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“Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.”
— The Doctor (“the one who broke the promise”)




I don’t know what stokes me most about “The Day of the Doctor”: seeing the Time War at last in all its horrific glory, the return of the Tenth Doctor and Rose, the interaction between Matt Smith and David Tennant’s Doctors, Daleks attacking and getting ‘sploded, the return of the Zygons…

Okay, no doubt about it: John Hurt as The Doctor that we didn’t know about.  The one that whatever it is that he did, The Doctor was so ashamed that he has never acknowledged his existence… until now.  Because I really believe that this Doctor is the reason that The Doctor, in his ensuing generations, has been such a haunted and wounded man beneath the jovial, childlike surface.

(Thanks again to good friend ...

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Two weeks to go until “The Day of the Doctor”…




Now, something to go back into your Doctor Who archives and check out:

In the two-part “The End of Time” special that saw David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor regenerate into the Eleventh (played by Matt Smith), we see Gallifrey on the last day of the Time War.  And in the council, one of the Time Lords tells Rassilon (played by Timothy Dalton) that The Doctor has “the Moment”.

Watch that trailer again.  Listen to the words.  And look at what John Hurt’s “missing Doctor” is poised to use.

Could it be that Steven Moffat was planting the seeds for the fiftieth anniversary special four years ago, right in front of our very eyes?  Could it be that John Hurt’s Doctor is the one always intended to be the one that so terrified the Time Lords?

“The Day of the Doctor” ...

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A short while ago the BBC finally revealed the title of the Doctor Who Fiftieth Anniversary Special.

November 23rd will be “The Day of the Doctor”.

And here is the official poster for the episode…

Ho-leeee smokes, that is an insanely great piece of work!  I have literally watched the final moments of “The Name of the Doctor” at least once on my iPad ever since it aired in May, all because of John Hurt being an incarnation of The Doctor that we never knew even existed.  Seeing him strolling away so casually from those dead and burning Daleks – like a man walking straight out of Hell itself – just gives me the shivers.

And look!  There’s a “Bad Wolf” sign!  What could it mean?!

The BBC also announced that “The Day of the Doctor” will have a running time of seventy-five glorious minutes.

Now, if only ...

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On December 25th, time is up for the Eleventh Doctor…

Matt Smith, who the BBC announced four and a half years ago would be the one to play The Doctor after David Tennant left the role, is leaving Doctor Who at the end of this current season.  It will be during this year’s Christmas special that the Eleventh Doctor will regenerate, and Smith will hand off to a new actor.

It was really bittersweet to hear that news tonight.  I do think that Matt Smith is taking his bow at the top of his game.  In no small part because of his portrayal of The Doctor, the show has never before been so wildly popular.  The past several years have seen Doctor Who truly become a global sensation, and in this blogger’s opinion Smith has become one of the very, very few deserving to be recognized as a ...

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Doctor Who, The Name of the Doctor, Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman, John Hurt, Eleventh Doctor, Clara Oswald

In hindsight it was for the best that I waited nearly two days to watch “The Name of the Doctor”.  I didn’t dare let this episode begin without my girlfriend/fellow geek Kristen.  And in the aftermath of those final three minutes she literally had to calm me down and keep me from staggering as I walked up the stairs.  If I had attempted to watch it while she was still out of town, Lord only knows what kind of injury would have ensued.  Heck, I went into a fit of spastic fanboygasm simply when Simeon mentioned The Valeyard.

“The Name of the Doctor” was season finale caliber, definitely.  But with 2013 being the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Doctor Who it’s safe to say there was already an expectation for showrunner Steven Moffat to up the ante for the occasion.  The thing is: the stuff many if not most (or ...

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It’s been three days since “Nightmare in Silver” – this season’s much-anticipated episode of Doctor Who penned by Neil Gaiman – aired and the thing I still can’t get out of my head is how fast that Cyberman was.

Look, it takes an awful lot for a TV show or a movie to scare the ever-living crap out of me.  But when the girlfriend and I saw that one Cyberman arrive at the barracks and then do that…

Think back to the first time you watched “Remembrance of the Daleks”, the big story that marked Doctor Who‘s 25th anniversary in 1988.  And that numb-struck look of terror on The Doctor’s face as that Dalek did something no Dalek had ever done before: it climbed the stairs during its hellbent pursuit.

Well, that high-speed Cyberman scared me worse than that!  I was literally screaming “HOLY SH-T!!” (and other stuff) ...

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Before sharing my thoughts on this week’s delightfully entertaining new episode of Doctor Who, check these pics out.  The first is from the set of the fiftieth anniversary special, still filming right now.  Here we see guest star John Hurt wearing some rather intriguing attire…

Doctor Who, John Hurt, fiftieth anniversary, costume, filming

Ignoring the modern jacket and Hurt looks… almost like a renegade Time Lord?  Let the speculation run amok!

But here’s the pic that has gotten this fan-boy stoked most of all…

Doctor Who, fiftieth anniversary, Totter's Lane, junk yard, scrap yard, junkyard, scrapyard, special, An Unearthly Child

eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!!!  And there’s also a photograph floating about of Coal Hill School with a sign reading “I. Chesterton” as its headmaster.

Looks like the Doctor Who Fiftieth Anniversary special is going back to where it all began.  And bay-bee, when I say “where it all began”, I mean where it REALLY all began!

Now, onto this week’s episode: “The Crimson Horror”…

Doctor Who, The Crimson Horror, BBC, televisionI found this story to be a drastic ...

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Doctor Who, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, BBC, television, science fictionIn the past few days since watching it I’ve tried hard to make myself enjoy “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS” and I simply can’t.

The title of the latest episode of Doctor Who promised an awful lot.  I mean, how many times over the years have we gotten to see anything substantial of the TARDIS past the Console Room?  The only thing that comes to mind is “The Invasion of Time” from the Tom Baker era (how many times could a single episode use the same descending stairs in one scene?).  The Cloister Room has been shown a number of times, notably in the 1996 television movie.  And there was a fleeting look at the wardrobe in “The Christmas Invasion”.  But that’s shockingly little to be seen for a time/space ship that’s at least as spacious as a skyscraper packed within an old-school police box can be…

So ...

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The Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft, Ryleh“That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.”

— from The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

It was 1928 when Howard Phillips Lovecraft published The Call ...

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