Smith And Tennant Banter In Day Of The Doctor Pre-Show Vid (Plus, McGann On Eight’s Surprise Return)

By David Wharton | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

As you might have noticed, Doctor Who celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. (We wrote about it once or twice.) While myself and zillions of other Who fans settled in for the anniversary special in the comfort of our own homes, there were quite a few Whovians who just had to see “The Day of the Doctor” bigger than life — and in 3-D. Yes, a 3-D version of “DotD” actually aired in movie theaters, and fans who opted to attend got a special surprise: an introduction featuring Matt Smith and David Tennant. For those of us who missed it in theaters, you can watch the video above. (It has two versions of the footage: first with audience reaction and second with the video audio only.)

For those whose mean bosses won’t let you watch amusing Doctor Who videos in the workplace, we’ll give you the basic rundown. First we get Sontaran Commander/potato lookalike Strax (Dan Starkey) laying down the law. No talking. No texting. No recording the movie with your puny human cell phones. We haven’t heard if anybody defied Strax during the theater showings of “Day of the Doctor,” but if so we’re betting there were some retaliatory disintegrations.

One of the best parts of “Day of the Doctor” was watching Smith and Tennant banter and bicker and generally have the sort of fun you can only have with another version of yourself. (That sounds dirtier than I intended.) So here we get Matt Smith welcoming the Whovian crowd to the 100th anniversary Who special, in 12-D! Sadly, he is soon informed that it’s only 50th and 3-D, respectively. Probably the best part of the video is when the Tenth Doctor interrupts to warn the crowd that the combination of 3-D and Matt Smith’s chin could prove dangerous. You’ll put out an eye, you will.

Of course, “The Day of the Doctor” wasn’t the only bit of anniversary awesomeness we got this past fall. Arguably the best surprise of all came in the form of “The Night of the Doctor,” which featured the surprise return of Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. It was a brilliant bit of fan service, and it revealed how and why Eight made the decision to regenerate into the so-called War Doctor (John Hurt) and go fight in the Time War. I know I’m not the only Who fan who came out of “Night” wishing we could get an Eighth Doctor spinoff, following his adventures between the 1996 Fox TV movie and “Night.” Ah well. In the meantime, we can at least watch the video below, with McGann talking about his brief return.