Eleven For Eleven: The Eleven Worst Doctor Who Stories So Far

With The Day of The Doctor now officially reviewed, I have exactly 100 Doctor Who stories, Classic and NuWho, that I have written about.  With that in mind, I decided it would be good to pause and look over the Best of the Best.  Having done that, it is now time to turn our sad eyes to the cacophony of disasters that masquerade as 'quality television.  That's right, time to look at the Worst of the Worst, the Eleven Worst Doctor Who stories so far.

Now, first some ground rules.   This is not a Best or Worst Doctor Who Stories of All Time.  The stories covered are as follows: all Classic Doctor Who stories released on DVD in the United States from the First Doctor adventure An Unearthly Child to the Third Doctor story Terror of the Autons with the exception of The Tenth Planet (which was released too late for consideration) as well as the Fourth Doctor story The Sunmakers.  This list also includes all NuWho stories from the Ninth Doctor story Rose down to the Tenth Doctor adventure The Idiot's Lantern, as well as all Eleventh Doctor story from The Eleventh Hour to The Day of The Doctor.  Therefore, do not look for anything past the Third Doctor or most of the Tenth Doctor Era.  They just haven't been reviewed yet.

As for the reason I selected eleven rather than ten, while it's tempting to say it's one for each Doctor, the truth is that eleven stories so far have earned a perfect 10/10.  I didn't want to leave one out, so I opted for Eleven.  Therefore, we should then give equal time and look at our Bottom Ten. 

Other than that, I think we're ready.  Therefore, without further ado, the Bottom Eleven Doctor Who Stories so far, starting at Number 11.  I recommend reading this while listening to something like New Order's Blue Monday (one of the greatest songs ever written) or perhaps something from my favorite DJ, Andy Hunter (personal recommendations: On Automatic, Hold On, or Sandstorm Calling). 

Num. 11
The Vampires of Venice (11th Doctor)
Writer: Toby Whithouse

I had started out as a fan of Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor.  I even named my fantasy football team BowTiesAreCool.  There were a few off stories before The Vampires of Venice, but it wasn't until the fifth Eleventh Doctor story that I started to become disenchanted with Smith.  That disenchantment eventually grew to an almost pathological hatred for how much of an idiot the Eleventh Doctor was and my antipathy towards almost everything related to Matt Smith, Steven Moffat, and especially River Song (whom I first encountered in The Time of Angels Parts I & II) can really stem from this story.

First, they are NOT vampires.  Second, Smith's Doctor here really started becoming too stupid to believe.  He seemed unaware of what a bachelor party was or why a scantly-clad woman was doing in the box.  Then we get the aftereffects of Amy Pond's attempted rape of the Doctor (seriously, she all but tried to rape him, a most disturbing sight apart from River Song naked).  When an understandably upset Rory confronts the Doctor, asking if he kissed her back, he replies, "No, I kissed her mouth," apparently unaware that 'back' had another meaning apart from body parts.  The jokes about 'the Doctor's being bigger than (Rory's)' were not so much risqué but stupid, the story both predictable and repetitive of School Reunion (written by...Toby Whithouse!), and frankly, I did something I hadn't done while watching Doctor Who in a long time.

I rolled my eyes at the whole thing.

Num. 10
The Web Planet (1st Doctor)
Writer: Bill Strutton

I kept thinking that it was almost a contest to see just who could come up with more and more stupid aliens while watching The Web Planet.  At a shocking SIX episodes, a story too long by at least four episodes kept going down, down, and down, to where things were becoming too ridiculous to tolerate.

Apart from the fact that some of the plot points were similar to previous Doctor Who stories (and this when the show was still relatively new), we get some simply sad moments.  The most notorious moment in The Web Planet is when the Zarbi, the ant-like creatures threatening the moth-like Menoptra, crashes into the camera with such force that it not only jerks the camera violently (and visibly) but also makes an audible crash.  The creatures were so unbearably silly: the Menoptra with their whisper-like delivery, the chirping Zarbi, and then the ringleader who communicates by what First Doctor William Hartnell referred to in character as a 'hair dryer thing'.  We can't expect to take something seriously if the cast doesn't; then again, nothing could make The Web Planet a serious effort. 

It's painful to watch. 

Num. 9
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (11th Doctor)
Writer: Stephen Thompson

That big friendly button.  More than anything else, that 'big friendly button' damns Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS to being a lazy, even insulting Doctor Who story.  There is so much wrong within it I cannot imagine how anyone could think well of it.  The Doctor threatening to blow up people, then laughing it off as if nothing.  A human so stupid he was convinced he was a robot (let alone this playing little in the overall plot).  The Doctor forcing the 'cyborg's' brothers to basically play nice.  And those are the more simple parts of this disaster. 

You throw in this History of the Time War book within the TARDIS' library.  In it, Clara reads the Doctor's name.  This big galaxy-shattering secret, we are basically told, is available to anyone with a library card who can check out The History of the Time War.  The reasons for 'the Impossible Girl' are also kind of left hanging.  How ever will we get out of this?  Answer: the Big Friendly Button, which is indicative of the thinking behind Doctor Who now and the overall intelligence of the average NuWhovian.  You just reset everything and all is forgotten, problem fixed: Clara remembers nothing, things are now as they were before we started.  Now that we have a reset with The Day of the Doctor, how then does The History of the Time War book change?  Are we to believe we have a reset within a reset?

Num. 8
The Dominators (2nd Doctor)
Writer: Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln
(under alias Norman Ashby)

If memory serves correct, Doctor Who was on the verge of cancellation during the end of the Patrick Troughton era.  Given such stories as The Space Pirates and The Dominators, it's not surprising.  The Dominators is the best example one has on what NOT to do, which was to attempt to make a ready-made toy from a Doctor Who monster.  The Quarks, far from being the new Daleks, were a disaster.  They weren't menacing.  They were almost cuddly, and the high-pitched chirping they made didn't help.  That, as well as the fact that a child (who could easily fit inside a Quark) could outrun them, and whose heads were far too spiky to serve as good playthings.  Really, the Dominators themselves must have been incredibly stupid to rely on these cuddly little things to conquer the planet's inhabitants, even if they were the perfectly-named Dulcians.

The Dominators was meant to serve as allegory about the pacifism of the hippies, but the Dulcians, with their curtain-as-clothes flowing about them, and the Dominators, with shoulder pads that Joan Crawford would have beaten other children for, were equally stupid. Even the writers were embarrassed by it all, Lincoln bemoaning the fact that the superior The Web of Fear was mostly missing, but all five episodes of The Dominators was still around.*   The Dominators was such a disaster that even the production company knew it, cutting the planned six-part story down by one episode.  In a good turn, the extra episode freed up to create the utterly surreal opening to The Mind Robber, so at least one good thing came from it all.

Sadly, from here on down it's all Eleven Doctor stories. 

Num. 7
The Snowmen (11th Doctor)
Writer: Steven Moffat

It isn't the fact that The Snowmen leaves more questions than answers.  That I could live with.  It is the fact that The Snowmen does treat the audience like they were imbeciles and basically makes The Doctor a guest star on his own show (among other aspects) that makes this a horrid episode.

Let's go over some of the really bad things.  The same-sex bestiality of Silurian Madame Vastra and Jenny takes center stage.  They I think were in The Snowmen more than Matt Smith was (and since when was he ever friends with the likes of THEM?).  Moreover, the Doctor tended to defer to them.  The Sontaran Strax, who had been killed off in River's Secret Part I (A Good Man Goes to War) now not only reappears sans explanation (and no, webisodes do not count, not being Canon) but has forever made the once-mighty Sontarans into a source of bad comedy.  The villain of The Great Intelligence doesn't really live up to his name, and unless he intends to turn the whole earth into ice I don't see how snowmen will be much threat in the Amazon. 

Finally, what resolves this great crisis?  Is it something the Doctor thinks up?  Perish the thought, what kind of program do you think this is? Doctor Who?  No, it's TEARS, the tears of a clown...or rather, the magical nanny/bar-wench Clara that turn into acid rain that melts The Snowmen. 

Whoever wrote this really is a stupid man...

Num. 6
River's Secret Parts I & II
(A Good Man Goes to War/Let's Kill Hitler): 11th Doctor
Writer: Steven Moffat



I consider A Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler one story which I have titled River's Secret Parts I & II.  I think it's a pretty accurate description given that River Song had at this point in Doctor Who had become the de facto star of the show, with the Doctor being a minor character there to serve her purposes (especially her perverse psychosexual appetites).  We get not one but TWO Doctor Who stories that center around this narcissistic, vain, gleefully murderous creature whom we kept getting told is "the great love of the Doctor's life".

Given the Doctor has travelled with Romana, Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith, and Leela of the Seveteem (among others), I find the idea that he could be attracted to someone as needy, intellectually inferior, and manipulative (not to mention, as unattractive) as River Song highly dubious.

A Good Man Goes to War is a horrid thing.  We get introduced to the same-sex bestiality of Silurian Madame Vastra and Jenny (who frankly, went unnoticed by me: I didn't even mention them in my review).  The Doctor is pulling a 'Coalition of the Willing' to help rescue Amy Pond, someone who frankly isn't worth rescuing.  Amy is such a terrible person: Rory, the man who genuinely loves her (God knows why), who has waited an eternity for her, basically gets told off when he meets HIS daughter.  Oh, no, she's going to be called Melody POND, not Melody Williams.  Why should Rory's daughter carry HIS name?

We then get the Big Reveal: River Song is Amy and Rory's DAUGHTER.  SHE is Melody Pond.  Isn't it obvious: Melody=Song, Pond=River.  Makes (no) sense to me.

As if all this is not nonsense enough, we get more appalling treats in Let's Kill Hitler.  Amy and Rory's lifelong friend Mels, who is always in some sort of trouble with the law, kidnaps the three of them and orders them to whisk her off to Nazi Germany to 'kill Hitler'.  No reason, she just felt like it.  Let's leave aside the fact that a.) Hitler plays no part in Let's Kill Hitler and b.) there really is no point to this particular episode other than to showcase Alex Kingston, we get the most amazingly dunderheaded moment in Doctor Who history: Mels, human, regenerates into, you guessed it, The Legendary Legend of Legendness, River Song!

Humans cannot regenerate.  This whole 'yes she can because she was conceived by the Power of the Holy TARDIS' nonsense should tell any thinking person the sheer stupidity of it all.  Then again, we're dealing with people who still yearn for the TARDIS to land in front of 221 B Baker Street, so the fans aren't great intellects.  Finally, if we accept that indeed, River Song CAN regenerate because Steven Moffat says she can...I mean, because her parents did the bump and grind in the TARDIS, it leaves the plot thread from Day of the Moon Part II (Day of the Moon) unanswered. 

How does a little girl who 'regenerated' in 1969/70 manage to grow up with people not born for another ten years in another continent altogether?

Num. 5
Cold War (11th Doctor)
Writer: Mark Gatiss

Never were Classic Doctor Who monsters so bastardized, bowdlerized, and simply dumbed down than the Ice Warriors were in Cold War.  Here, instead of the menacing but slightly lumbering creatures, they were turned into these vaguely-Alien types who were searching for Ripley to kill. 

Cold War had all the trapping of the dismal state of Doctor Who today: an idiot Doctor, a rushed pace that allows for little to no actual story to get in, plot points that make no sense (who was taking pictures inside a secret Soviet sub anyway), a monster that demanded our sympathy because he was 'the last of his kind' (echoing the more superior Ninth Doctor story Dalek) and a simply unforgiveable deus ex machina that resolved everything without the Doctor having to do anything.  As someone who loves the Ice Warriors, and who was thrilled to see them return, I finished Cold War in shaking fury at what Gatiss (self-proclaimed genius and second-rate Mycroft Holmes) had done to them.  I'm an honest man: I think well of both The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot's Lantern, but Cold War was simply sickening.  I would say Mark Gatiss should be horse-whipped for what he did, but I worry he might enjoy it.

Num. 4
The God Complex (11th Doctor)
Writer: Toby Whithouse

Really, what does anyone remember of The God Complex?  I remember things, but not for 'the right reasons'.  

I remember how The God Complex went out of its way to make Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor a barely functioning idiot.  Here is where I first fully noticed his penchant for referring to Amy and Rory as "The Ponds".  He, if I understand things, does not know that most women take their husband's last name upon marriage.  Granted, this is not always the case, but I don't know a case where the Husband takes the Wife's name.  NuWhovians who don't question things insist the Doctor called them "The Ponds" because he thought Amy was the more dominant of the two. 

Perhaps, but if is so why does he call Rory's father Brian William "Brian Pond" in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (forcing Rory's dad to tell the Doctor, 'I am NOT a Pond').  Am I suppose to believe that Amy is so dominant that she made her father-in-law change HIS name too?  I think not, and the nasty habit of the NuWhovians to call them "the Ponds" rather than "the Williamses" came from this.  The God Complex clearly shows the Doctor to be stupid.  There is no way around it.

Even worse, The God Complex kills off the best chance at a REAL Companion (Amara Kara's Muslim medical student Rita) because she cannot face her greatest fear.  And what is her greatest fear, that fear that will kill her?  Her father's disapproval.  Frankly, this seems to heap insult to injury.  I wish they had killed off Amy and Rory (again) and the Doctor take on Rita as a Companion.  She made better Companion material than either of 'the Ponds'. 




Num. 3
The Curse of the Black Spot (11th Doctor)
Writer: Stephen Thompson

Oh, look, a cheap knock-off of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.  How clever.  Is it its derivative nature that curses The Curse of the Black Spot?  Is it the fact that Rory Dies Again (the beginning of Rory as Kenny to where it quickly devolved into a pathetic joke)?   Is it the fact that the Doctor is still an idiot who appears unaware of his surroundings?  Maybe its super-speed pacing that never allows for any character development of anyone, leads or guests. How about the fact that the Siren shares similarities to The Empty Child Parts I & II (The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances)?

Well, it's all that and so much more.  The story is boring and nonsensical.  Attempts at both humor and heartfelt fall so totally flat.  Frankly, The Curse of The Black Spot was a waste of everyone's time and talent, to where I simply cannot recall anything other than contempt for it. 

Num. 2
Nightmare in Silver (11th Doctor)
Writer: Neil Gaiman

At least this much is true about Nightmare in Silver: it lived up to its title.  Just as I was furious at the disaster Cold War made of the Ice Warriors, Nightmare in Silver not only made a disaster of the Cybermen, but it couldn't even keep continuity WITHIN ITS OWN EPISODE.

These are suppose to be upgraded Cybermen, capable of super-speed.  That super-speed is used exactly once, to spirit away one of the two most annoying child actors to disgrace the screen.  It is wrong when you are actually rooting for the Cybermen to kill off children, but these two were so horrible (both in terms of performance and character) that getting rid of them would have been an act of mercy.  It also gets to where Matt Smith's Idiot Doctor remains Idiot even while under the Cyber-Controller's control.  Seriously, "Mr. Clever"?  That's something Smith's Doctor would say, NOT the Cyber-Controller.

Rushing through this fiasco we get things that don't make sense (why doesn't the secret Emperor just order the destruction of this amusement park in the beginning? why are there troops patrolling a planet long thought abandoned?) and that are a cheat to the audience (when would we have known that Porridge looked like the Emperor's coins when we were never shown the coins or when the figures looked nothing like him?). 

It's hard to get any lower than The Doctor, once the figure of strength, courage, and intellectual prowess, jumping up and down screaming about his 'Golden Ticket'. 

However, despite their worst efforts, Doctor Who has found something more appallingly bad than Nightmare in Silver. 

The Worst Doctor Who Story So Far Is...

Num. 1
Closing Time (11th Doctor)
Writer: Gareth Roberts

I simply despised every single moment of Closing Time, starting with the always hideous and thoroughly untalented James Corden as roly-poly Craig Owens (Tony Award be damned).  If I truly believe the Doctor was making this 'Farewell Tour', why would he, someone who can travel through all time and space, out of all the beings he's known, visit THIS fat lunkhead?

It just isn't the return of a simply annoying character that makes Closing Time so hideous.  It's the nadir of the "The Doctor is thoroughly stupid" mentality.  He finds name tags fascinating, especially since they carry the name of "The Doctor".  His name tag says "The Doctor".  THIS is considered clever. 

Closing Time also undercuts the premise it attempts to hold up.  Everyone around roly-poly Craig Owens' life tells him he's too stupid to take care of his illegitimate son, and he's determined to prove everyone wrong.  How does he do this?  By taking his baby to confront Cybermen AND by handing his child to a perfect stranger as he runs off to join the Doctor. 

Nothing stupid there.

We get more grotesque and sickening moments with the Doctor in Closing Time.  The Doctor 'talks baby' (did Roberts steal this idea from Baby Geniuses?).  The bastard Alfie, according to The Doctor, calls himself 'Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All', though we never fully learn WHY a baby would adopt such a stupid name.  We get the Doctor suggesting that he is in love with roly-poly Craig Owens, and more 'people think we're homosexual lovers, isn't that FUNNY' business that would have been pretty dumb in the 1970s, let alone today where same-sex marriage is becoming more commonplace. 

However, what truly makes Closing Time the WORST Doctor Who story so far is five little words:

"I blew'em up with love".

How I hated Closing Time, the Worst Doctor Who story so far.

Now we're on our way to the Next 100. 

The next Classic Who story is the Third Doctor story The Mind of Evil.
The next NuWho story is the Tenth Doctor two-part story The Impossible Planet Parts I & II (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit).
The next Eleventh Doctor story is The Time of the Doctor.

May I find some true pearls and quickly dump the pits.

* Since the DVD release of The Dominators, four of the five missing episodes of The Web of Fear were rediscovered, and thus we can have a restoration of both the story...and  Haisman and Lincoln's reputations. 

Eleven For Eleven: The Eleven Best Doctor Who Stories So Far

With The Day of The Doctor now officially reviewed, I have exactly 100 Doctor Who stories, Classic and NuWho, that I have written about.  With that in mind, I decided it would be good to pause and look over the Best of the Best.  Of course, I'll also have the Worst of the Worst, but for now, let's take a look at what we've done and select the Eleven Best Doctor Who stories so far.

Now, first some ground rules.   This is not a Best or Worst Doctor Who Stories of All Time.  The stories covered are as follows: all Classic Doctor Who stories released on DVD in the United States from the First Doctor adventure An Unearthly Child to the Third Doctor story Terror of the Autons with the exception of The Tenth Planet (which was released too late for consideration) as well as the Fourth Doctor story The Sunmakers.  This list also includes all NuWho stories from the Ninth Doctor story Rose down to the Tenth Doctor adventure The Idiot's Lantern, as well as all Eleventh Doctor story from The Eleventh Hour to The Day of The Doctor.  Therefore, do not look for anything past the Third Doctor or most of the Tenth Doctor Era.  They just haven't been reviewed yet.

As for the reason I selected eleven rather than ten, while it's tempting to say it's one for each Doctor, the truth is that eleven stories so far have earned a perfect 10/10.  I didn't want to leave one out, so I opted for Eleven.  Other than that, I think we're ready.  Therefore, without further ado, the Top Eleven Doctor Who Stories so far, starting at Number 11. I recommend reading this while listening to something like New Order's Blue Monday (one of the greatest songs ever written) or perhaps something from my favorite DJ, Andy Hunter (personal recommendations: On Automatic, Hold On, or Sandstorm Calling). 

Num. 11
The Ice Warriors (2nd Doctor)
Writer: Brian Hayles

The Ice Warriors have not been in many Doctor Who stories.  The time period between their last appearance in The Monster of Peladon and their return in Cold War was thirty-nine years.  However, they could have had a better debut story.  While The Ice Warriors is a long story (at six episodes, about two and a half hours long), it never slacks off in pacing.  The villains are intimidating with their slow serpent-like speech, and each cliffhanger works to build the tension of how our characters will get out of things.   

The Ice Warriors does what good Doctor Who has excelled at: it creates a memorable villain, it gives the characters dangerous situations, and most importantly, it keeps the violence to as little as possible and no overt violence from the title character.  The Doctor has to think his way out of things, and here, the triumph of intellect makes it all the more pleasant.

Num. 10
The Unquiet Dead (9th Doctor)
Writer: Mark Gatiss

Sometimes a simply great performance pushes an individual story higher.  The best example I can think of is Simon Callow as Charles Dickens in The Unquiet Dead.  Callow owns the role of the great writer, but what made The Unquiet Dead work (among other things) was that Dickens wasn't just there to lend color.  Dickens, instead, was a central and important character to solve the mystery of The Gelth, who go from almost innocent to malevolent within the hour.  The images of the reanimated dead and the Christmas setting of Victorian Cardiff (why Cardiff, I wonder) also work well.

Finally, I think this is where Christopher Eccleston had some levity to his interpretation of a darker Doctor.  As the lone survivor of The Time War, who had to destroy Gallifrey to save the universe, he could be rather morose.  However, here the Ninth was allowed some enthusiasm for Charles Dickens, and Billie Piper's Rose Tyler had that mix of empathy, vulnerability, enthusiasm and strength that started her out as a Great Companion. 

Sadly, The Unquiet Dead is the only NuWho story to make the list (and as sidenote, I imagine some of my acquaintances will be livid about this ranking).

Num. 9
The Evil of The Daleks (2nd Doctor)
Writer: David Whitaker

It is simply horrifying that perhaps the greatest Dalek story in Doctor Who has only one surviving episode.  Yet it is a testament to the power of The Evil of the Daleks that despite this, it has rarely failed to rank among the Greatest Doctor Who stories of All Time (and certainly here on this list, it won't go missing). 

The Evil of the Daleks gives us great moments of sheer tension (will the Doctor be forced to help the Daleks?) and destruction.  In the final episode, as the insane scientist/collaborator Maxible continues his mad quest for Dalek domination, the chaotic disintegration of the Dalek order (a virtual civil war with the Dalek Emperor thrown into confusion himself) instigated by the Doctor must have been a wild and brilliant 'final end' to the Daleks.  Of course, they would return, but as it stands, the story itself holds up brilliantly, and perhaps in the due course of time a full animated reconstruction will come about.

Num. 8
The Mind Robber (2nd Doctor)
Writer: Peter Ling

The Mind Robber is without doubt the most surreal Doctor Who story in both the Classic and NuWho.  Its first episode is filled with simply bizarre moments where the TARDIS and the crew are eventually swept into the Land of Fiction ruled over by The Master of Fiction.  Even at its most bizarre there is a logic that goes with it. 

You get literary characters, you get a somewhat mad world where anything is possible (see Jamie change faces!)  Even this twist of basically having TWO Jamies work within the simply way-out plot of The Mind Robber, and the fact that Doctor Who took this offbeat turn AND MADE IT WORK elevates this adventure to among simply the most inventive, creative, and brilliant stories in the Canon.  Sadly, they didn't take many more chances like they did with The Mind Robber, which is a real shame given the overall premise of the show itself (the being who can travel in time AND space).

Num. 7
The Seeds of Death (2nd Doctor)
Writer: Brian Hayles

Like The Godfather Part II is a better film than the already brilliant The Godfather, so The Seeds of Death is a better story than the Ice Warriors' eponymous debut.  We get a clever story involving the high dependence on technology and how it can be ruthlessly used by these evil forces of the Ice Warriors.  We also get simply thrilling moments (such as the cliffhanger when Zoe is without a doubt going to get killed by the Ice Warriors), and throw in some beautiful looking cinematography and it isn't hard to imagine that The Seeds of Death could work as a feature film.

The pacing was great, the story never flagged.  This is especially noteworthy in that The Seeds of Death is a six-part adventures, and those tend to feel stretched out.  However, The Seeds of Death kept building and building on what had come before, and the Ice Warriors felt more menacing and dangerous than in The Ice Warriors.  The Seeds of Death moved quickly, making each turn more intense. 

Num. 6
Doctor Who and The Silurians (3rd Doctor)
Writer: Malcolm Hulke

This is the only Doctor Who story to feature "Doctor Who" in the title.  While NuWho has had stories that had "The Doctor" as part of the title (The Doctor's Wife, The Doctor's Daughter, The Day/Time/Name of The Doctor), none used the 'Who' except for Doctor Who & The Silurians.  From what I understand, that was a production error.  Still, whether Doctor Who & The Silurians or just The Silurians, only the second Third Doctor story, astonishes in its intelligence and subliminal messages.

In this the debut story for the Silurians, we get an intelligent allegory about preemptive war, the fear of 'the other', and how both sides can have elements that want to destroy rather than understand 'the enemy'.  Doctor Who & The Silurians was meant, I understand, as allegory for the Cold War, but more than that, the struggle between the worldviews of The Doctor and his best friend the Brigadier comes into sharp contrast.  What I really respected in The Silurians was that the Brigadier was not painted as evil, which would have been easy given his actions.  Instead, it was motivated by a sense of protection, but it doesn't stop the Doctor from calling it murder. 

Num. 5
The Time Meddler (1st Doctor)
Writer: Dennis Spooner

In many ways, The Time Meddler is a lighter story, but interesting in that rather than attempting to change history, the Doctor is attempting to keep history as is.  The Time Meddler is the first time we see another of the Doctor's own people (though the term Time Lord had not been invented yet), and it also has a villain that is less malevolent and more childishly reckless than anything else.  The Meddling Monk did not mean to create chaos, but he wasn't above doing so if it amused him.

This is another story where the pacing pushes forward, where bits of humor are allowed to enter (as when the Doctor tells an incredulous Steven Taylor when the latter refuses to believe the Viking headgear they found is genuine, 'What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?), brilliant and shocking cliffhangers (The Monk's got a TARDIS!) and which has one of the best endings in all Doctor Who: the three leads virtually becoming a constellation, heading off to new adventures.  A clever balance of comedy, drama, adventure, and a great turn by Peter Butterworth as one of the All Time Great Villains, The Meddling Monk: part clown, part menace, all excellent.

Num. 4
Inferno (3rd Doctor)
Writer: Doug Houghton

"Do you hear that?  That's the sound of the Earth screaming out its rage!"  The Third Doctor era was not afraid of tackling current issues in the guise of science-fiction, and Inferno looked at the uncontrolled use of natural resources and their potential impact on humanity.  However, Inferno gave the team both in front of and behind the camera a chance to create an alternate world where among the shocking things was the fact that The Doctor DIDN'T save the day.

The first Doctor Who story to use the parallel universe plot, the Doctor is caught up in a world where those he knows and loves are not themselves.  Inferno allowed the regular cast (Nicholas Courtney's the Brigadier, Caroline John's Liz Shaw, and John Levene's Sergeant Benton) a chance to play frightening versions of themselves.  We get two versions of the same story going on at almost the same time, heightening the tension of whether the Doctor can do anything to prevent both worlds from collapsing.  However, in the end we see that the Doctor and the Brigadier, friends to the end, are allowed a moment of levity to bring down the tension this six-part story created over all that time.

Num. 3
The Aztecs (1st Doctor)
Writer: John Lucarotti

"You can't rewrite history.  Not One Line!" How one longs for a time when such a thing was possible, rather than have the constant 'rebooting' that NuWho specializes in.   The Aztecs, the first historical Doctor Who still surviving, is a four-part breathless exercise in intelligence about the morality of imposing one set of values over another merely because one group sees the other's actions as evil or immoral.

There is simply so much brilliance in The Aztecs.  The best decision in The Aztecs is to make Jacqueline Hill's Barbara Wright the central character. As the history teacher, she would know more about Aztec culture than the others, but she also represents the Western idea that the European (or later on, the American) view that she could improve on their society.  Rather than use her influence to bring about slow change, Barbara decides human sacrifices must go in one fell swoop, endangering them all.  Apart from the questions of culture clash, we get some simply extraordinary sets and costumes, the likes of which we would not see again on Doctor Who.  Even with all the budget NuWho has, sometimes the surroundings look like they are from a studio.  The Aztecs looks stunningly authentic.  We even get a little romance on the show.  Long before Ten and Rose, we had One and Cameca.

Num. 2
Spearhead From Space (3rd Doctor)
Writer: Robert Holmes

There is something to be said about economy on Doctor Who.  Spearhead From Space, the debut story for the Third Doctor, is I think the greatest debut story of any Doctor (sorry, Peter Capaldi).  It is the first Doctor Who story to be filmed in color, and literally filmed (as opposed to television recording, due to a strike).

Here we get a story by the great Robert Holmes, who is the best Doctor Who writer ever (not sorry, Steven Moffat).  As the Doctor struggles to recover from his latest regeneration, we get the invasion of the Autons (who curiously would be the first monsters in the revived Doctor Who).  The parallel stories of the Doctor's recovery and the invasion come to a head in the terrifying Episode Four.  It was actually quite economical: we don't see much in terms of when the plastic Autons come to life.  However, as they start marching through the city, killing civilians where they stand, I found it, even at my age, quite chilling.  If I had been a child, this would have had me completely behind the sofa.

And now, the Best Doctor Who story of the 100 stories reviewed so far is...

Num. 1
The Tomb of the Cybermen (2nd Doctor)
Writers: Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis

The Cybermen have been hit and miss throughout Doctor Who's history, but when they are good they are frightening beyond anything imaginable.  The Tomb of the Cybermen, I think, is there finest hour.  Drawing from The Mummy, we get a revived group determined to use those foolish enough to attempt to control the Cybermen themselves. 

The Tomb of the Cybermen has moments of tension and suspense but it also has a few moments of comedy.  It moves rapidly, never letting up on the thrills of these dangerous foes are placing on the Doctor and those dumb enough to ignore his warnings.  I think what really stands out in Tomb of the Cybermen (apart from the acting, the story, the pacing, and even the sets) is that it takes the Cybermen seriously as a threat.  Sometimes the villains, even the great ones like The Master or the Daleks, can look silly if not downright stupid.  The Cybermen have not escaped this, but in Tomb of the Cybermen, they are the villains to fear. 

Now, of course, we must turn to the Eleven Worst Doctor Who stories so far.  As for the continuation, we have three Doctors to balance. 

The next Third Doctor story is The Mind of Evil in the Classic Who series.
The next Tenth Doctor story is The Impossible Planet Parts I & II (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit) in the Revived Who series.
The next Eleventh Doctor story is The Time of The Doctor, which will usher in the Peter Capalid Era, but as to whether he will be the 12th, 13th, or maybe even 1.2 Doctor, that remains to be seen. 




The End of Episode One of The Mind Robber

Simply the most beautiful shot in the entirety of Doctor Who...

Impossible Things Are Happening Every Day

STORY 243: THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR

This is the Second in a Trilogy regarding The Day of The Doctor.  Last time it was on the NuWho fans celebrating a 50th Anniversary while being continuously and almost stubbornly unaware of the first 40 years.  This entry is a formal review.  The third...well, Spoilers...

Let's start right off the bat by saying The Day of the Doctor is a remarkably stupid title for any Doctor Who episode, let alone what has been touted as the 50th Anniversary Special.  The title is so damn bloody close to the last Doctor Who story (The Name of the Doctor) that I constantly kept calling The Day of the Doctor The Name of the Doctor.   Someone MUST have thought that the titles were simply too similar to not make people wonder, right?  Of course, this was before I learned that the Christmas Special is to be called...The TIME of The Doctor.

Name, Day, and Time.  All that's missing is Rank.

In any case, The Day of The Doctor purports to be the 50th Anniversary Special to one of the most wildly-successful science-fiction shows on today, which has gone from cult to mainstream to almost mania.  I have wondered whether Doctor Who's massive popularity has damned the show to being mere spectacle, all bright lights and rapid pacing to cover plot holes and continuity errors to please a group of rabid fans who know little to nothing about what came before the show's revival in 2005.  I'd argue that most fans celebrating The Day of The Doctor know only or almost exclusively nothing but Doctor Who episodes from Rose onwards, the Ninth through Eleventh Doctors being their primary points of reference.  I've already talked about that, but now in the second part of our trilogy, let us go over the actual episode itself.

The Day of The Doctor cannot be called a 50th Anniversary Special because there is so little within it to actually suggest that much came before it.  There are nods to the Original Series (starting from the opening credits, which are the original opening credits seen in 1963 sans the 3-D effects), but apart from a few (which I'll mention here and in the future) so much of The Day of The Doctor revolves around 2005 onwards: the Doctors in the special, the Time War that has been dominant in NuWho, Companions and characters that came after Rose.  Leaving aside the dearth of acknowledgements of anything Who-related pre-2005 The Day of The Doctor is a big, lavish, loud spectacle that does the unthinkable: celebrate not the show itself but the revived series' ability to basically 'hit the reset' and erase so much that came before that it would be more intellectually honest to have Tom Baker onwards just open his eyes and say, "It was all a dream..."

Clara (Jenna Coleman), now a teacher at Coal Hill School, receives a message that 'her doctor' has called.  She jumps on her motorbike and speeds towards a desolate place, where the TARDIS and The Doctor (Matt Smith) await.  No time to go gallivanting as the TARDIS is picked up by helicopter and transported to The National Gallery in London, where Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), UNIT's Head of Scientific Research (perhaps the 'scientific advisor'?) and her aide Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) inform the Doctor that he was appointed the Curator of the Undergallery by Queen Elizabeth...the First.

In the Undergallery the Doctor is presented a Gallifreyan painting (bigger on the inside than the outside), with two titles: Gallifrey Falls or No More.  This painting is of the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city during the Last Day of the Time War.

We now inside the painting to The Last Day of The Time War.  The War Council knows things are going badly, and a strange figure identified by the Daleks as The Doctor (John Hurt) blasts into the walls "No More".  The War Council discovers that there is one weapon of last resort missing: The Moment, a weapon so powerful that not only can swallow galaxies but has grown a conscience.

The Doctor (or War Doctor if you like) goes into the desert to set the Moment, but he not only cannot open it (bemoaning the lack of a big red button) but the conscience of The Moment takes shape in the form of Rose (Billie Piper), or more specifically Bad Wolf Rose.  She urges him to think of The Children before using The Moment, and she opens a time fissure to show him his future.  Through this fissure drops in...a fez.

After examining more of the Undergallery (including picking up a fez), the mystery of the paintings grow.  The glass has been broken from the inside of the paintings.  As part of the examination of the Undergallery, we see a portrait of Good Queen Bess with her husband, The Tenth Doctor. 

Now it's off to Merry Olde England 1562, where The Doctor (David Tennant) is courting Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I (Joanne Page) in a lovely picnic.  Things are going well, even to Her Majesty accepting the Doctor's marriage proposal.  The Doctor, however, knows that The Queen is NOT The Queen, but a Zygon.  Only, one small error...the Zygon is NOT the Monarch, but instead the horse he rode in on.

In the chaos and confusion of having Queen Elizabeth I and her Zygon double with him unable to fully find the fake from the real, a time fissure appears and in drops...a fez.  Now from the portal the Eleventh Doctor drops in the Tenth.

There's some banter, when from this comes The War Doctor, seeking the Doctor.  Now the three are arrested by Queen Elizabeth I and thrown into the Tower of London, thrilling Eleven but not pleasing either Ten or War.

Meanwhile, Clara is taken by Kate to the Black Archive, where the memory of every worker is wiped out at the end of their shift.  This explains why the TARDIS-proof Archive has photographs of all the Doctor's past Companions, including Clara.  Within the Archive is the Time Vortex Manipulator bequeathed to them by Captain Jack Harkness on his death (or at least one of them).  There's a dark twist for Clara, however, as Kate and Osgood are really Zygons about to take over the Earth.  Clara, however, gets the access code to the Manipulator (cleverly scratched on the walls of the Tower by the Eleventh Doctor all those centuries ago) and speeds to Elizabethan England.

The Doctors all attempt to a.) escape the Tower and b.) think of how the actions of the unacknowledged Doctor affects them.  In order for them to find a way out the War Doctor starts calculations on his sonic screwdriver, and the three discover that these calculations, which would take hundreds of years to complete, have been going on through all the other Doctor's sonics, completing at the time of the Eleventh.  However, all that for naught, as Clara comes in and informs them that the door had been open all that time.

Elizabeth, who we eventually discover is pretending to be a Zygon, tells them of the paintings, which is how the Zygons are freezing themselves until the appropriate time...2013 London.  Of course, we have to pause for Ten to marry Her Majesty, then off in the TARDIS to save the world.  In the Archive, the Zygons and the Humans are about to play chicken, Kate determined to blow up the city to save the world.  Fortunately, Eleven had called from the future to the present to get the Gallifrey Falls/No More painting into the Black Archive, and then the Doctors all burst through it and force the warring sides to peace.  The War Doctor, however, knows he must use The Moment.

He is joined, however, by Ten and Eleven, who decide they will share the burden of using The Moment to destroy the Daleks AND the Time Lords.  Clara is heartbroken that it's HER Doctor who kills The Children, but now he and the other two have decided to do the unthinkable: they will rewrite history and SAVE Gallifrey.

They race their TARDISes (TARDI?) to the besieged Gallifrey and when the War Council is told of their plans (to freeze Gallifrey and lock it in a statis cube to make it appear that the Daleks, who would be destroying themselves in the confusion and make the universe think Gallifrey was destroyed too), they tell the Doctors the calculations would take centuries.  However, not to fear, as all the incarnations of the Doctor appear to the Council to space their own TARDI and join forces.  All twelve, the Council thinks, until one of the Council says, "No.  All THIRTEEN" (and we get a quick glimpse of the upcoming Doctor). 

Plan successful the War/Tenth/Eleventh Doctors make their farewells.  The time streams are too confused to allow them to remember all of this, so the Ninth and Tenth Doctors won't remember saving Gallifrey and think instead they destroyed it.  (I digress to say that when the War Doctor says, "but at worse, we failed doing the right thing as opposed to succeeding in doing the wrong", the only thing that came to mind was OneRepublic's Counting Stars: "I feel something so right doing the wrong thing/I feel something so wrong doing the right thing".)  Tenth also will not know his future death on Trenzalore, but for now things are good.  However, the Curator (Tom Baker) tells Eleven that people always get the title of the painting wrong.  The painting has two titles: No More or Gallifrey Falls, but he tells the Doctor that it's not two titles but one: Gallifrey Falls No More.   Gallifrey survives, and now the Doctor can search for it.

I know that the NuWho fans who were watching The Day of The Doctor in the theater were thrilled with everything about the episode (one of Bryan Majewski's friends who sat next to me used the word, 'brilliant' to describe how Gallifrey survived), but that was just something that felt wrong to me.  I was never a fan of The Time War and thought from the get-go that it was a mistake to erase Gallifrey when Doctor Who was rebooted.  Despite that, what motivated The Doctor was survivor's guilt, the hurt and rage within him to have to exterminate his own people to save the universes.  With this timey-wimey reboot (something writer Steven Moffat is simply too fond of) that is all erased, rendering a lot of post-Rose Doctor Who either nonsense or just a waste of time.  When those episodes are watched, we know that he is going through all this for nothing.

Again, he might just as well wake up and say, "it was all a dream".

However, let's move on from that (more on that another time) and move on to whether The Day of The Doctor worked.  It didn't, again because the stakes are now never going to matter.  If we are always going to resolve things by basically going back and altering history (even if it means contradicting or erasing what came before) what tension exists in any story, let alone this story?

I note that at least twice times things were basically reset to get the Doctor out of his predicament (when the Doctor makes the call to send Gallifrey Falls/No More to the Black Archive and when The Doctors all jump in to save Gallifrey).  This is an easy way to get out of the difficulties Moffat gets into but it diminishes the Doctor's greatest virtue: his ability to think his way out of situations. 

However, there are other things that fell flat.  A big problem is in the performances.  Page was simply unbearable as Elizabeth I, turning the Warrior Queen as nothing more than a breast-heaving fangirl, permanently infatuated with the Tenth Doctor (perhaps she was suppose to represent all those little girls who fantasize about Tennant, Smith, and to a lesser degree Christopher Eccleston sexually?  However, I would have thought the Osgood character, down to wearing a Fourth Doctor-type scarf, was parody enough).  I was also surprised to see Tennant give a bad performance.  There were times when he seemed not so much bored but frustrated, as if he couldn't make himself believe what he was saying. 

Take when he tells Liz that he knows she's a Zygon via a machine.  He presents it to her and says, "Ding."  "What's that?", she screeches (I'm serious, Page was embarrassing throughout The Day of The Doctor).  "A machine that goes 'ding'", he replies.  This is something that I imagine the Eleventh Doctor would say, not the more serious Tenth.  Yes, Tenth could be goofy, but not this goofy.  Similarly, when Tenth revisits his Big Speech about who he is from Voyage of The Damned, he stops his tense tone when he realizes he's talking to a real rabbit and not a Zygon.  It's thrown in there to please the fans, but it takes it all out of context: what was once a statement of courage and defiance now is a chance to either wink to the hard-core NuWho fanbase or just mock the Tenth Doctor.

I actually felt a touch sorry for Tennant, one of the better Doctors, who was veering close to parodying his Doctor to please those passionate for the dim-witted Eleventh.  While watching him, the phrase "Don't you think he looks tired?" popped into my head.

Not as bad as I felt for Billie Piper, whose Bad Wolf Rose is there just to basically be there.  For being a sentient doomsday machine she isn't taking much of this seriously.  Perhaps it is too tempting to ask at this juncture why a figure from his future would appear as opposed to someone from his past (say, Lalla Ward's Romana II or Carol Anne Ford's Susan Forman, the Doctor's granddaughter, both who are very much alive, but since that might confuse NuWho fans...).  Serving as the Clarence to the War Doctor's George Bailey, Piper has not much to do.  Frankly, any old Companion would have done.

Here perhaps is why I find it so hard to call The Day of The Doctor an actual 50th Anniversary Special.  All the Doctors and Companions: NuWho.  All the characters save the monsters: NuWho.  The guest character of Queen Elizabeth I: NuWho.  As I said, there are nods to the Original Series (certain lines and little hints), but on the whole nothing really connected The Day of The Doctor to anything from An Unearthly Child to Survival/Doctor Who: The Movie.

More things that I found generally displeasing were Murray Gold's score (I hated the cutesy and/or serious music blaring at us to virtually no end) and the visual effects.  Yes they were big and bold, but they were too reminiscent of Star Wars, almost as if they were showing off in the Last Day of The Time War just how much money they spent on it.

However, I'm not in the habit of thoroughly damning something if I find something good.  John Hurt was brilliant as The War Doctor, bringing a sense of pain and emotional weight to the role.  He also showed Tennant and Smith that sometimes taking and behaving seriously makes one a more authoritative figure.  Whenever he mocked his successors tendency to whip out their sonic screwdrivers or their silly catchphrases (Timey-Wimey?) Hurt showed not only the presence of intelligence (and how in the past, the Senior Doctor always knew better than those that followed...like a Dandy and a Clown), but in his regret and fear of the course he had to take made the Doctor a deeply wounded and conflicted character.

As much as I detest Smith I found that his scenes on Gallifrey with Coleman, when he isn't flapping his hands, when there is no music, when he is allowed to take things seriously, you actually get a good performance out of him.  When he discusses the pain of his past act with a distressed Clara, it was deeply moving and touching.  In fact, when things get past the whiz-bang of the lights and the loud music, when things are allowed to be taken seriously and settled down, we find that not only are the actors good but the scenario can be emotionally rewarding.  Seeing Tennant, Smith, and Hurt about to blow up Gallifrey, no sounds apart from their voices, makes things feel tense. 

For me, as someone who is more geared towards Classic Who than NuWho, who has become disillusioned with Doctor Who (in particular with the Smith/Moffat Era), The Day of The Doctor didn't celebrate 50 years of a television series.  It didn't even really celebrate the eight years its current regeneration has been on.  The Zygon subplot wasn't all that necessary to the overall story of rebooting the Time War (and I wondered why Elizabeth I didn't just wipe out the Zygons rather than allow them to keep going into the paintings).  The Day of the Doctor was a noting of the two most recent (and popular) Doctors, who shared a story.  That's all.  For all the history of Doctor Who, The Day of the Doctor really didn't think much of it.

I think that if I were fair The Day of The Doctor would really rank at 4/10 because in many ways it's better than some of the awful Classic Who stories (The Ark, The Gunfighters, Timelash).  However, I knock one point down for it failing to be an actual anniversary special.  What The Day of The Doctor was the 'handy-dandy big shiny reset button' writ large. 

3/10

Next Episode: The Time of The Doctor

SERIOUSLY...THE TIME OF THE DOCTOR AFTER THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR AND THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR?  So long as Capaldi's debut story isn't The Tea Time of The Doctor or The Afternoon Nap of The Doctor or even The Doctor of The Doctor...

What A Difference A Fanbase Makes

THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

This is the first part of a trilogy.  This first essay will be detailing my views on the fans who attended The Day of The Doctor theatrical screening.  The second will be the actual review of the 50th Anniversary Special.  The third...well, Spoilers.

I had intended to watch The Day of The Doctor at home where I had recorded it on the DVR.  However, I was invited to go see the rebroadcast, for free, by one Bryan Majewski, and I decided I might as well go.  I met a few of his friends, all who were NuWhovians (fans of the 2005 revived series who had little to no knowledge of what came B.R.: Before Rose).  For them and many participating in the event, dressed as the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor (particularly with their fezzes, red bow ties, and sonic screwdrivers), they were highly excited to participate in this special occasion, but they are synonymous with something I simply don't understand. 

How can people celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of something of which the first Forty-Two years are either unknown or unimportant to them? 

For all the enthusiasm many NuWhovians had at The Day of The Doctor screening, there is something almost dismissive of what came between An Unearthly Child and Survival or Doctor Who: The Movie...unless it, like Eight Doctor Paul McGann's 'regeneration' in the webisode (and I would argue, non-Canonical) The Night of The Doctor, is actually related to NuWho. 



Yeah, Doctor Who is 50,
but those stories were before OUR time,
so they don't count...

As far as many NuWhovians are concerned, almost everything from 1963 to 1989 is something 'out there', something that exists but that little to no relevance to what they enjoy now.   Susan Foreman, Romana, Jamie McCrimmon, Omega, The Rani, The Black Guardian...these iconic Doctor Who characters and the stories they were in are unknown to those who insist they are Who fans.  That is already bad enough, but to add insult to injury, all those characters and stories have no impact on how the see the show they love (which given their importance is almost insulting to the history they insist they are celebrating).     

Before The Day of The Doctor began, I amused myself by going up to random fans and ask them what I consider to be basic Doctor Who trivia.  I selected people who were at least teens to early twenties, so I left out a cute little boy in a fez and bow tie.  I couldn't find it in my heart to pick on someone who probably had grown up exclusively on NuWho.

Before going into the theater, I just shouted to a guy in a tweed jacket, bow tie and fez, "Third Doctor?"  He didn't know.  I then shouted, "What the name of the Doctor's granddaughter?"

After a pause, he shouted, "Susan."  So far, so good.  "Susan WHAT?"  "I'm not good with names," he said.

Inside the theater, I went up to a couple: a girl in same outfit and her large male companion.  I asked them what other Time Lord had been a Companion.  She didn't know (I think she couldn't conceive of a Time Lord Companion), but to his credit he answered correctly: Romana.  He informed his friend she was with the Fourth Doctor for a while.

Having some confidence that perhaps my theory was wrong, I then asked for them to give me the Brigadier's full name.  She looked more confused, but he answered "Lethbridge Stewart".  I smiled and said, "Full Name", to which he answered hesitantly, "Lethbridge REGINALD Stewart?". 

Last question: complete the following catchphrases.  "Bow ties..." "...are cool." 
"Hello..." "...sweetie."
"Reverse the..."  Puzzled looks from both participants, and the female offered "...The Doctor's Wife?"

Think of The Children!
Won't someone PLEASE Think of The Children?!

Next group, some old and new questions.  The name of The Doctor's granddaughter?  "We know, we know..." but they didn't.  "A Time Lord that was a Companion?"  An answer came quickly, "River Song", though the group began debating whether she was a Time Lord or merely "a Child of The TARDIS" (is it any wonder I always say River Song was 'conceived by the Power of the Holy TARDIS').  "Name The Doctor's first American Companion."  Puzzled looks.

Finally, the Three Quotes.  In their defense they got all three right, but the ONLY reason they got them right was because they had heard the quote in The Day of The Doctor.  If they hadn't heard it, it is highly doubtful they would have known it or attributed it to the right person.

Those who do not remember the past,
are condemned to like Steven Moffat stories...

My point in all this is not to bash NuWhovians.  They are perfectly free to enjoy anything they wish.  I also am not so demanding that I would ask the metaphorical version of 'how many Time Lords can dance on the head of a pin?'  There are things that I don't know or remember about Classic Doctor Who.  I'm not going to ask esoteric questions delving into the minutiae of Who lore.  Even Classic Who fans may not know when the Sea Devil and Silurians joined forces or all the actors who played The Master or how often the Autons battled the Doctor.

What I DO ask constantly is how is it possible that people could celebrate something without knowing little to anything of what came before.  It is like celebrating Independence Day without knowing ANYTHING about the Second Continental Congress: who were the signers, what the Declaration says, why they did what they did.   There is this great ignorance on the part of many NuWhovians who don't know or worse, don't care about what came before Russell T Davies came to the scene.  It is important to know what came before, otherwise things as continuity fall part apart.

For Heaven's sake, we have the Brigadier's daughter Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) as a character, taking her father's place in UNIT.  Here you have a character that harkens back to the Classic series but you have "fans" who not only cannot connect Kate Stewart with a true Doctor Who icon, but who for all the proclamations of Who fandom, can't answer a simple question like the Brigadier's full name. 

Frankly, you embarrass me...

For me, it is the same as saying you are a fan of Star Trek, but think that Zachary Quinto originated the role of Mr. Spock.  This may be why Classic Star Trek fans voted Star Trek Into Darkness the worst Star Trek films, not because it was badly made (it wasn't) but instead because it took one of the iconic Star Trek characters and plots and attempted to pass it off as 'original'.  The presentation of "John Harrison" was basically a slap at those who grew up watching either the Original Series or the Star Trek films.  Those who know nothing or little of the Original Series or the films may be impressed with Into Darkness, but those who know the history, especially the hard-core Trekkers, were infuriated.

Similarly, Classic Doctor Who fans cannot do anything but watch in horror as NuWho fans, filled with fezzes and sonic screwdrivers, overwhelm the fan base.  The stories Classic Who fans grew to love (The Aztecs, The Tomb of the Cybermen, Genesis of the Daleks, The Curse of Fenric) along with continuity from the Classic Series, is being obliterated in the rush to become more and more popular (and more and more convoluted).  In one plot point of The Day of The Doctor (the actual number of regenerations) we have the great issue of trashing continuity established in The Trial of A Time Lord season with the character of The Valeyard (whom I figure NuWhovians have never heard of).  This is a source of debate, but that is for another time.

Oh, Grow Up!
BTW, are you two WOMEN?

Something established as Canon in 1986 has apparently been forgotten or simply trashed by one episode in 2013.  The Day of The Doctor renders long-established continuity irrelevant, or worse, runs the risk of not making any sense within NuWho itself, let alone the fifty year series as a whole.  Again and again for a series that for twenty-six years kept pretty solid continuity, the revived series not only muddles its own continuity but goes after long-established Who continuity to have some 'shocking twist' that is later forgotten or ignored (mostly because as I was told by one of Bryan's friends, "It's NOT suppose to make sense.  It's British!").

The NuWho fans, with their willful ignorance of what came before Eccleston came along, are more than ready and willing to NOT question whether the series as a whole makes sense.  Things that occurred immediately before The Day of The Doctor aren't remembered or thought through.  Simple information (past Companions, enemies, or established Canon in previous stories) is an irrelevant mystery to NuWhovians.  Those who say are Doctor Who fans must eventually make a decision: are they fans of NuWho, of only those stories that started with Rose, or are they fans of ALL Doctor Who, starting from An Unearthly Child to The Day of The Doctor.  If they are fans of NuWho only, then they cannot in sincerity celebrate a Fiftieth Anniversary.  They may celebrate the Eight Anniversary, but not the Fiftieth.

If they are fans of ALL Doctor Who, from William Hartnell to Matt Smith, then they have to learn more about the show's past and be willing to question when an event from a story in 2013 conflicts or contradicts in a major way with a story in 1983.      



A Poser, A Fraud, A Tool.
NOT A WHOVIAN.

Answers to Basic Doctor Who Trivia:

The Doctor's Granddaughter: Susan Foreman
Time Lords who were Companions: Romana, with Susan Foreman, the Doctor's Granddaughter also acceptable.
The Brigadier's Full Name: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
The Doctor's First American Companion: Perpugilliam 'Peri' Brown
The Complete Quote: "Reverse the...Polarity" or "Reverse the...Polarity of the Neutron Flow", used by Jon Pertwee (The Third Doctor).
BONUS QUESTION:  Who was the Doctor's first Scottish Companion?

If you answered "Amy Pond", you're a NuWhovian.
If you answered, "Jamie McCrimmon", you're a Classic Whovian.

Perhaps Chris Hardwicke can answer all those questions easily, but his unquestioning promotion of NuWho and unwillingness to promote Classic Who or call out issues with NuWho makes him a dubious Ambassador to the Non-Whovian world.

What Will The Day of The Doctor Be Like?

Little known fact: the first episode of Doctor Who (An Unearthly Child, the first of a four-episode story) was rebroadcast because the show premiered the day after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, dampening the debut.  It wasn't until the following seven-part story, The Daleks, that Doctor Who took off to become the institution is has turned into.  The original run of Doctor Who was 26 years (1963-1989), then a one-off backdoor pilot in 1996, and then a revived series starting in 2005 to today.  I suspect many Doctor Who fans are more familiar with 2005+ than with much relating to 1963-89.  I say this because I have had experiences where a Whovian can wax rhapsodic about River Song but have no idea who Romana is/was.*

One can quibble about The Day of The Doctor technically NOT being a 50th Anniversary Special since there have been two gaps in new episodes (seven and nine years respectively) but people keep saying, "50th Anniversary", so I am not going to launch a war on the subject.  Now with the special coming our way, I thought I would take a few minutes to look over what I expect to happen.

First, I think the title is all wrong.  The Day of The Doctor comes right after The Name of The Doctor, and I wonder why the production team would give such a similarly-sounding title to two consecutive stories.  Further, I have never understood the NuWho fixation on the Doctor's actual name being some universe-shattering secret.  I remember when the Doctor was just a renegade Time Lord, not really any different to other Time Lords save for the fact he ran away from Gallifrey.  Now he has turned into some quasi-divine being, one whose current incarnation finds bow ties 'cool' and name tags a unique creation.

I don't think the Doctor's actual name is all that important, and don't think it will be revealed here.  However, we do have a few odds and ends.

First, we have the introduction of John Hurt as The Doctor.  IF we accept this as accurate, we then have a skewing of the numerical system that was established nearly 50 years ago.  Since Patrick Troughton took the role in 1969, we have had an orderly series of Doctors (Troughton, the Second Doctor, being the second actor to take the role, Jon Pertwee the Third Doctor, and so forth).  With Paul McGann's one-off special he became the Eight Doctor, and NuWho has confirmed this.  Christopher Eccleston=Ninth, David Tennant=Tenth, Matt Smith=Eleventh.  John Hurt's presence screws all that up.  Why?

It is understood this Doctor came at the time of the Time War, placing him between Eight and Ninth (or as I call him, Doctor 8.5).  Was he the actual Ninth Doctor?  If so, then we shift each succeeding Doctor by one, making Smith the Twelfth Doctor.  Longtime Who Canon has established and confirmed Time Lords can regenerate twelve times, which would make Peter Capaldi the Thirteenth Doctor and thus, the last of the Last of the Time Lords.  We also have established that the Valeyard, a villain from the Trial of a Time Lord season, is the incarnation of the dark side of the Doctor, who came between the Twelfth and final regeneration.

Is Hurt the Valeyard?  If so, then it totally screws up with the chronology of time since how does The Valeyard, who comes after Capaldi's Doctor, get to destroy Gallifrey?

Oy, my head hurts!

In regards to the limit of regenerations, we can get around it by claiming that River Song (who is not a Time Lord) 'gave up her remaining regenerations' to the Doctor in River's Secret Part 2 (Let's Kill Hitler).  I know NuWho insists River (the Doctor's One True Love...make me gag) has Time Lord DNA by being conceived in the TARDIS.  Few people question the logic of this (if I was conceived in a car, would that make me a Ford?), but even if we go with this, we don't know how many 'regenerations' she has.  She's used up at least four regenerations prior to turning into what she is (and already the whole River Song storyline has been torn to tatters), so does this human have twelve regenerations like the Time Lords?  Does she have less?  Does she have more?

I am fascinated to learn how Hurt's Doctor 8.5 will be handled.  It may be a trick of the Valeyard, who can alter official history.  If I were to predict something, I would predict John Hurt is NOT a Doctor.

One thing I am concerned about is the lack of acknowledgement to all pre-2005 Doctors.  Again, we may be surprised, but so far only Tenth Doctor David Tennant and his Companion Rose Tyler have been officially recognized as returning.  In both the Tenth and Twentieth Anniversary Specials (The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors) there were logical reasons as to why the Doctors were taken out of their individual timestreams and thrown together.  We do have a logic of sorts in bringing the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors (they are within the Doctor's timeline), so we do have a reason that will bring other Doctors back (minus the cantankerous Eccleston and the reluctant Tom Baker).  The first Three Doctors have passed away (although actors can be hired to play them, as they did for The Five Doctors), so that isn't a hindrance.

Should The Day of The Doctor either not acknowledge or give a passing nod to all six living ex-Doctors the episode cannot be called a 50th Anniversary Special.  If it acknowledges only the eight years of NuWho or worse, be a celebration of Tennant & Smith only or primarily, it will be a slap in the face of all Whovians.    

I won't predict what will happen (rumors are all around).  I can only hope that The Day of The Doctor pay proper credit to all Eleven Doctors, not just Tennant and Smith.

Finally, will Capaldi appear?  I'm going to say no (though nothing says Smith won't start the regeneration process at the end of the episode).

One prediction I will make is that should Doctor 8.5 be defeated somehow, it will restore Gallifrey, allowing more Time Lords to be brought back to life. 

Despite myself, I am looking forward to The Day of The Doctor.  I think it may be a celebration of the Tennant/Smith Era, I think the Hurt Doctor is a false Doctor, Gallifrey will be restored (though that renders a whole lot of the Ninth Doctor's angst idiotic) and the regeneration will begin.

Until we see the episode, these are all guesses.  In some ways, I hope to be wrong.

* For the record, THIS is Romana I: a Time Lord who became the Doctor's Companion when the White Guardian placed her with the Doctor to assist him in finding the six segments of The Key to Time.  Not only was she a Time Lord, but in many ways was a much more intelligent Time Lord than the Doctor.

This is Romana II.  On the show, she left the Doctor in E-Space, and her fate was never answered. 

Could she still be alive? 

Romana and the Doctor's granddaughter Susan were the only people pre-River to pilot the TARDIS better than the Doctor...and both 'kept the brake on'. 

Stupid joke...