The War of The Doctor

The War of The Doctor would’ve been the 50th Anniversary special of Doctor Who and would’ve aired both on TV and premiere in cinemas on November 23rd 2013, it would’ve been the final stories for Toby Jones as the Doctor, Annabel Scholey as Hannah and Robert Shearman as

Showrunner. Taking over for Season 50 would be writer Steven Moffat who’d written on and off for Doctor Who since 1996, he was a popular writer on the show due to writing The Shadows of Death, Blink and the two parter The Empty Child and The Masked Invasion.

The special was filmed from March to May 2013 for approximately six weeks, the special was produced by Marcus Wilson and directed by Nick Hurran. The first trailer for the special was shown to attendees of San Diego Comic-Con in July 2013, a trailer similar to the one with the past doctors that we got in real life would’ve also been made.

We would’ve gotten new titles for the 50th, the episode would begin with the original 1963 titles before we would later get the new titles, a new theme done by Murray Gold, which would be his final contribution to the Doctor Who universe.

The War of The Doctor

By Robert Shearman

23rd November

We begin with the 1963 titles in black and white and in 4:3 aspect ratio as we fade to a shot of Gallifrey, the camera pans towards Gallifrey as we Fade Into colour and in 16:9. We see the Doctor walk to a barn and he enters it and goes inside his TARDIS as he puts some books into boxes, like he’s clearing out.

We cut to a bell ringing and Hannah is walking out of Coal Hill school, but a man walks up to her who we see to be Ian Chesterton, he says he’d like to discuss a few things with her when she can about her job and Hannah agrees and gets in her car and leaves, she goes back to her

house and whilst she’s inside she hears people screaming and guns firing, she runs to the window and sees a full scale alien invasion. We then see the Doctor on Gallifrey in the TARDIS and he gets a distress signal but he collapses and then he sees a vision of the Valeyard, he wakes up and he puts his coat on and walks towards the main citadel and then we go into the opening credits.

Then after the titles we see Hannah running out of her house as she sees Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Wirrn and many other recognisable monsters, she runs away as she dodges Dalek gunfire but manages to escape the monsters.

We then see Romana in the President’s office working on something when the Doctor runs in, Romana asks if everything’s ok and the Doctor simply says “The Valeyard’s back!” and Romana knowing of the last season’s events, puts the planet on high alert.

We see Hannah running down a street as a Dalek spaceship destroys anything in it’s path and she makes her way into a destroyed house where she hides and she says that she hopes the Doctor comes to save her.

Back on Gallifrey, Romana gets the planet ready for war but the Doctor says he’ll back and Romana asks where he’s going and he says he needs to save a friend from certain death and he hasn’t got time, he runs to the barn and dashes into the TARDIS and says “I’m coming for you Hannah.”

We would see Hannah hiding but heading out the back where she encounters three Daleks, she runs away whilst Dalek gunfire and eventually she reaches the Junkyard at 76 Totter’s Lane where she’s corned by the Daleks and just when she’s about to get killed the TARDIS smashes through a wall and destroys the Daleks, the Doctor steps out and he and Hannah have a nice little reunion scene, but the Doctor goes over to a dying Dalek and he learns from it that the Valeyard is creating something known as ‘The Distortion Device’ to which the Doctor is horrified about and tells Hannah to come with him and they enter the TARDIS to head to Gallifrey.

In the TARDIS Hannah what he was doing when he was away and he briefly sums up his plot in the Christmas special and his retirement, they land in Romana’s office where she explains a massive war fleet is heading to Gallifrey and the Doctor asks what can he do and Romana tells him to help himself, the Doctor is confused and Romana leads him to a meeting room where Doctors 9-12 are and Romana reveals to them all that the Valeyard has returned and they all

need to work together, the Doctors ask where are their 1st - 8th incarnations and the 13th Doctor reveals that the Valeyard has created something known as ‘The Distortion Device’, Romana and Hannah ask what it is and the Doctors explain that it’s a device designed to meddle with a Time Lord’s personal history and the Valeyard is messing with their history, which is why he collapsed in pain earlier and had a vision of the Valeyard and all the other Doctor’s had that. Romana says that she’s found the locations of the parts of ‘The Distortion Device’ and tells the Doctors to go to specific locations and destroy them and they all leave in their TARDISes.

The Thirteenth Doctor and Hannah land on the main Dalek mothership where they find the Daleks are powering the main source of the Distortion Device and eventually the Doctor destroys the Dalek Mothership which destroys the main source of the Distortion Device, the Doctor communicates to Romana through the TARDIS and she tells the Doctor the Valeyard has arrived, just then she’s knocked out and the Valeyard says to the Doctor “You’ll lose and the universe will be mine.” All of this would be intercut with the other Doctor’s plots.

The Ninth Doctor and Lillian would land on a planet which has been taken over by the Wirrn where the last few residents of the planet fight to the end, the Doctor defeats the Wirrn and destroys a part of the Distortion Device.

The Tenth Doctor and Sam land on the Cyber Mothership where they have to sneak past the Cybermen, after escaping from them and saving Sam from conversion the
Doctor destroys his part of the ‘Distortion Device’.

The Eleventh Doctor and Joanna land in a nursing home where the Weeping

Angels feast on the days these people never had, their part of the ‘Distortion Device’ is guarded by angels and they have to go through the house without being touched by an angel, eventually the Doctor finds it and destroys it.

Finally the Twelfth Doctor and Ashley land in a Sontaran prison where with the help of some of the prisoners the Doctor locates it and destroys it by using Sontaran

weaponry, after the devices are all destroyed we see archive footage of Doctors 1-8 in their TARDISes flying in space.

The Thirteenth Doctor and Hannah land back in the barn where quickly says that this is where he’s lived since his retirement and Hannah says “Not bad, could be worse.” They then run out and find the Citadel under attack and they run towards it, in the Citadel the Doctor rounds up the Chancellery Guard and they fight the Valeyard’s army and the

Doctor makes it to the President’s office and tells the Valeyard he’s defeated as Hannah goes to help Romana, the Valeyard is about to teleport away before the Doctor grabs him and they both teleport away and end up on a cliff overlooking Gallifrey as the two of them fight, it becomes violent with the Doctor almost pushing the Valeyard over the edge but failing, the Valeyard pushes him but the Doctor grabs onto the edge where the Valeyard is about to kick him off, but the Doctor grabs his foot breathes in and closes his eyes as he lets go off the edge taking the Valeyard down with him as they plummet to the ground.

Hannah and Romana come across their lifeless bodies and Hannah cries over it and Romana

explains the thirteen lives limit and that Doctor has used them all and he’s finally dead, Hannah asks if there’s anything she can do but Romana says that she could never guarantee the Doctor being brought back but Romana says “Maybe there is a way.”

They take the Doctor’s body and take it to the labs where they get a tube of regeneration energy and inject it into the Doctor, he wakes up and Hannah is overjoyed to see him again, Romana explains he has a new regeneration cycle and he can live again.

The Doctor looks out of a window and Romana and Hannah walk and they talk for a bit but later Hannah explains she’s not coming with the Doctor and Romana explains she’s given her a

vortex manipulator and set the coordinates for 2013 where she originally was and after uses it the Vortex Manipulator won’t work again, she gives the Doctor a hug before using it and ending up back in 2013 in her house as she cries.

The Doctor gives Romana a hug too before bidding a goodbye and tells her to look after this place as she’s doing a good job, he walks away from the citadel as he winces in pain and notices his hand glowing. He walks back to the barn where the Doctor would recall moments from his life as we would hear the voices of the Doctor, Hannah, Mike and several friends and villains from Season 47 - the 50th before getting a voiceover from the First Doctor saying “It’s far from being all over.”

The Doctor makes it on-board the TARDIS and de-materialises as we would see it fly through

space, he winces in pain and notices his hand glowing and his face starts to glow. He smiles and says “Never be cruel, never be cowardly… My promise, my decision” as he bursts into a radiant fireball of regeneration energy as a new Doctor comes into view…Michelle Gomez.

She’s manic and realises she’s a woman and says “Different…I like it.” The TARDIS soon goes haywire as she shouts “If only Hannah and Mike Could see me now.” as she laughs and we see the TARDIS fly towards Earth as we cut to the end credits.

And that concludes ‘The War of The Doctor’, this was a worldwide hit with it being highly praised by fans and audiences, with that comes the end of the Shearman era overall his time as showrunner was a fan-favourite and though it did have some floors it was generally a positively remembered era, Jones’ Doctor was also a fan-favourite with the show being at a high point. The next season is Season 50 of Doctor Who, until then thank you for watching and goodbye.