Doctor Who: "The Day of the Doctor"

Very early on under the auspices of Russel T. Davies' time as showrunner of Doctor Who, it became apparent that one writer stood a cut above the rest. He didn't write a lot of episodes, but whenever he did, every Doctor Who fan began to stop and take notice. His name, as you have probably already guessed, was Steven Moffat, a long time fan of the revived cult television series. Moffat had a flare for ambitious, inventive storytelling that pushed the limits of what the show would try to do on a week-to-week basis, and many of his episodes are considered the best of the bunch of the rebooted series. His episode "Blink" is widely regarded as one of the best episodes of the show ever, not just since the revival. And it makes sense; "Blink" tests what Who is capable of; it's knotty without becoming too heady; it's playful and suspenseful, but the fun is in service of a well-told story that never loses sight of its themes or characters.

When Moffat was handed over the mantle of showrunner, it seemed like a no brainer. Give the best writer the task of making the show the best it could be. Moffat, however, increasingly took the show in a rather different direction from his predecessor. Davies liked big emotions and melodrama, emphasizing plot over character. Moffat preferred big ideas and cerebral science fiction, focusing on plot over character. Moffat's not a bad writer (in fact, I would argue that season five, the first season under his guidance, is the best of new Who), but he's a bit of one trick pony. Granted so was Davies, but his emphasis on character made you forgive him just a little bit more when he faltered. If Doctor Who has had a problem in the Moffat era, it's due to Moffat creating wildly ambitious and complex narratives. The narratives are often so self-involved and intricate that it sometimes feels like Moffat is showing off how insane and awesome he can make his stories be. And in the process he's lost a little bit of the reason the show is so good to watch. I love cool stories, but Doctor Who has always been so much more than cool stories. It's been cool stories through a very specific message about humanity, and humanity as seen through the Doctor and his current companion.

"The Day of the Doctor" felt, to an extent, like a return to form for Moffat. It's still a story filled with energetic grandeur but it's in the service of some real, well-earned emotion. Though I'm still not sure how to feel about the retconning that takes place in the episode, there is simply too much in the episode representative of what the new Doctor Who has been at its best. The Doctor has to make a difficult decision, one with large consequences and emotional and moral complexity, and he has to do it in the face of his past and the show's history. The episode draws upon the events of the Time War, the darkest material of the new series, and it uses it in order to examine who the Doctor is and why he does what he does. A fact made most poignantly when Clara, the current companion and stand-in for us and humanity at large, steps up to remind the Doctor what that truly means. Moffat is audacious in returning to events seemingly tied up for good, but he never seems to be doing it to simply shake up the waters. In stead, he reminds us why we watch the show in the first place. This is a very fun episode, starting from the team up of the three incarnations of the Doctor, including John Hurt building an entire character in such a brief amount of time. But beyond filling the episode with nifty ideas and liveliness, Moffat also puts the show in conversation with its fifty year history while creating a road map for the future.

Doctor Who is one of the few television shows which can shift quite easily between deep emotion and entertaining comfort, high concept and quiet intimacy, small premises and big ideas, silly humor and compelling philosophy. It's a small show, but darn if it doesn't have so much more to offer on the inside, and this special was proof that it still has plenty to still do and say for a long time to come. Happy 50th Anniversary Doctor Who! Here's to fifty more.