Doctor Who The Day of the Doctor Review - 50 Things Wrong with the 50th Special

Non-Spoilery Review: 

The title may suggest that I hated this episode. I did, kind of, but I do have to admit to enjoying it in the moment. While I was watching it was fun, because Moffat did tick many of the right boxes for fans. It's almost as if he had an actual list and tried to include as many things as possible that would make the fans happy. Underneath, however, there were plot holes and minor irritants, and... betrayals. And lots of timey wimey, of course.

As usual with Moffat's storylines, especially his "big" "epic" ones there are many threads left open-ended and unresolved and many things that get a hand-wave solution. I assume we're going to see a resolution to some of those things in the Christmas special, but such assumptions are not always safe. For example, I had a very clear expectation of where this episode was going to begin based on where the season 7 finale ended, but this expectation turned out to be laughable.

Overall, it was a good watch and honestly not as bad as I expected, but it left many questions and frustrations in its wake.

I don't think I can say much more without SPOILERS

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Before you proceed beware. The following post contains loads of SPOILERS for the 50th as well as many of the episodes in the history of the show, especially from the 2005 reboot on wards.

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Ok. So, I was expecting this episode to pick up right where we left Clara and the Doctor: in the middle of his weird time-stream thing (where he wasn't supposed to go because bad things would occur), but of course he had gone in to save Clara. That was where he met Hurt's doctor. And then Season 7 "The Name of the Doctor" just ended. Abruptly. Without a satisfying explanation for how they got out of the time stream thing. So I assumed we would get this explanation in this episode. I wasn't looking forward to it, particularly, as I disliked that entire plot-line, but if you're going to leave characters in the middle of a supposedly perilous situation you should at least resolve it for us. No such resolution was shown.

Instead we see Clara teaching and then she gets a message from "her Doctor" with an address and she rushed off on a motorbike to meet him. She drives that motorbike into the TARDIS where Eleven - who is reading about Quantum Mechanics - tells her there's a draft and she snaps her fingers and the door shuts. Cute. Fortunately (or unfortunately, I guess, if you like that sort of thing) we don't have to endure this for the entire episode. John Hurt's War Doctor and David Tennant's beloved Tenth Doctor both make quite lengthy appearances and play a major role in making this special stand on its plot-hole ridden feet. Also Billie Piper. She was quite awesome here and a reminder of why Rose was such a great companion. Every moment that John Hurt and Billie Piper were on screen was a joy to watch and their interaction was wonderful.

There were also quite a few in-jokes and references to previous episodes and many tie-ins which will keep fans speculating for weeks to come. The visuals were also beautiful in general and the plot which did exist in this episode was beautifully directed. Beyond all this, though, there were problems and I'm a little surprised that more people aren't complaining yet. I suppose it'll take a while for everyone to get over the joy of seeing some of the great acting and some of the references and begin to really analyze the problems.

Personally, I don't mind being one of the few to begin the complaining! lol

So, in the spirit of the 50th anniversary here's my list of 50 things I thought were wrong with this episode:

1. The Time War cop-out: I'm going to use the Doctor's own words from this episode. "Great men are forged in fire." So if you take away the fire and the hard decisions what is it that you have left? A lie, certainly. With one fell stroke Steven Moffat has managed to erase the thing that has made New Who what it is. The Time War, like it or not, has had a huge influence on the Doctor's psyche and on the nature and appeal of the show. It's the thread that's been holding everything together and the darkness that has made the Doctor interesting. I don't think Moffat quite understands that he's taken away a huge part of what made the reboot work and possibly spelled the end of this era of who. I don't think the show can last much longer if he keeps this up, to be honest.

2. Showing the Time War: Yes, I know, it was only one battle, but it was one battle of the Time War, an event which has been hinted and built up for seven seasons now. It's big. It's a thousands year long struggle between two races which have the ability to travel in time. One of those races has the ability to regenerate when their bodies are dying. All I saw was colorful laser beams in a very busy screen a la the Star Wars prequels. *sigh* I called it in my Last Day Review/Countdown Post. You can't effectively show the scale of the time war and it seems here that Moffat wasn't even really trying. I mean, one regeneration, one instance of time-travel, anything would have shown some effort...

3. Moffat Hates Rose Tyler: We got Billie Piper, but she wasn't really playing Rose. I also called this in my Last Day post . Moffat doesn't really know how to write women and so I predicted that he would think the only thing that made Rose cool was Bad Wolf. Well, what we got in this episode, with the Moment weapon's conscience manifesting itself as Bad Wolf was pretty awesome. I have no complaints about that and a I said above Billie Piper's scenes with John Hurt were wonderful. What I do have a problem with is that while giving us this bit of awesome Moffat was simultaneously working hard to destroy the relationship between Rose Tyler and Ten. Ten's relationship with Lizzie, the fact that he didn't even seem to care or follow up when he heard Bad Wolf mentioned, and even his kiss on the hand to Clara... it felt like Moffat was trying to exact some kind of revenge on Rose's memory. It's sad.

4. Ten's Changed Character: The Tenth Doctor has always been a wise-cracking funny character, but that's not all he is. The best moments were the moments where we could read pain and loss on his face. The regret and pain he was trying to push away was what made his jokey, humorous character all the more effective. Moffat stripped away the heart of the man and left only the jokes and that meant that I honestly did not enjoy Tennant's reappearance as much as I expected. There was one wonderful moment where he yelled at Eleven for forgetting the number of children his decision had killed, but that was it and even that wasn't allowed the time or space to have a real impact as they were too busy focusing on Matt Smith's face instead of Tennant's face and emotions as he delivered those lines.

5. Elizabeth I aka Lizzie aka you might as well have made her River Song: All the scenes with Lizzie in them were excruciating to watch. It quite spoiled most of Tennant's screen-time in this episode because he spent that time either being kissed by the queen or insulting her. It wasn't qute or funny it was just painful to watch.

6. The Sexual Innuendo/Jokes: Why did Matt Smith have to keep harping on about the fact that the zygon had kissed Ten? And WHY did they have to do that stupid sonic screwdriver bit where they compare them and Ten says Eleven is compensating? It's just... just no, please no. I could go on, but I think you get the point and you did watch the same episode so I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about. They're aliens with two hearts that have traveled space and time for hundreds of years and they get to meet a different incarnation of themselves and all they can do is make these stupid remarks? Seriously?

7. What Happened to the Zygons? If you don't think it's important to actually resolve a plot thread then why include it at all? The Zygons were completely pointless except to show us that Tennant was doing something when they found him. The whole plot never amounted to anything and we ended up leaving both the Queen and the poor UNIT people to their own devices. Even a tiny mention of the outcome would have been nice.

8. Conflict Exists for a Reason: Conflicts aren't just random things that happen just because people suck and then we solve them with generic philosophical solutions like making everyone "forget whether they're Zygon or Human." It's cute and everything, but there's such a thing as justice and right and wrong and fairness and, again, there are reasons for conflict. If those reasons aren't addressed and actually dealt with then you can't solve the problem. Maybe if we'd been shown some of the "negotiations" then we could swallow this ending to the plot-line, but we weren't allowed that. There was too much important stuff for Moffat to focus on in his available screentime. Such as the 3 minute long kiss between Elizabeth and Ten that we all really needed to watch.

9. Genocide is ok as long as they're just Daleks and not your own folks: This is what the Time War cop-out seemed to be saying. I was never a fan of the stupid "he had to kill off his own race along with the Daleks in order to save the universe" thing, but it was a heck of a lot better than "let's alter this so that the Time Lords get to live while the Daleks are wiped out." As such, I didn't appreciate the random Gallifreyan children playing sequences - I knew what they were building up to. He was going to save them because they were his own kind and that somehow makes what he did better.

10. Where are the Mad Time Lords? It's not as if this was an RTD thing that Moffat just hated and wanted to ignore. He used it himself in the mini-episode Night of the Doctor. Cass was AFRAID of Eight when she realized he was Time Lord. He protested that at least he wasn't a Dalek and she said "who can tell the difference anymore." It carried emotional weight, but apparently it meant nothing, because the Doctor's thrilled that he's saved them all even though he knows (and has acknowledged himself) that they became worse than the Daleks. Every act has consequences, like the Doctor's use of the weapon killing those Gallifreyan children, but erasing those acts also has consequences that Moffat seems to have completely ignored.

11. Consequences: Say what you will about RTD, he understood the need to make consequences for time-travel. He hammered the point home, again and again, that there are certain things the Doctor just can't change. He certainly couldn't interfere in his own time-stream. There were rules for things. And consequences for meddling. When you write about time-travel you have to be aware of such things and address them somehow. Moffat doesn't even seem to acknowledge that anything has consequences. The Doctor can change pretty much anything he wants to change and everything stays the same because they all conveniently forget that they've changed it. *headdesk*

12. Forgetting: We all agree, I think, that the Doctor isn't stupid. Ten should have figured out a long time before it actually happened that he was going to forget his whole encounter with the War Doctor and that should have made him flip out even worse than he did to Matt Smith. He should have at least shown some concern for the fact that his own memory of some pretty important time war related events was going to be wiped and at least wondered why and how and when before they ever got to that point. Instead he just stood there waiting for his next line. Again, so much potential for us to see the Tenth Doctor's pain that Tennant portrays so wonderfully just gone to waste.

13. The Matter of a Few Daleks: The Daleks were even more pointless than the Zygons in this episode. Not only that, but Moffat seems to have forgotten about a few Daleks - or a few thousand. While saving his entire planet he must have simultaneously been saving all the Daleks on that planet and in its atmosphere, right? So presumably all the Time Lords and Daleks and Gallifreyan children are hanging out on Gallifrey - in a painting - still killing each other off while they wait to be saved. Slick, Doctor, real slick.

14. The Planet Disappears and they Kill Each other in their own Crossfire: Do I need to explain this one? I've never much understood battle strategy and I can't say I care too much for exacting detail and accuracy when it comes to battle plans but that has got to be the stupidest solution I've ever heard of.

15. What do the Gallifrey War Commanders Actually Do? Their office looks nice. Some of them seemed mildly worried, but the big guy didn't seem to care much about the progress of the battle. Because who cares about the Time War when that pesky Doctor's up to something and you can spend your time making lame comments about him?

16. The Lame Comments: Gallifreyans those Gallifreyan war commanders have got to be the worst at making lame and pointless remarks just for the heck of it. One day someone will count them and put them up somewhere on the internet and you can bet I'll be reading through that list. For now, I really am quite unimpressed with the whole Time Lord planet and everyone on it.

17. Writing on the Wall: Hey, at least it wasn't River sending flirtatious messages to the Doctor across thousands of years. No, apparently Hurt's Doctor can't find a better way to communicate his distaste to the Daleks and Time Lords than to shoot the phrase "No More" into a concrete wall while ignoring the battle around him.

18. Token Black Characters: if the only Black characters you're going to have in there are two seconds of footage of a doomed teenage Gallifreyan and a guy guarding the entrance who's going to give Kate access to 'the Black Files' then you seriously need to reconsider the way you are handling race. But these two fleeting appearances weren't anywhere near as offensive as the the plot involving those brothers in Journey to the Center of the TARDIS so I guess we should be thankful or something?

19. That "Sciency" woman with the Scarf: like the whole Zygon plotline she was embroiled in this whole character is completely pointless. I mean, what really was the point in all the time this episode spent on her? There was potential there, but it was wasted. But hey she wore a very familiar colorful scar so that's good right? Maybe they wanted to include all those scenes with her in case any of the viewers missed the scarf the first time around... (by the way she's Kate's younger sister) I do find it a little offensive that the Doctor gave her that sand analyzing job just so he could prove to Clara that he could have a job.

20. Catch-Phrases: They started off ok. They even had Hurt complain about his older selves' tendency to speak like children and use those silly catchphrases. Eleven says Geronimo, Ten says Allons-y and then John Hurt says: "Oh for God's sake!" I loved this bit. But then... tragically, they just had to make Hurt utter his own catchphrase. "Gallifrey Stands" apparently. It's not even a good catchphrase. He was just frustrated with them for even having catchphrases... what's going on here?

21. "I don't want to go:" It was wrong to make fun of a phrase which held so much genuine emotion last time we heard it. That's all I'm going to say.

22. The Title of the Painting: I don't know why we're supposed to care. Or why it matters that it's both titles together and it spells "Gallifrey Falls No More." Pathetic and a waste of screen-time, but I guess they had to have the curator say something...

23. Who Nose: I'm sure if I had watched the classic series I would understand that "Who Knows" does not mean that Gallifrey is stuck up the Doctor's nose, but that's the only thing I could think of when the curator said it to Eleven whilst pointing at his nose.

24. Clara's Contribution: If Donna had been there, watching the doctor as he's about to destroy his own planet, she would have dragged him kicking and screaming away from the red button and talked sense into him. Rose would have pleaded with him and tried to show him that he should at least try to change things. Martha would probably have yelled at him too. What does Clara do? She shakes her head almost imperceptibly (wanna bet that's what the script said?) When Eleven asks her what she meant by it she insists it's nothing until he basically forces her to speak. At which point she says something vague about the kind of man he is. And this convinces him to change his mind, somehow. Seriously? This is what you get, apparently, when you strip the mystery away from mystery girl. Her contribution was pathetic (especially when we saw Bad Wolf's much more substantial one in this episode) and she really needs a personality soon.

25. What's so special about the Eleventh Doctor At that Point in Time? Apparently the Moment consciousness knew what she was doing because she took the War Doctor to the exact point he needed to go to make sure he didn't go through with it. There was supposedly something special about the Eleventh Doctor and the way he thinks or whatever that was necessary. I'm not seeing it? What was it? They all got the brainwave at the same time so why couldn't it have been any other incarnation of the Doctor? Eleven needs a personality and character almost as much as Clara does. He's far too aimless and even so the episode could have done a better job at giving a reason why he was special.

26. What did the Doctor do in the Time War? According to this episode he seems only to have shot messages into the wall and pressed that button, thereby destroying his own planet. We didn't get to see the thousands of years of fighting in the war or any hint of them and when they saved Gallifrey we saw no hint of the Doctor still having terrible memories or scars from the war. Yes, he was wearing thin or whatever, but that was just so he could regenerate... no, apparently there was nothing else in a thousand years of the war that he still regretted or felt bad about or that still haunted him...

27. Helicopter Scene: This scene only existed so they could have the still-shots and make us wonder what was going on. It was pointless and failed to be exciting although I'm sure the seven-year-olds loved it.

28. Eleven Doesn't Age: Apparently Eleven's been running around through space and time for around 400 years and he still looks like a kid. I never knew Time Lords were supposed to have some anti-aging thing (Hurt's Doctor didn't) they just regenerate when their body fails. Why the writers chose to do so many time-jumps in season 7 and make him 400 years older is beyond me. It was a stupid decision.

29. Warrior Doctor Doesn't Carry a Gun: I thought the whole point of regenerating into Hurt/The Warrior was so he could, you know, become a warrior and actually fight in the war. So why did he need to ask that random soldier for his gun?

30. Sandshoes: Ten's shoes are cool, ok? Why did they have to take everything about the Tenth Doctor and turn it into a joke. Every single thing.

31. Scarf-Girl Loudly Explaining What she Deduced about the Statues/Zygons whilst standing right next to them: She could have said anything to her co-worker without alerting them to the fact that she knew they were hiding there. That would have at least bought them some time to escape.

32. Zygon!Kate puts her phone down right next to Clara: Must everyone on this show be stupid to cover up for Moffat's inability to think things through?

33. The Door was Unlocked: I've come to accept that Eleven is stupid, but for all three doctors to be stupid is just beyond sad.

34. The Planet's More Interesting: What about 2013/Clara's time is so special? Why do the Zygons need to take over that particular time?

35. Nuclear War Head in the Black Archive: It's been done before. Martha's "Key" and the time when Nine was about to blow up Satellite 5 again and so on. Apparently, the only solution anyone can think of is to blow everything up.

36. Ten and Eleven are so Great that War Doctor decides he'll be ok if he goes through with it: All I saw was both of them being quite pathetic, but apparently they were so impressive that they convinced the War Doctor that that future was worth preserving. This moment sorely needed 10th but I don't blame Eccleston for not wanting to come back to the show at this point when the quality has sunk this low.

37. People Finishing Each Other's Sentences: They spent so much time showing the three Doctors arguing and not getting along, but apparently they're still capable of finishing each other's sentences. Why?

38. "Equidistant, so grown up!" Ummm... no it really isn't that grown up. You're a 904 year old time-travelling alien on your tenth incarnation and you think equidistant is a grown-up sounding word?

39. Clara Apologizing for the Doctor's Lame Lines: Are they married now or something? Why does she feel the need to do this? This is another case of Moffat telling rather than showing, I'm not convinced that they have some kind of really close relationship now. Last time we saw Clara the Doctor wouldn't even tell her why he was interested in her - he refused to tell her about herself and her own mystery/incarnations.

40. Why Don't They Know Where Gallifrey Is? They're the ones who hid it away/preserved it in a painting, so why don't they know where it is? If they've forgotten everything (which clearly they haven't yet in the Museum scene) then we know at least Eleven hasn't forgotten so why does he even need to go looking?

41. Why are they in the Gallery at the end? Other than to have "the curator" show up, I mean. It would have made much more sense for them to meet in, for example, the UNIT headquarters and check on that whole Zygon plotline before saying goodbye...

42. What on Earth Was happening in that last poster shot? I don't get it. They seem to be all standing on a cloud staring at Gallifrey. Why? Won't time like eat itself or self-destruct if all twelve incarnations of the same man are standing right next to each other? And why did they have to arrange themselves in that precise formation? It's all so we could get another promotional picture. *sigh*

43. Fanservice: Moffat seems to have had a checklist of things to include for the fans. All the little glimpses of past Doctors and the in jokes and references to past adventures. The problem is that this was done just for the purpose of appeasing the fans. It served no purpose in the plot and instead the plot was built around all these random little references. Also, yes visually we got a lot of thrilling shots and bits of show history, but where was the heart?

44. Home, the Long Way Round: Again, I know next to nothing about the Classic series, but I do know that the Doctor had some serious qualms about the Time Lords and their whole society and arrogance and so on. They had differences. So why is it that all he wants to do suddenly is to go home and see them? Doesn't make sense. It could have if it was built up properly, but as it was written it wasn't convincing.

45. Matt Smith Narrating: It never worked, but it's especially pathetic when we've just watched an episode with Hurt in it.

46. Jenna Coleman's Acting: When Clara spoke to the Doctors and told them about the Black Archive and they all stared at her and she said "OK... so you've heard of that then." I actually had no idea if she meant that he really had heard of it or that he hadn't. I was wondering about this for the next five minutes of the episode. That shouldn't happen. There should be some kind of expression in the actress's face other than cheery blankness so we know what she's thinking and what her words signify.

47. Sonic Screwdrivers are not Laser Weapons: But apparently that's what the Doctor now thinks it's for. All three incarnations for him. He was shooting lazer beams at a Dalek and pointing it at the random soldier dudes in Elizabeth's time who wanted his head.

48. The Big Red (Rose-Shaped) Button: Hurt's Doctor complained that there's never just a big red button, but if you've been watching season seven then you know that nowadays there's always a big red button. It was stupid.

49. It's all about the Doctor all the time: I've said this before in my season 7 reviews. Moffat is making this show all about the Doctor. It's no longer about him having adventures, or saving other people, or whatever. No, we're supposed to be into the show now because the overriding plot and the big "epic" story arcs are all about the Doctor. First it was the Doctor's name now it's the Doctor's home planet. Etc. Etc. Moffat, look at the beloved episodes of the past and realize that it's not all about the Doctor. There's more to the show than that.

50. Moffat's still around: If he doesn't leave soon then the show isn't going to last long. Fans are slowly being alienated as he sucks the life out of the show they love and turns it into this overblown plot-hole ridden mess and this 50th has only speeded up the process. I have a terrible feeling that we won't get to see another non-Moffat season because by the time he decides to leave he'll have completely destroyed the show.


Well, that's my list. As I said before, I did enjoy the episode while I was watching it because of all the references and some of the great acting, but it just presented too many problems to ignore and I suspect that the effects of these problems will soon be much clearer. Do you agree with me or totally disagree? Comment below and let everyone know your opinions!