On 2 April 2013 production of "The Day of the Doctor" began and production of the Christmas episode, "The Time of the Doctor", began in September 2013. Two supplemental episodes were also filmed alongside the specials; "The Night of the Doctor" and "The Last Day" were both produced as lead-in mini-episodes for the 50th anniversary special, and were released online days before the special's broadcast. The two special broadcast episodes were initially released in separate home media sets, before being released together alongside the mini-episodes in a collector's boxset.

Both episodes starred Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald. The 50th-anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor" also starred David Tennant, Billie Piper, and John Hurt. "The Time of the Doctor" saw the departure of Smith from the series and the introduction of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor.

"The Day of the Doctor" features the return of the Zygons for the first time since Terror of the Zygons in 1975. "The Time of the Doctor" draws together a number of plot threads that have run through the series since the Eleventh Doctor's first episode in 2010.

In "The Day of the Doctor", Smith and Coleman star alongside David Tennant and Billie Piper; Tennant reprised his role as the Tenth Doctor, while Piper, although credited as playing Rose Tyler, in fact portrays a manifestation of "The Moment", a Gallifreyan super-weapon, that has taken on Rose's form. The casting of Tennant and Piper was announced by the BBC on 30 March 2013. Photographs of Smith, Tennant and Coleman at the first read-through were published, which also confirmed the casting of Joanna Page. On 8 April 2013, the BBC announced that Jemma Redgrave would reprise her role as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's daughter Kate Stewart from "The Power of Three". Rumours had also circulated that Christopher Eccleston would have some involvement; Eccleston had some discussions with Steven Moffat, but eventually declined to return as the Ninth Doctor. Despite claiming that it would be "a travesty" if his character did not feature in the special, John Barrowman did not feature as Captain Jack Harkness. Sylvester McCoy, who played the Seventh Doctor, claimed that none of the surviving actors who portrayed the Doctor prior to Eccleston had been contacted regarding the special. The release of "The Night of the Doctor" on 14 November revealed that Paul McGann had returned to portray the Eighth Doctor.

On 1 June 2013, Matt Smith announced that he would be leaving Doctor Who, with his final episode being the 2013 Christmas Special, with that episode set to feature the Doctor's latest regeneration. Speculation about the identity of the actor set to take over began immediately, with a number of names suggested. The official announcement of the actor of the Twelfth Doctor was made in a special live simulcast on 4 August 2013 in Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor, and saw confirmation of Peter Capaldi in the role. The 2013 special is the fourth and final Christmas episode to feature Matt Smith's incarnation of the Doctor, and the second to feature Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald.

Moffat was developing ideas for the 50th anniversary episode as early as late 2011, when he stated that the team "knew what [they] want[ed] to do" and were "revving up" for the episode in an interview discussing his work on the 2011 film The Adventures of Tintin, and began writing the script for "The Day of the Doctor" in late 2012, announcing that, as a security precaution, he had not produced any copies, instead keeping it on his computer until it was needed.

Moffat has stated that the Christmas episode is intended to tie together the remaining story strands from the Eleventh Doctor era, some of which were introduced as far back as "The Eleventh Hour", Smith's first episode as the Eleventh Doctor.

In September 2013, it was revealed that the Cybermen would feature in the Christmas episode, when one of the show's regular stunt artists tweeted that she would be playing a Cyberman.

Murray Gold composed the soundtrack to these episodes, with orchestration by Ben Foster.

On 2 April 2013 filming of "The Day of the Doctor" began, with David Tennant, Billie Piper, John Hurt and Joanna Page seen at a location outside Neath in South Wales. On 9 April filming took place involving Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman in Trafalgar Square in London. Various other locations included Chepstow (with some filming done inside the castle), and Cardiff – scenes shot in Cardiff are intended to represent both Totter's Lane and Coal Hill School. Shooting wrapped on 5 May 2013. The final two days of production were used for shooting the special mini-episode, "The Night of the Doctor", which featured Paul McGann returning to the role of the Eighth Doctor for the first time since 1996.

At the 2013 Comic-Con, Matt Smith confirmed that production of the Christmas episode would begin in September, once his work on How to Catch a Monster was complete. Filming for "The Time of the Doctor" began on 8 September. On 10 September, Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman were seen filming on location at Lydstep Flats in Cardiff, which have previously been used in Series 1 and 2 as the Powell Estate where Rose Tyler lived with her mother Jackie. On 19 September 2013, scenes were filmed in the evening at Puzzlewood with fake snow being scattered over certain areas. On 5 October 2013, Doctor Who producer Marcus Wilson revealed via Twitter that filming was complete.

The BBC broadcast "The Day of the Doctor" in 94 countries simultaneously, to avoid plot leaks. It earned a Guinness World Record for the world's largest ever simulcast of a TV drama. The episode aired in over 100 countries on either 23 or 24 November 2013 in cinemas and on television.

"The Time of the Doctor" was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on Christmas Day 2013. It was also shown on 25 December in the United States on BBC America, and in Canada on Space. In Australia it aired on 26 December on ABC1, and in New Zealand, it screened on Prime Television during Boxing Day evening with 106,390 viewers.

In addition to the 50th anniversary episode featuring Matt Smith and David Tennant, a further special was produced to celebrate Doctor Who's half-century. An Adventure in Space and Time, written by Mark Gatiss, was a feature-length docudrama detailing the conception and initial production of Doctor Who. It featured David Bradley as William Hartnell and Reece Shearsmith as Patrick Troughton; Matt Smith has a cameo as himself in his Eleventh Doctor costume.

As a complement to "The Day of the Doctor", Peter Davison wrote and directed a 30-minute spoof entitled The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot featuring himself, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy attempting to gain parts in the 50th anniversary episode. Produced in mid 2013, the film first became apparent when images of the three staging a "protest" outside BBC Television Centre came out. In addition to Davison, Baker and McCoy, the film featured cameos from a host of people connected with Doctor Who, including Paul McGann, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Steven Moffat, Russell T Davies and John Barrowman, with David and Georgia Tennant's children also guest starring; Georgia is the daughter of the Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison, and played The Doctor's clone daughter Jenny in the episode "The Doctor's Daughter" under her maiden name "Moffett".

"The Day of the Doctor" formed the centerpiece of the celebrations, which encompassed programmes across all of the BBC's platforms, including An Adventure in Space and Time, a Culture Show special entitled "Me, You and Doctor Who" presented by Matthew Sweet that explores the wider cultural significance of the show. CBBC broadcast a show called "12 Again" in which past and present stars of the show recounted their memories, Professor Brian Cox delivered a televised lecture on the science of Doctor Who, and BBC Three had a weekend devoted to Monsters and Villains, as well as showing "Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide". The BBC also announced plans to show a newly restored print of the first serial An Unearthly Child. The announcement of the title was also followed by the release of the first official poster for the special.

UKTV's Watch showed a story from each doctor to celebrate the 50th anniversary, based around the broadcast of the eleven part BBC America series, The Doctors Revisited. This series has one episode dedicated to each incarnation of the Doctor, and was broadcast monthly alongside an omnibus edition of a serial of each Doctor. Watch broadcast two episodes per weekend, starting on 12 October.

The British Film Institute ran a year long celebration of the 50th anniversary with monthly screenings of stories from each Doctor, culminating in November with screenings of both "The Day of the Doctor" and An Adventure in Space and Time.

BBC Radio 2 broadcast a number of specials to commemorate the show, including a 90-minute documentary titled "Who is the Doctor?", a half-hour segment hosted by David Quantick and titled "The Blagger's Guide to Doctor Who", and Graham Norton's live Saturday show was broadcast from the Doctor Who Celebration event at the ExCel. BBC Radio 1 looked at the phenomenon of "Time Lord Rock", a musical style derived from the music of the show, while BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast a three-hour special called "Who Made Who", which discussed the world that inspired the show.

In October, Big Finish Productions released a 50th anniversary special audio drama featuring the Fourth through Eighth Doctors entitled The Light at the End.

"The Day of the Doctor" was released as a standalone DVD and Blu-ray on 2 December 2013 in the United Kingdom, 4 December in Australia, and 10 December in the United States. An Adventure in Space and Time was released on DVD on 2 December in the United Kingdom and 11 December in Australia, and as a DVD/Blu-ray combo in the United States on 27 May 2014. "The Time of the Doctor" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 20 January 2014 in the United Kingdom, 22 January in Australia and 4 March in the United States. A complete box set was released on 8 September 2014 in the United Kingdom and 10 September in Australia on DVD and Blu-ray.

• indicates a DVD release for a specific date
• indicates a Blu-ray release
• indicates a simultaneous DVD and Blu-ray release
• indicates a simultaneous DVD and 3D Blu-ray (includes Blu-ray) release

The ratings for "The Day of the Doctor" rose to a total of 12.8 million viewers, which makes it the highest rating since "The Next Doctor" (2008), which had a total of 13.1 million viewers. For the week, it was the number one most-watched series on British television, a feat only two other Doctor Who episodes had ever achieved. "The Time of the Doctor" was the second most watched programme of the entire day across all channels, with the final 5 minutes (the regeneration from Smith to Capaldi) receiving the largest peak viewers of the day with 10.2 million. The final viewing figures for the episode were 11.14 million viewers, making it the fifth most watched Doctor Who Christmas special.

Ben Lawrence of The Daily Telegraph gave "The Day of the Doctor" five stars, calling it "charming, eccentric and very, very British." Den of Geek's Simon Brew praised the special, calling it "terrific", and stating that it was "pulsating with comedy, ambition, and top to bottom entertainment." The Guardian's Viv Grospok criticised various elements of the episode, though concluded that "it was all worth it."

Dan Martin of The Guardian praised "The Time of the Doctor" as "awfully good". He wrote that Steven Moffat had "performed the fourth remix of the show's mythology in a row, tying up strands that date back to the beginning of Matt Smith's run." He added, "Perfectly, the rebooting of his regeneration cycle was done simply... Who could have guessed the Doctor's renewed regeneration cycle would be dealt with as simply as his best friend just asking nicely?" Mark Snow of IGN gave the episode a score of 8.4, "GREAT", writing that "'The Time of the Doctor' was an exemplary exercise in celebrating the departure of a loved one. If you managed to stay dry-eyed during the Doctor's goodbye to Clara (itself a not-entirely-transparent goodbye from Smith to the role he embodied), then you should probably double check your heart's still working," also lauding Karen Gillan's "rather crowd-pleasing, tear-inducing cameo". While criticising its "rapid, almost breathless pace", he concluded, "It was a melancholic yet ultimately merry end to one of the show's best Doctors to date."

Selected pieces of score from "The Day of the Doctor" and "The Time of the Doctor", as composed by Murray Gold, were released on 24 November 2014 by Silva Screen Records. "The Day of the Doctor" includes 23 pieces, whereas "The Time of the Doctor" includes 18 pieces.

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor / The Time of the Doctor
Soundtrack album by Murray Gold, Ben Foster and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Released	24 November 2014
Recorded	20 September 2013 (Disc 1) 3 December 2013 (Disc 2)
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	93:10
Label	Silva Screen Records
Producer	Murray Gold
Doctor Who soundtrack chronology
Cold Worlds (2014) ''Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor / The Time of the Doctor'' (2014) Series 8 (2015)
Alternate cover

• Pixley, Andrew (August 2014). "The Year of the Doctor: The Official Guide to Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary". Doctor Who Magazine. Vol. Special Edition, no. 38. Royal Tunbridge Wells: Panini Comics.