A Happy "Who" Milestone

Spoilers ahead for the "Doctor Who" 50th Anniversary, "The Day of the Doctor," and the recent "Doctor Who" mythos in general.

I am happy to report, that despite huge expectations, way too much hype, and a bumpy couple of seasons of "Doctor Who" that have lead to a decline in ratings, the long-awaited 50th Anniversary special for "Doctor Who" came out great. It was stuffed with callbacks and references to the older "Who" canon, but also perfectly watchable and coherent for newer fans. Most importantly, it did a fantastic job of tackling one of the primary central mysteries of the post-reboot era, what happened to The Doctor during the much alluded-to Time War. Generally I wouldn't be writing about a single episode like this, but we have here a genuine cultural event, and there's a lot to talk about.

The anniversary special is best supplemented with two tie-in shorts. The first is a six-minute prequel titled "The Night of the Doctor," starring the Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann. It's the only appearance the character has made outside of the 1996 American TV movie, and firmly settles the debate as to whether McGann's Doctor should be considered part of the larger "Who" continuity. And then there's the thirty-minute documentary spoof, "The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot," which follows the attempts of Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy (that's Classic "Who" Doctors Five, Six, and Seven) to find a way to finagle themselves into the anniversary special. Loaded with cameos and in-jokes, it should go a long way towards soothing the ire of those die-hard "Who" fans who were really hoping for every living actor who played the Doctor to come back to put in a cameo appearance.

I'm glad that showrunner Steven Moffat didn't go that route. All the Doctors do show up eventually, though most of them only very briefly through archival footage and some CGI cut-and-paste. This means that there's plenty of room to actually tell a full-fledged, interesting "Doctor Who" story worthy of the momentous occasion. Thanks to some timey-wimey metaphysical rigamarole, the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) gets to team up with the Tenth (David Tennant) to defeat a horde of invading shapeshifter aliens called the Zygons. We also meet the previously unknown regeneration of the Doctor that came between the canonical Eighth and Ninth Doctors. He is credited as the War Doctor (John Hurt), who fought during the Time War, and committed such atrocities against his own people that he abandoned the name of Doctor completely. Neither of his future selves is particularly happy to see him.

Current companion Clara (Jenna Coleman) and former Companion actress Billie Piper, playing the interface for a Doomsday machine called The Moment, are along for the ride too, but the story really belongs to the three versions of the Doctor. It's so much fun watching these characters interact, Ten and Eleven bickering, and the War Doctor acting like their exasperated father, who is incredulous that these two flashy young men are who he'll become in the future. But then we probe deeper, and examine how the actions and experiences of the War Doctor reverberate through the later phases of his life. It's a valuable chance for them to finally deal with a lot of emotional baggage that hasn't been fully acknowledged up to this point. The differences between Ten and Eleven are well defined, with Moffat designating them as "The One Who Regrets" and "The One Who Forgets."

But this certainly isn't a doom-and-gloom exercise. There's lots of humor, lots of action, and an outrageous deus ex machina bit of reconning that would be totally unforgivable if this was any show but "Doctor Who." Moffat makes fantastic use of Hurt and Tennant, and puts the cameos in where they're appropriate. It doesn't make sense to have Rose Tyler back, but Billie Piper is great as The Moment. Trying to shoehorn the older Doctors into the story would have been too much, but we do get Tom Baker, who played the Fourth and arguably the most iconic Doctor, in a quick closing cameo as an ambiguous figure known as The Curator. He's the only obvious fanservice in the special. Nearly all the other references are well integrated so that fans who aren't in the know won't realize they're missing anything.

There were a few bumpy spots. The absence of the Ninth Doctor (Christpher Eccleston) in any of the festivities was very obvious, and some have guessed that the War Doctor was only created because Eccleston declined to take part in the special. The story's resolution leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and may contradict earlier stories about the Time War like "The End of Time." And then there's the issue of the upcoming Christmas special - well, we'll save that for next time.
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