I know what I'm thinking about when somebody says 3 Doctors at the same time.
It's funny, but despite all the reservations I felt after watching the episode, I can't help but feel that the whole package was, in some ways, fairly inevitable. That things were always going to move in this direction eventually. But I'm not going to be able to get into this in any detail without the obvious spoilers. So if you haven't actually managed to watch it yet, I suggest you sort your priorities out.
That this episode was going to be taking a wrecking ball to the very concept of series continuity was a given. Of course, we all thought it was going to be a large John Hurt shaped wrecking ball. We weren't entirely wrong on this, but who could have foreseen the added complication of a Tom Baker sized continuity bomb in the final five minutes? I have absolutely no idea what's happening there, but after the beating the timelines took in the preceding sixty minutes I doubt the universe does either. And I guess that's my main problem with the whole thing.
I'm sure I've noted before that one of the curious features of the start of the 11th Doctors run was the way it started unpicking the continuity set down during the 9th & 10ths. Not in a big bad or malicious way, just smoothing out the excesses caused by all those huge world shattering and highly publicized alien invasions. That was all well and good. There are, after all, only so many times you can destroy Victorian London with a giant steam powered Cyberman before people start to notice.
Come back when you've got a giant Myrka to fight.
But if there was one thing that remained, one particular underpinning that was too important to even be directly addressed, let alone retconned out of existence, it was the Time War. The fall out from that mythical conflict DEFINED the Doctor in the modern incarnation to a greater or lesser extent. Learning how to cope afterwards was basically the entire point of the 9th Doctor. The 10th Doctor carved out his legend in that shadow, as the only survivor (apart from all the Daleks), and gave us the revelation that, at the end, it wasn't just the Daleks that he was fighting. That the Time Lords themselves had become, if anything, the greater threat. We'll come back to that. By the time of the 11th Doctor things had of course moved on, but the specter was still there to underpin his darker moments, a quiet statement of resolve in the face of overwhelming threats. Showing the sort of level that the Doctor operates on, looking at a greater good so large most people can't even wrap their heads around it.
In narrative terms what happened in the war itself was fairly irrelevant, save that it was mythic and terrible. The point was how it ended. The Doctor making that one terrible decision in order to bring peace back to the rest of the universe. Exactly how wasn't even that important. He did a thing that ended the war at great cost. That moment has now been lost, and I can't help but feel it undermines things somewhat. And no amount of glib lampshading throwaway lines about not remembering will really cover that up. Of course, that's just my opinion on the purely dramatic impact. In terms of actual continuity I'm not sure it actually matters, as I'm still debating just how much of the preceding series even happened anymore.
The important thing to remember in Doctor Who continuity, is that really there's no such thing as Doctor Who continuity. Everything counts, up to the point it doesn't. Atlantis was destroyed in 3 different ways at 3 different times. The 2nd Doctor was captured and essentially executed by the Time Lords, but also ran the odd black ops mission for them. I mean, in this episode they actually make a UNIT dating joke! So yeah, there are fixed points in time, unless there aren't. And it's pretty obvious that the current production team finds the idea of fixed points far less interesting than inveterate meddling. So that's what we get here. It's not like one approach is superior to the other, it just the sort of conflict of artistic interest you're likely to get over the multiple incarnations of a long running show like Doctor Who.
So in a way I guess fucking with the continuity is the most traditional thing in the episode. At the end of the day the only problem you get is with long term die hard fanboys trying to reconcile everything in one contiguous whole.
So, having said all that let's discuss the issues briefly. Firstly there's the War Doctor of course. How does he fit in. I mean, it's not like there's much precedent for intermediate regenerative forms or anything.
Oh. Ohhhhh....
The funny thing isn't that he exists at all. It's that the justification given for him not totally buggering up the numbering was that this incarnation wasn't actually the Doctor because he refused the name in order to go do the various bad things necessary to fight the Time War. And yet the big theme of this episode is his redemption and everyone telling him that he really WAS the Doctor all the time. And to be fair, he does come across as a very Doctory Doctor. Not the grimdark grizzled fighter of unspeakable wars I at least was rather hoping for. He was rather billed as the sort of Doctor who might, for example, actually carry a gun.
This is, I suppose, something along the lines of this ludo-narrative dissonance all the cool kids keep talking about.
Really, I think his existence comes down to 2 major factors. Making a bitching Cliffhanger, and Christopher Ecclestones' ongoing lack of enthusiasm for revisiting the part of the 9th Doctor.
Because SERIOUS DRAMA.
So he at least provides a way around that. Of course, you could have done something similar by simply casting Paul McGann. But I guess that's not quiet as attention grabbing as having a super big actor playing a mystery incarnation. Still, at least he got a mini episode thing and a regeneration scene. At least we have the Sisterhood of Karns' magic Kool-Aid to fall back on when trying to justify the numbering. So really, he's not much of a problem in the grand scheme of things. Well, aside from having his entire reason for existing in the first place retconned out.
No, the real problem is Gallifrey. Now, I've got to be honest here. For all my bitching an moaning about dramatic impact and undermining of character, I don't think I ever really doubted that the Time Lords would eventually return in some form or other. I mean, we've seen how well being utterly and irrevocably wiped from the face of creation has worked for the Daleks. It's just that I can't help but remember that the Time Lords were rather going to WIPE OUT THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. This was a fairly significant plot point indeed, seeing as how it not only leads the 8 1/2th Doctor to wipe them out in order to stop them (consequently regenerating into the 9th) but also play a key point leading to the regeneration of the 10th into the 11th. So in saving Gallifrey the Doctor either dooms the universe to destruction as time itself is rent asunder by the Time Lords final sanction, or totally undoes his own personal timeline. Which, as we've seen from The Name Of The Doctor and Turn Left has almost equally devastating results.
So, all in all, maybe not the best idea.
I mean, at absolute best you'll just end up with Rassilon gobbing all over everything again.
Of course, ignoring the cosmically cataclysmic effects of negating the central plot hook of the past decade or so of Doctor Who, you can rather see where they're going with this. The idea of having the search for Gallifrey be an ongoing plot hook is certainly a good one, and has possibilities. And let's be honest here, it's not like the portrayal of Gallifrey has ever been particularly consistent. From the godlike watchers of The War Games to the complacent decadence of The Deadly Assassin. From the doomed heroes of legend to the ultimate threat to the cosmos itself. And now back round again to innocent victims.
And not forgetting the Shobogans of course.
Really the only constant feature of Gallifrey in all it's many incarnations has been that it's a shithole that the Doctor really doesn't want to be around. Technologically advanced, perhaps. But bereft of soul and culture. A sort of galactic Milton Keynes if you will. Still, we can forgive him for being a little homesick I'm sure. Maybe he just wants to pop to Ikea. After all, he's always going on about putting up shelves and building cabinets, and it has been a few years since the TARDIS was graced with some flat pack furniture.
To be fair, this is how I feel after a trip to Ikea too.
However, I can't stop complaining now. Not when I'm so close. I do also have to take issue with the implementation of the cunning plan™ to save Gallifrey. Now, the whole idea of trapping the planet in a frozen moment, in a pocket universe is actually fairly sound. The conceit of being able to do so because the 11th Doctor has had the time necessary to do the math is also nice. Wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey. The part where the Daleks blow themselves up? Less plausible.
Now, I realize that the Daleks are just as vulnerable to the inverse ninja principle as any other monster, and thusly are lucky not to spontaneously combust or randomly metamorphose in tins of cabbage or whatever just through sheer weight of numbers. But to expect them wipe themselves out, down to the very last man, simply by taking their target away and hoping they just keep shooting anyway seems a little.... Optimistic. I know the Daleks can get a little overenthusiastic, but did they really buy all their targeting systems from Acme? When did they turn into Wile E Coyote?
Okay, yes. Destiny Of The Daleks. I know.
The only thing less plausible than this gross misunderstanding on the basic physics of planetary bombardment (such as the not insignificant difference in size between said planet and the ships orbiting it) is then having ALL the past incarnations of the Doctor show up to help because reasons. I really don't see how it's supposed to make even the vaguest lick of sense. I know it's the anniversary. And "because anniversary" is basically the entire plot of the 5 Doctors, and you won't see me complaining about that anytime soon. But when you've spent as much time as had been explicitly stating that the story was NOT going to be "because anniversary" just for the sake of it, throwing a moment like that just feels even more out of place than it already did. I'm not saying it wasn't COOL. Just out of place.
Plus Big Finish had actually already kinda done it first. But then you can say that about pretty much everything.
Still, for all my bitching they get a lot of things right. At no point is the program unengaging or dull. The Zygons are great to see back. Really well done and used in a fun and unexpected fashion. There is an odd sense that the anniversary special elements of the plot were gatecrashing a regular episode in a way, which was an interesting way of doing things. The other big win was of course in NOT having bloody Rose come back for the umpteenth time. It's nice to have Billie Piper put in an appearance in a different way and not to have to retread the same terrible Mary Sue bullcrap that so plagues the character. I have nothing against the actress. I don't even always have a problem with the writing. But I don't have any particular fondness for the character, so I consider that a bullet dodged. I'm still not particularly feeling the character of Clara however. She's still just kinda... There. Maybe something will click for me once I get around to a proper uninterupted viewing of her episodes, but since so much time that would be spent establishing a companions character was, for her, spent NOT doing that I do have to wonder what it's going to take to elevate her from genericness. Only time will tell.
And then we come at last to the big, unexpected twist at the end.
An apt question.
I don't think anybody could have seen that coming in a million years. The real question of course is what does it all MEAN? He certainly seems to be some version of the 4th Doctor. Kinda maybe sorta somehow probably. But then what? How? When? Did the catastrophic damage cause to the timeline result in all the Doctors past incarnations retiring rather then dying in unfortunate and violent circumstances? Is the 1st Doctor running a flower shop somewhere? Does the 3rd run waterski lessons for OAPS off the Brighton coast? Has the 7th Doctor opened a little games shop somewhere? Does he sell Yu-Gi-Oh cards, or just creepy chess sets? Is this all part of some ongoing conceit to afford the classic Doctors the odd cameo appearance without blowing the makeup budget? Or will it simply never be referenced again?
Not that THAT'S ever happened before, eh Romana/Susan/Leela/Ace/Other Romana/Whoever?
I honestly haven't the faintest idea. But then we're still waiting for some sort of closure on the overarcing plot from Matt Smiths first series as well, so I guess it takes time for these things to play out.
Does The Day Of The Doctor make any real sort of overall sense?
Does it fuck.
No. Not really. But it's not actually bad by any stretch of the imagination. What it does is try to blow a plot hole in the continuity so large that everything else falls in. Then with a little bit of patching up what we're left with is a nice space on which to start building the next chapter of the series.
In this sense, I'd say it's fairly successful. But next time can we have a Raston Warrior Robot?
Final Rating: The catharsis of spurious continuity out of ten.
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