Good point.
And surely the “using hundreds of years of processing-time to work out a solution” element to today’s episode might count as a good use of the time-travel device…? I liked it, anyway.
Ha yes, the software on the screwdriver and, well, the door. 
You’ve got to have a bit of red plunger: Always preferable to THE DIAL GOING INTO THE RED!!1!
eta: we also got the FIVE-MINUTE COUNTDOWN!!1!
I cut it off just before the end. Can someone spoiler it for me, please? I left just after Peter Davison deleted Russell’s message.
StG
They all die.
j/k. Actually, the Doctor (Smith version) has new hope and a new mission (find his frozen planet); the Doctor (Tennant version) goes off to do stuff until he turns into Smith, and the Doctor (Hurt version) regenerates into Christopher Eccleston, who must have charged them a bundle to use his image.
Edit: Oops, I see now you were talking about Davison’s film. :embarrassed smiley:
That was pretty awesome. Thanks for the link.
The Guardian comments go straight for A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life as the reference points:
…as a companion piece to the 50th that was simply quite brilliant. There was a tinge of sadness throughout the Day of the Doctor that we didn’t get to see all the other Doctors: but fortunately story won out in the end, as it should. But it was nice to see that McCoy/Davidson/Baker actually were in the final cut: even if they were hidden under the sheets!
And Barrowman has finally come out of the closet! Married with kids!
Okay: Scene changes to Moffat editing the footage for the 50th Anniversary episode with an assistant. Moffat says ‘we must cut the Daleks scene’ due to time constraints. (Oh, no! The 3 Docs won’t be in the episode after all!) Then Moffat leaves to take a phone call, while the assistant continues viewing the raw footage.
In that footage we see the 3 Docs standing in the studio while someone says ‘we need some more shrouded Zygons,’ a production guy hands our heroes some shrouds.
Moffat returns and watches some of the Under-Gallery scene with, you guessed it, the 3 Docs (presumably) under the shrouds. They got in after all, huzzah! Finis.
(This little film was hilarious! Davison has got to go on making short subjects, at least—he’s got a real gift.)
Thanks, Sherrerd!
StG
One more thought - it was funny when John Hurt thought the other doctors were companions.
How many family members were in Peter Davison’s video? And Carol Ann Ford (Susan) was in it :). And I love the Hobbit / Sylvester McCoy bits
Brian
This episode reminded me how much I miss the tenth doctor. It’s not just the actor. The character of the tenth was so much better. I liked his brown suit. Everything was better.
I wish somehow he could come back. Even if it was prior to his death. but I guess that’s a pipe dream.
At least David was gracious enough to bring him back for one last time.
Paul McGann did the 6 minute mini-episode where he regenerated into the War Doctor, although it wasn’t very clear who he became. Extremely excellent acting from him in that. It doesn’t look like he didn’t want any part of it. This is it.
Bob
The timelords with the White Point Star plot and Rassilon were the High Council. The timelords in the 50th special are not part of the high council. There was even a line to the effect of “The high council is in emergency session. They have plans of their own.” The events of The End of Time presumably happened in parallel with the pocketing of Gallifrey or slightly before.
I won’t argue with you, glee, but due to the paradoxical nature of the events in Blink, I would consider Sally and the doctor equally responsible. After all, she did all the work. Any bright ideas he had were off-camera and therefore not pertinent.
I think that I caught a really quick reference to the UNIT dating controversy, when Kate Stewart asked for one of her father’s old files and said that it was either in the '70s or '80s, depending on the numbering system that was being used.
Good point, although that’s not so much a time travel story as a time *lapse *story - the Doctor and Madame Pompadour may have been moving at different rates, but they were both moving in the same direction, so there was no mucking around with cause and effect. Stories where characters move forward in time are inherently different from stories whee characters move back in time, if only because moving forward in times is something humans do every day.
I loved John Hurt’s grumpy doctor exasperated with the antics of his successors: “Stop pointing it like that! It’s a scientific instrument, not a water pistol!”. And yeah, it doesn’t pay to think about the plot too hard, but it had that spark of fun the last couple of seasons have missed. Stuffing more Doctors in like The Five Doctors would have been kind of cool, but killed the story, I was happy with the glimpses we got. And when I heard Baker’s voice I knew instantly who it was, I was all OMG THEY GOT TOM BAKER BACK!
I, for one, found the show thoroughly satisfying and entertaining. It provides a much-needed new direction for the show to go in, while remaining respectful toward everything that came before. I haven’t been a big fan of the writing in the Matt Smith era, but this was great. I thought Christopher Eccleston’s absence was an elephant in the room, and I think it’s weird he wouldn’t be willing to participate, but whatever.
The plunger thing remined me of ‘sometimes you have to destroy the village to save the village’.
Nice finishing touch with Tom Baker. Well played.
Right. Yesterday we were looking at TimeLord Military HQ, not at the Council. It now creates that bit of an ambiguity there – in End of Time we already know Gallifrey was not truly destroyed but merely banished from reality, but the High Council had already made contingency plans in case that happened, a “backdoor” escape hatch that involved The Master. They of course also outdid War Doctor on the genocide front in the end, by figuring on destroying all existence in time itself so they could transcend it eternally (and thus be safe from being trapped in or out of it). End of Time made it look like that happens after and while Gallifrey was time-isolated, now we can wonder if that is actually happening right before, just as, or after Gallifrey falls.
We are left to speculate if the Master’s and Rassilon’s apparent mutual destruction just as they’re being sucked back into oblivion would signify that at some point Gallifrey can be restored safely.
(BTW notice how they now make the Daleks destroy themselves by circular firing squad, Weeping-Angel style, rather than taking them out directly)