Day of the Doctor

I've watched Doctor Who for as long as I can remember -- literally. I grew up with the original "classic" Who.

I got to see the 50th anniversary special program "Day of the Doctor" today, one day after its official release. And I've heard the complaints.

I definitely get the criticism some make about the implicit sexism that has crept into the show, and I kind of wish that just once in a while there was more suspense and a slower place like the original run, but it did try to address many of the fan criticisms in one way or another and was entertaining with a great performance by John Hurt and a welcome return by David Tennant.

The whole ret-con of the Last Great Time War will be an issue for some, which I had to think about a little. I guess the issue isn't the continuity itself but for some it is the sweeping away of the major background driving the Doctor's character development since the show's revival.

Still, here is how I pieced together the continuity for my fellow obsessed Whovians:

1. The Doctor (believed he had) used the Moment to actually kill all the Daleks and the Time Lords with fire. He then time-locked the event so that his decision could never be undone and so that neither any Time Lord nor Dalek could escape.

2. Some Daleks, ironically, still managed to escape this fate (inadvertently?) by using a Void Ship prior to the supposed genocides by leaving time and space. They subsequently returned to reality via 21st century Earth ("Doomsday").

3. Dalek Khan managed to fly through the barrier of the Time-Lock, dying over and over and going mad in his bid to save Davros ("Journey's End").

4. Lord Rassilon scanned the future for someone or something to lock onto and used the Master as a homing beacon to get around the Time-Lock. His device for saving Gallifrey and escaping the Moment would have allowed an entire planet to move through time and space, but it apparently would have allowed the Daleks and other terrors from the war to follow in the planet's wake. This plan was foiled the Master and the Doctor ("The End of Time, Part Two"). The freezing of Gallifrey in time and out of phase prevented any other attempts at escape on the part of the Time Lords.

5. The Moment in fact had given the John Hurt incarnation of the Doctor the chance to see the consequences of his choice to kill his own people and to change it while still making it look as if the genocide had taken place. Thus it looked as though he had killed both sides and locked the conflict away to make that choice unalterable. Somehow (???) the other Doctors were all recruited to help pull off that ruse and save the Time Lord homeworld, but none of the incarnations of the Doctor other than Matt Smith's version would have remembered what had actually happened when they went back to their own time streams. In reality, Gallifrey is still frozen in time somewhere waiting to be rediscovered.

6. Rassilon ought to still have his whole "destroying time" device on hand if Gallfrey is unlocked, so, I'm not sure why the Doctor would want to free Gallifrey anyway. Yes, the original Dalek fleets from the Time War are gone, but, the Daleks were able to be reborn ("Victory of the Daleks") -- although seemingly without their time-travel tech. So at the very least it isn't a stretch to presume that the High Council on Gallifrey would want to use their own time travel tech to hunt down and annihilate their remaining foes. Unless of course the devastation to the planet means they have lost their former capabilities. That would still make the Doctor the last of the original Time Lords.

It does all fit together, but this explanation does leave quite a bit unanswered.

Next stop: Trezalore