Well I think they wanted Christopher Eccleston back but he refused so the bbc stepped in with a huge actor and got him to play a new doctor that we never knew existed. Of course he is number 9 but we can't call him that as it would be too confusing so to save all the fuss they just call him the war doctor

Ecclestone was supposed to do the War Doctor part (according to Moff) when he turned it down the obvious thing to do would have been McGann.
To me the whole thing comes across as "We got John Hurt great we better shoe-horn him in to a major role,well 9 has just turned us down--Great we'll give him that role then."

Whole lot of nonsense that I just ignore until a future writer,writes it all away.

Actually as far as Moffat's comments are concerned (but keeping in mind he also has a proven track record as a decent liar) they planned to have John Hurt in the War Doctor role regardless of whether Eccleston was involved or not. Admittedly I struggle to see how it would have worked out - it would have been two phenomenally different scripts, but apparently that was the plan.

The Third Doctor wasn't. He was as much an artificial construct as The War Doctor was. Face chosen by the Time Lords, brain tampered with to remove a lot of his memory, and with hair follicles pushed into overdrive to achieve bouffant level in three or four years!

What about an incarnation of the Master who has an army of male domestic foul?

....they could call him the Cock Master!

The War Doctor isn't going anywhere. Now that the McGann to Hurt and Hurt to Eccleston regenerations have been well established, the amount of retconning required to have a McGann to Eccleston regeneration would be more trouble than it's worth.

Whether you like it or not, The Day of the Doctor was a massive critical and commercial success. John Hurt is - and always will be - an official Doctor.

I did like it as I've said before,it was an enjoyable romp,the fact that the whole War Doctor/Moment business is nonsense didn't stop my enjoyment of the show.
I don't see why any retconning would be hard,it would be an absolute doddle for any decent writer,especially with the gift of those witch women giving the Doctor some sort of drugged drink.
Whether it happens or not is a different matter,but I'm not too concerned,you have to have your own personal continuity with Who,so it's War Doctor out Dimensions in Time in for me.

I don't know, in DWM he said that Ecclestone would have filled John Hurts role,but I'm not sure if that was pre-script or not.

Ahh but that wasn't The Doctor's choice. The War Doctor WAS the only time (so far) where he's chosen his next incarnation willingly.

Eleven regular leads, plus John Hurt, plus Capaldi's eyebrows. Thirteen.

Just to confuse: in Last Christmas, the second scene in which Clara is asked to think of a number, she looks at the Doctor and says "12". Canonically he's the 14th incarnation; or, the first of a new cycle (Doctor 2.1?) but as he's the 12th actor to plan the role regularly, I'd go with that.

Gary

If Chris has come back and done the War Doctor role without john Hurt then Matt would have been the 12th incarnation and had one regeneration left. The whole premise of The TIme of the Doctor and running out of regenerations wouldn't have been an issue.

Nah I think it could have still been something similar...

Say Chris had come back and you had the trio of the 9th, 10th and 11th Doctors...

I think the story could have had the War Doctor in there but in a more antagonistic role, with the other three working together to stop him.

Thoughts?

This could be why chris said no then.

War doctor=9 meaty role for chris being the driving force of the doctor's guilt, lots of meaty acting work, reunited with Billie, etc

War Doctor+9 John Hurt gets all the meaty stuff, his appearance is reduced to sharing the lines with 10 and 11 and is there basically for nostalgia and to say fantastic a lot.
Not an appealing prospect for a serious actor like chris.

Saying that maybe Moffat would've given him his own era like the others (9 gallifrey, 10 elizibethan England, 11 unit) though it's hard to pop 9 out of his limited time line for a new adventure like the others.

No, all logic points to the war doctor only being created after chris said no.
the episode, would just be too busy otherwise

From what I've heard John Hurt is about to regenerate again.

This time into Sir John Hurt.

(in the New Year's Honours List)

But why would any writer bother to do that? It subtracts from the pantheon, rather than adding to it. Retconning the events of the Night of the Doctor minisode may seem logical to a fan who wants rid of the War Doctor, but it would seem like self-indulgent drivel to any sane person who doesn't have a chip on their shoulder about the numbering system.