My Review of Doctor Who's "The Last Day"

Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Jamie Stone

Soldier: "He was right, nothing can get past the sky trench but if just one Dalek made it through, it could destroy this entire city. That's all it would take, one Dalek. One Dalek acting alone and we're finished."

After The Night Of The Doctor, I think a lot of us were assuming that a prequel called The Last Day might have been something that would see a regeneration from John Hurt to Christopher Eccleston. Perhaps it was too much to expect (or perhaps it's something we might even see in The Day Of The Doctor) that after all but I have to admit, after some initial reservation, this was a better prequel than expected.

While it might not hit the heady heights of seeing Paul McGann once more, it did offer us some further insight into the lengths the Time Lords themselves went through during the Time War. The prequel was told from the viewpoint of a soldier (Chris Finch), who we then learn is uploaded with a head cam along with another soldier.

Mainly this prequel discusses about being fitted with new technology, dealing with hallucinations and the possibility of the Daleks invading Arcadia. It's then not much of a shock when this little moment ends with a few Daleks showing up and subsequently blowing things up in their usual fashion.

- Arcadia was previously mentioned by the Tenth Doctor in Doomsday.
- I know I'm far from the first person to point this out, but this scene did feel like it could've came out of Halo, didn't it?
- iTunes really did annoy people with that blunder they made on Wednesday with it's initial release. Thank goodness for other sources in getting to see this. It's now on the official BBC YouTube page though.
- This technology did seem a little like the Time Lords were verging into Cybermen territory as well. I don't know why anyone would've agreed to this. The soldier himself will be in tomorrow's episode.

Okay, not as compelling as The Night Of The Doctor but The Last Day turned out to be a fun diversion nonetheless and at least we did get to see some Daleks and Arcadia, so that worked pretty well in this prequel's favour.

Rating: 7 out of 10