It doesn't.


Go watch The Night of the Doctor first, and then watch this again, particularly the early conversations in the war room ("we've deployed all the forbidden weapons, they aren't forbidden anymore"). They're making a distinction between Time Lords/the Time Lord High Council (which is referenced as being "up to their own plans and not responding" or something like that, which is obviously a reference to "The End of Time"), and the Gallifreyan populace, who by and large were not evil. Note that the distinction between Gallifreyan genetics and being a Time Lord is not new (10 makes that point pretty clearly with Jenny, it's brought up elsewhere, and the Sisterhood of Karn are the remnants of an early Gallifreyan colony). Also, his huge guilt for destroying both races (or thinking he destroyed both races) makes a lot more sense if some of his people were still worth saving by that point.

Also keep in mind that this is *the last day* of the Time War, not the whole thing.


Going in and out of the portrait was different than going in and out of Gallifrey, but I think they've also changed the outcome of the Time War so that it wasn't actually Time-Locked but the Doctor remembers it being Time Locked because of the him-forgetting-everything-at-the-end deal. Also, I think "The Moment" is the interface by which he initiated the Time Lock, if he ever really did, so presumably it can go in and out as it pleases.


That was super dumb.


They've already hinted that there are ways for Time Lords to control their appearance rather than playing the lottery. That isn't really new (in retrospect, that whole "why are you so afraid of being adults" is also a nice hint in that direction). The free regenerations is plausibly due to getting River's regenerations, or the War Doctor being a freebie due to being artificially induced.

Also, regeneration logic is made even more fuzzy by
a) meta-crisis human doctor
b) The Valeyard & The Watcher
c) The Brain of Morbius (which gets back to the Karn thing)
d) The Master has had something like 16+ lives, so obviously things are flexible (the Eric Roberts snakey-Master would have been 14, Derek Jacobi 15, John Simm 16 and 16+).


He gets to call himself the Doctor for 5 minutes and then promptly forgets.


Also, this seems to explain why Liz 1 was pissed at the Doctor in The Shakespeare Code. Seems like he ditched after their wedding.



Despite the many flaws of Moffat's run (i.e. the 9001 "WINNING WITH THE POWER OF LOVE" deus ex machinas), I'm grateful that he's doing a patch-up on canon after RTD savaged it.

I'm don't remember much of the small story bits throughout the series but the larger ones I do, such as Rose & Tennant.

Regarding the premise of the 50th, I was disappointed. I believe they're on the record saying all the Doctors would be in it when it was really a Tennant and Smith (and Hurt) episode. The others had no huge role, save for the fact that 4 had a small non-Doctory role. I would have much preferred if the first 12 got together to solve a problem - wait I thought Smith was the 11th, you know "The 11th Hour" episode and all? - and the 13th came at the end as a result of Smith regenerating.

I wanted more Doctors, more companions and more enemies. 77 minutes is also way to short. It just didn't feel like a 50th Anniversary to me.

However, on the lighter side the episode didn't let me down on humor and wit. I did enjoy the episode while still being disappointed.

comic: Pretty sure 4 had a Doctory role. That's kinda what we were arguing about up there -^

My major disappointments are that 8 and 9 had no larger role, but I was ecstatic to see 8 in his minisode from last week.

Also, everyone make sure you also watch The Night of The Doctor, The Last Day, An Adventure in Space and Time, and The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, which are all part of the official anniversary celebration. I definitely cried manly tears at least 3 times during An Adventure in Space and Time.

This guy only had a role in the last 4 minutes and it wasn't even Doctor related. They might have exchanged a few words (Tennant saying "I never forgot a face" and 4th saying "Maybe I was you" or something) but he never used the sonic screw driver, a TARDIS or anything profound from the series. His small role might have been pivotal to the plot of the series but for the episode it wasn't "Doctory" enough.

I'll try and find where I was under the impression the older Doctors would be rotoscoped in and more of them included in outside of that stupid last scene.

As far as the rotoscoping goes, I think you're confusing this with the last episode, where they did put Clara into scenes with older doctors.

As far as Tom Baker goes....go watch a few Tom Baker episodes. He hasn't changed a bit except the face sagging. That was a pretty profoundly his-Doctorish conversation.

[edit]

Moffat clears up the regeneration count kerfuffle. Basically the simplest of all theories. Limit stands. "Doctor" numbering stands, regeneration tallies are off-by-one. I should have had more faith that Moffat has way too much classic-series canon-love to let things reset that easily without addressing it specifically. The Valeyard and Karn shout-outs recently have both been awesome.

I wish there was an easier way to get a full library of the old episodes than finding and buying the individual serials at a total cost of many thousands of dollars. :/ I would love to watch more classic Who.

I'm afraid I find Moffat's cop-out entirely unsatisfactory. Saying that the numbering doesn't matter and belittling it as a fan thing seems quite disingenuous to me; wasn't the title of Smith's first episode "The Eleventh Hour", after all? Are we suddenly retconning the fact that Doctor Who numbers the doctors internally as well...?

NetFlix has a pretty good selection. I also tend to snatch them up whenever local DVD stores have any sort of sale - you can find "recommended watch" lists for older serials on various places. I've also heard rumors that having up-to-date graphics drivers can help you play episodes from other "regions", which is often less expensive than buying from American sources I can walk you through the process sometime.

My library currently includes The Three Doctors, Earthshock, The Time Warrior, The Pyramids of Mars, The Deadly Assassin, and The Caves of Androzani. You're welcome to borrow some at some point

I think the internal numbering is really only a thing since Moffat threw in a few 11-puns. And note that he also says this



So there's no hand-waving going on so far with regards to regeneration limits.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-who-christmas-spoilers-matt-2847509

This makes me so upset at Moffat. He's wrecking popular canon with wild abandon in the name of "consistency", and it seems to me he's just being greedy in wanting to be the showrunner who will get to usher in the post-13 Doctor. His Sci-Fi is so soft as to be practically Fantasy, in my opinion, and the increasingly "epic" episodes seem to just be falling flatter and flatter to me.

The dark fairytale elements of Moffat's run make for enjoyable storytelling, the "POWER OF LURV" deus ex machina's not so much. I've never seen modern Doctor Who as being particularly science fictiony (more like space fantasy/space opera, with occasional dashes of science fiction).

I'm perfectly fine with counting the metacrisis Doctor as having used a regeneration, that makes sense to me, except that it would seem that that makes it highly likely that metacrisis Doctor is the Valeyard (which also makes sense given normal-10s whole speech about how he was born in battle and anger, etc)? Any thoughts?

One could also make the argument that the War Doctor could be a title given to more than one "Doctor", no?

I am not sure I agree with all the kerfuffle around Moffat changing the numbering, I think a lot of people are now over-thinking what they once let slip by.

At best I think that John Hurt is the "real" ninth, and continuing onward. But to be honest in the conversation with other whovians I have seen and taken to the usage of 8.5 for the War Doctor, it fits better and that way there is no confusing when mentioning Nine, Ten, and Eleven.

I would be happy to leave Hurt as 8.5 and stick with the standard numbering, but Moffat is still going to insist on coming up with Moffat-esque handwaving to explain the Doctor getting more free regenerations this Christmas. Whether it's that River gave them to him in WWII Germany, or he steals them from somewhere else remains to be seen, but that enforces that between the TV doctor and Smith went 5, not 3, regenerations.

I'd be more than happy to just ret-con what Moffat does into the current numbering system. After he is done faffing about and moves on it may work. Or if it doesn't, I am sure the fans can come up with something better.

Right now, however, I am still a little very angry at what he plans for the next season. Being 2 sets of 6 episodes. I am not sure I am a fan of that.

It could but it is already established that this line of Doctors is referred to as the War Doctor. I mean, how else would they have the same sonic screw driver? It's not like the War Doctor gives it away and the modern Doctors all regret what they did.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/11/doctor-who-50th-anniversary/

I'd summary this up but I'm in bed and in no position to write. Voice dictation out!

Edit: Okay, basically a detailed analysis of this episode to previous ones.

whelp, that is certainly a very clear summary, but it doesn't do a great deal to resolve the several continuity and plot issues I have with the episode. I so appreciate all the clarifications on the many references, though.

So as dumb as the "if we duck, all the daleks will shoot each other" bit was, it turns out not to be that big of a plot hole, because it explains the larger plot hole from season 1 of how there were surviving daleks, but not surviving time lords.

And we're supposed to believe that every single Time Lord in the universe, with all their TARDISes, were on Gallifrey? And every single Dalek in the entire universe was in a ship around the planet?

It makes sense, based on what we've seen, if not every dalek ship was around the planet, and it would be less surprising if the time lords had all retreated by that point.

Good news, and other news:
The season won't be split: http://www.digitalspy.com/british-tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a536763/doctor-who-series-8-wont-be-split-says-steven-moffat.html
They are going to be addressing the regeneration limit: http://www.digitalspy.com/british-tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a536819/doctor-who-matt-smith-is-the-13th-doctor-says-steven-moffat.html