The Day of the Doctor: 50th Anniversary special *spoilers*

[Zbigniev Hamson]

What on Earth was the charity single about then? Save a show that hasn't been cancelled? I'm glad I was too young to notice all that crap going on at the time.

[Larry]

What on Earth was the charity single about then? .

there was a charity single ,,?

[Logo Polish]

What on Earth was the charity single about then? Save a show that hasn't been cancelled? I'm glad I was too young to notice all that crap going on at the time.

It included the lyrics 'Eighteen months is too long to wait, bring back the Doctor, don't hesitate...'

So it was an appeal for them to start the next series in January 1986 rather than September 1986.

[MacNimon]

It's maybe a bit early (two years!), but seeing as Moffat has hinted at his plans in this months DWM what would you expect/like to see for the series 50th Anniversary?

Given Moffat's enthusiasm about how The Five Doctors was received by the public at the time, and his disappointment at Tom Baker's refusal to take part in it ("You should be ashamed of that decision for the rest of your life...") surely a multi-Doctor story of some sort is in the works? And not only featuring the recent Doctors, as has been suggested at times, but possibly all surviving Doctors, assuming (as hinted) he gives Tom a chance to make amends...

If this was to be the case, how would you try to fit in a number of aging Doctors into the storyline, given that they all died/regenerated at a reasonably young age? The only obvious way to me would be to have something alter the Doctor's timeline so that his regenerations never happened when we all know that they did - but they still happened in the same order - and the 4th Doctor (for example) lived on to a ripe old age before regenerating. And with each subsequent older Doctor appearing you'd have the 11th Doctor's memories changing until, together, they manage to sort things out. The problem being though, would any of these earlier Doctors actually want to help...because in effect they would be cutting their own lives short to return to an established timeline?

As Moffat said about 1983, they pulled out all the stops to produce an exciting Anniversary celebration. Surely he'll be out to top that one in a big way? Let's hope so!

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm not sure I'd like to see a multi-Doctor story - it would be difficult, I think. Either you include all the surviving Doctors, which would mean a clearly much-older Tom & Colin (Peter & Sly maybe haven't changed as much, but them too); or you only include the NewWho Doctors, which would just seem wrong.

For me, I think a far better way would be some kind of 'special' featuring the current Doctor (but maybe allowing scope to include clips of all the other guys in the narrative, maybe as the Doctor's life is unravelled) - and then a series of programmes to celebrate.

We've already floated the idea of a DramaDoc on the show's origins (a la The Road To Coronation Street) which could be really good. Maybe they could expand that brief into a series of DramaDocs covering other periods in the show's history - the long struggle to bring it back to the screens between 1989 & 2005 perhaps, or the apparent soapopera of the JN-T era!!

[Rob McCow]

A dramatisiation of the show's origins would be great, I'd love to see that.

As for the show itself, what can they do? We had a big monster jamboree knees-up in The Big Bang, so that idea is gone. A multi-Doctor story would be nice, but again we've had Time Crash, so that's been done before as well.

They could do something mental and game-changing, such as Doctor Who meets RTD in an exciting adventure in Cardiff. Or blow up the TARDIS.

I only hope they don't copy Coronation Street and go for a tram crash!

[SiHart]

I was thinking something along the lines of the Brig's funeral, which would be both a lovely commemoration of the character and a chance to cameos from old Doctors and companions. That could work.

Or else they do something like Timewyrm: Revelation, where the old Doctors live on inside his head and they can look older without too much of a problem. Could be a lovely, nostalgic story that.

Si xx

[SiHart]

ps- just merged the two threads on this subject. Remembered we'd got one in General too!

[Antony Cox]

A multi-Doctor story would be great, but I'm not sure that it'd have the same effect as The Five Doctors. Old Doctors, great, but having had every single New Series companion back already (and Rose more than once), have they not used up the novelty factor already?

[Terry Leptil]

How about The Eleven Doctors? Well, you'd have to convince Christopher Eccleston to return (and pay him a lot of money). Paul McGann would have to grow his hair to make it look like he carried on playing the Eighth Doctor. For the others:

Doctors 4-7: They could film their scenes but CGI could could be used to make them look younger like how they were in the TV series.
Doctors 1-3: You could get David Troughton and Sean Pertwee to play Doctors 2 and 3 because they do look and sound like their dads (Sean doesn't have the lisp but it can be added) and likewise CGI could be used to alter their features to make them look like those Docs. Only trouble is William Hartnell didn't have a son so you'd have to find an actor in his late fifties/early sixties who looks and sounds like him and work on that (or get Geoffrey Bayldon).

Very doubtful I know but it could happen.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

A multi-Doctor story would be great, but I'm not sure that it'd have the same effect as The Five Doctors. Old Doctors, great, but having had every single New Series companion back already (and Rose more than once), have they not used up the novelty factor already?

That's a very good point. The 5 Docs really was massive back then for bringing back all the Docs (kind of) and all those companions (from the main companion characters down to the small cameos). They hadn't really done anything on that scale prior to that. Even the 3 Docs didn't bring any companions back as such.
It's still something I would like to see but I agree that it might not seem to be quite such as big an occasion simply because we've had the monsters and companions back already over the last 5 series.
Besides with the current American style titles (with actors names appears at the start of the program), if you bring old doctors and companions back along side those from the new series the opening titles could end up being about 5 minutes long!!!!

[Rob McCow]

What about Rowan Atkinson? Bring him into the canon as well, just to really mess things up.

Then you could tell everyone that 'The Curse of Fatal Death' was in actuality the Time War.

[Perry Vale]

I'm not really in favour of a multi-doctor story, everyone's either dead, too old, or hates the show. CGI still isn't really ready to handle such things, either.

I'm all for celebrating the show "offscreen" in releases and documentaries, but as for NuWho itself, think the only time it will be appropriate is in 2015, when it celebrates ten years onscreen, but even then there's very little left to do after RTD's excesses.

[Rob McCow]

there's very little left to do after RTD's excesses

So are you suggesting that Doctor Who enters an age of austerity, after the over-the-top attitude of the previous administration?

[brandynigma]

Well, for a start, the BBC could do what they allowed the ABC to do for the 30th and 40th anniversaries- a complete Classic Series repeat run.

1993- Robot to Revelation of the Daleks
2003- An Unearthly Child to Survival (sans The War Games and Colour Daleks stories due to copyright issues).

What would make this extra special, as well as a money spinner, would be to authorise broadcast of the DVD prints for the run. I recall Steve Roberts saying many moons ago that this would be technically possble (i.e. depending on contracts and money).

Start on November the 25th, 2013, broadcasting at 7pm Weeknights on BBC4, with a two hour omnibus late Saturday night.

Presuming that Reign or Terror, Tenth Planet and Ice Warriors will, along with Invasion, be in some broadcastable form, it would take a little over 119 weeks to screen the series.

[Perry Vale]

What would make this extra special, as well as a money spinner, would be to authorise broadcast of the DVD prints for the run. I recall Steve Roberts saying many moons ago that this would be technically possble (i.e. depending on contracts and money).

How will this make it a money spinner exactly? The BBC would have to pay 2|entertain for the dvd prints, so that would make it even more expensive...?

[Simon R]

How about a live 45 minute episode on the 23rd of November 2013?

It won't be easy but they managed The Bill and Corrie and they were about that long with adverts.

In terms of old Doctors then maybe a surreal, dream type story might work where the Dreamlord (or whoever) makes the Doctor land in a mysterious village full of old people who act and look like his old selves and companions. They could even wear updated costumes that hint at their original ones.

[FlyingBeastie]

McGann, Tennant, Eccleston and Smith in "The Four Doctors".

That would be my New Series Wish List completed.

Si.

Concur.


And even finally seeing the Time War on screen. But with the way Moffat is going, it seems he's moving away from the whole "Time War Stuff"


P.S. Having a few companions coming back for a finale isn't the same as having all 4 doctors onscreen all at once.

The Doctors > Companions

[Dave Tudor]

So sad that, whatever happens, Lis won't be part of it.

[Antony Cox]

I meant to add, I think it's extremely unlikely that Eccleston would return.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

But with the way Moffat is going, it seems he's moving away from the whole "Time War Stuff"

Hmm, can't quite see how the face fits after that sentence

[Andrew Curnow]

I agree - all that yak about the Time War worked well as a bit of backstory but I don't want to see it, or hear anything more about it.

[SiHart]

It did its job, now it can be quietly put away and they can get on with other stuff.

[Perry Vale]

Agreed. There's no story left to tell with the Time War, everything important was covered by TEoT.

[Si Hunt]

Playing devils advocate though, how can there be no story left to tell about en event whose story hasn't been told yet? For all we know the Silence employed warriors to battle the Gallifreyan Temperance in the midst of the Time War, breaking into the Fortress of Moments and creating an almighty creature called the Schrizwitch, which then travelled back in time and became a ruler of ancient Gallifreyan society.

Get my point? It might seem lazy to tell the story of the Time War, but in my opinion its a good a platform as any for creating new stories. How can the storytelling possibilities be exhausted for an event/period which we've never seen?

Si.