Doctor Perseus Reviews: "The Night of the Doctor"/"An Adventure in Space and Time" Trailer Released! · 12:02am Nov 15th, 2013
The mini-episode prequel to The Day of the Doctor has been released and...OH MY GOD!!! Please watch The Night of the Doctor before reading any further.
I knew it! I freaking knew it! It's official! John Hurt's Doctor came between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors. And now we finally know the official name of this incarnation: the War Doctor. But, of course, that's not the biggest thing this prequel had to offer. No, no, no. That would have to be...
Freaking Paul McGann!!! After 17 years, the Eighth Doctor has finally returned to the screen (and on Paul McGann's 54th birthday, no less)! Many are already considering this to be the best Doctor Who prequel episode to date and I agree completely! I mean, it was simply glorious to see the Eighth Doctor appear out of the shadows and say, "I'm a Doctor, but probably not the one you expected." McGann slipped back into his role gracefully and provided an outstanding performance for the Eighth Doctor's final moments. His banter with Cass and and the Sisterhood was entertaining and I loved his final, heartbreaking pieces of dialogue. His mentioning of Charley, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, and Molly was a fitting way for the Eighth Doctor to quickly reminisce about his former companions (as well as establish the Big Finish Productions audio dramas as canon) and his final words were just perfect for the type of man that the Eighth Doctor was, "Physician, heal thyself." Then we got the War Doctor's first words, "Doctor nor more," as well as got a look at him upon his first moment of regeneration. I think it's interesting that we see a younger War Doctor as it shows that the Doctor must have spent a lot of time in this incarnation before encountering his future incarnations in the upcoming The Day of the Doctor.
I also took a liking to Cass, the pilot whom the Doctor attempted to save. Her anger towards the Doctor and Time Lords in general did a good job at showing the torment and consequences brought on by the Time War and her comparison between Time Lords and Daleks, "Who can tell the difference anymore?!", did a nice job at referencing to the Time Lords' dark decline (as we saw bits of earlier in The End of Time).
Overall, The Night of the Doctor is probably the best Doctor Who minisode to date and acts as the perfect lead-in into The Day of the Doctor.
In other Doctor Who news, a trailer for the docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time has been released!
I'm certainly looking forward to this and David Bradley seems to be doing a fine job as William Hartnell! An Adventure in Space and Time airs on November 21.
When he said "I'm a Doctor, but probably not the one you expected" I can't help but feel like that was at least partially aimed at the audience.
All in all, I give it 10/10 pinkies.
1508364 You can't give anything ten Pinkies! The universe will implode into a big blob of timey-wimey... stuff! Pinkies are best used sporadically to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. It's a fantastic way to use them. Allons-y, Pinkie Pie, and Geronimo! (I couldn't come up with anything more clever.
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I've been waiting all day for this! I saw it this morning before going to class. Although I know nothing of the Eighth Doctor, it was a great depiction of the Doctor and a good intro into how he became this War Doctor.
To it I say, Allons-y and Geronimo to the 50th Anniversary special!
Mmmm, no.
It was nice seeing Paul McGann back in harness, as brief as it was, but...
(1) Why didn't the crash-landing trigger a regeneration itself?
(2) If the Doctor was too dead for regeneration, how can the Sisterhood bring the Doctor back?
(3) The decision the Doctor made to abandon what he was seemed... really, really contrived and unconvincing to me. We don't see the Doctor failing to stop the war. We don't see the Doctor failing to save a bunch of people. Apparently the death of one person- just one, ONLY one- is enough to make him abandon everything he believes in.
Cop-out. Tripe. And entirely, wholly characteristic of Moffat's writing.
1508616
It wasn't the fact that he failed, it was that she rejected being saved on the basis of what the war had done to the universe.
1508616
Well there are a couple possible answers to this. He could have possibly been having problems with his regeneration for some reason
or the crash could have damaged his body so much that he was beyond the point of regeneration (like the "11th Doctor" in The Impossible Astronaut). Then again, those two possibilities are a bit of a stretch. So, yeah, I mostly agree with you on that point. That could have been executed a bit better. 
The Sisterhood (whose full name is the Sisterhood of Karn) are the guardians of the Sacred Flame, which produces the life-prolonging Elixer of Life. The Sisterhood used the Elixer of Life to bring the Doctor back to life to give him enough time to regenerate.
It wasn't really Cass's death that made him abandon all he believed in to become the War Doctor but rather a collaboration of stuff. The Eighth Doctor spent a fair amount of time dealing with the Time War towards the end of his life and witnessed many horrors and tragedies. By this point in his life, the Eighth Doctor had also gone through several oersonal tragedies (such as the deaths of C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, and Alex) that had turned him into a much darker person (as I explained in further detail in my retrospective of the Eighth Doctor's era). Cass's death, while not the main reason, was the second-to-last push to convince the Doctor to abandon his morals. The last push came from the persuasion of the Sisterhood. They made him see the fact that he had to be the one to end the Time War and bring an end to all the suffering it was causing. The Sisterhood's persuasion, the numerous witnessed acts of violence and horror, and the combined grief from the deaths of Cass and several of his past companions is what ultimately convinced the Doctor to abandon his morals. And it's not like the Eighth Doctor just shrugged his shoulders and was like well, time to go against everything I stand for. Even at the bitter end, he was torn about what he was doing. But he knew that he had to do it because the universe didn't need a Doctor to end the Time War, it needed a warrior. Thus, the War Doctor was born. It also makes sense why the Eighth Doctor didn't go out failing to stop the war or saving a bunch of people from destruction because he refused to partake in it. He only took part to "help in any way he could". I'm sure there were times during his time in the Time War where he saved or attempted to save groups of people but the Doctor didn't have to go out on that note. Was that an option? Sure. But I think the route they chose was just as fitting, if not more so, but on more of a personal level for the Doctor. The Doctor wasn't forced to become a warrior by a fiery death in the Time War. He became a warrior by his own accord for the good of the universe. Which, personally, I find to be a better way for him to go out than, as stated earlier, going out in a ball of flame.
Sure, this minisode had an element that could have been executed better and a few points that require past knowledge of the show to fully understand but I wouldn't label this as a cop-out or tripe IMO. I still find this to be a really good prequel episode that acted as a fitting departure for the Eighth Doctor. Still respect your opinion but that's my two cents on the matter.