From what I recall reading, Moffat didn’t use the Eighth Doctor in the special because he couldn’t see that Doctor being the one who commits genocide for both the Daleks and the Time Lords. To be honest, I can’t either; I understand that he could’ve gotten hardened by war, but having McGann play that broken shell of a…

In fairness, the short “The Night of the Doctor” is the greatest Doctor Who story ever made, combining the comedy, cleverness, history, Gothic horror elements, and tragedy of the show with Paul McGann in a brilliant performance and some of Moffat’s best writing, all in under 10 minutes. And it officially made Big…

Using up one of the Doctor’s lives and not getting McGann in the 50th aside, I actually think the War Doctor served a good additional purpose I don’t see mentioned here: In some ways it felt like having a single representative of all the classic Doctors without them actually present. Sure, in theory, it would have…

He did use him, in The Night of the Doctor, which depicted his regeneration into John Hurt. The mini-episode was very well received. I think that he got more screentime in that than Tom Baker did in the 50th.

Well, to be fair, I would not call ‘Writing him a regeneration scene and bringing him back for the first time in 17 years’ refusing to utilize him.

I’m glad the episode turned out as it did because I could watch John Hurt’s Doctor take the piss out of Smith and Tennant all day long.