'The Day of the Doctor' --A Review

I'll try and be as spoiler-free as possible, but if you have not seen Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor, stop reading...  now.

The thing about Doctor Who, at least in its contemporary form is that, to me anyway, it's always been a little uneven.  There are brilliant episodes that I would happily watch again and again and again but then there are sort of middling episodes which I don't really care about all that much.   It gets irritating after awhile because when you see what this show is capable of, you wonder why it can't be as consistently good as it should be. 

Needles to say, I approached the 50th Anniversary Special with a certain amount of trepidation because of that.   Would Moffat and Company bring their A-Game?  Could they possible do five decades of this show justice?  (And more to the point, do a better job than Star Trek's pale, lens flared disappointment of a Wrath of Khan re-make?)  Having watched the special I can unequivocally say that they delivered...   and then some.

Let's see...  how to proceed without spoiling absolutely everything?  It's going to be tough, so bear with me:  basically, there was a hidden Doctor, thanks to the mysterious Sister of Karn, who helped out Doctor #8, Paul McGann in this beautiful and exciting mini-sode that ties classic Who in with the New Who of today.  The Hidden Doctor (or War Doctor, played by John Hurt) is the Doctor that fought in the Time War.  At the height of the Time War (seen for what I think is the first time in the 50 year run of the series), when the Daleks were besieging Gallifrey and threatening the second city of the Time Lords, Arcadia, he makes a terrible decision, stealing a weapon that could wipe out both Daleks and Time Lords and end the war once and for all.

Only it turns out, the weapon, called The Moment has a conscious (which takes an interesting and very familiar form) and takes him to meet two of his older counterparts (Doctors 10 and 11) so he can see what the choice will do to him and finally, the often referred to but never seen adventures with Queen Elizabeth I take place.  There's shout-outs a plenty to Classic Who, with the Brigadier's Daughter making an appearance along with U.N.I.T at the Tower of London and a classic Who monster, the Zygons also show up. 

In the end, the War Doctor has to make his choice and this time, he doesn't do so alone.  10 and 11 are with him and in the end he makes a choice that turns out to be a complete game changer for Doctor Who.  (I won't spoil it for you, but it opens up acres of new territory for the show and raises all kinds of interesting possibilities for the future.) 

But does it all work?  It does.   There was every potential for disaster but they tied it all together beautifully.   This was brilliant.  A perfect tribute to one of the progenitors of science fiction television and it did something that Who has done nearly a dozen times over the years:  it regenerated.

I know some fans were grousing about the lack of prior Doctors and it would have been brilliant to see all the modern Doctors together in one special, but I think that if the story would have demanded it, they would have been there and in the end, we saw them all together, after a fashion.  Between the appearance of Paul McGann in the prequel and a certain special appearance at the end of the episode, I think that there were enough shout outs to fans of the show that worked to make the 50th Anniversary a special one.  Overall:  A fitting tribute to five decades of Doctor Who and a brilliant recharge of the show for the years ahead.   Can't wait until the Christmas special.