Moffat Era Rewatch: Notes on "The Day of the Doctor"

·      What isn’t acknowledged often enough about “The Day of the Doctor” is that it has a really layered, dense script – Moffat has said it is the most complex script he has written for the show, in spite of the fact that it is a big blockbuster populist episode – and when you take a look at the script, that makes sense.

·      Details that particularly standout include the three timelines woven together in the first half hour, which require complex non linear storytelling (note the time loop that results in the fez ending up in the Tower of London because Eleven picked it up from their and took it back to the past), the non linear storytelling with the Doctor asking McCullough to deliver the painting to the black archive is a delightful set up and payoff and the seeding of “Gallifrey falls no more” in our first introduction to the paintings. At each turn, the story pays attention to every significant strand with care and craftsmanship.

·      The tower of London sequence has a particularly meticulous structure – the sonic screwdriver a metaphor for the three Doctors, the means through which the War Doctor accepts the Tenth and Eleventh as the Person he currently is, and foreshadowing for the conclusion – just as it takes the sonic screwdriver 400 years to figure out how to open the door, it takes the Doctor 400 years between the destruction of Gallifrey and this episode to change his mind, and choose to save Gallifrey. And the sequence provides astonishing character work for Ten, Eleven, and the War Doctor: David Tennant’s Doctor is mostly used for comic relief with Elizabeth II, and for the fact that it’s fun to have David Tennant back, but my word he’s good in this sequence, with the tenth Doctor’s definite, somewhat inflexible morality clashing with Eleven’s tiredness in a big way: “The man who regrets and the man who forgets” is an excellent way to distinguish between Tennant and Smith, who, as the “handsome young nice boyfriend Doctors” (please note the scare quotes here), are both, at least superficially, the most similar Doctors to appear back to back.

·      Once again, Nick Hurran gives an outstanding contribution in his final appearance as a director, his visual skill particularly visible when he uses the 3D effects nicely in the painting shots, and in the cutting of scenes like Osgood’s escape from the Zygons in an unusual but distinctive way, as he uses the camera to capture Osgood’s internal perspective of the chase, instead of just depicting the chase itself.

·      In a way, this is the natural culmination of the Movie poster approach: a genuine feature length episode broadcast in 3D in cinemas around the world. The extent to which season seven has been a dress rehearsal (which is, really, the main weakness of series seven, which is mostly comprised of solid episodes but nonetheless feels a little hollow as a whole) for this becomes clear, and is on the whole, justified by the success of the Special.

·      The realisation of the moment is also an excellent concept, Douglas Adams-esque idea of a weapon so powerful the operating system became sentient, giving a hint of the madness of the Time War, which are still mostly hidden from us: what is depicted in this episode is mostly a war of attrition now that both sides have used most of their complex and extreme weaponry. And she is brilliantly played by Billie Piper, who is an absolute delight, performing excellently opposite John Hurt.

·      Also lovely is the warmth between Smith and Coleman: they’ve really developed a strong rapport, and the Doctor and Clara’s friendship feels more genuine now that they both know the truth of Clara’s echoes.

·      The story also strikes a smart balance in its approach to doing a multi Doctor story, not overstuffing the main narrative with all possible Doctors as “The Five Doctors” does, but maintaining a similar dynamic to “The Three Doctors” until the end, where all the Doctors are given a cameo, there’s a brief appearance from Capaldi’s eyebrows, and we get the treat that is the Curator.

·      In many ways, the core of this story can be found in the appearance of the two “new Doctors”. John Hurt, in an astonishing one off performance, seals the link between the classic series and the new, giving us our final regeneration, and allowing the story to address perceived inconsistency’s in the new series portrayal of the Doctor with the classic series, as both come to accept one another, while also representing the healing of the wound of the wilderness years that the Time War, in many ways, represented. The Curator, meanwhile, represents the ability of the show to go on forever: as a future Doctor who we will never see again, he ensures that the series can go on forever with no defined endpoint (and also nicely echoes the eleventh Doctor’s wish to retire and take up watercolours when confronted with his apparent inevitable end on Trenzalore). In many ways, it’s more of a reversal of the regeneration limit than the actual reversal we get in “The Time of the Doctor”.

·      You can’t please all of the people all of the time, but with “The Day of the Doctor”, Moffat got about as close as possible, with a near perfect script. On November 23^rd, 2013, Doctor Who turned 50, and it got the best birthday party possible.