Spoiler-free picoreview: OMG OMG OMG OMG that was awesome. I totally clapped my hands and squealed like a little kid at the ending, and even as I type I’m teary-eyed with Happy. 😀
Later on I think I’ll have an actual reaction to the actual plot but for now: OMG OMG OMG OMG I LOVED IT. It made me HAPPY. Thank you, BBC! Thank you, Doctor Who! What a BEAUTIFUL celebration of the 50th anniversary!
P.S. Dara has her reaction post up here. She’s got some thoughts on the beautiful An Adventure in Space and Time docudrama about the start of Doctor Who as well–I’ve got a forthcoming post about that. 😀
P.P.S. I also now have a post up about An Adventure in Space and Time, here!
P.P.P.S. Tor.com’s reaction post is here, and The Mary Sue’s is here!
My own spoiler-heavy reactions behind the fold!
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GOOD GOD I missed you, Ten! I missed you so much!
WOW Billie Piper looked gorgeous and HA way to get her into the plot without her playing the actual Rose there!
LOLOLOLOLOLOL to the callback to Ten casually mentioning marrying Queen Elizabeth back in his Specials, and all I could think of at that point was not being able to call her the Virgin Queen anymore. >:D
HA HA ZYGONS! 😀
GOD I love Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and EEEEE picture of her dad!
All three–no, twelve–no, THIRTEEN TARDISes EEEEEE! That’s the part where I started clapping and squealing! And HEE I was SO wondering what bits of dialogue they were going to maybe swipe to get the other Doctors to show up too!
SO MANY HAPPY TEARS for John Hurt!Doctor regaining his right to the name. :~D And OH GOD fixing the Time War. We’ve been building up to this through the ENTIRE NEW ERA’S RUN!
OMG Hurt beginning to regenerate into Eccleston, as close as they could get without having Eccleston himself though OH GOD I WAS SO HOPING they’d gotten him after all.
OMG OMG OMG THEY ACTUALLY GOT TOM BAKER in eeeeeee!
What about the rest of you? What made you squeal? 😀
ETA: OH WOW I forgot this until I started reading the comments over on The Mary Sue–HEE, I DID love the callout to Jack Harness, bequeathing the vortex manipulator to UNIT on the occasion of “one” of his deaths. 😀
And how much love is there for snarky Hurt!Doctor demanding, “Am I having a mid-life crisis?!” at the sight of his boyish future regenerations? ;D
And HA HA! We saw Capaldi! Even if it was just a glimpse of his eyes!
ETA #2: I think perhaps the ONLY quibble I’ve got with anything in this story at all is that I would have liked just a tad more context as to why all the Classic-era Doctors knew to show up. Dara says she thinks that the story didn’t have time to lay down this context, which I think is a reasonable argument–but I would have liked at least just a TAD of a hint that Ten or Eleven dropped clues somewhere for their prior selves to find. Or maybe Bad Wolf!Rose doing it behind their backs?
Paul says his only quibble is that he feels that this depiction of the Time War, the biggest, baddest war that ever existed in the history of things existing, felt a bit underwhelming. I’ve seen others making this point elsewhere too, and I can kind of buy that. It WAS just a touch anticlimactic that what we got on camera about the Time War was just “Gallifreyans being shot down in the streets”.
But then, on the other hand, all the shots of Gallifreyan children did drive home the whole point of the Doctor really needing to remember himself and do what he has always done: i.e., save people.
Another thing I’ve seen said elsewhere–some love for Clara’s portrayal in this story, and I am TOTALLY down with that. She felt more like an actual character here for me than through much of the main season. And I loved her scene when she approached Hurt!Doctor when he was sitting there in the chair drinking his tea. That was lovely.
And speaking of Clara–HEE, big squeal for her teaching a class at Coal Hill School! I know enough about Classic-era lore know to know why that’s important! But I DIDN’T catch the references on the school sign, which are called out on the Wikipedia page for the school. 😀
And OH GOD right how awesome was it to see old-school original credits? 😀
And OH YES another LOL I’ve seen shooting around the net–“Let Zygons be Zygons”. Hee hee hee hee!
ETA #3: Dara says she’s been seeing headcanon firing up on Tumblr that the Curator gave Science Scarf UNIT Tech her scarf. HEADCANON ACCEPTED. 😀 And +100 for the scene where the one hands the inhaler to the other!
