Dr Who: The Day of the Doctor 50th Anniversary

It's a great week to be a Whovian. A plethora of exciting new material turned up on a daily basis, even for those unlucky enough to have missed out on the Convention. That was merely the official Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Celebration.

For the rest of us, there were constant up-dates to the BBC's Dr Who website, documentaries and bio-pics on television and the sense that everyone in the world was talking about this. Or perhaps that's merely a measure of my friends.

And it was all centered upon one massive television event:  the 50th anniversary special of Dr Who: The Day of the Doctor.

The Doctor has been lured into the 'one place in the universe (he) should not go' - his tomb. Intent upon writing Dr Who out of history, The Great Intelligence leaps into the Doctor's timeline and destroys all that he finds there.

However, the disembodied mind had not counted upon the Doctor's latest companion, Clara Oswald.  She leapt in after it, fixing where The Great Intelligence destroyed. For the Doctor, she became the Impossible Girl, turning up constantly throughout time and space.

She should have been torn down to the very atoms that made up her being, existing only as a succession of echoes of herself. But Dr Who was not prepared to see that happen. He too jumped into his own time-line and pulled her back into the knowledge and memories of herself.

Only deep inside his own history, the Doctor and Clara came face to face with someone he had tried hard to forget.  An incarnation of himself who went to war.

Dr Who's 50th Anniversary Special took up the story at this point. As befits a show celebrating so many years, the plot was perfectly placed to travel throughout those decades.

The Doctor and Clara could technically call upon any one of his former incarnations to help save the day. And he did, all against the greatest enemy he could encounter - himself. Give or take a few daleks, of course.

This was the hook and the promise, which turned general Whovian excitement into a frenzy. 

There was the potential that we could all see again our Doctor, because we all had one. The Doctor who first appeared on our screen, in our timeline, or the Doctor which caught our imagination.

I have two. Peter Davison was my Doctor. He was the first face to which I could apply the name with any meaning, as I was just a little too young to appreciate Tom Baker.

But when I imagine Dr Who now, it's David Tennant who nailed it utterly and absolutely for me. Such debates will rage on and that is the beauty of the long-running show.

Of course, it was impossible for all of the Doctors to be physically on the screen in the 50th Anniversary special. The first three actors were all dead, while the next cache of classic Dr Who actors had aged considerably since their spell in the TARDIS.

Nevertheless, none of them were forgotten. During that beautiful week, I watched An Adventure in Time and Space, which dramatized the William Hartnell years. It fascinated me throughout, while the final scene had me jolting breathless in my seat.

In The Science of Dr Who, I attended (via television) a lecture given by Prof Brian Cox. He demonstrated the Physics of time and space, leaving us with the fabulous notion that time travel is technically possible. We haven't the Physics to do it yet, but then, we aren't Time Lords.

The Ultimate Guide to Dr Who took us on a long and lingering exploration of all fifty years. We got to revel in everything that had been. Our Doctors were not glossed over. They were celebrated in their turn.

For the musically minded, there was a trip to the Albert Hall, where music from half a century of Dr Who broadcasts was performed by a full orchestra. Matt Smith's Doctor and Clara appeared amongst the musicians. Famous monsters attacked from the audience. Dr Who at the Proms 2013 was nothing short of thrilling!

And, of course, we finally got to see Paul McGann's Doctor regenerate.

In addition to all of this, there were dozens of articles, photo galleries, artwork, behind the scenes glimpses and interviews. Official and fan-made alike, it made for an avalanche of new material to pour over.

A very exciting week indeed for the Whovian fandom.  What made it extra special for you?