The following is a guest post.
We are finally just a week away from the Doctor Who 50th anniversary. “The Day of the Doctor” airs in simulcast next Saturday at 8:00pm GMT, then… whenever that is in your timezone. Cinemas around the world are showing it on the big screen. Fans are having parties. I’ve designed a costume.
But the big question remains, what exactly will happen? We’ve finally gotten a few hints this week, with a sneak peek, a trailer, a longer trailer, a prequel, and a teaser. Then there have been interviews with David Tennant, Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman, Joanna Page, and Steven Moffat. Moffat did another interview about the prequel, The Night of the Doctor. We finally got an episode description.
From here on in the blog post, I’m assuming you’ve seen and read all of those clips and interviews, or that you don’t mind the mild spoilers I’m going to refer to. Those who want to be completely spoiler free, this is your last chance.
Okay? Good.
Now that we’re on the same page, let’s talk about what we think is going to happen in the 50th. The first thing that jumped out for me in the shorter trailer was Billie Piper’s glowing eyes. Between that and the fact that in all the trailers, we only see her with the John Hurt Doctor (hereafter called The Warrior), I suspect she’s playing Bad Wolf rather than Rose Tyler.
This is something that’s bothered some fans for a while. If River Song was conceived in the Vortex and thus had all the physiological changes we’re told she has, how could Rose hold the Vortex inside her for at least ten minutes and have none—especially when it killed the Doctor after barely a minute? Fans have long held that Bad Wolf must have left some remnant inside Rose, and it seems like we might be right.
Joanna Page plays Elizabeth I, a young Elizabeth I. In “The Shakespeare Code,” the Doctor and Martha ran into an older Elizabeth, and she obviously held a grudge for something. In “The End of Time,” he strongly implied a… romantic tryst with the Virgin Queen. That seems to put the timing of the 50th in between “Waters of Mars” and “The End of Time” for the Tenth Doctor, which fits his attitude when he tells Eleven that, “For once, I would like to know where I’m going.”
The question on everyone’s lips back in May, after the introduction of John Hurt as the Warrior, was… WHAT?? More importantly, who and when? I suspected at the time that he came between Eight and Nine, given the whole set-up of a version of the Doctor who did something so terrible the Doctor didn’t want to be that person.
In six minutes of blissful screen time, this was proven true. We saw Paul McGann on screen as the Doctor for the first time since the 1996 movie. “I’m a Doctor, but probably not the one you were expecting,” he said in his first line, and the internet went crazy. That short prequel saw his regeneration into the Warrior, aided by the Sisterhood of Karn.
So this is the Doctor that ends the Time War. I love his quote that, “Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.” I’m guessing part of the story is someone trying to rewrite time so he doesn’t actually use The Moment—will he do it? David Tennant said this episode offers a seismic shift in Doctor Who; unwriting the Time War would certainly do that.
We can piece together a lot from what we’ve been given. We can also be sure there’s more we don’t know than that we do. In the end, I’d be happy to watch just to see this:
What about you? What are your thoughts regarding “The Day of the Doctor,” either speculations or fears? For more information on Doctor Who specials airing next week, take a look at last week’s post with a full schedule.
Update: 18 November 2013 – 20:30 p.m.
It looks like the BBC is going to be unlocking short additional sneak peeks all week long on the dedicated website for the 50th. These are just brief glimpses to tantalize us and keep the anticipation building, so don’t expect any Earth-shattering (or Gallifrey-shattering) revelations, but they’re still fun to watch. Here’s the first one, posted today:
