10 Biggest Doctor Who Retcons

The 50th Anniversary special The Day of the Doctor is an absolute treat for fans, an unbridled cheer of an episode in celebration of five decades of our favourite show in all of time and space. But it's also, at its core, a giant retcon that undoes years of character development.

Much of the Doctor's character arc since the 2005 revival was based on one key fact: the Doctor destroyed Gallifrey, ending the Time War by wiping out every living being on the planet, Daleks and Time Lords alike. The Ninth Doctor in particular is defined by this event: he is only the person he is because of it. If it never happened, he would be a completely different character.

But The Day of the Doctor says exactly that: it never happened. The Doctors all worked together to suspend Gallifrey in temporal stasis, saving it from being destroyed. As much as this was indeed a triumphant moment that was important for the future of the show, it also undid much of what had been previously established, and undermined a crucial aspect of the Doctor's character: his moral ambiguity. With the Doctor no longer responsible for the destruction of his home planet, he was a fundamentally less complex, less nuanced, less compelling character.