This trailer celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who isn’t a “proper” episode trailer, but it’s pretty damned incredible. The camera takes us on a journey that begins in a junkyard at 76 Totter’s Lane, the very first location of the TARDIS when the show premiered in 1963.
The visual feast serves up all the Doctors, numerous villains, and a few companions all seemingly frozen in time as we fly through fantastic scenes loaded with Whovian goodness. Accompanying the astonishing visuals are the show’s theme song and a voice-over narration by Matt Smith who tells how everything the Doctor has done leads up to The Day of the Doctor.
This is a trailer you’re going to want to watch over and over again. To catch everything you’ll probably want to watch in high definition with pause at the ready. Believe me, you’ll need several watchings, lots of pausings, and a keen eye to see everything they’ve packed into a single minute.
You’ve got to be quick to see Paul McGann, but he’s in there. Did you notice the red series of numbers in that packed scene? I did some digging and found out the sequence 17162311 represents the time and date of the first broadcast of Doctor Who. The BBC lists the original broadcast time as 17:15, but I’ve read it actually got delayed by 80 seconds, making the start time 17:16. Since this was on the 23rd of November, the 11th month, when you string them all together you get 17162311.
Sneaky and clever, just like the Doctor.
The Doctor Who website has compiled 11 (coincidence?) hard-to-spot items from the trailer. Click on 11 Things We Loved In the Doctor Who 50 Year Trailer to see them, then re-watch the trailer again to see if you can catch them in motion.
HANDY TIP: When talking about Doctor Who on Twitter use the hashtags #SaveTheDay, #dayofthedoctor, and #DoctorWho50th to keep it trending!
Doctor Who returns November 23rd and don’t forget to #SaveTheDay!
