Exploring Doctor Who's Most Ambitious Episode

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2. "It's a powerful moment" whyy

3. I don't think it's fair to say that this completely ignores classic Who, given the constraints that reality imposes. Bringing back characters from that era, and especially former Doctors, is complicated by the fact that their actors are now very old or in many cases dead. (Narratively it is easier to bring back classic companions as their actors age in real time.) But we got workarounds to those limitations instead. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's actor would have been too old (and so arguably would his character, in-universe), indeed he died within a few months of this episode airing; but we get his daughter instead to carry on his legacy as a nod to the classic series. And we did get the return of a classic monster not seen in new Who up to this point in the Zygons.

4. Super unpopular opinion, it makes sense that the doctor changed the ending of the time war. He had centuries to figure it out, of course he would find new ways to do it right. It's like when he saved River.

5. tbh osgood's one of the better classic who references, since her name is a reference to one of the unit soldiers in the daemons. but yeah as I get older and fall more towards being a classic fan than a new who fan I have less and less good will towards the way classic who got shafted in this ep. even the tom baker cameo and the zygons feel like they're trying to grab some nostalgia from the parents of new who fans watching by going 'ooh fourth doctor things!!1!' like come on it's meant to be a celebration of all dr who not just the most popular ones plus john hurt!

6. I absolutely love Day of the Doctor, it's my second-favourite Doctor Who story! I saw it in 3D at the cinema then watched it on TV that night – everything surrounding the 50th just felt so special and epic back then.
   It's not without flaws though, as you've pointed out. I've never liked the way Clara interrupts what should have been a beautiful moment of the Doctor coming to accept that he can't always save everyone, only to have him save Gallifrey. Ultimately it ended up being pointless anyway. The "search for Gallifrey" never really happened and then Chibnall just blew it up again off-screen.
   I also agree that there should have been more classic Who representation, although the Doctors all coming together and that final group shot were both beautiful, plus Tom Baker's surprise cameo nearly made me jump in excitement and surprise.
   Perhaps the Moment could have taken the forms of different companions from different points in their lives? That way they could bring back a companion to represent each Doctor, since most of them are still alive. My line-up would be: Susan, Jamie, Jo, Romana II (since Elisabeth Sladen had already passed), Tegan or Nyssa, Peri, Ace, Charley or Lucie (in their live-action debut), Rose/Bad Wolf, Martha or Donna, and Amy.
   Overall though, it's a beautiful celebration.

7. 60 years specials will be better mark my words

8. I always pictured the time war in a eldritchy way. I could see the timelords and daleks strip mining planets for resources, jumping back in time, setting up a paradox machine and doing it again. The fighting destroys one of those machines and causes a massive paradox destroying that region of space. I view the Could've Been King & Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres to be a faction of crazed and mad individuals that survive the various paradoxes caused by all the time fighting. The end of time makes it seem like both sides had lost control of the war and the very universe was fighting back as it was destroyed. The moment then just resets the universe and leaves the races involved in the war in the old universe to die out. Our universe knows nothing about it except the few races that managed to slip through and keep some legends of it.

   That's my quick, poorly explained, ramble.

9. John Hurt was magnificent R.I.P 😢🔷

10. 22:27 "the good guys", don't you remember the things they did in their appearances in Torchwood?

11. I’m surprised you didn’t make any mention of “random science man” McGillop’s terrible acting. Honestly, he gives more robotic line readings than the Cybermen and the Daleks combined

12. I like the show they made alongside the 50th An Adventure In Space And Time that basically charts the beginnings of the show and all the problems it faced and seeing the original team of Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein at the helm. I feel the toxic fans who had problems with Jodie and Ncuti being the doctor have forgotten that the first 3 people behind the camera were a Canadian, a woman and a gay man of colour. In the 60s that was a rarity to have women and people of colour at the helm of these shows and in these high positions in the media world. It really showed you that Doctor Who at it's core is about pushing boundaries, making a difference and change. changing the ways we look at and see the world.

13. 'I could have a great catchphrase, like, my catchphrase could be "Quel dommage!". Like, "Quel dommage, Davros!"'
    -The Doctor 😂

14. For me, "Day Of The Doctor" has aged like fine wine. It's an epic episode I've REALLY come to appreciate over time. When I first watched it, I had my issues, but as time has gone on, I've just come to respect the task Moffatt had on his hands, and considering everything the Moff had to do, I think he did BRILLIANTLY! One of the things I like is that he doesn't overcrowd the story. I came to appreciate this after recent ventures, like CW's Crisis On Infinite Earths or Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. The cameos and references in those feel shoe-horned in, muddling the focus of the narrative. That's why I personally disagree with Moffat's focus on mainly NuWho, with only three main Doctors at the forefront. Overall made for a more focused, character-driven, emotional-rewarding story, that made sense based on the trajectory of NuWho. You still get lots of Classic Who references: UNIT, The Zygons, Tom Baker, The War Doctor's Classical/Modern fusion, ALL THIRTEEN, etc. I feel saying that's a huge issue is a bit harsh. I agree it's a cop-out The Doctor never destroyed Galifrey tho, but that's more BTS reasoning. In the episode, War was going to destroy Galifrey, but Eleven changed his mind. With that, I think we can just say, after many years, after everything he's been through, all the regret, The Doctor FINALLY got to fix things. It's a shame the whole "Finding Galifrey" storyline has not paid off satisfyingly since then, but I think there is HUGE potential in a storyline where Galifrey FINALLY returns into the main universe, meaning The Time War would begin again, and then what will happen?! If I was a showrunner, that's something I'd definitely tackle (Tho I'm sure RTD can do better). Overall, I can see why Moffatt says this was one of the most difficult episodes to write as the showrunner, and it's impressive considering the BTS drama what he produced. Let's hope RTD can do the same (I'm sure he can. I'M SO GOSH DARN HYPED!!! 😍 Knock On Wood )

15. Something I love about this special is the concept of The Moment. The idea of a weapon of mass destruction having sentience and a consciousness to decide whether you can use it is really imaginative and unique. And for it to use a face of which you are familiar with(this special being exempt since it only shows one face, from War's future) is also haunting as a concept.

    Would love to see this presented in more sci-fi works, it would be so fun.

    I think in DoTD, It executes a really good narrative of showing the journey the Doctor has from cowardly exhaustion of the Time war, wanting to just stop it without weighing yet the full lasting consequences, to acceptance that he will lead a future life of sorrow and grief and that he must embrace that he isn't someone else for making this choice. He's The Doctor, even if his future selves don't believe that, even if he chose to be this incarnation to try and not be The Doctor. a weapon of mass destruction that forces you to accept that YOU are who is deciding this path of genocide, haunting and sad. The Moment is almost like a foil for The Doctor's motivations to be honest. The Doctor wants to help people from their pain, The Moment is helping The Doctor to go towards their pain, that being the genocide of their people and The Daleks. I think also that the experience with The Moment would later inform Capaldi's Doctor when pleading with Bonnie and Kate during that zygon inversion speech, The Doctor acting as The Moment's consciousness for the two boxes of irreversible destruction, The doctor having to be the one to convince to let things. Only instead of talking them into destruction, the Doctor talks them out of it, how he wishes The Moment would have done for him, or anyone else, before he did what he did*.

    *Thought he did.

16. We're just 14 months from the 60th…! I actually gasped when I saw Tom Baker in the episode; gotta agree the Zygons were a bit forced; Osgood reminded me of a girl I met at a WHO con in '86…all in all, I got a real thrill watching this one.

17. I really hate them saving Gallifrey, it's such an irritating Moffat fairytale ending, the doctor isn't the hero from a fairy tale, they are a lonely person who always chooses to run away, run away from their past, run away from who they used to be, run away from who they used to love…
    I hate this episode, it ruins the time war which is probably the most interesting part of the nu who doctors character and the whole tone of this sets the stage for happy go lucky completely unable to have any dark moments 13th doctor years later. Matt Smith plays a very fairytale doctor but he has these moments when he shows it's all a facade and that he is still a hurt, angry person at heart

18. I do agree that the 8th Doctor would have been the best for this special. I don't buy in to your conspiracy theory, though. I think Moffat really just had his head up his arse.

19. The ending where they saved galifrey would have been alright if it didn't have like two appearances since then. We haven't run into any other time lords besides the master, and 12 and 13 spend minimal time really giving a shit about it. There wasn't any real reason to have it return if it wasn't going to actually matter. Tho I guess it gave us Heaven Sent which is pretty rad.

20. If you want a neat time, for doctor who magazine (I think) RTD actually wrote the ending to his time war, which is conceived as the last page to what he imagined a time war book would be and it's absolutely wild:

    "And yet the Doctor can see glimpses of Earth. The planet had been replicated a million times, to become the bullets fired into the Nightmare Child’s skull, and now splinters of human society have gouged themselves into the wasteland below – relics of Mumbai, shards of Manhattan, a satire of Old London Town. Remnants of better days."

21. That 8th doctor special is some of the best of new who and I'm so annoyed he never got the chance to act alongside the rest of the modern doctors, especially since he is a bridge between the classic and new who era's.

22. It makes me think, the 50th had 7 seasons of build up to work with. As much as I would rather see a Davies 60th vs a moffat 50th, rather than a Chibnall 60th vs Moffat 50th (wouldnt be a fair fight), Davies coming off the back of Chibnalls 3 seasons still has a lot of the same problems. Davies can't really go back to pre-50th material, and JUST using capaldi's era would be weird. Using Jodie's era in any way would force Davies to inadvertently agree that the 50th doesnt count or take on the timeless child stuff. He either has to act like Whitakers era never existed, or has to act like the 50th never existed. I don't see how to integrate everything that has come since.

    Every 10 years gives a capsule of where the show is at. For this reason I'd love a Capaldi/Whitaker 60th, but by proxy it would have less to work with.

23. Something from the time war that always has me itching for more information is the nightmare child.
    The little information we get is almost lovecraftian in nature just horrors even war hardened veterns recall with a bitter sting in their tongue, yet at the same time I don't want anymore information our imagination fills in the blanks.

    Bittersweet I suppose.

24. Must literally be the only fan who despises this special lol

25. I wasn't expecting this special to focus so much on the Zygons, I mean they get more screen time than the Daleks. More to the point about Classic Who not getting enough representation, an easy fix would be to bring in a Classic companion as the Moment when Eccleston refused. It makes more sense with the War Doctor not having met Rose yet.

26. Same I can’t stand osgood !!

27. I do love this episode, it has plenty of flaws I know but I do love seeing 10 and 11 act off each other. John Hurt was great as well despite how shoehorned in the war doctor felt due to being a last minute bodge.

    I also liked seeing the return of the Zygons, back when I was a kid in the 90s growing up watching classic Who reruns on cable tv and VHS the Zygon episode was the only episode of who ever that terrified me.

    For some reason the classic Zygons really gave me nightmares despite never being particularly scared by any other classic villains.

28. Finally I can rest

29. I think the unit/zygons plot ties in with the gallifrey plot because it introduces the stasis cubes, which are what is used to save Gallifrey. I also disagree with the happy ending part, this isn’t really a completely happy ending, Gallifrey is stuck, frozen in a single moment, for now it’s just as gone as if it were destroyed, to paraphrase the episode, the Doctor still has nothing, but he has hope. I also think this is sold really later when the Doctor lies to Clara that he found Gallifrey only to show him in the tardis drifting in space where Missy said Gallifrey was. It is, however, a shame that Gallifrey returns so suddenly.

30. John Hurt portrayed weriness so well he died 4 years later

31. I don’t think I can possibly complain about 9 and 8 not being the one who ended the time war, John Hurt is just amazing

32. Imagine giving a moment for Tom Baker to imply/state that Gallifrey is safe (which is confirmed later), just for Chibnail to kill all the Time Lords later anyway

33. Also, as an asthma sufferer, Osgood uses her inhaler WAY too much

34. I think, the doctors should've given the council of timelords the cup of soups, then went and set off the moment. They could hope the council was able to save their planet, but nobody, not even the audience, would know for sure. Then you can still have the doctor going there with heaven sent / hell bent, but it explains why the doctor never tries to find it until missy.

35. Now all we need is Harry’s Moving Media to release a “Did It Suck” on the 50th and my life will be complete.

36. Now, Chinball will ruin the 60s aniversary.

37. I think gallifrey was brought because I don’t think moffat wanted to end a celebration with mass genocide

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