Who John Hurt Really Plays

I posted in this article about John Hurt possibly playing the Valeyard, but we now know that not to be true. The Valeyard was artificially created as an amalgamation of the Doctor's dark side. John Hurt's character isn't an artificial creation, he's just another regeneration of the character we all know and love. Also, the Valeyard was created between the Doctor's twelfth and final regenerations, meaning the Doctor hasn't properly met him yet. But the current Doctor seems to already be familiar with everything the John Hurt character did, suggesting he's already lived through that regeneration.

The current Doctor stated that taking the name "Doctor" is like a promise, and that the John Hurt character somehow broke that promise. The only question is, what did he do to break that promise? It was more than likely something involving the Time War (seeing as the only place we could have an extra Doctor is between McGann & Eccleston, during the war), but it could be anything really. If this were Davies, everything would relate back to the Time War, and this would probably be true, but this is Moffat. Moffat is likely to throw us a curveball, he could have done anything, really.

I'm really thinking that this promise is some sort of promise that all Time Lords and Ladies have to take, probably the promise not to interfere. We've already seen the Doctor interfere many times, and even get put on trial for it. He always managed to justify his interference by claiming to be saving innocent lives. Well, perhaps this regeneration killed innocents. He claimed to be doing it "in the name of peace and sanity," but the Matt Smith Doctor seems to think that it was a despicable act. He agrees with the motives, but claims it is something the Doctor would never do.

John Hurt Plays the Valeyard?

A recent article from the Eastern Daily Press has stated that John Hurt "plays 'part of the Doctor' in a 'kind of trinity' which includes David Tennant." My guess is that's the evil part that we saw in Trial of a Time Lord.

As a recap, in that sixth Doctor adventure, which encompassed a whole season (season 23), the Doctor is put on trial by the Time Lords as part of a plot by the Valeyard to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations. The Valeyard turns out to be an evil version of the Doctor's future self, created sometime between his twelfth and final regenerations. The Doctor defeats him, but the Valeyard survives.

I've always wanted the Valeyard to come back, and I think he'd be the perfect villain for show's fiftieth anniversary. It would look to the past (be it only a single season), while simultaneously looking to the future and allowing us to envision a whole new enemy. It would also make the anniversary very Doctor-centric and a very personal fight to the Doctor, since he's fighting himself.

50th Anniversary Special

Okay, so there's a common them among the 10th, 20th, & 30th anniversary specials: they all have been multi–Doctor episodes that featured a Time Lord/Lady as the villain. First we had The Three Doctors with Omega, then we had The Five Doctors with Borusa, and then we had Dimensions in Time with the Rani. Moffatt had better darn well keep this tradition up, and have the Doctor team up with his other selves to go against some Time Lord for the 50th Anniversary Special. The Master seems like a bit too obvious a choice for this, I would actually prefer that the Doctor go up against the Valeyard.