I thought it's always been shown that Daleksare incredibly dangerous in person and that they pretty much kill anything that meets them face-to-face. Similarly, the reason the Time Lords were holding their own in the War was because of their ability to use incredibly destructive time based technology but they were ineffective in person. Might be why even one Dalek entering Gallifrey's atmosphere is so dangerous, since the Time Lords' most effective weapons couldn't be used so close to their own world.

 

Just two more days and about one hour.

Additionally, there will be no CGI in the Special.

 

What - Time Lords and regular Gallifreyans are different?

I can only talk about the new seasons, but we've only ever watched the Doctor emerge victorious. A single Dalek might have posed a threat to the single Doctor - but a any single Dalek posing a extinction-level threat to their entire civilisation - and I don't even mean a super smart, whatever Dalek (just any old Dalek) - is very hard to imagine.

I have never viewed a single Dalek as being threatening. Yes, they do seem to be able to beat any one else in one-on-one battle, and yes, they do make them out to be threatening (I recall the Doctor seemingly being terrified in the first encounter in season one). But they were only ever threatening to a civilisation when they were in large numbers. I can't think of any specific examples where a handful of normal Daleks posed a threat to an entire civilisation.

What Kraken said changed my entire view on the Time Lords and the Daleks. I always thought that the Time Lords were the epitome of technological development, having mastered time travel (and preventing other species from doing so) they could do anything they wanted. So I always wondered why there was such a big threat by the Daleks to the Time Lords.

 

Don't see any posts mentioning today's awesome Google Doodle, a Doctor Who game! Check it out. (feels odd linking to Google, but it feels polite)

 

I think you can resolve the threats the Daleks posed to the Time Lord's if you take the example shown in Harry Turtledoves World War series. In that book series Earth is invaded by a technologically advanced alien species called the Race in World War II. The Race had every reason to win, they had technology, control of the skies and nukes, they don't though.They lost mainly because they hadn't fought a war in millennia, they hadn't even faced an external threat in tens of thousand of years.

It's not unreasonable to assume the Time Lord's where in the same position and by the time they had the experience to respond the Daleks had closed the tech gap between them.

 

Today is the Day of the Doctor.

 

They just showed a clip on the graham norton show with 10 and 11 arguing. Nothing to write home about though, something about moving on, 400 years and that god aweful "spoilers" line river kept spouting.

 

Matt Smith and David Tennant on The Graham Norton Show. It's quite hilarious as often with Norton's show which really surprised me when I first watched it. I think interactions between visitors is what makes it better than an usual single person format. And the fact that they sometimes drink an alcohol.

Other stuff for the Day of the Doctor:

Behind the scenes of An Adventure in Space and Time. And the movie itself is rather good too. EDIT: Actually, don't watch it before the movie because it spoils one surprising cameo.

Doctor Who: How Doomsday Should Have Ended.

Super Cafe: Who's a Hero.

 

An Adventure in Space and Time was surprisingly brilliant. I wasn't expecting much, but I couldn't stop watching it. No idea how accurate any of it was, but it made for a good story.

 

Yeah, it was shockingly good. So many nerd feels.

Also, the new Google Doodle for today is fanfuckingtastic.

I love that the little weeping angel freezes when you're facing it, and how the 2bit avatar regenerates into the next incarnation after each death.

Edit: The last level almost gave me a seizure. Holy flashing lights, Batman.

 

Hold your horses, man. You're in for a lore slam.

There does exist a significant distinction between the Time Lords and the Gallifreyans from whom they arose. For the purposes of this explanation, the Time Lords were the creme de la creme of Gallifreyan society and served as the civilization's ruling elite. On a tangental note, Time Lords were referred to on a handful of occasions as Chronarchs, which is a really fucking cool word.

Anyway, back to the first point. All Time Lords were Gallifreyan, but not all Gallifreyans were Time Lords. That much can be said with (reasonable) certainty. In fact, the history of Gallifrey can be neatly divided between two periods of time: the time before the Time Lords came about, and after. Although the "after" bit is a little wibbly-wobbly.

The Time Lords originated on the planet Gallifrey, billions of years ago. Billions. Let that sink into your head for a second there. I'm cherry-picking information from wikis and from my recollections of watching a fair few episodes, but to give an idea of how ancient they were... remember the Racnoss? The ancient spider aliens that the Gallifreyans warred against prior to the formation of our solar system? Yeah. They weren't even Time Lords then. They were just good ole Gallifreyans.

Basically, cool shit happened. Anyway.

Gallifreyans were one of the first humanoid species to evolve in the history of the Universe, when it was still young. At this point in their history, they were already fighting intergalactic wars, owning many, many colonies all across their home galaxy and conducting early research into time travel. They were ruled by the matriarchal Pythia, which was a title for the rulers of the Gallifreyan Empire, who were basically prophetic magic-users who did wonky stuff with reality by way of magic and prose, and not logic and science. They were psychics of great aptitude, and were known for their clairvoyance and the prowess of their psychic powers in general. Anyway, the last Pythia comes up again. She's important. Remember her.

Back then, magic was still a big thing. This period of time in the history of the Universe is collectively known as the Dark Times. Some of it overlaps with The Dark Time of Gallifreyan history with which it shouldn't be confused with. In terms of the Gallifreyan Dark Time, this period was also known as The Old Times, or The Age of the Pythias.

Even in just New Who, we've had magic come back in the form of the Carrionite witches' Shakespearean efforts in Series 4. You know, the episode where Martha Jones saved the day with an Expelliarmus. The universe that existed before ours - the one the Beast of the Series 2 episodes The Impossible Planet, and The Satan Pit - was ruled mainly by magic and mysticism. This was still in many respects true during the early days of our Universe, when the Gallifreyans evolved and became a civilization of note.

Now, a lot of magic users in the Whoniverse were debunked by the Doctor to have either used highly advanced technology, passed off their psychic abilities as magic, or otherwise engaged in trickery (willfully or in ignorance). In New Who, the Sycorax understood their blood-based control in the The Christmas Invasion to be magic, and confused the Doctor's regenerative abilities as "witchcraft". But the fact remains that magical phenomena were prominent in the universe's early history. The reason I'm making such a big deal about magic? Well...

Magic no longer exists in a majorly meaningful way in the Universes due to the rise of the Time Lords. Remember Rassilon? Remember the Eye of Harmony? Yeah.

The Gallifreyans of the time were supposedly caught between rationality and science versus superstition and magic. And this is where Rassilon comes in. The Pythia lost her powers of precognition, shit went down, and Rassilon and the Neo-Technologists overthrew her regime. The last Pythia cursed the Gallifreyans with sterility, preventing any and all sexual reproduction (for a time), and the surviving members of the Pythian order fled to Karn.

Yeah. THAT Karn. As in, the Sisterhood of Karn. Ring any bells?

So then Rassilon, along with the stellar engineer known as Omega, perfected time travel by creating the Eye of Harmony. The Eye is the main power source that powers the Time Lords' time travel, and has enormous significance for Time Lord culture, not to mention their biology and role in the Universe. There exist conflicting accounts on the specifics of the situation, but the general gist of it is that Rassilon and Omega caused a star to go supernova, creating a black hole. They then harnessed the nucleus of the fucking thing, and this harnessed energy source is the Eye.

There's one inside the Doctor's TARDIS. We recently saw it in Journey to the Center of the TARDIS, just last series.

It's also important to note that it's during the development of the Eye that Rassilon is said to have opened a black hole into another universe, causing the Yssgaroth (serpentine monstrosities of eldritch, Lovecraftian horror), and the ensuing conflict is known as The First Great Time War.

So, Rassilon led a faction of his fellow Gallifreyans, who we understand to have incorporated the energies of time travel into their very biology - Time Lords are able to withstand the stresses of time travel on a cellular level, and the symbiotic nature of their cell nuclei that gives them this ability is called the Rassilon Imprimatur. This also gives them a link to their TARDIS machines.

This also saw them gain regeneration as a biological process. And it's these fuckers who rise to the top of the Gallifreyan food chain. Time Lords ruled Gallifrey. Eventually, the Time Lords rebelled against Rassilon and locked him into the Dark Tower inside the Death Zone.

Rassilon and his followers essentially rationalized the Universe. Framed it in reason and logic, understood it through science. And that set the tone for the rest of history.

Millennia later - millions of years, even (it's highly unclear) - the Time Lords stagnated. They grew corrupt, complacent, though nonetheless powerful. But given their non-interventionist policy, many powers and ne'er do wells rose up in the universe. In many ways, the Time Lords lost their omnipotent status.

Their network database - The Matrix - was rendered into prehistorically obsolete. The Time Lords forgot that the Eye of Harmony existed and thought it was a myth, and it was only the intervention of the Fourth Doctor that revealed that yes, it actually existed, and yes, it was still powering all Time Lord technology. Sound absolutely pants-retarded? It should.

Remember the Sontarans? They invaded Gallifrey. Yup. They invaded fucking Gallifrey.

This is the time period that the Doctor (and the Master) were born into. It's partly why the Doctor hates being on Gallifrey - it's why he ran away.

The Doctor, Romana, and presumably some other Time Lords were heavily involved in returning Gallifrey to its former glory - this isn't very significantly touched on in the narrative, but it's there.

But yeah. Daleks can be and were a credible threat to Time Lords - not to mention the common Gallifreyan, though it's unclear how many of the Gallifreyan populace were Time Lords. It's been implied that the process to become a Time Lord is indeed both a biological and societal one, and given the degree to which their technology is developed, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.

The Daleks arose during a time when the Time Lords were by and large, completely stagnant as a society, so it's not too surprising to think that they were able to grow to a level to actively threaten them. The Doctor himself describes the two groups to be pinnacles of civilization - it's why he's so surprised that Oswin Oswald was able to hack Dalek tech in Asylum.

This isn't even considering the sheer firepower a single Dalek possessed - it was said by the Ninth Doctor that one lost Dalek was enough to annihilate humanity circa 2012, given enough time.

It's not surprising that a single Dalek would be cause for extreme concern for the soldiers at Arcadia - it's doubtful that any of them were Time Lords themselves given that there was no indication that they could regenerate. This means that they wouldn't have the centuries of learning and expertise that the Time Lords possessed, no understanding of science and no time travel to speak of to defend themselves. There's no magic fix-it button like what the Doctor could come up with, because the fact of the matter is, the Doctor is and was entirely unique a Time Lord, able to best the likes of Rassilon himself. Or Omega. And Davros. And the Sontarans. And the Daleks on many occasions. And the Zygons. And many, many more.

The thing with the Last Great Time War, though... shit got bad enough that they basically resurrected Rassilon. And he was a fucking hardlining sonofabitch from a bygone epoc of the Universe. And shit kept escalating. And escalating. And escalating. And then the Doctor wiped them all out. All of them.

TL;DR: The Doctor's a badass among badasses.

 

Reminds me of the vastly overused exchange from the Doctor's wife. "Fear me, I've killed hundreds of timelords." Doctor:"Fear me, I've killed all of them!"

 

Well. That was fantastic.

 

That... Was... Awesome.

 

Yes that was brilliant absolutely brilliant.

 

I could probably be even better, but who cares? It didn't disappoint and that was hard enough for 50th Anniversary Special.

 

That christmass special preview made me shit my pants in excitement. It's like everything I've ever wanted.

Also dat sherlock teaser. #sherlocklives

 

Comments and spoilers:

Spoiler

- Rose could be replaced by any Companion, but I don't have any problem with her filling this role.

- I'm unsure about rewriting such an important part of the Doctor's current history. On one hand it was something that affected him greatly. On the other having the Doctor responsible for a genocide was always questionable and never focused on innocent Gallifreyans, only on how bad the Time Lords became. After this episode it would be a much bigger deal.

- Cameos. Unsure if it was a new scene with Eccleston or an edited old one. If it's a new material why not do a regeneration scene too? Capaldi was a nice touch and Baker was especially surprising. But I would use other actors that wanted to be involved as an Easter egg in the background (or maybe that happened and I missed them).

- All thirteen Doctors were great though lack of Capaldi in the second scene were they gather together was weird. They should add him there for DVD release once his costume is revealed.

 

1. That was awesome. I enjoyed the interplay between the leads, and how much travel was involved. This was not a one-room show at all, and I liked it.