Doctors
Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
John Hurt (War Doctor)
Companion
Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald)
Others
Billie Piper – Rose Tyler
Tristan Beint – Tom
Jemma Redgrave – Kate Stewart
Ingrid Oliver – Osgood
Chris Finch – Time Lord Soldier
Peter de Jersey – Androgar
Ken Bones – The General
Philip Buck – Arcadia Father
Scott Morgan-Price – Time Lord
Joanna Page – Queen Elizabeth I
Orlando James – Lord Bentham
Jonjo O'Neill – McGillop
Tom Keller – Atkins
Aidan Cook, Paul Kasey – Zygons
Nicholas Briggs – Voice of the Daleks & Zygons
Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg – Daleks
Tom Baker – The Curator (uncredited)
Production
Directed by Nick Hurran
Written by Steven Moffat
Script editor Richard Cookson
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive producer(s)
Steven Moffat
Faith Penhale
Incidental music composer Murray Gold
Series Specials (2013)
Length 77 minutes[1]
Originally broadcast 23 November 2013
The Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald aid the military organisation UNIT, headed by Kate Stewart, in investigating a mystery at the Undergallery, a secret vault housed at the National Gallery. Three-dimensional paintings, made with Time Lord stasis cubes, appear to have been broken from within; the figures previously in the paintings are now missing. While examining the paintings, a fissure in time opens above them and the Doctor jumps into it.
In the midst of the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks, the War Doctor — a hitherto-unknown incarnation of the Doctor — decides to trigger an ancient weapon called The Moment in order to destroy both sides completely. The Moment is sentient and manifests itself as Rose Tyler. It questions whether mass killing is the best option for ending the Time War and prescribes the Doctor's punishment if he does so — he will survive while the rest of his race dies. The Moment offers to show the Doctor what this will turn him into and opens a fissure linking him to the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. The three Doctors converge in the year 1562, where the Tenth Doctor has been tracking down a Zygon. They discover that the Zygon is disguised as Queen Elizabeth, who captures and imprisons them in the Tower of London.
Meanwhile, within UNIT's Black Archive, Clara learns that the Zygons from Elizabethan England have entered the three-dimensional paintings in the Undergallery and have emerged in 2013, taking the forms of UNIT members so that they could utilise UNIT's weapons and technology. While the three Doctors are in their cell, The Moment encourages the War Doctor to ask them the questions he needs answered before he decides whether to destroy Gallifrey. After a tense exchange, the Doctors devise an escape plan. They then encounter the real Queen Elizabeth and learn through her of the Zygon scheme to conquer Earth. Kate Stewart also learns of the Zygon plan and locks herself in the Black Archive with the Zygons, starting a countdown that will detonate a nuclear warhead underneath the archive. The Doctors, unable to land a TARDIS in the Black Archive, instead use the stasis cube technology to enter a painting. They exit the painting in the present and use the archive's mind-wiping equipment to render the UNIT members and Zygons temporarily unaware which of them are which. The countdown is stopped and all present negotiate a perfectly fair peace treaty, as they no longer know which way to skew it.
The War Doctor, now convinced that detonating the Moment will save many more lives in the longer term, is returned to his time by the Moment. The other two Doctors follow him in their TARDISes with the intention of helping him so as to share his burden. After Clara reminds them of their choice of the title "Doctor" and what it stands for, the Doctors devise an alternative solution. They plan to use the stasis technology to freeze the entire planet of Gallifrey in a single moment in time, which would be kept in a pocket universe. When Gallifrey disappears, the surrounding Dalek warships would obliterate themselves in the inevitable crossfire and both species will appear to have been wiped out. The Doctors relay their plan to the Time Lords and then surround Gallifrey, which erupts in a bright light.
"I have a new destination. My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone's. It's taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I'm going. Where I've always been going. Home, the long way round. "
—The Eleventh Doctor
The Doctors and Clara return to the Gallery, unsure whether the plan worked. The War Doctor is content to think that he failed in doing the right thing before realising that neither he nor the Tenth Doctor will remember what happened and will continue shouldering the guilt. The War Doctor departs in his TARDIS and begins to regenerate. The Tenth Doctor departs in his TARDIS after persuading the Eleventh Doctor to reveal that he is going to the planet Trenzalore. The Eleventh Doctor, now alone, begins to muse about retiring to become the museum's curator, when he is interrupted by the museum's actual curator. As they talk, the curator reveals that the painting's title, which was thought to be either No More or Gallifrey Falls, is in fact Gallifrey Falls No More.
In the closing scene, the Doctor describes a recurring dream in which he and his previous incarnations are looking together upon Gallifrey and states that he is going home.
The Day of the Doctor