That RTD Time War prose is wonderful, and really nails why I was so disappointed with Day of the Doctor. Just mad, twisted imagery, time travel used to break reality itself in ever-more brutal ways - rather than, you know, Gallifreyan soldiers with space rifles, the doctor flying the TARDIS into Daleks and Daleks killing each other with a misfire. I like that story plenty, but it never matched up to what I envisioned the Time War would be - and it never could've on a TV budget. So reading this is at once so exciting and also kinda brutally crushing.
Agreed.
Moffat's Day of the Doctor - in a vacuum - is a very good story.
The problem is, it's not in a vacuum, it heavily leans on RTD's time war mythos in general, and "The End of Time" in particular, and yet Moff ignores so much from that it doesn't work. Like in The End of Time the war was at a deadlock, with Gallifrey the furthest point from it. Yet in Day of the Doctor, which is supposed to take place simultaneously, the Time Lords are on their knees with Gallifrey all that is left. In TEOT, the doctor is worrried that if Gallifrey is freed, a lot of evil things like the Nightmare Child will be freed with it. In DOTD there are no such worries. The moment was used in TEOT to stop Rassilon's Ultimate Sanction, and in DOTD it was used to stop a Dalek fleet.
He turned the magical into the mundane, and it was a big pity.