Yes, that’s the feeling I got, too; the three TARDISes at the end should have been nine’s, ten’s, and eleven’s. I’m really not sure what the motivation for Eccleston was not to get in on this, I can’t see how it would have hurt him any (on the other hand, I can see his rejection of a series he was formally associated with hurting him; anybody out to hire him must think twice now about whether he really has any commitment to the things he does).
That said, I did enjoy the special, though it was hyped up to a point where it was almost impossible to meet the expectations. Regarding the ‘B’ story, we didn’t actually ever get a conclusion of that, did we? I mean, what agreement did the humans and zygons come to? And I think that the handing over of the inhaler from one scarf girl to the other signified that they would know which one was real, but decided to keep quiet, no?
Also, I’m not at all sure about effectively striking out the destruction of Gallifrey; the guilt about this was such a defining trait of the (modern) Doctor that I don’t know how this will affect the character. However, I’m perfectly willing to buy the ‘the high council has its own plans’ fib to reconcile these events with The End of Time.
However, is there a conclusion to the whole ‘Clara and the Doctor enter the Doctor’s timestream’ forthcoming, or was that meant to be resolved? If so, I don’t think I got it…
That they did, to let the two bosses continue negotiating. We don’t know the fine points of the treaty, but we do know that neither boss knew who was human and who was Zygon so they will both have been arguing with all their might for the objectively fairest solution. It’s satisfactory enough for now if we let our imaginations fill in the fine details of that IMO.
That was fecking brilliant in, a completely bizarre manner. When it comes to the quirky online fanservice like that, the BBC Doctor Who team really do eat everyone else’s lunch.
Lots of fan service going on right from the get-go, with the old opening and references to “An Unearthly Child” on the school sign (“Coal Hill School”, “I Chesterton”, “W Coburn”). We also got an answer to why QE1 was so pissed at Tennant’s Doctor, which was nice (and old Liz herself had a plethora of excellent lines).
Did you catch the line about the “prominent” ears? A nice jab at Ecclestone (although Smith continues to get chin jokes so I suppose it’s only fair).
There was a highly risible exchange on Twitter Saturday evening you might enjoy:
I really liked it. Not ‘Blink’ or anything, but a good balance of humor, plot, not too much hand-waving about timey-wimey, but also not worrying about resolving every possible inconsistency. And moved the character of the Doctor forward significantly.
By the way, was I the only one who started thinking “look, Head Six is back!” whenever Billie Piper was on screen?
Should be better that way. I don’t think you could really film what we each conjured up in our minds from Ten’s speech about the world turned into Hell.
I, too, really enjoyed it. I didn’t get into Doctor Who until the reboot, so Eccleston is my doctor: I loved him, and loved Tennant even more. I didn’t watch Matt Smith’s run – I started to, but found the first couple of episodes annoying (I might also have been mourning for Tennant) – but now I almost feel like giving him another try. And I still want/need to go back and watch some older Doctors.
Did anyone else…
– Think that Piper’s character was going to be revealed as a liar/fake once Tennant caught the “bad wolf” reference? And how did Smith not get that? Were there no “bad wolf” moments in his episodes? I was kind of surprised nothing further happened with that.
– Partially expect that it would be weeping angel statues under the sheets, even though you knew it would be Zygons?
Yeah, especially when she said she knew why the statues were smashed… I was groaning inside thinking, “please let the angels go, Moffat, please let them go…” and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was wrong.
BTW, anyone else notice that the “sciency” girl with the 4th Doctor’s scarf was named Osgood? Oswin, (Clara) Oswald, and now Osgood? Anything there other than coincidence? Clara didn’t seem to recognize her, though.
I didn’t get into Doctor Who until the reboot, so Eccleston is my doctor: I loved him, and loved Tennant even more. I didn’t watch Matt Smith’s run – I started to, but found the first couple of episodes annoying (I might also have been mourning for Tennant) – but now I almost feel like giving him another try. And I still want/need to go back and watch some older Doctors.