Night of the Doctor (Semi-spoilery)

[wshaffer]

So, say what you want about Steven Moffat, but there's no denying that he is an old-school Who fan, and when he wants to, he can lay on the old-school fanservice thick. In just under 7 minutes, we've got a glimpse of the Time War, an appearance by the Sisterhood of Karn, an unambiguous nod to the Big Finish audios, and a proper regeneration sequence for Eight. Not to mention another plausible excuse to completely ignore the 12 regeneration limit - if Eight was technically *dead* before taking the Sisterhood's elixir, who's to say that it didn't kick off a whole new regeneration cycle?

I am curious about whether this mini-Episode has any resonance with people who primarily identify as new series fans. (Not that it needs to - that's why it's a web episode. But I'm still curious.)

Comments

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Actually, in some ways I'm even more curious about how the casual watchers respond to this kind of stuff - I suspect that superfans, regardless of when we started watching, tend to lap this stuff up because we're invested in the show's mythos. But the majority of the audience for Doctor Who consists of people who don't tune in every week, much less keep tabs on characters that last appeared on screen 17 years ago.

It's nice that we have the option of doing these webisodes and other extras now - in the past, producers who wanted to do something to please the hardcore fanbase often had to bore the casual viewers to do it.