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No one move a muscle when the dead come home
The ironic aftereffect of viewing The Night of the Doctor (2013) last thing before bed is that I woke up wanting a time machine. The Doctor who sold his soul, sacrificed his name, gave away everything he stood for and became a monster to fight monsters? Of course I want him played by John Hurt. And then I want a series of that nameless Warrior seen for just one stinger moment in that fire-polished ripple of metal: Doctor no more . . . I have always thought John Hurt was beautiful, especially in his dark, watchful younger years. He always looked a little bruised around the eyes, even when the rest of him was boyish; he's a good face for someone I suspect of deploying the Gallifreyan equivalent of the Deplorable Word to end the Time War. I imagine we'll find out the full story in "The Day of the Doctor," but it will still be just a flicker, like this glimpse of Paul McGann. Thirty-year-old John Hurt is not happening without serious technology. (Neither is more onscreen McGann, I am afraid, although at least in his case there's years of radio drama to catch up on.) It's still probably most I've enjoyed a script by Steven Moffat since "Blink." And I can write wistfully about the rest.
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I have to admit a lack of familiarity with John Hurt's filmography, but I'm looking forward to seeing more of him next week.
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Yes. Awesome as the ending of this episode is, I am sorry that it seems to close down the possibility of further adventures with the Eighth Doctor. I don't see how they could be gone back for, knowing where things end up, but he's onscreen for six minutes and he's so good.
I have to admit a lack of familiarity with John Hurt's filmography, but I'm looking forward to seeing more of him next week.
I was going to write, "He's probably most famous for . . ." and then realized I don't actually know. I almost certainly saw him first as Caligula in I, Claudius (1976) when I was in high school, followed shortly by Richard Rich in A Man for All Seasons (1966); I know people who imprinted on his voice acting as Hazel in the animated Watership Down (1978). He's impossible to ignore in Alien (1979), even though he's not onscreen for very long, and he's in almost every scene in The Elephant Man (1980), where he's unrecognizable. He's a painfully, closely observed Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), one of his rare leading roles; another is his laconic contract killer in The Hit (1984), which is one of my favorite movies he's in. He has small roles in Harry Potter, V for Vendetta (2006), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), all of which should have guaranteed he's set for life. And a whole bunch of other things. I have not seen him as Quentin Crisp in either The Naked Civil Servant (1975) or An Englishman in New York (2008), a major omission I need to rectify. I was happy when he turned up in Hellboy (2004), even if basically as a cameo. He's just a character actor I'm very fond of.