For a present that’s concerning the functionality to be in all places and wherever, any interval in time, Physician Who is a present that’s arguably burdened with context. Now 60 years old today, the considered navigating any of its tales with out an consciousness of its place in that historical past is sort of unthinkable. However each now and again, in a really lengthy whereas, Physician Who wields that context to set itself free.
That’s the paradox—in addition to the philosophy of John Rawls—that sits on the coronary heart of “The Day of the Physician,” Physician Who’s fiftieth anniversary particular that climaxed a blockbuster interval of celebrations for the collection 10 years in the past tonight. It’s, after all, virtually not possible to think about “Day” exterior of this context—metatextually, we now know a lot of what almost happened throughout its manufacturing and ideation that it’s virtually a miracle to revisit the ultimate product and never deem it miraculous for merely present. On the time, stress on the collection, and then-showrunner Steven Moffat—to ship not only a becoming tribute to fifty years of tv previous to it, not simply to ship on the promise of bringing again the even-then legendary David Tennant’s tenth Doctor, probably the most common takes on the character in that historical past, but in addition to set the stage to bid farewell to his present star in Matt Smith, set to bow out of the series a month later within the Christmas particular “Time of the Physician”—was immense.
It’s becoming maybe {that a} decade on, and on the precipice of not only one however three anniversary specials, the collection as soon as once more finds itself below a likewise stress with a twist—a tribute now to sixty years, the return of David Tennant however now as a new, fourteenth incarnation, and to set the stage as soon as extra for a wholly new period now within the arrival of Ncuti Gatwa’s fifteenth Doctor. It’s simply as becoming maybe that the stress shouldn’t be fairly so heightened this time round, as “Day of the Physician” managed to resoundingly show that Physician Who was greater than able to rising to celebratory events resembling this, to ship one thing each loving of its previous however able to offering one thing stuffed with potential for the long run.
However once more, that is all context. Can “Day” work, simply because the Docs plans with the Zygons and people does in its story—to briefly wipe them of their recollections, so neither facet is aware of which is which in an try to ensure equitable peace—to be good exterior the burden of all this context? There’s two solutions, right here. The primary, is sure: “Day of the Physician” isn’t only a good celebration of Physician Who, it’s additionally simply good Physician Who full cease. There’s journey and spectacle, Earth at menace of invasion, time journey shenanigans, and a number of Docs bouncing off of one another in probably the most hectic, humorous, and heartbreaking of how. It’s layers of Steven Moffat’s penchant for twisting thriller and cleverness—zipping between the Zygon menace to fashionable earth, the Tenth Physician’s personal foray with them again in Elizabethan England, after which the Conflict Physician’s trauma going through down the final day of the Time Conflict, an occasion up so far solely spoken about in darkish, hushed tones all through Who’s fashionable revived period—that every one neatly tie collectively on this loving, deeply sentimental bundle.
And it’s concerning the weight of context. The tragic coronary heart of “Day of the Physician” is John Damage’s aforementioned “Conflict” Physician: the regeneration that took half within the Time Conflict, an incarnation left to banished recollections out of the disgrace of what he needed to do to finish the battle between the Time Lords and the Daleks as soon as and for all, one petrified to even name himself a Physician for the harm he wielded to take action. Following him on the eve of the ultimate days of the battle as he steals a weapon of mass destruction from his personal individuals—the Second, a weapon so highly effective, so horrifying, it developed its personal conscience to virtually cease itself from being—the Conflict Physician’s arc is one about wrestling with the burden of his personal private historical past, a push and pull that haunts him, and is compacted when he comes head to head together with his future: two additional incarnations of himself that sure, nonetheless really feel the ache of the Time Conflict, a ache muted in some methods, however nonetheless, a future for himself that exists past the horrifying process he has burdened himself with. In some methods, we’ve got the Physician himself throughout these three iterations in numerous levels of a private veil of ignorance, very like the one his latter selves will go on to placed on UNIT and the Zygons within the episode’s climax: the Conflict Physician, so desperately grappling together with his data of himself that he’s trying to disavow the trimmings of that identification, the Tenth Physician, far sufficient faraway from the Time Conflict for the ache to be lessened, however not far sufficient to be shocked at his future self within the Eleventh Physician, who has allowed that ache to be accepted and moved on from.
That brings us to the second reply to that earlier query. Can “Day” work, to be good exterior the burden of all this context? The reply this time is, it argues, that it doesn’t should: it might probably embrace and deny its energy in a single fell swoop, and provides its heroes the therapeutic they crave within the course of. After the Tenth and Eleventh Docs foil the Zygon’s invasion plans within the modern-day, their plan additionally acts as a catalyst for them to return to the Conflict Physician as he stands on the precipice of unleashing the second—to simply accept that this burdensome act is a part of their previous, however that every one they’re is a part of the Conflict Physician as nicely. Besides, as Clara argues (fittingly, somebody exterior of the context of realizing what the Time Conflict actually was, given how little it got here up between her and the Eleventh Physician)—the Docs don’t have to simply accept this destiny. They’ve accepted the potential of it, however they’re now additionally able to avoiding it, granted the singular distinctive alternative of those totally different incarnations, all in their very own particular person contexts and locations of their private timelines, coming collectively at one second.
And in an explosion of triumph—from the second of realization to the hovering arrival of 13 TARDISes round a besieged Gallifrey, to the flowering destruction of the Dalek fleet caught in its personal crossfire as Gallifrey is blinked out of existence into its personal pocket of spacetime and saved from destruction—Physician Who each embraces its context main as much as this second, and frees itself from it. A lot of recent Physician Who at this level had been outlined by the end result we understood for the Final Nice Time Conflict—the Physician’s personal outlook on issues, the absence of his individuals and his homeworld, the emotional weight that got here from when components of the battle survived that end result, just like the Daleks and the Grasp. In a single second, Physician Who tells its viewers, and itself, “sufficient of that. What if we made it higher?”. As a result of that’s what the Physician does, for thus many individuals throughout area and time—and on the Physician’s big day, why not do it for themselves too?
In fact, we as soon as once more should return to context. Within the years that will observe Gallifrey’s return had its ups and downs—a month later in “Time of the Physician,” it might be their continued existence that granted the Physician a brand new cycle of regenerations. Just some years down the road with Jodie Whittaker’s thirteenth Physician, we’d seemingly see them destroyed yet again, and have the Physician’s personal understanding of their private historical past upended as soon as extra with the revelations of the Timeless Little one. However within the second “Day of the Physician” permits itself to be free from all this context, it’s bursting with unbound potential—a loving, thrilling, invigorating potential. A present to Physician Who most becoming for a celebration as sentimental as its fiftieth birthday.
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