A Doctor's Carol: An Overanalysis of "The Day of the Doctor"

Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles? Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection. But one day we shall get back. Yes, one day. One day. -The First Doctor in An Unearthly Child

Once upon a time, an old man got bored.  So he ran away from home, and shit got crazy.  It's a simple story, and it's held up for 50 years, and now thirteen different actors playing the titular role.  The infinitely flexible premise could potentially go on forever.  No show has ever proved as flexible and as durable.  And yesterday, the whole world celebrated how powerful, flexible, and ultimately endearing the show has become.  16 years of cancellation failed to kill it.  Much like the title character, the show has proven infinitely regenerative.  And just because it's hit the 50 year mark doesn't mean it shows any signs of stopping.  This was far from a finale.  This was a statement to the world that the show is still going strong and has many more stories to tell.  I regret that I'm a late-comer to this fandom, but, in case you haven't noticed, I'm damn well dedicated it, and was glad to join in on the celebration.

The old saying goes that bad writers steal, good writers borrow.  If that's the case, then Moffat is very good at borrowing from Charles Dickens.  Because that's what this was.  I mean, I'm not the only one who got that, right?  Billie Piper as Bad Wolf as The Moment as The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.  It's a 12 Wonderful Lives!

The 1963 opening titles?  Nice touch.

I have to admit one thing I was completely wrong about.  Some people suggested that Billie Piper would be playing another role other than Rose.  Their reasoning was that her outfit was bizarre and she was only seen talking to True 9 in the trailer.  I insisted that the stuff about her only talking to True 9 in the trailer was a coincidence, and that Rose had often tried out some bizarre outfits that didn't quite work (like the Union Jack shirt).  I was wrong, but I have to admit that I was happy to be wrong.  Billie Piper as the guide was a way more interesting idea than somehow awkwardly trying to put Rose into an episode where she clearly would not have belonged.  And, while I'm not crazy about Rose, I loved Billie Piper as The Moment.  Her first few moments as The Moment were probably the best acting she ever did on the show.  She played a sly, sexy, wise, and powerful entity that was ultimately smarter than the Doctor himself.  Bad Wolf as the Doctor's savior.

I was going to write a big Eve of the Doctor write up to go up on Friday and give some of my opinions on things you should know for the episode, as well as a few predictions.  Unfortunately, I pulled a back muscle at work, and it's hard to write a blog while you're lying with your back flat on the floor to try to realign your spine.  I was going to try to give a little explanation of the Zygons.  Actually, at one point, I wanted to write one of my Doctor Who Book Reports on the Zygons.  But there's not enough information--or enough interest in me--to fill up one entire blog about them.  They're not a bad villain, but they're mostly unremarkable.  The only significant thing about the Zygons is that they have the technology--not the biological ability, mind you, but the technology--to turn themselves into other living creatures.  I knew that there was nothing else Moffat could possibly want them for other than their ability to shapeshift.  And boy, did he use that one.  Although, I don't understand why they needed to keep some humans hooked up to their machine to turn themselves into humans, and some of them they could pull it off on the fly.

There was a poll I saw asking people what they were most looking forward to in the special, and one of the options was the return of the Zygons.  It got the least votes, but I fail to see how it got any votes at all, or why it was even included on the list at all.  Who cares that much about Zygons?  Even Moffat didn't intend to use them for anything particularly big.  The Zygon plot was a parallel story designed to do nothing else but show the Doctor what he needed to do.

I was about 20 minutes from the end of the episode and thought "Why is Moffat focusing so much on this mediocre Zygon storyline?"  Then came the moment where Kate asks the Doctor if he's ever had to make the calculation of sacrificing the few to save the many and he said that he did it once, but that it was the wrong decision, that's when I realized what Moffat was doing.  I realized that this was the story that was going to teach the Doctor that he had to save Gallifrey, not burn it.  It was a parallel story to teach a lesson.  And I realized it was going to result in the Doctor saving Gallifrey.

That's when I started crying.

The other thing I was going to do in my "Eve of the Doctor" blog was remind you all about the significance of Queen Elizabeth.  Trust Moffat to take a one-off gag and turn it into a major plot point of the most important episode in the history of the series thus far.  Gareth Roberts, one of the better writers on Doctor Who right now, introduced the joke in the end of "The Shakespeare Code" where the Virgin Queen is ready to kill the Doctor for reasons that he didn't know because he was meeting her out of order.  Davies and Moffat seemed to appreciate the joke, as they both took it and ran with it.  Davies had the Doctor marrying Queen Bess in "The End of Time (Part 1)," and Moffat brought it up in "The Beast Below" and "The Wedding of River Song."  Not only is it hilarious to blow up such a small joke into something big like that, it's also the only thing that tells us where this episode takes place in the 10th Doctor's timeline.  Presumably, this has to take place, for him, between "The Waters of Mars" and "The End of Time," as that's when he said he married Queen Elizabeth.

Similarly, the "it doesn't do wood" line, which began way back in "Silence in the Library," became such a major plot point, it actually resulted in the ultimate outcome of the episode.  The Doctor finds a way to finally take down a wooden door using his screwdriver, just that it would take 400 years to pull it off.  It turned out that that wasn't necessary, but it was the inspiration for the end of the episode.  Because the same exact logic used in taking down that door was used to save Gallifrey.  If anyone is going to come in and try to tell me that saving Gallifrey was some sort of "Deus Ex Machina," I will again direct them to the fact that the definition of a Deus Ex Machina is a solution that comes out of nowhere and was not set-up in the episode.  The scene with the screwdrivers and the doors is what set up the plot to save Gallifrey, and that, by definition, is not a Deus Ex Machina.

In related news, I want a smaller word or phrase to have to type out than "Deus Ex Machina" because it comes up a lot when writing about Doctor Who.

The last thing I was going to predict in my post--and I swear this isn't just 20/20 hindsight--was that the Time Lords would be re-established in the Universe by the end of this episode.  I was half right.  The cool thing is that he saved Gallifrey (probably), but now has a new mission in life:  to find the planet he saved.  But there's a problem now, and one they never addressed in this special:  In "The End of Time (Part 2)," the 10th Doctor says that he had to kill the Time Lords because they wanted to basically destroy all of time, space, and existence itself and ascend to a higher plane of existence.  It could be that they were only planning to do that to destroy the Daleks, but it sounds like the kind of megalomaniacal plan that wouldn't change once its original justification is removed.  So basically, I think they would probably try and pull it again once they're removed from stasis.  This means the Doctor has a pretty tough task ahead of him when he does find Gallifrey:  he still has to deal with some crazy ass Time Lords after he's rescued them.  That's not entirely unprecedented.  Honestly, the Doctor's relationship with his own people is a strange one, one of antagonism, but not hatred.  He disapproves of his own people's actions, and they disapprove of his.  But that doesn't mean he wants them to die.

My friend Dawn pointed out that Osgood is probably, somehow, Clara's sister.  I didn't think of this until Dawn told me, but now it makes perfect sense.  Her name sounds a lot like Clara's last name (I'm assuming Osgood is a last name), and her Zygon copy said she was jealous of her more attractive sister.  But, while Osgood and Clara didn't share much screen time, they did see each other enough that, if they knew each other, one of them should have said something.  The most likely scenario I can imagine is that Clara doesn't know she has a sister, and Osgood knew but kept it a secret for some reason.

Speaking of Clara, the idea of her teaching at Coal Hill School was a stroke of genius.  I mean, is it a bit of a stretch for her to go from being a nanny to a teacher?  Maybe a little.  But she's teaching at the same school as the Doctor's first companions, Ian and Barbara, and a sign says that Ian is now the Chairman of the Governors at the school.  So, clearly, it was a little nepotism that got her the job, with the Doctor calling in a small favor.  Still, a great idea.  I hope she's still working there when we see her next.

I'm not touching the part about Clara meeting Kate out of order.  I can't think of a less interesting or important mystery to bring up in the episode.

I have one apology to make.  Months back, I did a write-up of a trailer that turned out to be a fake.  I didn't realize this until yesterday when I realized that not a single shot from that trailer appeared in this episode.  I don't know how a fan made trailer was that deceiving.  I didn't recognize a single shot or line from the trailer from a past episode.

Peter Capaldi's brief cameo made me stand up and applaud.  (I was watching this with a group of Whovians on a projector at a store that was primarily used for Magic: The Gathering tournaments, so it was not that weird to stand and applaud at a science fiction show.)    It was a brief moment, but it was a glorious moment.  As the Doctors unite, 12/13 won't stand idly by.  He's certainly going to lend a hand.  I like him already.

When the girlfriend saw the mind eraser devices in the Black Archive, she thought this was going to be the convenient way to make it so the 3 Doctors don't remember each other.  She thought this was a little lazy, but she didn't find it nearly as lazy as what actually happened.  She thought they were going to intentionally erase True 9 and 10's memories because, otherwise, the 11th Doctor couldn't ever get involved in this situation and keep himself from destroying Gallifrey.   Cool idea, but the show's never really been that worried about that type of paradox.  And the simpler explanation that, once the timelines cross, the memories of the other Doctors were erased, has two benefits:  1) It explains all the other multi-Doctor episodes (except "Time Crash," which it actually contradicts directly) and 2) It allowed for the 13 Doctors United scene without anyone having to stop off and erase 8 other Doctors' memories.  (The girlfriend found the Doctors United scene lazy as well.)

The Doctors United scene was beautiful and touching.  Yes, it required a bit of a stretch in logic.  Yes it was a little cheap to bring in all the Doctors in stock footage rather than in live action.  But, come on, that scene was fun!  For the first time, all of the Doctor's regenerations worked together.  The man who has saved so many worlds is finally able to save his own, united with all of his selves.

Tom Baker's cameo, however, was a little bit more interesting of a moment.  Rule 1, Rule 1, Rule 1!  Why do I let Moffat convince me that he's not lying about things?  He's proven himself to be a big fat liar before, and then he does it again and I believe he's not lying this time.  He's kind of like my ex-girlfriends in that way.  So I let him convince me that he was telling the truth when he said there would be no classic series Doctors in the special.  He's going to try to couch this into language, saying that "No, he's not playing a Classic Doctor," and he'll be wrong.  He knows what we really meant when we, the fans, bombarded him with questions about which past Doctors would come back.  He knew full well that we didn't think that past Doctor actors playing different parts (which may or may not be future Doctors) didn't "count."

So Tom Baker is a future Doctor?  The character of The Curator was left very ambiguous so as to explain the significant difference in age between Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor and Tom Baker now.  But basically implies that, somewhere in the distant future, the Doctor will "revisit" some of his old faces.  But only his favorites.  A bizarre idea, to be sure, but one that makes a little more sense than pretending Tom Baker is the same guy he was in the 70s.

The return of Tom Baker is so significant simply because of his obstinate refusal to return for decades.  It was 2009 before he agreed to come back to do audio adventures.  Hell, he even refused to do the 25th Anniversary special!  Thankfully, Moffat must have been more persuasive than the late Jonathan Nathan-Turner was.  I'd have to look this up, but this might give Moffat the record as the person to have written for the most different Doctors in the series:  4, 5, 8, True 9, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

Moffat has said that the next regeneration, Peter Capaldi's, is going to be dark.  I thought this made sense, as Season 7 was pointing the show in a darker direction.  But, after this episode, I don't see it.  This should be the happiest and least-dark era of the Doctor's life since before the Time War started.  The Doctor will always have blood on his hands, but now he has gallons less than he thought he did.  Why would the 12th Doctor go darker?  It seems like he should be facing the Universe now with a much lighter heart than he has for the past 7 seasons.

I guess it all depends on what happens on Trenzalore.

Beyond the End of Time Itself: An Overanalysis of the New Trailers for "The Day of the Doctor"

RASSILON: We will initiate the Final Sanction. The end of time will come at my hand. The rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart. 

MASTER: That's suicide. 
RASSILON: We will ascend to become creatures of consciousness alone. Free of these bodies, free of time, and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be. 
DOCTOR: You see now? That's what they were planning in the final days of the War. I had to stop them. ("The End of Time Part 2")

This weekend, the BBC released another full trailer for the 50th Anniversary Special, "The Day of the Doctor," as well as a short clip from the episode, both of which are above.   If you remember, I already gave my analysis of the first trailer they put out a few months back.  Then the BBC put out this teaser trailer that everyone but me felt the need to dissect and analyze.  Personally, I think trying to learn anything from a trailer that has literally no footage from the episode is fruitless.  It's a cool looking trailer, but it tells us nothing we didn't already know.  But this trailer is an actual trailer that gives us some new information, so it's time to dive in.

If you ask me, it seems pretty clear that this episode is, first and foremost, the sequel to "The End of Time."  "The End of Time" told us how The Time War ended, and this episode is going to show us in greater detail.  I'm not surprised that fans speculated that this episode would be titled "The Time War." I think we're finally going to see what really happened.  Perhaps, we're going to see the very moment when the Time Lords and the Daleks were destroyed.

The 10th Doctor, the 11th Doctor, and True 9 are somehow brought together for this episode.  But the 10th Doctor says in the trailer "Why are we all together?  Why are we all here?"  That means that they didn't just stumble upon each other, or seek each other out by choice.  Something forced them together, a direct violation of the Time Lords' First Law of Time (which they broke when they felt like it).  Furthermore, there's something that never dawned on me before:  If they can meet True 9, then the time lock is broken.

In "Journey's End," we learn that the entire Time War is "time locked," meaning nobody and nothing should be able to get in or out of the time period in which the war happened.  However, Dalek Caan found a way to break through, yet it cost him his sanity (not that Daleks are really sane to begin with).  Then, in "The End of Time," Rassilon found a way out, but it was not easy to pull off.  True 9, as far as we know, only existed in the Time War, and his regeneration almost certainly happened in that war.  This means that either the 10th and 11th Doctors, along with Rose and Clara, are going to be breaking into the time lock, or True 9 is breaking out.  My money is on the former.

It's never been known when and exactly how the Doctor regenerated into the 9th Doctor.  Up until "The Name of the Doctor," it was assumed that Paul McGann's Doctor regenerated into Christopher Eccleston's, but now we know that's not true.  That leaves us with 2 regenerations we've never seen on the show, and a lot of wiggle room as to when things happened.  However, there's one important clue:  In the beginning of the episode "Rose," the 9th Doctor checks himself out in the mirror, and it looks like it's for the first time.  "Ah, could've been worse. Look at the ears. "  So True 9 presumably regenerated into 9 moments before the events of "Rose."  I think it's fairly safe to assume that his regeneration occurred because of the event that caused him to end the Time War.

It's been said that Eccleston was approached to come back for this special, but that he turned them down.  I've been wondering about this:  was True 9 supposed to be in the script, or was he added into the script because Eccleston turned down the special.  Is True 9 playing the role that Eccleston's 9 was going to play?  This would have required Moffat to completely ignore the mirror scene I mentioned earlier, but perhaps the special was supposed to be about how Eccleston's 9 ended the Time War.  Regardless, it's going to be very difficult to do this story without Eccleston, if this is the story I think it's going to be.  How do you not show True 9's regeneration into 9 if Eccleston refused to come back?  Maybe Eccleston is lying, but I doubt it.  He does seem like he's too much of a dick to come back for the fans.  But maybe he's going to surprise me.

The other little clip they released, referred to as "But That's Not Possible!"  Other than introducing a character in the background, who's supposedly going to be named Osgood (I don't feel like unraveling that little puzzle) and who seems to be wearing the 4th Doctor's scarf.  The whole clip seems pretty pointless to me.  It tells us very little.  UNIT (it sounds like Kate Stewart) is showing the Doctor a painting, and Clara sees something that she thinks is "not possible" (a phrase that is used often on Doctor Who and is almost always proven wrong).  I couldn't understand what Clara was shocked by the painting.  My girlfriend said "She saw herself in the painting."  That would be interesting, as the painting is clearly of Gallifrey burning to the ground.  But I'm afraid we're looking at a much more commonplace and tired plot device:  Clara saw the same image in a dream that's in the painting.

Next Saturday, the minisode "The Night of the Doctor" will be released.  The description they've given out says:

"The 50th Anniversary features Matt Smith, David Tennant and a mysterious incarnation played by John Hurt. Only one appears in this mini episode, 'The Night of the Doctor.' But which?"

I'm thinking of the phrasing of this.  "Only one appears in this mini episode."  One of those three?  Or one Doctor?  Moffat said that no other past Doctors will appear in the special.  He said nothing about these minisodes that he's so fond of making.  Furthermore, Paul McGann, the 8th Doctor, seems to have potentially let something slip on Twitter.  Back in October, Paul McGann said on Twitter:

"Spent forty minutes this pm having to imitate Matt Smith’s dramatic delivery in VO. You have been warned….”

After fans got crazy excited, he followed it up by saying:

“I should explain. It was by way of an aural experiment to find out how similar we might sound. We didn’t. And he’s better looking too.”

What the fuck does that mean?  What kind of aural experiment?  For what?  What could that possibly mean?  It sounds like a weird, fumbled excuse that he came up with when he realized he had just said way too much.  Even if Moffat is telling the truth about none of the past Doctors coming back for the special, that doesn't mean that none of them can come back for the minisode.  Plus, he's one of the easiest Doctors to bring back because we know so little about him.  He could have stayed in that regeneration long enough to really, truly age within that regeneration, which would explain the 20 year age difference since the last time we saw him.  You can't really say that about any other Doctor.

I think McGann is in "Night of the Doctor."

Let Them Eat Trailers and Scripts: An Operation Blue Harvest Update

Someday I will attend San Diego Comic Con.  But this year, when Matt Smith, Jenna Louise-Coleman, and Steven Moffat were all there, was unfortunately not the year.  I guess I'll have to wait until Matt Smith is all washed up before he'll appear at another Comic Con to talk about Doctor Who.  So I wasn't there when they showed the awesome teaser trailer at Comic Con, I had to wait for it to come out online like everybody else did.  Nobody managed to steal a quick video from it like the trailer for "The End of Time."  So when I woke up this morning and found that the trailer was released, I was glad I would have something to write about in my blog besides people's various and fruitless attempts to predict the 12th Doctor.

The trailer is amazing!  I think my favorite part is probably the awesome, ominous music.  If that's Murray Gold's doing, he might have just outdone himself.  (Well, okay, nothing beats "Abigail's Song" from "A Christmas Carol).  But it sets the stage for what looks like a very dark episode.  Of course, there's bound to be much more lighthearted humor in this episode than the trailer suggests.  That's Moffat's style:  dark, but funny.

The moment of the Doctor meeting the Doctor in this is fantastic, even though the 10th Doctor's facial expression says "Who just farted?".  That first meeting is going to be one of the highlights of the revived series.  And the trailer pretty much proves that this is the actual 10th Doctor, not Meta-Crisis 10, which is what I was afraid of.  Meta-Crisis 10 could still have been fun, but I want the 11th Doctor to meet the actual 10th Doctor, not his half-human off-shoot from a ridiculous and convoluted plot.  But with both Doctors standing directly in front of their TARDISes--one with the St. John's Ambulance badge on it, one without--it shows that this is definitely the proper 10th Doctor.  Meta-Crisis 10 doesn't have a TARDIS.

If you start the trailer at exactly 0:24 you'll see a shot of the 10th Doctor walking into a TARDIS where the 2nd Doctor, and someone else, are controlling the TARDIS panel.  But there's something I'm confused about:  I guess if I went back and watched all of "The Three Doctors" I might recognize what scene that was.  The 2nd Doctor in a color scene with that quality camera work and that TARDIS design is almost certainly a multi-Doctor episode.  And I checked "The Five Doctors" and the design doesn't match up.  It has to be "The Three Doctors."  But as the 10th Doctor's shoulder slowly starts to move out of the way, you can see the head of someone else at the TARDIS console.  It looks like the 1st Doctor.  And this is why I'm confused:  the 1st Doctor never appeared in the TARDIS during "The Three Doctors."  Hartnell was in such poor health that they had to write in a way for him to spend the entire serial sitting down, so he was in the television for the whole serial.  What is that shot from?  Again, if I were to go through all of "The Three Doctors" I might find it, and maybe I'll go through it later, but I can't for the life of me imagine where that shot might be from.  Perhaps it was an early outtake of "The Three Doctors" before they decided to keep Hartnell in the TV.  That's what they did with the 4th Doctor in "The Five Doctors":  put in footage of him that had never made it to air.

But it does tell us one very interesting thing:  the special will incorporate, at the very least, archive footage of past Doctors.  I'll be interested to see how that works in.  They certainly did a very good job of it in "The Name of the Doctor."

And what the fuck is with the knight walking towards the tent?

-------------------

Now, in other news, you might have heard that Stephen Moffat recently released copies of the audition scripts he's using to try out potential 12th Doctors.  This has led to a lot of people trying to guess who the new Doctor is going to be based on the tone and word choice in the Doctor's dialogue.  These are clearly people who do not know what an audition script is.  Moffat even said that these scripts will never be in an episode of the show.  So don't try to read into it.  Moffat is trying to whet our appetites for the 12th Doctor without actually telling us anything about him at all.  So enjoy the scripts, they're deliciously clever in a very Moffat-y kind of way, but don't pretend that they're going to help you figure anything out.

You Don't Love Me, You Love Magazines: An Operation Blue Harvest Update

Things have been pretty quiet here at The Horror this week.  It's been a very emotionally taxing week in my life.  But a new issue of Doctor Who Magazine just came out, and it gave us some big information about both the season finale and the 50th Anniversary special.  I should probably subscribe to DWM, but for the time being, a Google News alert for "doctor who" seems to be working just fine.

Although I would like to have as many framed pictures of Matt Smith as possible.
In a totally heterosexual way.

Let's start with the season finale...

The Name of the Doctor

I got this all from Blogtor Who.

Like I predicted, Vastra, Strax, and Jenny are all coming back.  When the episode description said that the Doctor's "friends" would be captured and taken to the fields of Trenzalore, I figured it had to be more than just Clara.

Richard E. Grant is coming back in this episode as a "posthumous" Dr. Simeon, which I think we all know means that the Great Intelligence is the main villain of the episode.  This is further confirmed with a quote that has been revealed from the episode.  "How's the intelligence--still great?" - The Doctor.

Clara's true identity will be revealed in this particular episode.  Does this mean her weirdness is linked to the Doctor's real name?  That might explain why the TARDIS showed Clara the Doctor's real name. It might be a clue that she needed to hear.  We've seen the TARDIS give clues about the future before ("The only water in the forest is the river"), and we know that it can predict the future.  There's no doubt that the TARDIS knows who Clara is, hence why it doesn't like her.  Although it seemed to like her enough to save her...

Okay, so most of that is stuff we already knew.  But here's the bombshell:  Not only will River be there...it's going to be a "post-[L]ibrary" River!  It seems that the word "impossible" means very little on this show.  River seemed to be clearly killed in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead."  How on Earth has she survived?  One possibility is that she somehow faked her death.  Why that would be necessary is beyond me.  Another possibility is that she hasn't actually given up all of her regenerations after all.  Will we be see a future regeneration of River in this episode?  Or possibly some other time in the future?

Another interesting idea is the fact that, just because the Doctor "saved" River's consciousness in "Forest of the Dead," doesn't necessarily mean she had to die there.  A version of her consciousness could easily have been "saved" even if she wasn't about to die.  Somehow, River found a way to survive, but an echo of her consciousness was still on the sonic screwdriver.  Or maybe her consciousness found a way out of the Library computer.

The magazine also reported that not everyone will make it out of this episode alive.  Hopefully the person to die will be someone relatively inconsequential, like Jenny.  We'll see.  It would be pretty cruel to bring a post-Library River back and then kill her off again immediately afterwards.  But Moffat has said that he has an "endgame" for River.  Who knows what that means.

Now, on to...

The 50th Anniversary Special

Doctor Who Magazine also reported that David Tennant is without a doubt the only Doctor coming back.  I still stand by Rule 1.  It stands proudly as the subtitle of this blog.  It's absolutely possible that Moffat is lying.  Doctor Who Magazine is not opposed to lying on Moffat's behalf.  When "The Impossible Astronaut" was coming out, DWM had 4 collectable covers, each one with a different main character on it:  River, Amy, Rory, and the Doctor.  The headline said that one of them would die, and this time it wasn't a trick.  Clearly, it was a trick.  We all know that the Doctor's escape from the Silence was absolutely a trick.  So maybe they're lying.

However, we have to begin preparing ourselves for the possibility that this isn't a lie.  If that's the case, we all need to remember that David Tennant and Matt Smith paired together in the same episode is an awesome thing!  If we had to choose only one past Doctor to bring back for the special, my number one choice would be David Tennant.  Tennant's cool as a cucumber Doctor will contrast well against Smith's bumbling hipster version of the same character.

However, io9 dug up a brief 19 second video of the filming that clearly shows the crew filming an old fashioned police constable walking past the I.M. Foreman scrap yard at 76 Trotter's Lane.  For those of you who don't know, that's the exact shot that the first episode of the classic series opened with.  It looks like, somehow, we're returning to the beginning.  While Moffat says he wants to move the series forward at all times, the little tidbits that we get from behind the scenes show that that's not entirely true.  The villains are going to be the Zygons, the 10th Doctor will return, and we're going back to Trotter's Lane where it all began.

Even if we don't see the return of any Doctors before Tennant, there's nothing that stops them from bringing back other characters.  Carole Anne Ford, who played the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, and William Russell, who played Ian Chesterton, remain the only original cast members from 1963 that are still alive.  Either of them would be a perfect addition to this episode, especially if the episode is going back to Trotter's Lane.  Someone else has to come back, even if it isn't a Doctor.

You know what would be a great idea for a special?  "The Five Masters."

While I've been saying that I think Susan will come back soon, and I still think there's a good chance of it, I have one concern.  I've recently started to listen to and read expanded universe material.  In Eighth Doctor adventures, Susan meets her grandfather again.  I used to say that we can't claim that expanded universe is cannon, but since there are actually a lot fewer contradictions between expanded universe and television than I thought, I'm starting to view those stories as all cannon.  This is not to say that a return of Susan can't happen without contradicting the Eighth Doctor adventures, I can't imagine that it wouldn't contradict it.  If you bring back Susan, you have to have the conversation about how the Doctor left her behind.

Tomorrow, my least favorite Doctor Who writer is going to be writing an episode that looks really boring.  Let's hope I'm wrong.

Silence Never Falls: An Operation Blue Harvest Update and Clarification

HUGE-ASS FREAKING SPOILERS!

So, I need to make some clarifications about the season finale and the 50th Anniversary special.

For a lot of this blog, I've been talking about the season finale and the 50th Anniversary special as if they were the same thing.  I had a feeling they might not be, but I couldn't be sure.  So I asked around on the Doctor Who message board, Gallifrey Base, and they confirmed for me that the season finale and the 50th Anniversary special are two different things.  So now I believe them when they say they're just shooting it now, because the 50th Anniversary special, it seems, will be held on the exact 50th Anniversary, November 23rd, 2013.

Now, as far as the season finale itself goes, the BBC has finally announced the title of the season finale that they hadn't been announcing.  It turns out that the reason was that the title of the season finale is, in and of itself, a huge spoiler:

There's so much to analyze here just from this poster.  First of all, River's coming back.  Second of all, "his secret is revealed" is a huge clue.  Moffat said the same thing in an interview, that the Doctor's greatest secret would be revealed.  Sometimes Moffat gives us false clues to throw us off the trail.  Sometimes he's straightforward and reading too much into it is unnecessary.  He admitted at the end of Season 6 that he knew people would suspect River Song of being the one who kills the Doctor, and that he didn't care that people guessed it.

So we know what "The Name of the Doctor" is going to be about.  The BBC South Africa website's description said that someone's kidnapping the Doctor's friends to force him to come to the fields of Trenzalore, where he'll be forced to reveal his name.  Obviously, those friends will at least include Clara and River.  My guess is that, if Moffat's going to have some of the Doctor's friends kidnapped, he's going to throw Vastra, Jenny, and Strax in there too.

Now, somebody on Gallifrey Base suggested a possible scenario for this episode that's so perfect...I think it absolutely has to be what's going to happen, and it kind of ruins the ending.  I...I can't imagine it's going to play out in any other way other than this.  So, reading this might kind of ruin the fun of the episode.  So I'm going to make this super extra spoiler protected so you have to highlight it to read it.  I wish I hadn't even read it.

The Great Intelligence (probably, although it could be someone else) will lead the Doctor to the fields of Trenzalore.  There, the Doctor will be asked his name.  He will be forced to answer, but just as he does so, River will materialize the TARDIS around him, so that he blurts out his real name to the person in the universe it will be the most safe with:  River Song.  That's why she'll know his name in "Silence in the Library."

There's no doubt in my mind that the Doctor's real name is "The Other."  It's more or less been confirmed in expanded universe material.  I think it's about time I posted my explanation of the Cartmel Masterplan on this blog to explain what that means.  Regardless, even if that is the Doctor's real name (it is) and even if Moffat is following the Cartmel Masterplan (he is), I doubt the name is going to be said on the show.  Something will happen to allow him to say it without us, the audience, hearing it.  The Doctor IS the Other.  But they can't blatantly say that on the show.  It would ruin too much of the show's mystery.

Now, as for the 50th Anniversary Special itself.

In which we see the return of the cuddliest race in the history of the franchise

I still don't know why the fuck the Zygons are going to be the villain.  They've been in 1 episode!  This is another "Meat Puppets" move from Moffat.  (I'm creating too many inside terms on my own blog here.)

John Barrowman is sending extremely mixed messages.  Here's the timeline of what Barrowman has done:

1.  Announced he was in talks with the producers about returning.

2.  Announced that he was not returning.

3.  Announced that his absence from the special is not due to lack of interest, but because the producers never asked him.

One of these statements has to be bullshit.  I don't know which one.

A post recently on the David Tenant Facebook Fan Page said that Paul McGann's appearance in the special hasn't been ruled out.  Now, for most fans, the fact that a Doctor who appeared on screen for about 60 minutes is not that exciting, but those of us who have listened to the brilliant Eighth Doctor audio adventures know how great Paul McGann can really be.

My friend Gary asked me, what if they aren't lying?  What if it really is just going to be Matt and Dave against the Zygons?  First of all, not lying at all would be completely out of character for Moffat.  But, even if it isn't a trick, and all we're getting is Smith and Tennant...won't that still be awesome!?  Who doesn't want to see 11 meet 10.

It could be the best dialogue in the history of the series.

Everybody Hates Chris: An Operation Blue Harvest Update

SPOILERS!

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/ninth-time-lord-christopher-eccleston-turns-down-doctor-who-return-8561822.html

It's been announced that Christopher Eccleston will not be returning for the 50th Anniversary special.  Now, this could be just another one of those little lies that makes up what I've been calling Operation Blue Harvest, but this one is probably true.  Eccleston has been very adamant about not wanting to come back since the beginning.

Let's be honest, Eccleston was never really that interested in Doctor Who.  Tennant was a hard core Doctor Who fan from childhood.  Matt Smith had never seen the show when he started, but he watched a lot of past episodes as research for the role.  Eccleston not only had never watched an episode, but refused to ever watch any past episodes to make sure that he wasn't influenced by other people's performance, which is the worst possible way to play the role.  When asked why he wasn't going to put on a more elaborate outfit, like past Doctors, he said it was because his Doctor wasn't going to be a "tosser."

There are some Doctors who, when put up next to each other, are hard to believe that they're the same person.  11 and 1.  6 and 4.  8 and 2.  But when you watch them all in order, there's a kind of natural progression of his personality that makes sense, so you can kind of understand how these different incarnations are actually the same person.  But if you put 9 up against any Doctor, even the ones immediately before and after him, it's almost impossible to believe that he's supposed to be the same person.  Even 10 and 9 don't seem like the same person, nor do they seem like they would like each other.  9 would find 11 insufferable.

Eccleston didn't take the role out of any interest in sci-fi or Doctor Who.  He actually took the role because he wanted to work with Russel T. Davies.  I don't think he knew what he was getting in to.  I don't think he understood that Doctor Who is a huge franchise with fervent fans who devour the expanded universe media and who want to see the past characters and actors come back.  I don't think he realized that anyone would want him to return after he was done.  He also had some difficulties with Davies behind the scenes, which have only been referred to very vaguely.  Hence his early departure.  No matter how much the fans want him back, I doubt he'll ever make another appearance on the show at any point.  There aren't going to be audio stories about the 9th Doctor.  Eccleston isn't interested in being a Doctor for the rest of his life.

However, the fact that Moffat met with him tells us that they're trying to do a big Doctor special.  Especially if Eccleston and the show parted on bad terms, the fact that anyone would consider calling him means that they were very interested in doing the special with multiple Doctors.  I'm frankly shocked that Eccleston even took the meeting.

If it's true that they intend to use footage of past Doctors, its possible that they're shooting to have an Eleven Doctors special after all.  As "The Five Doctors" proved (and, to a lesser extent, the super non-cannon "Dimensions in Time"), you don't need all the actual actors around to make it a multi-Doctor special.  I know there are those who really love Eccleston and want to see him back, but I think fans of the modern Who will be fine with just the Matt and Dave show.  And the classic fans will be happy with anyone from the classic series they can get (well, almost anyone).

And if Tom Baker comes back, then all will be forgiven.

Lies, Damn Lies, and BBC Announcements: An Operation Blue Harvest Update

SPOILERS!

This week it was announced that England's answer to Britney Spears, Billie "Call Girl" Piper, and England's favorite Scottsman, David Tennant, would be returning for the 50th Anniversary special.  Also, John Hurt--whose role as the first guy to die in Alien Moffat once used as a metaphor for childbirth in an episode of Coupling--is appearing for some reason.  Also, Gavin and Stacey star Joanna Page is going to be in the special, which is very exciting news for Joanna's parents, who are probably the only people on Earth who know who she is.

In another announcement, the BBC said that the Zygons are going to be in the special, which is kind of like marketing a major motion picture as a star vehicle for Abe Vigoda.  The Zygons appeared once in a 1975 serial called "Terror of the Zygons," although, if you can find it, I much prefer their appearance in the Eighth Doctor audio drama, "The Zygon Who Fell to Earth."  The Eleventh Doctor also mentioned them in "The Power of Three" as having been responsible for an adventure that he had with Rory and Amy offscreen.  I'll bring you more information about this really obscure villain as the special approaches.

The BBC is suddenly very forthcoming with information, and I still highly doubt that this is all of it.  Billie Piper and David Tennant are the [i]only[/i] ones coming back?  I'll believe that when Daleks can climb stairs.  You can't have a 50th Anniversary special with only two Doctors.  And I'm still not sold on their claims that the episode hasn't begun filming yet.  Tennant's Facebook page is showing pictures of him and Matt Smith after the table read for the special, which they claim just happened.  I still really don't buy that they're cutting it this close, unless the show is going off the air after "The Last Cybermen" and returning with the special for the actual anniversary date itself, November 23rd.  If not, then we're looking at the 50th Anniversary special in about 7 weeks, and that means the episode has to have been in the can for months now.

Here are some possible scenarios I'm seeing:

1.  "The Eleven Doctors":  Even if they can't get all the living actors together (of which there are 8), you could probably still make something called "The Eleven Doctors."  Just throw in some sort of reference to the first three Doctors being trapped in a void somewhere, maybe splice in some stock footage, or have some extra seen only from the back in a Moe Howard wig.  There's a million ways you could do it.  But I'd say you'd need at least 5 of the actors to pull this off.  In "The Five Doctors," for every Doctor they couldn't get, either due to death or stubbornness, they made sure to get one of that Doctor's primary companions.  That wouldn't be that hard to pull off, either.  Carole Ann Ford, Frazier Hines, and Katy Manning are all alive and well and would all probably be up for a guest appearance.

2.  "The Modern Doctors":  Tennant, Smith, and Eccleston.  The three of them could pull off a hell of a special.  Although Rose might get pretty confused having both 9 and 10 around.  I always wondered how, in multi-Doctor episodes, the current Doctor wasn't already aware of what was going to happen because his earlier self already went through it.  You'd also think that all of the Doctors would know what their future regenerations look like from the multi-Doctor episodes.  I feel like a Moffat-written multi-Doctor episode might actually address that (he did address it in "Time Crash).

3.  Matt and Dave:  This is the worst case scenario, that it really is nothing but Matt Smith and David Tennant.  Don't get me wrong, they're my two favorite Doctors.  But you can't really celebrate 50 years of a program with less than 20% of the actors to play the role, and none of the actors from the classic series.  It's just wrong.

In conclusion, I'm thrilled that Tennant is officially coming back (although I had no doubt that he would), but it's not enough.  You need at least one other actor, preferably more (and preferably at least one Doctor from before Eccleston) to make this good enough for the 50th Anniversary.

And of course, the other big question:  If the Zygons are the villains for the special, then how does the Great Intelligence fit in here?