The Day of the Doctor had the ingredients to make a fan hyperventilate: The Doctor, David Tennant’s Doctor, new war Doctor, old Doctors, the eyes of the newer new Doctor, timey wimey, Billie Piper, UNIT, Zygons, scarves, fezzes… My friend turns to me in the 3D cinema viewing and says: “Did you actually like that? It was a bit too gimmicky for me.” Should I feel ashamed that I am adding Doctor Who box sets to my Christmas wish list right now?
For any couch potato it was hard not to get caught up in the Doctor Who frenzy on our small screens last week. BBC programmes informed us why Doctor Who should be celebrated, from its cultural implications in The Culture Show: Me, You and Doctor Who and An Adventure Through Time and Space to the comments from, bizarrely, McFly and Al Murray on Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide. There were no gentle reminders here that Doctor Who was reaching its 50th anniversary. There was hype: total shameless hype. I’m talking about you, producers who forced a One Direction interview at The Afterparty of an episode the group had not even seen.
So, the build up required an outstanding episode. Or was it the other way around? Considering the gripping mythology Steven Moffat has written over the last three seasons, we were not likely to doubt him. But to make an episode that celebrates 50 years of Doctor Who, while still being relevant to the today’s storyline, does it not have to have a few reminiscing moments? After seeing the Day of the Doctor trailer, a writer on Screen Rant said:
“The concern at this point is that the episode will suffer from excess back-patting and fan service (given the number of callbacks to past gags in the trailer), and that the Doctor-meeting-Doctor angle could feel too much like a gimmick.”
Voted as the favourite Doctor according to Radio Times, Mirror and Metro, David Tennant’s return was sure to deliver a “fan service”. Bringing back Ten meant we could see just how much the Doctor’s character has changed, while still being convinced that it is the same character. Ten is guilt-ridden from killing innocent Time Lord kiddies, so maybe that is why he is implied as being a bit ‘slow’? Apart from realising the plan to save Gallifrey a few seconds later that John Hurt’s and Matt Smith’s Doctor, Billie Piper’s character of The Moment’s Conscience describes John Hurt’s Doctor as “The warrior…”, then Tennant’s “The hero… Any idiot can be a hero.” Aw cheers, The Moment, you just couldn’t resist that little dig there could you? He has been through a lot!
How the three Doctor’s stories cleverly moulded together, The Day of the Doctor did well with Tennant’s callback and Hurt’s appearance. Amongst some of the slightly cringer Doctor banter, there were some amusing lines like Hurt’s:
“Help to pass the timey wimey. Do you have to talk like children? What is it that makes you so ashamed of being a grown-up?”
A couple of callbacks, however, did not appear necessary. Don’t get me wrong, I love Billie Piper – she’s a babe, but I could not help but feel The Moment’s Conscience was a role made just to bring back the actress of the old companion. With The Conscience sitting in the background offering comments like “very good” and “bad wolf, bad wolf, bad wolf” the character didn’t really bring anything to the story. Hurt’s Doctor could have probably come to the same conclusions without her waggling in his ear.
As for Tom Baker’s Doctor, there was not really a satisfying reason for him being there. He played a future Doctor with the job of an art curator saying he had revisited “a few” of his faces. A few? If Trenzalore really is The Doctor’s final resting place (or perhaps he’ll find a way around that too), then he has LOADS of time left. The curator Doctor has killed Trenzalore as being a serious threat.
For the 50th anniversary episode, it needed to be different. It needed to feature some old Doctors such as that fangasm image of all 12 Doctors stood together. Hell, it needed David Tennant. How else would it celebrate Doctor Who’s birthday? The constant regurgitating of past catch phrases, and the mentioned unnecessary callbacks were a bit much at times. Indeed, they could be seen as “gimmicky” or it could be seen as a reminder of how simply awesome Doctor Who is. The latter, is the reason I would prefer to use for my urge to get Doctor Who box sets…
Geekybit 