The BBC has released a mini-prequel to the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special.
We get a few glimpses of the time war, plus seventeen years after the 1996 TV movie and eight years after the premiere of the new series Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor finally gets a regeneration sequence. It’s also nice to get shout-outs to the various companions of the Eighth Doctor from the books and audio dramas as well as to the Sisterhood of Karn, first seen in The Eye of Morbius back in 1975.
What is more, we finally learn how John Hurt figures into the Doctor Who timeline.
All in all, not a bad start for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.
What is more, the BBC has also made a docu drama about the creation of Doctor Who in 1963, starring David Bradley, most recently seen as the murderous bastard Walder Frey in Game of Thrones (as well as in petty every major piece of filmic genre in the past couple of years), as William Hartnell a.k.a. the First Doctor, which in itself has probably broken the multiverse. Reece Shearsmith of League of Gentleman fame is Patrick Troughton a.k.a. the Second Doctor (because why break the multiverse just once?) and the official cast includes various Doctor Who veterans. The whole thing is called An Adventure in Space and Time and the official trailer is here.
With all this, the official 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor featuring a bunch of people we’ve seen a bit too much of in recent years seems like the least interesting part of the celebration. Though I’ll still be watching, of course…
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