Ten Essential Eighth Doctor Moments

There hasn't been a more turbulent state of affairs where the illustrious image of the science fiction paragon, Doctor Who, was under a more beleaguering and disconcerting peril of the subjection to scrutiny and harsh lamentation than the period in which it endured through a tenuous and languishing hiatus. And there hasn't been a more rampantly and vocally attested circulation of controversial and divisive contention between ambivalently fluctuating fans that have inadvertently threatened to plunge the iconography of the progeny of the visionary conception of Sydney Newman into turmoil.

As evidenced by the effectuation of it, the executive body tasked with the responsibility of the broadcast of the flamboyant fascination deemed the break an imperative necessity. But, whether motivated by the potential for avaricious property mining, or a creative curiosity over the alternate avenue to tangent onto for the medium formula of the platform for its broadcast, they could not resist the temptation of refusing to refrain from producing a feature-length picture functioning to preserve the representation of the property and ensure its perpetuated regard of high cultivation and esteem.

It wasn't because of the absence of any enticing virtue in the titular character that lead to the analysis of the permeating Whovian demographic scene and the determination that the exuded adulation would be unsustainable for the impending future for Doctor Who-As most fans of the show would concurrently eulogise the merits of Sylvester McCoy's marvellous contributions to the character. But, nevertheless, when the opportunity for a Doctor Who Movie arose, another determination of the executives was to update the character once again into an entirely new identity and corporal form to acclimatise to. The vessel for the conveyance of the character was equally as contentiously received as the hiatus itself, mostly on the rational basis of the alleged "Americanisation" of the program its reputation was aspersed with. But one of the unanimously agreed upon redemptive virtues of it was the prestigious performance of Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor.

In less than ninety minutes of canonical screen time, he effectively and proficiently managed to garner the interest, beguile the fervour and whet the appetite of fans by encompassing most of the elements they desired to find in the character, but conveyed them in a unique and mostly unprecedented way-He proved to be so enticing, that despite only appearing on the screen in the single picture until a minisode seventeen years later, fans could have plausibly envisioned him spearheading the show into a resplendent new era. And while the parameters of this foray into reverentially acknowledging some of the greatest individual moments that play testimony to his indelible impact as was televised exclusively, his audio adventures, like many of those that his predecessors featured in, only serve to have bolstered an already impeccable image. But for the Movie and The Night Of The Doctor, the most essentially encapsulating moments that have provided the courtesy of enhancing his appealing esteem are payed their due diligence in the following listicle homage.

Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor was very restricted with the volume of available purveyances that were allocated for his portrayal, due to the detrimental lack of exposure he was abetted with. Despite such hindrances, he was able to competently establish the inherited weight of gravitas the character embodied with a munificent audacity and an innocent eccentricity. One element of the character that has never failed to allude them throughout the entirety of their cycle of regenerations is the dynamic relationship shared with their stalwart vessel for universal traversal and their stolen mobile home-The TARDIS.

It has been given its attention, as has been a vital imperative, but there has been an absence on a truly prominent emphasis on the adoration the Doctor harbours for their beloved ship. It has been implied, and connotatively denoted, but never outright stated, except for instances where the ridicule Sarah Jane Smith and Rose Tyler subjected the Tenth Doctor to and the Eleventh Doctor's encounter with the entity of the sentient machine with a humanoid manifestation, so implementing it into the Movie would not likely have been the uppermost priority on the agenda. But, when in conversation with new companion, Grace Holloway, when she entered the control room for the first time and was not as awestruck as the Doctor would have anticipated or preferred, he staunchly and stubbornly defended his spacecraft against the challenge to his emotional attachment and investment in it:

GRACE: This looks pretty low-tech.
DOCTOR: Low tech? Grace, this is a Type Forty Tardis, able to take you to any planet in the universe and to any date in that planet's existence. Temporal physics.
GRACE: Oh, you mean like interdimensional transference. That would explain the spatial displacement we experienced as we passed over the threshold.
DOCTOR: Yes, if you like.

There was an offence taken in the pride comparable, but superior to that a man would have in the muse of his favourite motor, and that was executed as effectively as possible in such an ephemeral scene.

The very precarious way in which the Eighth Doctor began his re-adjustment to the world around him ensuing the recovery from his recent regeneration was as the precedent that had been set for decades of previous corporal forms of his had fundamentally dictated in many ways; As the hallmark archetypical procedural formula of trauma, followed by humour in the instability of the protagonist maintained the off-kilter and unorthodox bizarre eccentricity of the character, in the foreignness of the alien specimen-No matter how much it had been attempted to humanise him.

It was exemplified best as he and Grace raced to secure transport to the ITAR millennium convention in the thrust to confront the Master, as the pair bewilderingly managed to acquire the motorcycle of a police officer-But not without the opportunity for the Doctor to offer the benevolence of what was a conventional social protocol of courtesy:

POLICEMAN: Sir, ma'am, go back to your vehicle.
GRACE: What? Stop! He's er, he's British.
DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose I am. Jelly baby, officer?
POLICEMAN: Jelly baby?
GRACE: Just take it.
DOCTOR: Now, would you stand aside before I shoot myself.
POLICEMAN: Don't be a fool.
DOCTOR: Are you with me, Grace?
GRACE: We don't stand a chance.
DOCTOR: Would you excuse me, please? Grace, I came back to life before your eyes. I held back death. Look, I can't make your dream come true forever, but I can make it come true today.
GRACE: Give me the gun. Okay, give him the keys.
POLICEMAN: Now listen, pal. I know life can deal you a bad hand sometimes, but this is no way to solve your problems.
DRIVERS: Give them the keys!
DOCTOR: Thank you.

By the release of the Doctor Who Movie, the fabled, but tumultuous history that the Doctor and the Master shared was no mystery. Their flaring and passionate competitive rivalry had spanned a broad and vast expanse of the entire universe, with the nefarious antagonist to the lead figure of the show persistently and repetitively constructing the most elaborately woven and preposterously malevolent machinations to force the Doctor to run the gauntlet of in order to thwart. Time and time again, the Master had made innovative strides forth in the polarised trajectory toward utter chaos, and time and time again had the Doctor negated them. The Yin to the other's Yang. The Moriarty to the other's Holmes. The Bond to the other's Oddball.

Their rivalry was implicitly intimated through the palpable intimacy of their contemptuous gestures toward one another, and the seminality of that dimension to the mutual dynamic was portrayed as the most beneficial element of the Master's inclusion in the feature in the perspective of many viewers. The climactic defeat of the villain as he came so close, yet so far from exploiting the Eye Of Harmony within the TARDIS in order to steal the vestigial lives remaining within the Doctor's own cycle-as he had expended his long ago-came with a great degree of reluctance on the part of the Doctor. With their past taken into consideration, along with the fact that the Doctor was ever the forgiving optimist, the fact that the Eighth Doctor defied any objection angled toward him by exhibiting the prowess to make the prioritising supplantation of his affections for his nemesis in favour of the preservation of justice was the most admirable asset he possessed.

Introducing the Doctor Who Movie was a feature that, while was the recipient of controversial objection once again, could only be aptly executed within the realms of a feature-length production. A feature that was relatively appropriate and salient to the Movie, and was nothing more convoluted than the simplicity of an internal soliloquy orating the memoirs of the Doctor, as he recounted the events that had preceded the transpirations of the film. And it was a necessary exposition that was far more than just superficial. Simple in its execution, but practical, pragmatic and almost essential in its conception:

DOCTOR: It was on the planet Skaro that my old enemy the Master was finally put on trial. They say he listened calmly as his list of evil was read and sentence passed. Then he made his last, and I thought somewhat curious, request. He demanded that I, the Doctor, a rival Time Lord, should take his remains back to our home planet, Gallifrey. It was a request they should never have granted. The Time Lord has thirteen lives and the Master had used all of his, but rules never meant much to him. So I stowed his remains safely away for the voyage back, because even in death I couldn't trust him. In all my travels through space and time, and nearing the end of my seventh life, I was finally beginning to realise that you could never be too careful.

The conviction in the Doctor's virtuous duty he placed the onus upon himself to purport throughout all of his incarnations preceding and including his eighth was exemplified only really in the climax of the film's third act, as it had been teased throughout in order to build the tense anticipation prior to the conclusion through its subtle hints. And it was a long-awaited consummation of that philosophy when the Doctor verbally expressed his defiance to the malignant delinquency of the Master, who had been manipulating Chang Lee throughout the duration of the picture:

DOCTOR: Lee, this is you last chance!
LEE: This is my only chance.
MASTER: He's right, Doctor. There's nothing for him here. No family, no gang, only death. But with me, he gets see the universe.
DOCTOR: This is his last chance to stay alive and you know it.
MASTER: What do you know of last chances?
DOCTOR: More than you!
MASTER: I've wasted all my lives because of you, Doctor, and I will be rid of you.
DOCTOR: All your lives! Didn't you tell Lee I'd stolen your lives? Lee, he's lying. He's used all his lives. Now he wants mine. Like I told you, this is my Tardis, this my body.
MASTER: Don't believe him. Open the Eye.
DOCTOR: He said it himself, Lee. He's wasted his lives, all of them.
MASTER: Open the Eye!
LEE: No! You lied to me!
MASTER: Lee, Lee, I would never lie to you. I would only protect you.

They both duelled for the favour of the young reprobate who was given no choice over what path to traverse on the scale of righteousness, and one of the most pertinent elements of the exchange to extrapolate was the deposition of the Master's corruption that he purported with pride and pomposity:

GRACE: We're in temporal orbit, Doctor. What is it? What is that?
DOCTOR: Grace! No! Grace.
MASTER: You are my life.

DOCTOR: You want dominion over the living, yet all you do is kill!
MASTER: Life is wasted on the living!

The conclusion of the Doctor Who Movie was a triumphant emergence, and that was perfectly exemplified through the optimistic tone of its conveyance, as the Doctor, at the long last of the eventuations of the one night, accomplished the new found glory of being comfortable in his own skin once again. In an extremely brief, but valuable scene by way of its provided insight into the subtle intricacy of the representation was what instilled the ecstasy of optimism within fans that were advocative of the forays of the film. The Doctor had accomplished the monumental task of circumventing the ominous hazard imposed by the malignancy of the Master, he had liberated his allies from the corruptive influence that he disseminated and he had succeeded in the duty of defending the Earth from the forceful will of brutality that the threat sought to inflict upon it.

Although the scene promised something that it would not capitalise in delivering upon in the immediate future via visual broadcast, for a myriad of speculative reasons, when perceived in a vacuum and the context of its own merits alone, its was a succinct and deferentially enthusiastic scene through nothing other than the implications of the Doctor falling back upon his habitual behaviour of tapping the TARDIS console, "revving her up", and proceeding to roam out into the mystery and intrigue of the universe-Viewing it literally with new eyes.

After seventeen years of visual deprivation from the endearing demeanour of the Eighth Doctor, Whovians in proponency of his benefactions were gifted with the rekindling of a sense of familiarity that was made to feel as if it had never been absent throughout the duration of no more than six minutes and forty-nine seconds. Paul McGann's charismatic eminence announced itself profusely after he docked his TARDIS aboard a vessel inevitably doomed on a course for destruction on its flight path fleeing from the tragedy of the Last Great Time War-Its pilot mortified by the denoted atrocities committed as part of the participating factions.

In the ephemeral opening prelude, the implications of just how inextricable and indelible the execrableness of the eventuations befalling the primary contributors in the Time Lords and the Daleks, and all the peripheral victims caught in the collateral damage of the crossfire ravaging waste upon the universe. The stakes were the sake of all creation itself, and all those besieged by the heinousness were in resenting and bitter detestation of those responsible. The mesmerising charm that had permeated the eminent magnitude of the Eighth Doctor's emergent stature was all but relinquished. He had nothing other than his faith in his ability to contribute the most benevolent graces of his altruism intermittently from the exterior, without becoming complicit or involved in the transpirations in any other way. That was the muse acting as the last strand he was desperately clinging onto, and that was what proved to be all too naive-No matter how faithful he was, there was no absconding his association with the figurehead pieces on the proverbial chess board. He introduced himself to the ship's captain with a suave confidence, and intervened promptly, getting straight to work right away in the plight to prevent the explosive mortal fate:

CASS: Help me, please. Can anybody hear me?
COMPUTER: Please state the nature of your ailment or injury.
CASS: I'm not injured, I'm crashing. I don't need a doctor.
COMPUTER: A clear statement of your symptoms will help us provide the medical practitioner appropriate to your individual needs.
CASS: I'm trying to send a distress signal. Stop talking about doctors.
DOCTOR: I'm a doctor. But probably not the one you're expecting. Where are the rest of the crew?

Despite the tension of the situation, he exhibited the most admirable traits o his composure in striking up casual conversation enquiring about the specifics of her very precarious condition; Cass, in full maintenance of her duties, had teleported her crew too safety, and elected to go down with her ship as a noble symbolic gesture. She fulfilled the criteria that made her well worthy of the requisite courage necessary to be a passenger of the TARDIS, and was delighted in the prospect that salvation aboard it would grant her, but upon identifying the nature of the ship's origin and realising that the Doctor was a Time Lord, she drastically transitioned from elation to irascibility:

CASS: Is this a Tardis?
DOCTOR: Yes, but you'll be perfectly safe, I promise you.
CASS: Don't touch me!
DOCTOR: I'm not part of the war. I swear to you, I never was.
CASS: You're a Time Lord.
DOCTOR: Yes, I'm a Time Lord, but I'm one of the nice ones.
CASS: Get away from me!
DOCTOR: Well, look on the bright side. I'm not a Dalek.
CASS: Who can tell the difference any more?
DOCTOR: Cass!
CASS: It's deadlocked. Don't even try.
DOCTOR: Cass, just open the door. I'm trying to help.
CASS: Go back to your battlefield. You haven't finished yet. Some of the universe is still standing.
DOCTOR: I'm not leaving this ship without you.
CASS: Well, you're going to die right here. Best news all day.
DOCTOR: Cass, Cass. Cass! Cass! Cass!

The recovery in the aftermath of a regeneration is always a tenuous position for the Doctor to be unwillingly thrust into. The progression from the initial state of complete delirium to the eventual reassured confidence in the composition of their rediscovered self-identity is always a drastic and momentously influential and impactful pendulum swing from one polarised end of the spectrum to the other. And that dictates that, in order for the Doctor to be as compelling and ingratiating as they have frequently been in their egocentric eccentricity and relatable foreignness while flirting with humanitarian altruism and exponentially increasing sensitivity to the vulnerable fallibilities of the accompanying cast around them, they would originate in a condition that would be beleaguering and frightening to them internally, but inadvertently affecting with regards to the perturbing confrontation of the assuredness that everything will be resolved through their external projections.

Each experience possesses its comparable similarities with its peers, as far as the cues taken from one another in referential reverence for the continuity of the lore of the established hallmarks that the nature of the process mandate. Each experience has something unique and esoteric that distinguishes itself from the rest of a riveting and immersive catalogue. In the case of the Eighth Doctor, the circumstances with which his manifestation come into the occupancy of dominion over the entity of the Doctor was through a suspension of the commencement of the regeneration itself, due to the defibrillation of the corpse of the Seventh from eventual temporary companion, Dr Grace Holloway. He had then been left in the morgue of the hospital in which the operation had transpired, and came narrowly short of permanently dying-But miraculously pulled through.

When he emerged on the other side of the intimidating process, all he could utter in a cry out of despair, disconcertion and perturbation was the phrase "Who am I??!!" as he was left to meander around aimlessly in a hysterical frenzy of hyperbolic anxiety over the rediscovery of his identity. That evolutionary development would serve to become the undercurrent pervading the overarching narrative.

Despite only enduring for six minutes and forty-nine seconds, the vicarious experience of the events of The Night Of The Doctor was a revelation of the emphatic prowess of the exhibitions of Paul McGann and his Eighth Doctor purveyed while upholding the testimony to the chronological consistency of the, until that point, vagueness surrounding the mire of the Time War through the prominent context of the divergent dire situation featuring within; Completely able to rescue Cass, but denied the honour by her stubborn contempt for the purposeful responsibility that the race in which he was marginalised with due to nothing more than biological makeup.

Left to despair as she intentionally segregated herself from his best efforts at salvation, he was recovered from the devastating wreckage of the ship's collision with the surface of the planet Karn by the inhabiting sisterhood, where his corpse was temporarily reanimated for a debate over his own revival. He had abandoned every tiny remnant of hope he had left, and was left a shell of his former self-He would have accepted death, if not for the lecturing over how pathetically pitiful he was being from the sisterhood:

OHILA: The war between the Daleks and the Time Lords threatens all reality. You are the only hope left.
DOCTOR: It's not my war. I will have no part of it.
OHILA: You can't ignore it forever.
DOCTOR: I help where I can. I will not fight.
OHILA: Because you are the good man, as you call yourself?
DOCTOR: I call myself the Doctor.
OHILA: It's the same thing in your mind.
DOCTOR: I'd like to think so.
OHILA: In that case, Doctor, attend your patient.

He desired nothing more than to offer help and assistance, though he had buried it deep down, but was in urgent assistance(by way of reinvigorating him) of his own, despite his stubborn protests expressed with the ardour of a petulant child. And from the doldrums of his reluctance and hopelessness, he bacame convinced to reconvene with the propagation of his philosophy to bring an end to the devastation and havoc wreaked. There had to be "no more" violence, but in order to achieve that, he relinquished his scared title of "Doctor". The sisterhood "elevated Time Lord science", and were the only entities that could have provided him with the reprieve of administering an elixir infused with the essence of immortality:

DOCTOR: I don't suppose there's a need for a doctor any more. Make me a warrior now.
OHILA: I took the liberty of preparing this one myself.
DOCTOR: Get out. Get out! All of you. Will it hurt?
OHILA: Yes.
DOCTOR: Good. Charley, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly, friends, companions I've known, I salute you. And Cass, I apologise. Physician, heal thyself.
OHILA: Is it done?
WARRIOR: Doctor no more.

Many of the Doctors at many stages throughout the endurance of their respective cycles have embodied characteristic behavioural traits of euphoric and youthful exuberance, despite their veteran experience and matured age. The Doctors of the modern era of the show, in particular, have redefined what the execution of that composure means, and the foundational precedent for which they have emulated the essence of originates largely from elements of the subtle minutia of the Eighth Doctor's performance. And despite being rendered a distressed, disturbed and dejected amnesiac by the trauma of the regeneration he underwent, he emerged on the other side replenished, refreshed, and most pertinently, rejuvenated.

He blundered around for a protracted time after becoming a form resemblant of the handsome Paul McGann, confused, and desperately trying to recall who he was-Which only increased the astonishment and disconcertment of Grace. But, after being lent some clothes, and a session of recuperation in her home, he lead her out into a vast opening with the resplendent joy in the elation impelled by the overcoming of the dysfunction of forgetting who he was. He had finally remembered! And for the next few moments, his rapturous relief was boundless:

GRACE: Maybe you're the result of some weird genetic experiment.
DOCTOR: I don't think so.
GRACE: Well, you have no recollection of family.
DOCTOR: No. No, no, no, no. Wait, wait. I remember I'm with my father, lying back in the grass. It's a warm Gallifreyan night.
GRACE: Gallifreyan?
DOCTOR: Gallifrey! Yes, this must be where I live. Now, where is that?
GRACE: I've never heard of it. What do you remember?
DOCTOR: A meteor storm. The sky above us was dancing with lights. Purple, green and brilliant yellow! Yes!
GRACE: What?
DOCTOR: These shoes! They fit perfectly. Yes.

A kiss ensued with her shortly after, and raised controversy, but the contextualisation of the delight of the spur of the moment that acted as the impetus for it made the action sympathetic for those unaffected by the delicacy of judgement surrounding the sensitive new endeavour of interspecies intimacy for the lore of Doctor Who.