The Night of the Doctor.

The Doctor (Paul McGann) toasts the end of his 8th life.

1 episode. Approx. 7 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: John Hayes. Produced by: Denise Paul. 


THE PLOT

The Time War is raging, with Daleks and Time Lords writing and rewriting the histories of entire civilizations in the course of their conflict. In his eighth incarnation, the Doctor (Paul McGann) strives to... keep out of it. "I'm not part of the war," he insists, adding, "I help where I can."

But he can't remain above the fray forever. Responding to a distress call from a crashing spaceship, he finds himself quickly bonding with the pilot, Cass (Emma Campbell-Jones), who stayed behind to teleport the rest of her crew out because "everybody else was screaming." He cannot prevent the crash, but he can whisk Cass away in the TARDIS.

When she sees the blue box and realizes what it means, she responds with horror. She flees the Doctor's attempted rescue, preferring to die than to be saved by a Time Lord. He refuses to leave without her, leaving both on the ship when it crashes onto the planet Karn, home to the Sisterhood of Karn.

The Sisterhood rescues the Doctor by sharing the Elixir of Life. But this will only bring him back long enough to regenerate, with the help of the Elixir. This time, however, he can choose his next persona: "Fast or strong? Wise or angry?" It is a choice that will shape the future of both the Time War and his future incarnations in ways he could never imagine...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Lazenby no more! 17 years after The TV Movie, Paul McGann's 8th Doctor finally returns to the screen. Not that he ever truly left the role, having regularly played it on audio. But there is something special in seeing the character on camera again. As much is said by the haunted look in his eyes, or by the way in which he extends the Sisterhood's cup as he toasts the end of his Eighth life, as by the words he speaks or the way he speaks them. I also quite like the way McGann deals with Steven Moffat's dialogue. Much of Moffat's writing is in the same style as in his Tenth and Eleventh Doctor stories. But McGann delivers the lines in a much more casual way than either David Tennant or Matt Smith would do, turning them into laconic asides. It's a style that I think is particularly well-suited to Moffat's writing, and I'd love to see McGann perform in a Moffat script again, whatever the format.


THOUGHTS

It's fair to say that The Night of the Doctor is the most significant of the New Series' many mini-episodes. It ties in with the 50th anniversary arc, filling in the placement of the John Hurt Doctor glimpsed in The Name of the Doctor. It deals with the Time War, touching on the point made by The End of Time that the war made the Time Lords just as bad for many as the Daleks. It fills in the Eighth Doctor's previously unseen regeneration. And, yes, it's a return to the screen for the Eighth Doctor - something that many fans have been clamoring to see since the series' return.

That's an awful lot for a single full-length episode to grapple with. Which makes it quite a testament to Steven Moffat and Paul McGann alike that it is so satisfyingly accomplished in a mere seven minutes.

The script is as lean as could be. The crisis is established and McGann's Doctor re-introduced in the first minute. The next minute or so shows the Eighth Doctor in action in a typically Doctorish way, rescuing Cass and dealing with a locked door. Viewers who haven't seen him in the role before get a sense of him in action; viewers who are familiar with this incarnation get a chance to enjoy seeing him in action again. Then comes the revelation, and the next minute brings home just how much damage the Time Lords have done during the war, as seen by Cass' revulsion at the Doctor. 

This moves to the other major scene of the episode, as the Doctor interacts with Ohila (Clare Higgins), of the Sisterhood of Karn. Here, we see him in the depths of despair. He was unable to save Cass, who rejected his help because of the damage done by his people. Ohila rubs salt in that wound as hard as she can, pushing him hard on the futility of his attempts to avoid the Time War, and at the same time pushing him to make a choice - to regenerate into a new persona that will be able to attack head on the conflict the Eighth Doctor has tried to avoid.

Whether intentionally or not, I find it fitting that the Eighth Doctor came into existence demanding: "Who am I?" In The Night of the Doctor, his existence ends with him rejecting the persona he's developed over eight lifetimes. He decides there's no "need for a Doctor anymore." And his replacement (John Hurt) comes into being by stating that choice with grim purpose:

"Doctor no more."


Overall Rating: 10/10.

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