'The Day of the Doctor' (Story Code 7.14) by Steven Moffat

THIS NOVEMBER THE DOCTOR WILL FACE HIS DARKEST DAY AND HIS GREATEST THREAT: HIMSELF

“Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame, whatever the cost.” – The War Doctor

Shoreditch, London: on Totter’s Lane, next to the scrapyard of I.M. Foreman, sits Coal Hill Secondary School. As its latest teacher, Clara Oswald, finishes another day of lessons, she receives news of a phone call from her doctor, who has left an address for her. Jumping onto her motorcycle, Clara leaves London and rides out to the countryside, where she soon comes across a familiar blue Police Box standing by the roadside. Driving inside, Clara parks her ride and then shares a nonchalant-yet-excited reunion with her friend the Doctor; however, their catch-up is interrupted by an alert from the TARDIS’s controls: despite being parked, the ship is moving – having been hoisted into the air by a huge mechanical claw tethered to a military helicopter! At the Tower of London - the secret headquarters of U.N.I.T. (The Unified Intelligence Taskforce) - scientist Osgood takes her commanding officer Kate Stewart a phone call from a very irate Doctor, who objects most strongly at being whisked into the air against his will. Kate apologises, having believed the ship to be empty she is having it airlifted to where she needs to meet the Doctor. Ever clumsy, the Doctor slips and falls out of the TARDIS’ doorway, clinging onto the door-jam for dear life as the ship is lowered into the middle of Trafalgar Square amidst a crowd of surprised onlookers. Kate takes the Doctor and Clara into the National Gallery, where she explains that she is acting under orders from the Queen – but not the current one, she means Queen Elizabeth the First. Handing over a sealed letter for the Doctor’s eyes only, Kate shows the Doctor a painting to prove the veracity of the message she bears; the Doctor recognises it as a three-dimensional Time Lord painting called ‘No More’ - or ‘Gallifrey Falls’ - that depicts the fall of Arcadia, the second city of his home planet. The Doctor is shaken, and tells Clara that his other, secret incarnation is in the painting, on the day he killed everyone in the Time War…

The Last Day of the Time War: Arcadia is under attack from the Daleks, whose forces have lain waste to the Time Lords’ city, their deadly energy beams killing millions of Gallifreyans trying desperately to flee the destruction of their world. As a lone soldier transmits a warning to the High Council that Arcadia has fallen he sees a blue Police Box, and then meets an old man who asks him for his gun; the soldier complies and the man - the War Doctor - uses the weapon to burn two words on a nearby wall for all to see: NO MORE. Elsewhere, a Dalek patrol is about to exterminate a family of Gallifreyans when they detect the presence of their old enemy, the Doctor. But as the Daleks turn around they are smashed to the ground by the TARDIS, as it crashes through the wall before them. As the RADIS escapes, one of the dying invaders sees the Doctor’s message…

Gallifrey – the War Room: the High Council convenes to review the Doctor’s message, and the Time Lord General learns that all the Dalek forces are converging on the Capitol in a final attack. At that moment an alarm sounds: there has been a breach in the Time Vault, in the Omega Arsenal where the Time Lords’ forbidden weapons are kept. Rushing to the Vault the General sees that his race’s ultimate weapon, a galaxy-eating sentient device known as ‘The Moment’, has been stolen - and the General knows it was the Doctor who took it…

Elsewhere, in a desert area of the planet, walks the War Doctor, hefting a heavy sack over his shoulder, the words of his warning to the Time Lords and Daleks ringing in his mind as he proclaims that he will end the war... The old man makes his way towards a lone wooden barn, where he attempts to activate the apocalypse device; however, he is distracted by the sudden, inexplicable appearance of a young girl. After explaining that she came to him when she heard his message, ‘No More’, the girl explains that she is the interface for The Moment – she is its conscience, and has taken the form of one of the War Doctor’s future companions, an entity associated with Rose Tyler, called ‘The Bad Wolf’. The old man objects at being addressed as ‘Doctor’ – he believes that he lost the right to that name after fighting for so long. Knowing that her new owner intends to use her to end the War, The Moment tells him that his actions will have a consequence: because he has no desire to survive his actions, she will punish him by allowing him to live while the Daleks, Gallifrey and all its children burn. The Moment opens a time portal to show the War Doctor his future – and to the surprise of both of them, a fez falls through…

The present: The Doctor opens the letter from Queen Elizabeth I and reads that he has been appointed as the curator of the ‘Under Gallery’. As Kate leads the Time Lord and Clara to their next destination, one of her scientists, McGillop, receives a confusing phone call from someone instructing him to move the Gallifreyan painting… Meanwhile, the Doctor and Clara are shown to a second painting, this time of Queen Elizabeth I and her husband, who surprisingly looks very like the Tenth Doctor…

England, 1562: the Tenth Doctor and Elizabeth I ride a horse out of the TARDIS and into a field near the royal castle. After enjoying a romantic picnic together the Doctor proposes marriage; but when Elizabeth happily accepts, instead of being pleased the Doctor instead declares his fiancé to be a shape-shifting alien known as a Zygon! The Queen is understandably cross, particularly as her horse has just transformed into the orange, suckery creature the Doctor has been hunting! Realising that he was wrong and that he is now going to be king, the Doctor grabs Elizabeth’s hand pulls her to some nearby ruins. As the creature heads into the woods, the Doctor tells the queen to run to safety while he deals with their pursuer; leaving her fiancé with a kiss, Elizabeth complies – only to be attacked by the creature… Tracking the Zygon through the woods (and after mistaking a rabbit for his quarry) the Doctor hears the queen crying for help; however, on arriving at the scene he finds not one but two Elizabeths there! Before he can decide which is the real one, a time fissure appears in the air before them and a fez falls to the ground…

In the depths of the National Gallery, Kate leads the Doctor and Clara through a door secreted behind the painting of the Queen and her king, to a corridor lined with statues covered in dust sheets: the Under Gallery, where the Queen kept the art deemed too dangerous for public consumption. Puzzled by the stone dust on the floor the Doctor orders Osgood to go and analyse it for him. As Kate leads the Time Lord and his friend through the Under Gallery the Doctor spies a fez in a glass case; removing the hat, the Doctor puts it on and then follows Kate to another series of three-dimensional paintings. Broken glass on the floor reveals a chilling fact: the occupants of the paintings have somehow escaped. When a time fissure appears in the air before them the Doctor remembers what happens next: throwing his fez into the rift, he then jumps in after it…

…and arrives in a wood in 1562, in front of his earlier self and two Queen Elizabeths. After reclaiming his fez and showing off the size of his sonic screwdriver, the Eleventh Doctor watches as both queens snog his previous incarnation, despite the fact that one of them is a Zygon. Speaking to Clara via the rift, the Doctor throws her his fez – but it doesn’t arrive in the National Gallery as expected…

Gallifrey: the War Doctor picks up the fez and listens to the conversation filtering through the rift in the air before him…

The present: Kate leaves to make a phone call to one of her team, Malcolm, instructing him to retrieve one of her father’s files, code-named ‘Cromer’. Kate is unaware that a Zygon is following her…

1562: the two Doctors try using their sonics to reverse the polarity of the time fissure, but each cancels out the other. They stop when the War Doctor appears, looking for the Doctor. Once the Doctors have explained that they are not their past self’s companions, but are in fact his future selves, a squad of the Queen’s soldiers arrive and surround the three of them. When their leader, Lord Bentham, demands to know the whereabouts of his monarch, the Eleventh Doctor tries using Clara’s disembodied voice as a pretend witch to frighten them off. The plan almost works – until the Zygon Elizabeth appears and orders the three Doctors to be arrested and taken to the Tower of London. When the three Doctors are thrown into their cell, the Eleventh ignores the protests of ‘Grandad’ and ‘Sand Shoes’: he is all for being incarcerated in the future UNIT HQ, and immediately sets about using an old nail to scratch a message in one of the stone pillars. While ‘Chinny’ does his thing, the War Doctor has a visit from The Moment, who only he can see…

In the present, Osgood and McGillop have set up a workstation in the Under Gallery to analyse the stone dust. But then Osgood makes a chilling realisation: if the dust is the broken statues, then the shapes under the dust sheets can be only one thing: the creatures from the paintings! Emerging from their hiding places, the Zygons attack McGillop and Osgood; two of the aliens transform into their captives – but Osgood refuses to go down without a fight, and manages to overpower her attacker… Back at UNIT HQ, Kate orders her team to search the Tower for ancient messages on its walls; she then shows Clara to the Black Archive, a top-secret, TARDIS-proof vault full of alien technology; Kate explains that everyone who works in the vault has their memory wiped at the end of the day – not only has the guard been obliviously working there for ten years, but even Clara is unaware that she has been to the archive before! Kate makes her way to a glass case containing a Time Agent’s vortex manipulator, bequeathed by Captain Jack Harkness after one of his many deaths. As Kate opens the case Clara is puzzled to see Osgood and McGillop arrive in the Black Archive, but Kate calmly explains that she was expecting them – and then transforms into her real form of a Zygon! The three aliens receive a call from a UNIT operative in the Tower, who sends over a photograph of the message he has just found in one of the cells: the message carved by the Eleventh Doctor, which is the activation code for the vortex manipulator. But before the Zygons can act, Clara straps the manipulator to her wrist, activates it with the code on the phone, and then dematerialises…

1562: The War Doctor berates his future selves for acting like children, and then asks why they are uncomfortable around him. The Moment reappears and urges hi to ask the question he really wants answered: whether his future incarnations know how many Gallifreyan children he killed ending the war. Whilst the guilt-ridden Tenth Doctor knows the number to be two-point-four-seven billion, the Eleventh Doctor is unable to answer – he has forgotten, and when pressed, he refuses to explain why he has moved on. When The Moment remarks that this is what the War Doctor is destined to become if he were to end the War - the man who regrets and the man who forgets - the old man finally takes action: recalling that he scanned the door with his sonic when he entered the cell, he realises that his future selves’ sonics will still be running the scan that will enable the device to disintegrate the wood – and after four-hundred years, the Eleventh Doctor’s sonic has just completed it! However, before the trio can sonic open the door it opens anyway to reveal Clara – the door was unlocked all along! But the happy reunion between the Doctors and Clara is abruptly ended when the Queen Elizabeth Zygon appears; she left the door open to see what the Doctors would do, and now orders them to follow her to the Zygon control room…

The present: sneaking through the Under Gallery, the real Osgood finds the real Kate Stewart connected to a Zygon copying machine. Scraping off the organic machinery, Osgood frees her superior…

1562: Queen Elizabeth shows her captives the Zygon control room, explaining that the Zygons want to take over Earth, but only when it has reached a level of technology and comfort suitable for them. As the Queen and his prisoners watch, the other Zygons use a stolen Gallifreyan stasis cube to freeze themselves inside the paintings that will end up in the Under Gallery – the aliens are invading the future from the past. However, once all the Zygons have gone into stasis the Queen reveals that she is actually the real Elizabeth – she killed her duplicate in the woods, and has been pretending to be an alien ever since; not only that, but now the Zygon threat is over for, Elizabeth has every intention of making sure the Doctor fulfils his promise of marriage… A short time later, the Tenth Doctor and Queen Elizabeth are wed in a hasty ceremony in the castle grounds; after a quite kiss, the Tenth Doctor bids a temporary farewell to his new missus and then races into his TARDIS, closely followed by his other selves and Clara. Faced with three Doctors, the TARDIS interior desktop glitches, displaying several console rooms before finally settling on that of the Eleventh. After the space-time ship arrives at the Tower of London, Clara informs the Time Lords about the existence of the Black Archive – but the Eleventh Doctor already knows all about it… In the Archive, the three Zygons search through the high-tech equipment on offer, until the real Kate, Osgood and McGillop arrive and seal themselves in with the alien invaders; a stand-off ensues – until Kate activates the Black Archive’s self-destruct bomb, a nuclear weapon that will explode in just five minutes, taking London with it. The Zygon Kate tries again and again to override the order but the real Kate just countermands her each time, so the two Kates sit down opposite each other in a stand-off. Then the Eleventh Doctor’s voice rings out over a space-time telegraph: the Time Lord knows of Kate’s self-sacrifice, and he urges her to rethink as the resulting explosion will destroy London. With the Archive TARDIS-proof the Doctor is unable to land inside it – but the War Doctor has a plan, using the stasis cube. The Eleventh Doctor calls McGillop just as his earlier self, Clara and Kate enter the Under Gallery, and instructs him to move the ‘Gallifrey Falls’ painting into the Black Archive; inside the painting, the War Doctor is now joined by the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, now standing side by side; together they blast a Dalek with their sonic screwdrivers, sending it crashing out of the painting and into the Black Archive, allowing the Doctors and Clara to emerge and confront the two Kates in the room. After trying to make the Kates see reason, the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors sonic the Archive’s amnesia device, wiping the memory of every human and Zygon in the room. Now unable to recall whether they are human or alien, the two Kates are forced to halt the countdown and begin talking… While the peace talks continue, Clara takes time to speak to the War Doctor, telling him of her Doctor’s regret at ending the Time War; with the humans and Zygons now working together for peace thanks to his older selves, the War Doctor believes he has seen all he needs, and he allows The Moment to take him away…

On Gallifrey, the War Doctor faces The Moment, now set up with a Big Red Button ready for him to activate and end the War. Although the War Doctor still believes he has no other choice, he is proud at having seen the men he is to become; but before he can activate the deadly device, he hears a familiar sound: The Moment has broken the time lock around the War, allowing not one but two TARDISes to materialise in the wooden barn. When the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors emerge with Clara, the War Doctor tells them to leave and be the Doctor for him, to make his sacrifice worthwhile. But the older Doctors have both done some growing up of their own, and have at last faced up to the existence of the incarnation they kept secret for so long; they place their hands over those of the War Doctor’s on The Moment’s activation button – the Doctors intend to end the War together, acting not in the name of the Doctor, but in the name of the many lives they are failing to save. Clara is taken aback at the Doctors’ actions, and when The Moment projects the events of the Time War around them, she weeps at the sight of all the men, women and children that her friends - the Warrior, the Hero, and the Doctor - are about to destroy to stop the universe from burning. When Clara encourages her Doctor to find another way, the battle around them stops: somehow peace has fallen. The Eleventh Doctor makes a sudden announcement: he has spent the last four-hundred years thinking about the War, and has now changed his mind – he proposes changing history! After deactivating The Moment the Eleventh Doctor telepathically shares his plan with his other selves: if they were to make Gallifrey disappear just as the approaching Dalek fleet opens fire, their enemies would destroy themselves in the resulting crossfire; to the universe Gallifrey would appear to have been destroyed too, but the Doctors could use the stasis cube to hold it in time, just like a painting. On Gallifrey, the Time Lord General receives a new message: ‘Gallifrey Stands’; he then gets a call from the three Doctors aboard each of their TARDISes, and learns of their crazy plan to freeze the planet in a single moment in time inside a parallel pocket universe. The General initially refuses to listen, but the Eleventh Doctor reassures him that he has been doing the calculations for centuries – in fact not only him, but all his incarnations – all thirteen of them! As the Dalek flee increases it attack, thirteen TARDISes take up position around Gallifrey, each piloted by an incarnation of the Doctor, each making the necessary calculations to save his home planet. The General orders the Eleventh Doctor to go ahead – and as Gallifrey vanishes, the Daleks open fire, destroying themselves…

Later, in the Under Gallery: the Doctors and Clara enjoy tea and another viewing of the Time War painting. With the time streams re-syncing, the War and Tenth Doctors will soon forget their adventures, but they each know that they have made a difference. The War Doctor will not remember that he tried to save Gallifrey rather than burn it, but for a few moments he considers himself to be the Doctor again. Bidding farewell to his future selves and Clara, he departs in his TARDIS; inside the control room, the weary Time Lord’s worn out body finally gives up, and he starts to regenerate… With his memories about to be wiped, the Tenth Doctor asks his future self what he wouldn’t tell him; in reply the Eleventh Doctor finally confides to him that he has seen Trenzalore, where he will be buried after fighting another terrible battle. Once the Tenth Doctor has left, Clara leaves her Doctor alone with the painting, informing him that an old man - the curator? - was looking for him. Ruminating on retiring to be a curator, the Doctor is surprised to hear someone behind him; turning around he sees an almost-familiar face smiling back at him: the Curator, a mysterious - but curiously familiar-looking - old man, who seems to know who the Doctor really is. The Curator tells the Doctor that the actual title of the painting is ‘Gallifrey Falls No More’ – the Doctors’ plan worked, although Gallifrey is still lost. After telling the Doctor that he still has a lot of work to do, the mysterious Curator departs…

Having taken Clara home, the Doctor reflects on his most inspiring dream: one in which he leaves the TARDIS to stand on the clouds alongside his previous selves, looking up at Gallifrey. The Doctor now knows where he is going: home, the long way round…


Matt Smith (The Eleventh Doctor), David Tennant (The Tenth Doctor), John Hurt (The War Doctor), Christopher Eccleston (The Ninth Doctor), Paul McGann (The Eighth Doctor), Sylvester McCoy (The Seventh Doctor), Colin Baker (The Sixth Doctor), Peter Davison (The Fifth Doctor), Tom Baker (The Fourth Doctor / Curator), Jon Pertwee (The Third Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Second Doctor), William Hartnell (The First Doctor), Peter Capaldi (The Twelfth Doctor)**, Jenna Coleman (Clara), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler [The Moment]), Tristan Beint (Tom), Jemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart), Ingrid Oliver (Osgood), Peter De Jersey (Androgar), Ken Bones (The General), Philip Buck (Arcadia Father), Sophie Morgan-Price (Time Lord), Joanna Page (Elizabeth I), Orlando Jones (Lord Bentham),Jonjo O-Neil (McGillop),Tom Kellar (Atkins), Aidan Cook (Zygon), Paul Kasey (Zygon), Nicholas Briggs (Voice of Daleks and Zygons), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek 1), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek 2), John Guilor (Voice Over Artist)

**Uncredited

Directed by Nick Haurran
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat and Faith Penhale
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
23rd November 2013 @ 7.50 pm


Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh, Tenth and War Doctors, Clara, Kate Stewart, Osgood and UNIT, and introducing the Curator; with the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Twelfth Doctors

*Running at seventy-five minutes long, this was the first 'Doctor who' episode to be shown in 3D since 'Dimensions in Time' (although that story doesn't actually count as canon), which was made available for compatible television sets through the BBC's HD Red Button service

*This episode began with the original title sequence from the very first season; the credits for Matt Smith, David Tennant, Jenna Coleman, Billie Piper and John Hurt were shown over the action of the TARDIS’ arrival in Trafalgar Square.

*Each screen of closing credits was encased in a circular border and interspersed with pictures of each Doctor, accompanied by a new arrangement of the theme tune

*A mix of stock footage and sound was used for the cameos of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Doctors, along with a shot of the Twelfth Doctor's eyes, ahead of Peter Capaldi's official appearance as the Doctor at the end of 'Time of the Doctor'

*To prevent any spoilers and plot leaks, this story was broadcast around the world at the same time, shown in ninety-four countries in fifteen different languages; because of the time differences around the world, its evening transmission in the UK on Saturday 23rd November meant that it was shown earlier the same day in North America and early on Sunday 24th November in Australia and New Zealand.

*In addition, over 200 cinemas around the United Kingdom also simulcast the episode, many of which broadcast the adventure in 3D

*Working Title: 'The Time War'

*This global phenomenon resulted in 'The Day of the Doctor' winning a Guiness World Record, officially naming it as the world's largest-ever simulcast of a TV drama

*In the build-up to transmission the BBC launched a special campaign for viewers to show their support for the Doctor, 'Save the Day', available online at 'www.doctorwhosavetheday.com' and via social networks at #savetheday

*BBC 3 hosted a celebration show, 'Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty' directly after the BBC 1 screening of 'The Day of the Doctor'