Inspirations: The Day of the Doctor

Featuring Three Doctors, partly set on Gallifrey and involving UNIT on Earth, in a story marking a significant anniversary...

But enough of The Three Doctors, this is the 50th Anniversary story.

Steven Moffat did take the Pertwee story as a basis for his celebration. After the 10th and 20th birthdays had been celebrated with multi-Doctor stories, fans have come to expect this sort of story structure whenever a big anniversary rolls round. For the 60th, RTD avoided a multi-Doctor story (unless you count the climax of The Giggle where we have an overlap) but he did bring back a popular old Doctor.

The three Doctors Moffat wanted were the trio of post-2005 ones - but that meant coaxing Christopher Eccleston back to the series. He had left the role under a shadow, which is yet to be fully explained. His agreeing to return was very much a long shot, and - as expected - he declined the invite. This is why Moffat instead created the hitherto unknown War Doctor, as he couldn't see the McGann Doctor as a warrior.

The story was to revolve around the Last Great Time War, in particular the events which led the Doctor to put an end to the conflict by destroying both his own people and the Daleks.

That he had been responsible for this had emerged gradually over the course of the first half of the 2005 series.

Some of the action revolves around Gallifrey's second city Arcadia. The Doctor had previously stated that he was present at the Fall of Arcadia in Doomsday.

The weapon which the Doctor deployed was known as the Moment, as we had learned in The End of Time when it gets reported to Rassilon in the council chamber. That earlier story had shown the political elite on Gallifrey's last day, whilst this story shows another chamber - the War Room belonging to Gallifrey's military.

Eccleston night not have come back, but Billie Piper was happy to return. However, Moffat elected not to have her simply back  as Rose. The Moment would be a sentient device, which made sure that its operator accepted the consequences of using it. Piper therefore played the psychic interface with the Moment which took a form from his mind - the Bad Wolf Rose. Being a Time Lord weapon, this form could be from his future.

She only interacted with the War Doctor. The current incarnation retained Clara as companion, but Ten was on his own, and it is implied that he comes from the period between The Waters of Mars and his arrival on the Ood-Sphere at the start of The End of Time. We know this as when he was reunited with Ood Sigma he mentioned having now married Queen Elizabeth (I). The elderly Elizabeth had recognised him in The Shakespeare Code, following an event which had annoyed her but which hadn't happened to him yet.

The presence of Daleks in the story was a given, this being the last day of the Time War. For an additional threat, confined to a separate plot, were the Zygons. They had featured only once before in the series in 1975's Terror of the Zygons, despite their massive popularity (thanks to the design work of James Acheson, the direction of Douglas Camfield and the performance of John Woodnutt).

David Tennant had spoken in the past of his love of the creatures, and Moffat was already a fan. They were chosen to  provide this additional plot strand.

This has lead to inconsistencies, however. There's no sign of the Skarasen, despite Broton having implied that they are dependent on the monsters.

The biggest problem, though, is that we have refugees turning up on Earth in the 1560's, when Broton suggested that he had only recently heard about the disaster which had befallen their world, and the refugees certainly wouldn't be arriving until well after the 20th Century.

Also, Broton's group had been located at Loch Ness for centuries - so why had the refugees not contacted him on arrival?

The shape-changing nature of the Zygons is played for laughs here - rabbits and horses as well as people.

That's the broad outline of Moffat's story. There's lots of little nods to the past within it, right from the opening moments. 

We see a policeman checking the gates to the junkyard on Totter's Lane, in monochrome scenes, in homage to the opening of An Unearthly Child. (A shift from monochrome into colour had also featured at the start of The Two Doctors).

Clara is teaching at Coal Hill School - just as Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright had done back in 1963. Ian is listed on the school noticeboard as the Chairman of Governors. Like The Five Doctors, we get a mix of original arrangement of the theme music with the current version.

At one point Clara rides a motorcycle into the TARDIS - just as the cop had done in The Movie. We'd also seen Ten drive out of the ship on a scooter in The Idiot's Lantern, and the current Doctor emerged on an anti-grav bike in The Bells of Saint John.

The Doctor is seen to still be wearing Amy's reading glasses.

UNIT continue to be based at the Tower of London, first established in The Christmas Invasion. Like Malcolm (who gets a mention here) in Planet of the Dead, the latest Scientific Adviser is a big fan of the Doctor.

UNIT's Black Archive - first seen in SJA's Enemy of the Bane - has now been moved to beneath the Tower, when it was previously out in the countryside somewhere.

A few old props are seen - bits of Cyberman etc. - but the main interest is only glimpsed. There are loads of photographs, mainly from the classic era, which feature companion mash-ups - characters who were never seen together on screen:

The First and Third Doctors have previously mentioned being help prisoner in the Tower, and for the Eleventh this is his second known incarceration there.

The War Doctor often represents the classic era (or the Hartnell role in The Three Doctors), and is used to mock some aspects of the modern series - despairing of some of the others' catchphrases or questioning the amount of smooching which goes on.

His TARDIS is a mix of classic era and Ninth, and we will get a vague glimpse of the latter when he comes to regenerate.

For the finale we get to see all of the Doctors come together to save Gallifrey. Oddly, this includes the Seventh Doctor twice - once from The Movie and once from Battlefield. Other TARDIS-based clips come from The Daleks, Tomb of the Cybermen, The Mind Robber, Colony in Space, Planet of Evil, Frontios, Attack of the Cybermen, Rose and Parting of the Ways. The Troughton dialogue comes from The Seeds of Death, however, whilst Pertwee's comes from The Green Death. Davison's comes from The Five Doctors.

As well as all the nods to the past, we are also treated to a nod to the future as Peter Capaldi's "attack eyebrows" also feature.

One of the classic Doctors does turn up in person, as we see Tom Baker portray the Curator - seemingly a future incarnation of the Doctor, revisiting an old persona.

Finally, we see all of the Doctor's line up for a curtain call.

Overall, it's more of a celebration of the revived series than it is of the classic era.