The War Doctor

The War Doctor is introduced in the web cast story 'The Night of the Doctor' and he is brough into existence when the Eighth Doctor can no longer take the strain (or scorn) of being involved in the Time Wars after failing to save the life of a Terran Scout pilot caught up in the fighting. Although not very long, it did give some background to the War Doctor and it was nice to see Paul McGann as the Doctor once more.

The War Doctor gets a story of his own with 'The Day of the Doctor', broadcast as the 50th anniversary special and also starring the 10th and 11th Doctors and with the other Doctors in effegy. In this story, the Doctor is offered the opportunity of using the Ultimate Weapon to destroy the Daleks as they make their final assault on Gallifrey. The weapon has its own thoughts as to whether it should be used and came to him as Rose (yet to be introduced to the Doctor at this point of course). As part of the effort to help him make his mind up, the Weapon involves him in the machinations of the 10th and 11th Doctors as they find themselves involved in the plots of the Zygons - the 10th in the long missing reason as to why Elizabeth the First was so annoyed with him in 'The Shakespeare Code' and the 11th invited to UNIT HQ to meet the new leader of UNIT - another Lethbridge Stewart! I did mostly like the story overall but I wasn't really sure that the Zygons had the weight to be the villains in such an auspicious episode. (and while I say the other Doctors were present in effigy, they were real life people, just not the people who played the Doctors they were representing).