Monday 25 November 2013

The Day of The Valeyard


On the 23rd of November 2013, The Day of the Doctor, the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who, was simulcast around the world. I'm not going to offer a critique, suffice to say I REALLY BLOODY LOVED IT!!!! What I am going to bang on about is what implications the events of Day of the Doctor have for the much maligned 14 part Doctor Who adventure from 1986, The Trial of a Time Lord. Yeah! Bet you weren't expecting that! If you're like me and you love The Trial of a Time Lord and find the character of The Valeyard fascinating then this blog post may very well blow your mind. If however, you're like most Doctor Who fans and think Trial is a muddled, overlong load of old wank then you might want to skip this.

SPOILERS FOR THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR & THE TRIAL OF A TIME LORD!

Let's take a look at the basic plot of The Trial of a Time Lord & The Day of The Doctor.

  • The Trial of a Time Lord features The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) being put on trial by his fellow Time Lords for his interference in the affairs of other worlds. He is being prosecuted by a mysterious man in black known only as The Valeyard. At one point during the trial The Valeyard also charges The Doctor with genocide, based on The Doctor's actions while battling the Vervoids. Eventually The Master reveals that The Valeyard is a future incarnation of The Doctor, who is attempting to steal his past self's remaining regenerations.

"There is some evil in all of us, Doctor – even you. The Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation, and I may say you do not improve with age." - The Master 

  • The Day of The Doctor reveals that The Doctor had a hitherto unrevealed incarnation, played by John Hurt, who fought in the Time War between the Daleks & the Time Lords. This incarnation of The Doctor ended the Time War by destroying Gallifrey and wiping out the Time Lords. This Doctor then went on to regenerate into Christopher Eccleston's Doctor, who eventually became David Tennant's Doctor and then Matt Smith's Doctor. Day of The Doctor ends with every single incarnation of The Doctor freezing Gallifrey in a pocket dimension, thus saving John Hurt's Doctor from having to destroy it. Unfortunately The Hurt Doctor cannot retain his memory of this and so he regenerates into Eccleston believing that he had wiped out the Time Lords. Since Matt Smith's Doctor is the most recent Doctor he retains his memory of the episode's events and sets off on a quest to find the lost Time Lords.

Still with me? Well then, you may well be asking what connects these two adventures? Nothing. Until you consider what current showrunner Steven Moffat has recently said about The Doctor's remaining regenerations! In the 1976 adventure, The Deadly Assassin it's established that Time Lords can only regenerate 12 times, giving them a total of 13 lives. Hurt is considered an official incarnation of The Doctor, and in Series 4 David Tennant's Doctor used up a regeneration to heal himself and create a duplicate of himself from his severed hand. Moffat has confirmed that this makes Matt Smith the final, 13th Doctor!

Which puts The Valeyard in a totally different light!

If Matt Smith is actually the 13th & final Doctor then that means that The Valeyard is "an amalgamation of the darker sides of (The Doctor's) nature" from somewhere between David Tennant and Matt Smith! This means The Valeyard remembers the Time War but still thinks he's wiped out the Time Lords! And what charge is he trying to pin on The Sixth Doctor? Genocide! Condemning his past self for the destruction of the Vervoids is in fact a way for The Valeyard to condemn himself for the destruction of Gallifrey! The Valeyard is putting himself on trial for what he perceives to be his own crimes during the Time War! The Trial of the Time Lord is the story of The Doctor trying to punish himself!

He's also trying to claim The Sixth Doctor's remaining regenerations! Why? Maybe so he can fight the Time War again, except this time he can correct his mistake and avoid wiping out the Time Lords! The Valeyard is undoubtedly made from The Doctor's darker nature. He does after all, attempt to destroy the members of the court with a particle disseminator. But could his motives actually be fairly noble? Could The Valeyard be driven by the desire to prevent the destruction of his people and assuage his guilt by punishing his past self?

Is The Valeyard a hero?

All this is pure fan-wank on my part of course. I'm quite sure that tying into Trial was the last thing on Moffat's mind when he wrote The Day of The Doctor. But if this blog post has persuaded you to look at The Trial of a Time Lord a little more favourably, and to revisit those superb verbal sparring matches between Colin Baker and Michael Jayston, then my fan-wankerry will have have achieved something great!

1 comment:

  1. You make some good points, and we do have like 200 years of missing Doctor adventures during the Matt Smith era in which his dark self could have spliced off (perhaps the same creature we call the Dream Lord). A hero? I don't know about that. More like a madman (driven by the Doctor's guilt). He's lost sight of the goal and is letting his darkness take over. Murder and paradox-making willy-nilly.

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