The Doctor Who thread

[Autocon]

You're the third person I know that thought this, but no: Paul McGann's Dcotor (8th, from the telemovie) became the "War Doctor" fought the Time War, who then became the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston, you see a glimpse of his features in the special during the regeneration) and almost immediately met Rose Tyler in the first ep of the current run. The period between the telemovie and the current series is where the gap for the Time War and War Doctor exists.

So Hurt is playing the 8th Dr?

[Golden Phoenix]

So Hurt is playing the 8th Dr?

Nah, he is effectively playing the 8.5th Doctor.
While Eccelston was the 9th Doctor, he was the 10th form he had taken. Hurt didn't consider himself as the Doctor as he felt he was going against what the idea of The Doctor stood for.

I probably wont change the way I number the Doctors since the War Doctor didn't consider himself the Doctor until the end, and even then he doesn't remember that and wont actually remember until he sees the events unfold as the 11th Doctor.

On another note:
Does anyone know what point in time the 10th Doctor came from?
I believe he has to be from after Martha left him, either directly or even further after that (possibly even after Donna had to leave him).

There was an episode when she is with him (I think it is the Shakespeare one) and he bumps into Queen Elizabeth. The Queen recognises him and wants his head taken off, but the Doctor doesn't know why.
It would seem he burned her by running off and she wants his head, it is in her past and his future at that point, hence he not knowing why.

How long after that point though I am uncertain. He does seem pretty down and desperate to know where he is going (he snaps at the 11th Doctor while in prison), so maybe it is after he had to leave Donna.

Any thoughts?

[Demonac]

Anywhere between 'the Next Doctor' & 'the End of Time' would be a good bet.

Did they get around to resolving the Zygon storyline?

[Hursticon]

So Hurt is playing the 8th Dr?

• Steven Moffat on the current state of the Doctor's "Numbers":

"He's just The Doctor, Matt Smith's Doctor is the 11th Doctor, however there is no such character as the 11th Doctor – he’s just the Doctor – that's what he calls himself. The numbering doesn't matter, except for those lists that you and I have been making for many years. So I've given you the option of not counting John Hurt numerically - he's the War Doctor."

• 50th Anniversary Special earns Guinness World Record:

Last night's simultaneous broadcast of The Day of the Doctor to 94 countries has been officially named the world's largest-ever simulcast of a TV drama.

...

The BBC said that more than 1,500 cinemas around the world showed the episode, with fans in Sweden and Norway, where there was no client broadcaster, petitioning their cinemas successfully to show the episode, while in Argentina they persuaded a major cinema chain to "simulscreen" the episode. Over in the USA, there was a sell-out of 10,000 cinema tickets in 28 minutes with no advertising or marketing, while Germany saw one of its biggest cinema chains - Cinemaxx - reporting that the episode was the fastest non-movie pre-sale in its history.

• "Day of The Doctor" a Huge Hit Down-Under according to these Televised stats:

Doctor Who pulled in a massive 1.95 million viewers nationally, 1.36 million at 7.30pm on ABC1 and a further 0.59 million for the live broadcast on ABC1, which went out at 6.50am in Sydney and 3.50am in Perth.

The live screening achieved a 5 city metro overnight average audience of 424,000 viewers and a total TV share of 37.1%, while the repeat broadcast achieved a 5 city metro average audience of 922,000 viewers and a total TV share of 16.1%. The repeat was second in its timeslot to 60 Minutes on Channel 9. Across both the live and repeat broadcasts, the programme reached 1.5 million viewers, or 9.3% of the 5 city metro population.

In addition, there were 51,000 plays via iview.

An Adventure in Space and Time, which followed the episode, had 0.94 million watching, a 5 city metro average audience of 633,000 and a total TV share of 13.5%

• "Day of The Doctor" a Huge Hit at AU & NZ Box Offices (Numbers as of 25/11/13):

Hot on the heels of the UK box office success, Australia's figures show that The Day of the Doctor was a huge hit in cinemas there, too! The 50th Anniversary adventure took $1.54 million (£872K) at the weekend, placing it third in the charts. Webwombat reported:

Showing on just 107 screens, the sci-fi celebration average an astounding $14,399 per screen (pretty much means every session was sold out) for a final take of over $1.5M.

...

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Flicks reports the episode was even more successful, reaching second place in the chart after taking $187,029 (£95K) at the box office.

[griffin]

You're the third person I know that thought this, but no: Paul McGann's Dcotor (8th, from the telemovie) became the "War Doctor" fought the Time War, who then became the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston, you see a glimpse of his features in the special during the regeneration) and almost immediately met Rose Tyler in the first ep of the current run. The period between the telemovie and the current series is where the gap for the Time War and War Doctor exists.

Hang on, I missed a bit of your post.

I don't think Paul McGann and John Hurt are the same doctor, or using up the one regeneration (through some magic potion by the Sisterhood of Karn)... I took it as being separate Doctors, because the War Council referred to them as "all 13" and we got a glimpse of Capaldi, WITH Hurt and the other 11.
Hurt was also referred to by the War Council and the other Doctors, as a separate incarnation... and the potion he was given by the Sisterhood was to help his regeneration, as he had apparently died in the crash... and needed help to regenerate (with the choice of choosing his new form, which doesn't happen without Timelord intervention - see The War Games).

[griffin]

Some nice stats there, and I think most of us who saw it live, or even later in the day (or at all), will be proud to have been a part of history. It's only another 20 years for our fandom to get to that milestone... but hopefully, ours will be continuous for our 50 years.

Man, I'll be old by then...

• Steven Moffat on the current state of the Doctor's "Numbers":

Quote: "He's just The Doctor, Matt Smith's Doctor is the 11th Doctor, however there is no such character as the 11th Doctor – he’s just the Doctor – that's what he calls himself. The numbering doesn't matter, except for those lists that you and I have been making for many years. So I've given you the option of not counting John Hurt numerically - he's the War Doctor."

That's a redundant explanation. We know that each Doctor doesn't refer to himself as the Xth Doctor in the story... it's the fans asking for clarification for themselves when talking to each other about particular Doctors or episodes.


Sorry guys for being such an obsessed fanboy, but this is my second favourite franchise behind Transformers (since Star Trek stopped producing TV episodes), and after just watching all the Smith stories I was boycotting, it's really sucked me back in.

[Paulbot]

Yeah I meant "regenerated into" when I wrote "became". The War Doctor is another regeneration it seems not just a new face.

What about the meta-crisis Doctor? The Doctor was dying and regenerating in Journey's End but made his hand regenerate instead. He in theory used up one of his "extra lives" at that point too.

[griffin]

Heh, the new series has been messing up the whole concept of regeneration energy hasn't it... after he put the energy of a whole regeneration into the severed hand (creating a second Doctor), the Master preventing a regeneration (in the Last of the Time Lords), the Tennant Doctor suppressing his regeneration for quite a while after he was mortally irradiated (in The End of Time), and River giving him ALL of her regeneration energy (in Lets Kill Hitler)... but we don't know how many regenerations she would have had though, but perhaps her energy offset the regeneration he sacrificed into his hand?

[GoktimusPrime]

Look closely when the War Doctor regenerates, particularly the eyes and eyebrows - they begin morphing into the Ninth Doctor's face.

As for the surviving Daleks, they came from the Cult of Skaro who were imprisoned in a Time Lord Void Ship at an earlier point of the Time War. Considering that the ship exists outside of reality, there wasn't much that the Doctor could've done. I'm not sure if the Doctor possesses the capability of going into the void and try to retrieve the Void Ship in an attempt to destroy it. But the Void Ship is protected by a "Void Sphere" which has no mass, temperature etc. It's pure nothingness and how do you destroy that?

Unless the Doctor's new quest apart from saving Gallifrey is to find a way to track that Void Ship and find a way to either destroy it or permanently imprison it in the void so that there's no possible way for it to ever escape. <shrugs>

[griffin]

Look closely when the War Doctor regenerates, particularly the eyes and eyebrows - they begin morphing into the Ninth Doctor's face.

That's why I had to use the words "Or at the very least, clearly show Eccelston's face after he regenerated at the end of this episode" in a previous posting, because you can see the eyes change, but not enough of the rest to be obvious... which was strange that they didn't super-impose more of Eccelston's face in that scene. They already used his image in the episode, so it's not like they were avoiding paying royalties (if he had it in his original contract).
Post production dropped the ball on that element.