For a show that is about the capacity to be everywhere and anywhere , any catamenia in time , Doctor Who is a show that is arguably burdened with context . Now 60 old age old today , the persuasion of navigating any of its stories without an cognizance of its place in that history is almost unthinkable . But every once in a while , in a very farsighted while , Doctor Who manage that context to set itself free .
That ’s the paradox — as well as thephilosophy of John Rawls — that sits at the spirit of “ The Day of the Doctor of the Church , ” Doctor Who ’s 50th anniversary special that climaxed a blockbuster full point of celebrations for the serial 10 year ago tonight . It is , of course , almost impossible to think of “ Day ” alfresco of this context — metatextually , we now know so much ofwhat almost happenedduring its product and ideation that it ’s almost a miracle to revisit the final product and not deem it marvellous for simply existing . At the time , pressure on the serial , and then - showrunner Steven Moffat — to save not just a meet protection to fifty years of video prior to it , not just to give birth on the promise of bringing back the even - then legendaryDavid Tennant ’s tenth Doctor , one of the most democratic take on the character in that history , but also to jell the microscope stage to bid farewell to his current star in Matt Smith , set tobow out of the seriesa calendar month later in the Christmas special “ Time of the Doctor”—was vast .
It ’s meet perhaps that a decade on , and on the precipice of not just one but three anniversary special , the serial once again finds itself under a likewise press with a crook — a testimonial now to sixty age , the return of David Tennant but now as anew , fourteenth incarnation , and to set the stage once more for an wholly novel geological era now in the arrival ofNcuti Gatwa ’s fifteenth Doctor . It ’s just as meet perhaps that the pressure is not quite so heightened this clip around , as “ Day of the medico ” managed to resoundingly prove that Doctor Who was more than capable of rising to celebratory occasion such as this , to hand over something both have it away of its past but capable of providing something filled with potential drop for the future .
Screenshot: BBC
But again , this is all linguistic context . Can “ Day ” work , just as the doctor plans with the Zygons and humans does in its tale — to temporarily pass over them of their computer memory , so neither side knows which is which in an attempt to guarantee just peace — to be good outside the weight unit of all this linguistic context ? There ’s two answer , here . The first , is yes : “ Day of the Doctor ” is n’t just a honest solemnization of Doctor Who , it ’s also just practiced MD Who full block . There ’s adventure and spectacle , Earth at terror of invasion , time travel shenanigans , and multiple Doctors bouncing off of each other in the most hectic , funny , and heartbreaking of ways . It ’s layers of Steven Moffat ’s penchant for twist around whodunit and cleverness — zipping between the Zygon terror to modern world , the Tenth Doctor ’s own raid with them back in Elizabethan England , and then the War Doctor ’s trauma face down the last day of the Time War , an event up to this period only spoken about in dark , quiesce tones throughout Who ’s forward-looking revive era — that all neatly bind together in this loving , profoundly sentimental parcel .
That brings us to the second response to that earlier question . Can “ Day ” work , to be good outside the weight of all this circumstance ? The reply this time is , it contend , that it does n’t have to : it can squeeze and refuse its power in one fell swoop , and give its heroes the healing they crave in the process . After the 10th and Eleventh Doctors bilk the Zygon ’s encroachment plans in the mod day , their design also acts as a catalyst for them to go back to the War Doctor as he stands on the precipice of unleashing the moment — to admit that this burdensome act is part of their past , but that all they are is part of the War Doctor as well . Except , as Clara argues ( fittingly , someone outside of the context of knowing what the Time War really was , commit how small it came up between her and the Eleventh Doctor)—the Doctors do n’t have to accept this fate . They have assume the potential of it , but they are now also up to of avoiding it , granted the singular unique opportunity of these unlike incarnations , all in their own private contexts and places in their personal timeline , coming together at one moment .
And in an plosion of victory — from the moment of realization to the soaring comer of 13 TARDISes around a beleaguer Gallifrey , to the blossom destruction of the Dalek fleet catch in its own crossfire as Gallifrey is blinked out of macrocosm into its own pocket of spacetime and saved from destruction — Doctor Who both comprehend its context leading up to this moment , and frees itself from it . So much of advanced Doctor Who at this point had been defined by the outcome we understood for the Last Great Time War — the Doctor ’s own prospect on things , the absence of his people and his homeworld , the excited exercising weight that came from when elements of the conflict go that resultant , like the Daleks and the Master . In a single present moment , Doctor Who secern its interview , and itself , “ enough of that . What if we made it better ? ” . Because that ’s what the Doctor does , for so many people across space and time — and on the Doctor ’s special day , why not do it for themselves too ?
Screenshot: BBC
Of course , we once again have to return to setting . In the yr that would follow Gallifrey ’s comeback had its ups and downs — a month later in “ Time of the Doctor of the Church , ” it would be their continued world that granted the Doctor a new cycle of regeneration . Just a few years down the line with Jodie Whittaker ’s 13th Doctor , we ’d seemingly see them ruin all over again , and have the Doctor ’s own understanding of their personal history upended once more with the revelations of the Timeless Child . But in the moment “ daytime of the Doctor ” tolerate itself to be free from all this context , it is bursting with unbound potential — a loving , exciting , invigorating potential . A gift to Doctor Who most fitting for a solemnisation as sentimental as its fiftieth birthday .
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Screenshot: BBC
Screenshot: BBC
