Doctor Who Episode Recap, 50th Anniversary Special: The Day of the Doctor

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special: The Day of the Doctor Recap

The episode begins with Clara finishing up teaching a class. A man tells her that her doctor has called for her, and Clara immediately hops on her motorcycle to meet him. She finds the TARDIS, and speeds into it, as the Doctor is reading a book titled Advanced Quantum Mechanics.

Suddenly, the TARDIS is moving on its own–and it turns out U.N.I.T. is TARDIS-napping, not knowing the Doctor was inside. The Doctor precariously hangs outside the TARDIS as the helicopter flies across London, finally landing in front of the National Gallery. Queen Elizabeth I has instructions for the Doctor. He heads into the gallery, and a painting is shown to him. The painting is called “No More” or “Gallifrey Falls”. It is Time Lord art, which is three dimensional, showing the destruction of a Gallifrey city. The Doctor is concerned, and says the one “we don’t talk about” was the one who fought in the Time War.

As the Doctor narrates, we go into the painting, and witness the last day of the Time War. Daleks have laid waste to much of the city, and we see the TARDIS. The “Doctor” grabs a weapon, etching the words, “No More” in the wall. The TARDIS smashes through Daleks, and heads off into space. Meanwhile, Gallifrey rulers try to figure out what to do about the Dalek attack. The rulers learn their weapon called “the Moment” has been stolen.

The older Doctor, marching through a desert, arrives at a shack, with “The Moment” device. He tries to turn it on, but is unable to figure out how. He looks outside, thinking he heard someone, when Rose Tyler appears, sitting on “The Moment”. She is a little zany, and the Doctor asks who she is. He realizes that Rose is actually the “conscience” of the device. She says she took this form for the Doctor to recognize. She announces herself as the form of Rose Tyler–then corrects herself as “Bad Wolf”. The Doctor says he has no desire to survive his destruction of Daleks and Gallifrey . Rose then tells him his punishment for doing so would be to survive when Gallifrey falls.

Moving back to Clara and the present, the Doctor reads the letter from Elizabeth I, and it looks like she needs some help. The Doctor looks at a painting of Queen Elizabeth, which also has a picture of him in it. Turns out “him” is the 10th doctor.
Moving into the past, we see Elizabeth and the 10th Doctor having a picnic. He proposes to Queen Elizabeth and she says yes, which then lets the Doctor know that the Queen is actually an alien. He calls her a Zygon, to which she denies. Then suddenly the horse turns into a monster, and the Doctor realizes that the horse was the Zygon. He tells Elizabeth to flee, as the Doctor tries to hunt down the Zygon. The Doctor finds Elizabeth again, and then there are two Queens….and the make their case as to who is the real one. Suddenly a “time fissure” opens up, and fez drops through.

Back with the 11th Doctor, they head into the Gallery’s basement. Another painting is in the basement, and there is broken glass in front of it, and other paintings as well. All of the paintings used to have creatures in the paintings. But the creatures are now gone, but missing. A time fissure opens up, and he throws his Fez through it. Then he jumps through, and lands in front of the 10th Doctor.

They both pull their screwdrivers out, and have some witty banter back and forth. The fissure opens again, and Clara talks to the Doctor. The 11th Doctor throws his fez throw the fissure again–and it lands in front of the unknown Doctor.

Then the “unknown” Doctor winds up through the fissure, meeting up with the 10th and 11th. The three then are surrounded by the Queen’s soldiers. Speaking through the fissure, Clara tells the soldiers to get lost. The men aren’t sure what to make of the “voice”, but the Queen walks up again, and demands that the three Doctors should be arrested. The 11th Doctor is happy to be arrested in the Tower of London. The 11th Doctor immediately begins etching a message into the wall.

Back in the present, the statues that are covered in sheets turn out to be Zygons hiding, and they attack.

Meanwhile, Clara and Kate Stewart find a vortex manipulator–the one Jack used. The 11th Doctor’s message etched into the Tower of London is found in the present, which is the activation code for the Vortex Manipulator. Turns out that Kate Stewart is Zygon though, but Clara grabs the device, and sees the code for the it, and activates it.

Back in the past, the 11th doctor seems to be blocking out the memories of that Doctor. Meanwhile, the 10th doctor knows the number. The 10th is appalled that the 11th has forgotten. Meanwhile “Bad Wolf/the Moment” tells the forgotten Doctor to decide what he is going to do.

The forgotten Doctor figures out how to get through the door, when Clara walks in. Then the Queen walks in. Turns out the Queen managed to kill the Zygon impersonating her, and she had infiltrated the Zygons.

Inside his TARDIS, the 10th Doctor prepares to return them to the present. It has problems, so the 11th turns it into his TARDIS.

Returning to the present, Kate Stewart is rescued. She confronts the Zygons, and threatens to blow up London to save the rest of the world. The 11th Doctor contacts Kate and tells her to stop the bomb.

Then the episode gets really time-wimey, as we go back to early in the episode when one of UNITs scientists received a phone call. That phone call was to put the painting, “No More” in the room where Kate Stewart would end up. They then come through the painting, confronting Kate Stewart and the impersonator, but not knowing which one is which.

The two doctors tell Kate Stewart that they will turn off the bomb, and negotiate a treaty. How so? The Doctors make the two Kate Stewarts unable to remember if they’re human or Zygon, and have to negotiate their treaty.

The Forgotten Doctor talks with Clara, and Clara realizes that this Doctor hasn’t destroyed Gallifrey yet. Clara tells him about her Doctor’s guilt for pushing the “button”. He feels it still has to be done though, and returns to “The Moment”. He hesitates to push the button as “Bad Wolf” tells him that the sound of the TARDIS means hope. The Doctor then hears it, and the 10th and 11th Doctor show up with Clara.

The 10th and 11th offer to push the button with him, and they say it is because there is no other way. Clara looks on in horror. The Doctors then see the carnage in Gallifrey that is happening all around them. Clara talks to her Doctor, and tells him to be the Doctor. The 11th Doctor comes up with a plan. The plan is to freeze Gallifrey in time, and have the Daleks kill each other in the crossfire.

To make the calculations to freeze Gallifrey, the help of all Doctors is needed. From the first to the 12th Doctor, it is completed.

Back in the gallery, the War Doctor says goodbye. He heads into his TARDIS, and takes off. He begins his regeneration once inside, and we see the beginnings of the 9th Doctor showing up.

The 11th and 10th Doctor talk, and the 11th tells 10th that he has seen their death is coming soon in Trenzalore. He says his goodbyes, and leaves in his TARDIS. Clara heads into the 11th Doctor’s TARDIS, leaving the 11th alone with his thoughts. A man shows up and talks with him, to which the 11th Doctor says he never forgets a face — it’s Tom Baker, the 4th Doctor. The man tells him that the painting is called “Gallifrey Falls No More”. That gives the Doctor his next mission–finding Gallifrey. He walks into his TARDIS, and takes off.