As this fiftieth anniversary special opened it looked as if it might be excessively comic; in the first few minutes we see The Doctor dangling from the Tardis as it is carried over London by a helicopter! Things soon get more serious though when he and Clara are taken to the National Gallery to see a picture that accompanies a message to The Doctor from Queen Elizabeth the First. This is no ordinary picture though; it is a 3D picture of the last day of Gallifrey. We then see what happened on that day as Daleks attack and The Doctor, played by John Hurt, leaves the message 'No More' blasted into a wall and steals the ultimate weapon that could eliminate both the Daleks and Gallifrey! As he contemplates setting off the device a woman appears; she calls herself 'Bad Wolf' and is in fact a physical representation of the weapon. While they are talking a time vortex opens and a fez emerges!
In what follows we see David Tennent's Doctor wooing Queen Elizabeth before they are attacked by shape-shifting Zygons. Soon this Doctor is joined by Matt Smith's Doctor and not long after that they are joined by John Hurt! The three of them are captured by the Zygons in Elizabethan England while in the present Clara is having her own problems with Zygons. Using methods I won't spoil she manages to join The Doctors and they get back to the present just as London is about to be destroyed in a way that mirrors the way he sacrificed Gallifrey is will destroy it depending which of the Doctors we are talking about.
Having done my best to avoid spoilers I still feared the makers would try to cram too many references to the "Fifty Years of Doctor Who" into this special's hour and a quarter run time; thankfully they didn't. There were some of course but these didn't seem too forced and some were a real delight Tom Baker's cameo was a real treat for those of us who watched in the seventies! The story managed to be exciting, poignant and occasionally funny as well as containing some good scary moments that were good without being too frightening for younger viewers. I wasn't surprised to read that is was shown in cinemas as well as on television as I thought it had a cinematic feel even though I was only watching it on the BBC iPlayer! The acting was great; I particularly liked John Hurt's version of The Doctor; he brought real gravitas to the role. On the strength of this I'm really looking forward to further instalments; I just hope they can keep up this high standard.
In what follows we see David Tennent's Doctor wooing Queen Elizabeth before they are attacked by shape-shifting Zygons. Soon this Doctor is joined by Matt Smith's Doctor and not long after that they are joined by John Hurt! The three of them are captured by the Zygons in Elizabethan England while in the present Clara is having her own problems with Zygons. Using methods I won't spoil she manages to join The Doctors and they get back to the present just as London is about to be destroyed in a way that mirrors the way he sacrificed Gallifrey is will destroy it depending which of the Doctors we are talking about.
Having done my best to avoid spoilers I still feared the makers would try to cram too many references to the "Fifty Years of Doctor Who" into this special's hour and a quarter run time; thankfully they didn't. There were some of course but these didn't seem too forced and some were a real delight Tom Baker's cameo was a real treat for those of us who watched in the seventies! The story managed to be exciting, poignant and occasionally funny as well as containing some good scary moments that were good without being too frightening for younger viewers. I wasn't surprised to read that is was shown in cinemas as well as on television as I thought it had a cinematic feel even though I was only watching it on the BBC iPlayer! The acting was great; I particularly liked John Hurt's version of The Doctor; he brought real gravitas to the role. On the strength of this I'm really looking forward to further instalments; I just hope they can keep up this high standard.