9 Problems With Doctor Who No One Wants To Admit

6. The Whole 'War Doctor' Thing Was A Bit Lame

2013 was Doctor Who's biggest year yet so fans were obviously waiting with baited breath to discover how the show would be commemorating its historic milestone. And how did they do it? By introducing a Doctor nobody knew about who fits into the mythology after the Classic Series before generally ignoring that Doctor Who even existed before 2005. Yep. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Because that's our biggest gripe with the 50th anniversary festivities. As far reaching as they were, they just... well, weren't far reaching at all, were they? Don't get us wrong, it was marvellous to see fans from all around the world coming together and being able to watch it live in the cinema was certainly exciting. In the end, though, it wasn't even a celebration of the Doctor's last half a century in operation, which is what it really should've been. If anything, the story would've faired much better if it was aired this year to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the revived series, seeing as NuWho is basically what the whole thing was honouring. The feature length episode, The Day of the Doctor, was led by Matt Smith and David Tennant, but where were all the other Doctors hiding? They did get a bit of screen time, of course, when archive footage was "cleverly" edited to make it look like it was brand new, and then Tom Baker popped up for 5 minutes at the end for a scene which, as heartwarming as it was, generally felt like it had been put in at the last minute when Steven Moffat suddenly realised that people would actually notice that no Classic Doctors had been included. Thank God for The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. Oh, and the whole War Doctor thing doesn't make any sense, either. So he's the incarnation of the Doctor that destroyed Gallifrey and ended the Time War, only he... didn't, did he? And then he was eternally banished to the darkest realms of the Doctor's time stream for something he didn't actually do as his subsequent guilt ridden incarnations went about their business blissfully unaware that they hadn't actually blown up their own planet after all. If you're going to completely change the show's mythology, it's always useful if your main characters remember you've done it. It basically harbours the last 10 years pointless and the war torn characterisation of the Ninth Doctor, which Christopher Eccleston excelled at, just became a lot less poignant. Way to go, Moffat.
Doctor Who Editor
Doctor Who Editor

Dan Butler is the Doctor Who Editor at WhatCulture.com. When he isn't writing his own articles or editing other people's, he can be found trawling the internet for gifs of Steven Moffat laughing. Contact him via dan.butler@whatculture.co.uk.