluffing them?

He said 'I'm in, unless I'm filming' which gave me a nice laugh. In my mind, yeah it was a private/inside joke that he was involved.

 

[Mallus]

What's to prevent a repeat of the Time War? Especially with people like Rassilon around?

The obvious answer is: the Doctor and (his? her?) companion(s)!

edit: as for my reaction to the anniversary special, I'll be brief. Moffat's still got it.

 

[MarkB]

So we've seen the Fall of Aracadia. As some point out, it's just part of the Time War - and is not even the biggest Gallifreyan city.

The events of The End of Time (with Timothy Dalton) were occuring simultaneously. The Time Lords mention this - they refer to the High Council having it own plans, and that those plans had failed.

So we've seen:
Genesis of the Daleks (the opening salvo in the Time War?)
The Medusa Cascade
The Fall of Arcadia
The Ultimate Sanction (what Timothy Dalton tried to do)
The Genesis Ark
The Moment/Galaxy Eater

I'd also consider the events of Remembrance of the Daleks as an early battle in the Time War. Two rival sets of Daleks time-travel to 1960s Earth to capture the Hand of Omega, a remote stellar manipulator device capable of granting them Time Lord level time-manipulation capability, the Doctor sets it up to backfire on them and wipe out Skaro's star system, but Davros escapes the destruction of the Dalek mothership, perhaps with sufficient knowledge to successfully reproduce the experiment himself.

Certainly, this was one of the events later re-written during the Time War, as Skaro was referenced as still existing during the new series.

 

[Morrus]

So the main thing that can go wrong now, IMO, is a missed opportunity.

I would think an entire final Doctor story arc is ripe for dramatic potential; handwaving it with a line, a scene, even an episode, would be under-serving it. There's so much potential there for a story of how the Doctor faces his death and how that gets changed.

Then again, I guess Tennant and Smith both did "facing his death" segments. So maybe they feel it's played out.

The Xmas Special trailer has a lot of mention of Trenzalore, which is where he's eventually buried, and the fall of the 11th, and that "Silence Will Fall!" line seems to be revisited. Obviously that is going to tie in. It SOUNDS from all the stuff Moffat has been waffling about over the last few days like they're pitching Smith as the 13th (inc. Hurt and Tennant's wasted clone hand regen) with Capaldi as either something new, or a 14th after a change in the rules.

BUT - there is one flaw with that. In that Impossible Astronaut death, Smith started to regenerate after being shot (it got interrupted by the second shot - there was a lot made of that). So he CAN regenerate. So he can't be the 13th.

tl;dr version: I dunno.