Doctor Who (2005): The Night of the Doctor

Writer:

Steven Moffat

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Director:

John Hayes

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Date:

14-Nov-2013

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally writing about The Night of the Doctor, the surprise seven-minute minisode prequel to The Day of the Doctor that just appeared on the internet out of nowhere a week before the 50th Anniversary.

2013 was a while ago now, and it's maybe hard to imagine what it was like to be a Doctor Who fan back then. It was the end of a Doctor's era, whose final run had been marred by long gaps between poorly received stories. But it was also an anniversary year and people were hyped for the return of familiar faces in a big anniversary special written by one of the series' most beloved writers. So it was basically nothing like 2023...

No one was hyped for The Night of the Doctor however, in fact they didn't know it was coming at all. But then a few people watched it and afterwards they told their friends to drop everything, stay off Twitter, and watch it themselves. Even knowing what it was about would be too much of a spoiler, all that fans needed to know is that they had to see it.

So I'll warn you now that there will be SPOILERS here, both for the episode and relevant stories leading up to it. I won't spoil anything that happens after this story however, even things that fans at the time would've already known.

Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Era (1996)

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I finally get to stop writing about that bloody Twitch Doctor Who marathon I watched over the summer. I'm all out of classic episodes now, but I do have some a few lists for you and maybe some final thoughts. Also, the 1996 TV movie wasn't actually part of the Twitch marathon or the classic TV series, but it didn't seem right to leave out the Eighth Doctor, so I'm giving you a bonus review as well! You probably guessed that already from the title though.

It's weird how the Eighth Doctor's run ended just as soon as it began, but his logo stuck around in continuous use longer than any other. This slightly modernised version of the Third Doctor's logo introduced here went on to be used for things like books, DVDs and Big Finish audios relating to the classic era for 22 years, until everything was unified under the gold Jodie Whittaker logo this year. Which is good, because to be honest this is maybe my favourite logo of all of them, classic or modern.

There will be SPOILERS beyond this point for the TV movie and I might even throw in the odd spoiler for the classic series, but I'll not spoil anything that might happen during the revival series. Not even that.