[SPOILER] Doctor Who BBC iPlayer Exclusive short

[Ginger Tea]

I don't know how long it's been up, I went to the site to see when the science of Doctor Who is available for download and there was a short on the front page.

I had always believed that the Time wars happened before Ecclestone's Doctor, some even theorised that he had recently regenerated due to his looking in the mirror as if seeing his face for the first time. This would mean that those photographs of him shown to Rose could just be adventures he has with her that are as yet not novels or anything, though he could still have been around for a bit traveling solo before the episode Rose.

There was a lot of potential with McGann's run and there are numerous books and audio plays voiced by him, but AFAIK the time wars themselves are scant.

Eugenics come into it now, making the 'throw away comment' in The Doctors Wife about gender swapping more cannon, albeit needing a 'potion' to do so, perhaps such gender swaps can only be controlled this way, or there could still be a 50/50 chance of it happening, but we have as yet not encountered it.

Although John Hurt's refection is in a dented but polished metal and not a mirror, you can tell he is younger than we will see him in the special, working with a distorted image and a CGI youth full appearance is probably better than seeing him 'in the flesh' without the uncanny valley effect.

So he is younger at regeneration, so that means he has had a long life as 'Doctor no more' and a lot of things to try and forget about.

Though having McGann come back for a regeneration has me hoping that we will see the death of Hurt's incarnation and a brief cameo of Eccelstone.

Although I would have pissed myself if Peter Capraldi (sp) ended up being the Doctor between McGann and Ecclestone and not the next incarnation.

[Kheldarson]

Eccleston's not involved with the 50th. That's been established repeatedly, including by him.

[Ginger Tea]

Well it is now available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

[Ginger Tea]

[SPOILER ALERT DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE 50TH SPECIAL]









Well my hope was granted to an extent, although the camera cut as it was just starting to change, but I did like the comment about the ears.

This also explains an older Queen Elizabeth and her hostility towards the doctor in the Shakespearian episode.

I actually shed a few tears when all the doctors showed up, the ending involved photo's of all the old doctors that it looked like the trio were posing in Madam Tussauds Dr Who exhibit (that freaked the shit out of me as a child, so much me and my brother ran back to the safety of the chamber of horrors to admire the intricate detailing of the neck after a beheading and pondering on the body in the bath, did she commit suicide or was she murdered).

Plot inconsistency?
The Sonic screwdriver was replaced early in Smiths first episodes, perhaps even the first, unless it was just 'repaired', come to think of it I think Tennants blew up on the moon too.
I guess retconning it to 'it was repaired by the tardis not a new one generated, but it was never established either way, I just assumed it was the case.

[Bardmaiden]

I actually shed a few tears when all the doctors showed up, the ending involved photo's of all the old doctors that it looked like the trio were posing in Madam Tussauds Dr Who exhibit (that freaked the shit out of me as a child, so much me and my brother ran back to the safety of the chamber of horrors to admire the intricate detailing of the neck after a beheading and pondering on the body in the bath, did she commit suicide or was she murdered).

Plot inconsistency?
The Sonic screwdriver was replaced early in Smiths first episodes, perhaps even the first, unless it was just 'repaired', come to think of it I think Tennants blew up on the moon too.
I guess retconning it to 'it was repaired by the tardis not a new one generated, but it was never established either way, I just assumed it was the case.

Loved the bit at the end with the line up of Doctors and the first stood behind the rest looking over them with pride.

The sonic screwdriver thing was on a software level so you can replace the hardware but the software would remain on a similar level (I assume the TARDIS will check it, back it up and update it as needed ).

[Ginger Tea]

Anyone see the fiveish doctors?, I saw it last night quite funny.

[Kheldarson]

Anyone see the fiveish doctors?, I saw it last night quite funny.

Everywhere I get linked to for that keeps telling me no. Is sad. Then again I've only been able to try on my phone...

[Ginger Tea]

Well if you can not access it via proxy vpn or whatever internet magic that allows you to fool the bbc website into believing you are in the UK (unless BBC America's page hosts a mirror too) it is available under that flag with a cassette and bones logo.

This special might be the only time I buy a Doctor Who DVD instead of waiting for the box set, mind you as that would be some time, it's better this way, even more so if it includes the 5ish and other special features.

[Andara Bledin]

If anybody missed it, Google did a doodle for the 50th Anniversary.

If you want to play with it, it can be found HERE.

[Hyena Dandy]

The Sonic screwdriver was replaced early in Smiths first episodes, perhaps even the first, unless it was just 'repaired', come to think of it I think Tennants blew up on the moon too.
I guess retconning it to 'it was repaired by the tardis not a new one generated, but it was never established either way, I just assumed it was the case.

SInce Smith's one exploding was so close in time to Tennant, it wasn't as big of an issue to me. But it did bring up a little bit of a plot hole to me, since The Doctor broke his Sonic, not from an overload, but from it just being shot, in one of the Fifth's episodes and he never used it again until at least after the end of 7th's run on the show. Sixth used a similar "Sonic Lance."

I seems odd that that was the EXACT SAME screwdriver, as the plot required.

It was a bit of a Deus Ex Machina, though, as the Sonic has been for years (Why they stopped using it) so I didn't mind that much. I can just pretend that the damage to the Fifth's one was great enough that he shut down everything except the "Avoid exploding Gallifrey" program to avoid losing that. Or that he saw that happen and wouldn't risk exploding Gallifrey until he could refit it.

The posed image of all the Doctors at the end was beautiful. Even more awesome, I thought, was seeing Tom play the role again. And he still had his little Tom-Isms. It was excellent.

I'm sure that 12, the newly minted 13, will forget about that when it's time to regenerate, though. "Oh no, I only can do this 13 times!"

"Weren't you Tom Baker back on that..."

"ONLY 13 TIMES! THIS IS DEFINITELY DRAMATIC!"

[Ginger Tea]

Nash of Radio dead air was talking about this episode and the ones around the 50th like the biopic of the genesis of the show. He was talking about one or the other by their number and one or two people in his chat (I had it full screen and don't use the irc channel) corrected him that Hurt is the 9th now, but hes not.

He forgets what he did so doesn't see himself as the doctor, so Ecclestone will always be the 9th doctor just not the 9th form of the body.

I think only Smith and Clara will remember what happened, it would feel like too much of a cop out to have him forget about the lost painting, which I assume to be another one and not 'No More', the Wiki had spoken about there being perhaps another incarnation before Hartnel but I don't know how cannon that is as the classic era books could just be pulp scifi with scant regards to continuity as the show itself was prone to it.

Nash also spoke of his belief that Hurt's part was meant for Ecclestone as so much of what he said sounded like it was written for someone else, but as we had no episodes of Hurt to build from (he had less screen time than McGann in the movie) we only have the dialogue given to build from, the first few Smith episodes he sounded a bit to Tennantie and I wasn't sure if the episode was written before he announced he was stepping down, I did read about how the season would have gone had he stayed that one year, book ended with Amelia Pond.

Also I do not know if they even had plans to ask him back and might have written it without him anyway but we just get 'that vibe' from the script that its the wrong actor, I myself didn't hear it.

Back to "adventures in space and time" or whatever the bio pic was called, as the Peter Cushin movies were based in part of the early episodes or just the dalek one if they didn't mash a few together, I had to stop and think if the set started off with the circles, as I only remember a tonne of wires and blinking lights as if someone had vomited up the contents of Tandy (or Radio Shack), but I saw very little of the doctors before mine Peter Davidson, so I might just be getting the set from the non cannon movies mixed in with the face of Hartnel.

But, he said he needed the set, to know which buttons he should press, the dramatized version at least didn't want him to use the blue button to open the doors one episode then use it to activate the shields the next, something that the directors never factored when they had him stood the other end of the console, needing to flip 3 switches each on a different 6th of the console.

[HYHYBT]

I'm missing something on the screwdriver problem. My phone backs up to my computer whenever they're connected. If for some reason I have to replace the phone, the first thing to do is load it from that backup and sync. It's a short delay, but nothing's lost. Why would the sonic screwdriver and the TAEDIS have a worse arrangement?

[AccountingDrone]

I'm missing something on the screwdriver problem. My phone backs up to my computer whenever they're connected. If for some reason I have to replace the phone, the first thing to do is load it from that backup and sync. It's a short delay, but nothing's lost. Why would the sonic screwdriver and the TAEDIS have a worse arrangement?

And I can remember seeing one of the last 2 Doctors running madly around the central control of the Tardis, and a sonic screwdriver pops out of the console and he checks it out and tells her thanks for it. It was apparently right after they regenerated. I am thinking 11? [there were so many reruns of the last couple of Doctors on over the last week they are sort of all blending together. And didn't the Doctor get a clone daughter in that episode where there were cloned armies going up against each other?]

[Kheldarson]

And I can remember seeing one of the last 2 Doctors running madly around the central control of the Tardis, and a sonic screwdriver pops out of the console and he checks it out and tells her thanks for it. It was apparently right after they regenerated. I am thinking 11? [there were so many reruns of the last couple of Doctors on over the last week they are sort of all blending together. And didn't the Doctor get a clone daughter in that episode where there were cloned armies going up against each other?]

The 11th was the one who got the most recent screwdriver replacement after going a couple episodes with a fritzing one. And 10 was the one who got the clone daughter (who, interestingly enough, IRL is the Fifth Doctor's daughter, and now the Tenth Doctor's wife).

[Ginger Tea]

I get the phone analogy, but I had only seen him have a new one pop out of the tardis console once after the old one was blown up, granted all he would loose is a day or so of unbacked up calculations, but it was never established that he has to charge / sync it at any point, so it's like having one, breaking it and starting afresh with a new one. ordinarily I paid little heed to it, after all it's replacing a tool with another tool, it was only the whole "I've been running this subroutine for 400 years" malarkey that made me think.