Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

The Bollocks Master Plan

Christmas.  I hate Christmas.  The compulsory gift-giving, the monthlong frenzy of crass commercialism and godawful pervasive music, the tacky decorations, the senseless treeslaughter, the theological indoctrination, the eggnog-clouded family get-togethers, the unholy bastard spawn of religion and capitalism, more annoying even than each separately.  Some people like Christmas.  They like the hassle of the shopping, think gaudy decorations are wonderful, revel in the ceaseless torment of christmas carols, look forward eagerly to the inevitable disappointment of annual stunt-casted Chrit'mas specials on the telly, and after it all careens to a disastrous end, they set their sights on the next nationalistic and/or religious ceremony with unabated glee.   I think the world can roughly be split between people who don't like Christmas and those who do (and the billion or so people who live somewhere it isn't a particularly big deal), and with the exception of those who’ve a decent reason (prepubescence, medication), I don’t think I’ve ever gotten along with people who like Christmas.

Well, I, for one, was hoping for more.

Which is the only way I can really understand the reaction to Journey’s End, which has polarised fandom more than any episode this series.  Between the shallow spectacle and the shiny baubles and the anaemic paeans to the "true believers", many fans in their religious fervour feel that it is blasphemy to look over this tinsel-strewn wasteland and fail to be converted.  (My reaction to this is pictured on the right.)

Well, I, for one, was hoping for more.

Doctor Who: Journey's End

Not expecting it, mind you, just hoping for it.  I ended my last review with a cliffhanger, when I threatened to reveal what I thought of the cliffhanger.  Partly this is because I thought it a wee bit clever; partly it's because I was too damn tired to bother trying to hammer out those extra few paragraphs; partly because time was running short; but mainly it's because I didn't want to heap praise on The Stolen Earth's spectacular cliffhanger when I felt pretty sure the resolution would fail to live up to my exacting standards, and, indeed, any standards at all.

Well, Russell T. Davies, you didn't disappoint me...and so I was disappointed.  Predictably, Journey's End kicks off with startlingly poor resolutions to all three of last week's cliffhangers.  Whether it's the magical hand of convenience, Jackie and Mickey's far-too-convenient materialization, or the method of conveniently writing Gwen and Ianto out of the rest of the episode, each seems like a disappointing cop-out.  The density of dei ex machina in the first two minutes alone is almost enough to cause the entire episode to collapse into a black hole of arbitrary plotting.  Mind you, RTD had sort of written himself into a corner here.  There was no convenient Chekhov's gun lying around from earlier narratives to resolve any of the predicaments.  I'd rather hoped there was something I missed and I'd be in awe of the clever escape; instead RTD just pulled rabbits out of his arse in some sort of perverse magical theatre.

Viva la Resolucion!:

The crap resolutions went well beyond the first two minutes, unfortunately.  Davies has been dropping leaden hints on us all season, from Donna's hearing of heartbeats to Dalek Caan squealing and giggling about the death of the Doctor's "most faithful companion", and all seemed to land with a dull thud.  In fact, the only resolutions that weren't crap were those many things that weren't resolved at all.

The least satisfying non-resolutions of the episode, and Davies' grossest derelictions of his duties as a scriptwriter, all converged on Donna.  After weeks of playing up her importance ("the most important woman in the universe!") and dropping bollocks like "the pattern's not complete.  The strands are still drawing together.  But heading for what?" and every species in the universe predicting great things for her, we were a bit stirred up.  Fans and casual viewers alike have been whipped into a frenzy, ropey strands of saliva falling from the corners of our mouths as we hurl our theories about who Donna might be and why all timelines seem to be leading to her, like so many monkeys hurling their feces at each other.

...all it requires is half-a-dozen incontinent macaques with a Speak-and-Spell...

Well, I'm sad to say, the ideas we've all been flinging about are infinitely better than the steaming pile of exposition RTD actually serves up for our consumption.  The Doctor's heartbeat "rippled back, converging on" Donna because the Doctor's "complicated" and Donna's "special".  A Dalek faerie has been manipulating the timelines...but the result was inevitable anyway?  Why?  Because Donna was "so unique."?  That's all you could come up with, you incompetent bastard?  Some sort of Donna-specific version of the already questionable Anthropic Principle?  It's some sort of Destiny?  Donna's the Chosen One?  Bah.  It's like that old adage about the infinite number of monkeys with the infinite number of typewriters...except that all it requires is half-a-dozen incontinent macaques with a Speak-and-Spell to best this pathetic cop-out.

The Naked Time(lord):

Since all of the universe seemed to be working together to foreshadow Donna's greatness, it was the least Davies could do to come up with a sufficiently over-the-top threat and implausible conclusion.  Not content with merely taking over the entire universe, Davros and his friends have designed a machine that will obliterate anything and everything in all possible universes, and it's apparently fueled and propagated by 27 planets in careful balance.

The Supreme Dalek sets the mechanism for his own destruction in motion through the use of a cartoonish trap-door in the floor of the crucible, dropping Donna and the TARDIS through a long amusement-park ride into a furnace.  While the TARDIS is bobbing up and down in a pool of zed-neutrinos (think of it as Doctor Who's own "trash compactor" scene), Murray Gold appears to Donna and tempts her into touching the pickled meat, setting up the episode's most important deus ex machina: the Biological Metacrisis.  More of a Logical Metacrisis, the Doctor's hand is, understandably, aroused by Catherine Tate's touch, and grows into what I will heretofore refer to as "the Naked Doctor", and apparently the two of them have tainted each other in the process.

...understandably, aroused by Catherine Tate's touch...

The scenes of the Naked Doctor and Donna aping each other in the TARDIS are actually among the most enjoyable of the episode, and, of course, this entire contrivance eventually sets us up the Surreality Bomb that solves all of the universe's problems.  Fortunately for the universe, Clever Donna possessed that magical human X-factor, lever-pressing-skills and the ability to shout scientificky-sounding things, allowing her to tits-up the Dalek plan in a matter of seconds, and right on time.  (David Tennant yelling at the Dalek Empire to "cut it out!  Just, please, stop it!" seemed to be meeting with limited success.)  The final defeat of the Daleks' plan largely consisted of the Doctor, the Doctor-Donna, and the Naked Doctor spouting endless nonsense and flicking switches and turning knobs.  The convenient Dalek-control-panel might have qualified as a Checkhov's gun, except that it was only revealed when needed, making it essentially a machina ex machina.  The level of teachno-babble was ratcheted up so high in Journey's End my ears hurt, but without it the writer might have actually had to, in the words of the Supreme Dalek, "Explain!  Explain!  Explain!"

Orgy of Caanibalism:

What a bunch of rubbish were the Cult of Skaro, eh?  Some elite force of Dalek superheroes they turned out to be.  First we have Dalek Sec engaging in bestiality with the lower life forms, and now Dalek Caan brings back the entire bloody species from oblivion, just so he can sell them out.  And for what?  Shits and giggles, apparently.  Mostly giggles.  And a squeal or two.  And rubbing his tentacles together maliciously, like a pantomime villain.

The other modern Daleks may still have compulsory-exposition problems (why is it that Daleks can't seem to do anything without saying it out loud! "Commence Disposal!  Incinerate!"), but at least I know where they're coming from.  Why have you forsaken me, Dalek Caan?

I sort of enjoyed his mad rantings in The Stolen Earth, but when it's revealed that he's not only already seen Journey's End (the poor bastard!), but apparently he script-edited it as well (the bastard!), I lost my enthusiasm.  One part carny fortune teller ("reading is free for red hair!") and two parts mad puppet-master, his theoretical string-pulling and, apparently, unlimited power, just seemed another way to dance around actual plotting in favour of magical, unexplainey contrivance.

The Impossible Planet:

Perhaps the nadir of the episode, in terms of just plain embarrassing, nausea-inducing awfulness, was the lengthy bit when the Doctor and his little team help a wayward planet find its way home.  They literally tow it, for fuck's sake.  Maybe this is just intended to give Torchwood and Luke Smith something to do after being grounded for the rest of the episode, or it's an excuse to pull K-9 out of the closet for a few more seconds to hump Mr. Smith's leg.  Either way, it hurt just watching it.

To add insult to injury, the entire sequence is accompanied by some of the more abominable music Murray Gold has coughed up since 2005.  It seems to combine the worst elements of  both "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles" and "Up with People".  As they drop the hurtling Earth offhandedly back into its groove, everyone claps and hugs,  The Earthlings all cheer and flail about and jump around like idiots, celebrating despite untold millions dead from the Dalek invasion.  Governments the world over set off their strategic fireworks stockpiles.  The ridiculous upbeatness is the same miserable excess I cited in my review for The Poison Sky, as "obnoxiously, hollowly uplifting," and it fares no better here.

Revelation of the Bollocks:

Another fine example of Davies dropping the spanner was the whole let-down of the Doctor's terrible secret.  While most of the interminably talky episode consisted of tedious exposition, the scene where Davros gathers all of the Doctor's companions into some sort of shouty group therapy session falls far short of its goal.  After a lengthy buildup about, to quote a tentacled muppet, "revealing the Doctor's soul", Davros's grand scheme apparently involves Daleks on parade in some sort of synchronized-swimming display and some sort of self-help based psychoanalysis of the Doctor.

The worst part of this is that the Doctor seemed to actually be bothered by it.  When Davros is gleefully thrashing about screaming, "The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun...but this is the truth, Doctor.  You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons.  Behold your children of time, transformed into murderers.  I made the Daleks, Doctor, you made this.", an appropriate response might have been "You've got to be fucking kidding me."  I would have to assume that Davros was just taking the piss with lines like "This is my final victory, Doctor...I have shown you...yourself!", but instead David Tennant gets all misty-eyed and has a series of flashbacks to mostly-RTD-scripted episodes from the last three or four years set to maudlin music.

...the reddest of herrings, gaping plot wounds, implausible contrivances and poor science.

The whole suggestion that Davros was going to reveal something deep and interesting about the Doctor was just another false promise in a script rife with the reddest of herrings, gaping plot wounds, implausible contrivances and poor science.  What's with the Doctor and Davros misusing the term "wavelength"?  These guys are supposed to be smart.  Much as everyone feared, the stars all going out at once, with no consideration for the time it takes light to travel anywhere, was the "I wouldn't know science if it bit me in the arse" error it first appeared to be.  What was the point of rounding up guinea pigs to test the reality bomb on, except as a contrivance to get Jackie, Mickey and Sarah Jane up to the crucible?  What was Jackie shooting at in the sky when she first beamed over from the parallel universe?  Oh...and in space, no one can hear you drop a spanner.

The Pretention Cannon:

It's almost a given now that Martha continues her unbearable-streak she's been on since at least The Last of the Time Lords.  As usual, she's hobbled by most of the episodes most atrociously hamfisted dialogue ("Yeah, but I've got a higher authority, way above UNIT.  And there's one more thing the Doctor would do."), but Freema Agyeman's affected line-reading doesn't improve matters.  I think she may have borrowed Rose's new teeth for the duration of the Crisis on Impotent Earth.  It's as if she's settled on portraying the character as a grim, serious, emotionally-disabled automaton, which may have some narrative justification, but sucks away all of the fun and appeal that the character used to have.

She may convince us she's the kind of self-important git who would set off the Doomsday device, but she can't seem to convince us to give a damn.

Not much else about the episode works in her favour either.  Entire scenes delivered in German almost as poorly pronounced as her English; Harper's unusual depth-of-field games when she repels her mother with her outflung fingers; a costume that consists of a parachute complete with ripcord; shouting "noooooooooooo...!" as the Daleks defuse her insignificant threat with their transmat.

She may convince us she's the kind of self-important git who would set off the Doomsday device, but she can't seem to convince us to give a damn.  She'll fit in perfectly on Torchwood; let's hope they don't feel the need to bring her back to Doctor Who any time soon.

Sloppy Seconds:

Speaking of returning guest-stars, Rose's is one casket Davies should never have re-opened.  Rose's "arc" ended (excellently) two seasons ago, and Rose getting her pet doctor in Journey's End (Frank beat me to the wording, but, really, no other words will do) pisses all over the far more satisfactory Doomsday.

The argument that the Naked Doctor needs Rose Tyler to heal him, or even that eliminating the Daleks makes him need healing at all, remains thoroughly unconvincing, and the treacley mess on the beach just comes across as an excuse to throw the Rose/Doctor shippers a stale bone.  If a "human-timelord biological metacrisis" can't survive, I was, of course, left wondering if the Doctor just left Rose cavorting with an impending corpse,  instead of just a genocidal mockup of himself and the best temp in Chiswick.  Even if he doesn't drop dead within hours, Rose isn't likely to be satisfied with the short end of the stick.  After travelling the universe with the Doctor, she's isn't likely to be any more satisfied settling down with the Naked Doctor who works in a chip shop than Donna would be with being mind-raped and stranded back on Earth.

The Biggest Backfire in History:

Journey's End had a few redeeming features...there was the...um...no...wait...I'll think of it...ooh, I've got it!  Bernard Cribbins didn't suck.  Then again, he really never sucked, now did he?  Well, how about the faux-German Daleks?  They were entertaining.  And, of course, there was Donna.

The final insult of Journey's End was Donna's terrible fate.  Catherine Tate has been, easily, the best thing to happen to Doctor Who since at least sometime in the seventies.  Donna was supposed to travel with the Doctor forever, more or less.  She certainly deserved better than she got.

...like a schoolboy pulling the wings off of a butterfly...

The Doctor leaving Donna as an amnesiac ticking time-bomb is not a satisfying conclusion to her plot arc.  Sure, it was emotionally devastating and all, and Tate's unparalleled acting sells the horror of it far more than anyone else could have.  An actual death would have been a far more dignified coda for Donna (and would have actually lived up to Caan's prophecy of a companion death, unlike the annoying bait-and-switch Davies keeps pulling).  In one fell swoop, like a schoolboy pulling the wings off of a butterfly, Davies has reduced Donna to the shallow caricature we all met with some trepidation in The Runaway Bride.

Donna's mantra about being "just a temp" led to a great deal of speculation among the fans ("...temp...tempus...time.  She must be a time lord!").  That, of course, all turned out to be much ado about nothing, as the only thing that made her special was her accidental cross pollination with the Doctor.  The end result of her character arc was to have no arc at all; she was just a placeholder.  It's like the world's worst reset-button.  You see, for Davies, Donna was just a temp all along.

Vote Result: Journey's End

Here are the results for the thirteenth blog poll, for Journey's End:

• 65%: Superb - Fantastic Voyage
• 35%: Not Good - Are We There Yet?

And that's yer lot for individual episode polls. A summary of all series 4 results will be posted after we get back from Bad Wolf.

The Doctor Who Technical Manual

Selected extracts from Advanced Learners’ Edition, now featuring

Doctor Who: Journey’s End

Biomatching Receptacle: Talk to the handy plot device.

Reality Bomb: The ultimate demonstration of Einstein’s E=MC2, in which matter, in the form of Gita from EastEnders, is dispersed to atoms, and then nothing at all (pretty standard post-Albert Square career trajectory, in fact). Thus all matter in every universe ceases to exist, except for the Daleks, who are hiding next door, or something. Also the TV industry term for Castaway, coincidentally.

Project Indigo: Top secret teleportation device developed from scavenged Sontaran technology (full name: Project Indigo Here And Outdicome Here.) Classified status only slightly compromised by Martha Jones’current Facebook status: “Martha is… Medical Director of Project Indigo!”

Dimension Jumper: Device that allows the wearer to cross the vortex between realities. Made by Fisher Price.

Dimension Cannon: Device that allows Rose Tyler to cross between parallel worlds. A bit like a Dimension Jumper, but much bigger, and requiring a crash helmet and someone to light the fuse. (NB: Not to be confused with Dimension Canon, a tedious argument about whether the Third Doctor really did meet Kathy Beale.)

Instantaneous Biological Metacrisis: Device that allows David Tennant to charge a double fee.

Temporal Prison: A Chronon Loop. That’s that cleared up, then.

Zed Neutrino Energy: The core of The Crucible. Also early 90s rave band (Z-Nu-trino NR-G, obviously).

Dalek Waste Disposal: “How many times have I told you? Dead Time Agents go in the green bin.”

Extrapalator Shielding: TARDIS security system, built using an intergalactic surfboard disguised as a model of a Welsh power station. True story.

TARDIS Base Code Numerals: If you lose these, you’ll never get the stereo to work again.

Magnatron: Alien tech cannibalised from fairground dodgems and old issues of TV21.

Osterhagen Key: Big bomb.

Warp Star: A warp-fold conjugation trapped in a carbonised shell. Really big bomb.

Planetary Alignment Field: With thanks to the show’s new scientific adviser, Russell Grant.

Time Lock: Developed by Tosh, appropriately enough.

Dalekanium Power Fields: With built-in reverse gear. Phew!

Spatial Genetic Bioduplicity: Tennant squees his pants after recognising actress from Series One box set.

TARDIS Tow-rope: “If you break down after being dragged across time and space in order to build a Reality Bomb, please stay with your planet and await the emergency services – in this case, eight insufferably smug bastards in a phone box. Welsh male voice choir accompaniment optional.”

Biometric Damping Field with Retrograde Arse Inversion: Well that’s what it sounded like.

Barrowman Damping Field with Performance Containment Inversion: Hey, we can dream.

Dimensional Retroclosure: Imagine the size of the prop Jon Pertwee would have needed to write down all the technojism in this script…

Zed Neutrino Biological Inversion Stabiliser: Oh you’re just taking the piss now.

Thanks for the Memory Wipe

Doctor Who: Journey's End

This was brilliant. And the more I think about it, the more brilliant it seems. Elegant. Explosive. Terrifying. Devastating. Thrilling. Thought-provoking. It is everything Doctor Who can and should be, and it wraps up the natural arcs of the most important characters that had been introduced in the four years of the Russel T. Davies era. Or am I imagining it? Am I imagining the symmetry, the closure of loose threads, the deft weaving of various running threads that suddenly culminate all at once in a single explosive and tragic episode? I certainly don't think that I am, but it seems like I must have watched a completely different episode from everyone else because very few people seem to have anything good to say about it.

It's not perfect. Never said it was. It's flawed, sometimes heavily so. But it doesn't have to be perfect to be brilliant. Last week all I was hoping for was that the intolerable storm of fanwank would settle down a little bit so that we could focus on the drama. And it did. There was still fanwank, but a far more appropriate amount, nowhere near the amount of The Stolen Earth. Journey's End was all about character: The Doctor, Davros, Rose, Martha, and Donna in particular. The other characters weren't as integral but their presence was appreciated for the reason that this was a story about the family that the Doctor has accumulated since the Time War, and it wouldn't be the whole family without Sarah Jane, Jack, and even Mickey the idiot.

The examination of the Doctor as a warrior, a soldier, and a deliverer of genocide has long been a concern of the program but this year it has come to the forefront, as the Doctor has found himself causing the destruction of Pompeii, assisting UNIT in the battle against the Sontarans, responsible for a daughter who knows nothing but how to be a soldier and, finally, tasked by the Shadow Proclamation with leading the battle against the new Dalek Empire. Despite his flippant refusal to do so, however, he finds that he has unintentionally done just that. Every single one of his companions (save Donna, we'll get to her in a bit) has become a soldier, willing to commit genocide: the death of every Dalek, every human. This is a chilling and fitting culmination of what was started in Rob Shearman's Dalek, when the Dalek says to the Ninth Doctor, "we are the same," and continued in the Parting of the Ways when the Dalek Emperor calls him "the Great Exterminator." It's something that the Doctor has grappled with ever since, and here he must confront the fact that he's not a Dalek, he's the only thing worse than a Dalek: He's Davros, creator of Daleks. "Is that what you did to her, turned her into a soldier?" Donna asks of Martha in The Sontaran Stratagem. And yes, that's exactly what he did, as we saw then and we see even more clearly now.

I don't really understand why a fully-fledged copy of the Doctor has been interpreted by the fandom as a sex doll, but then again, I've never owned one, so I suppose I don't know what I'm talking about.

And Martha has finally rebounded from the slump she's been in since her Torchwood guest appearances. For the first time since Last of the Time Lords, we see a Martha that we can watch with interest, even if we can't exactly root for her. Her mission is not only a shocking attempt at genocide, but it's also the same mission from the end of series three, twisted, perverted, and combined with the fake mission she had in the same episode (am I the only one who's noticing this, or am I just pulling it out of my arse?). The ludicrous "gun in four parts" which she mocked the Master for believing, combined with the globe-travelling, teaming-with-people-around-the-world mission that she actually undertook. "As if I would ask her to kill," the Doctor says in that episode, almost anticipating Donna's question mentioned above. But he didn't ask her to kill. He just trained her for it and she is now doing it on her own. It's quite ironic that Earth has been dragged accross the cosmos and is sharing a Cascade with the Crucible, which is less Arthur Miller and more George Lucas, and it's in danger of destruction not at the say-so of Peter Cushing (which would be just plain strange, given that this is a Dalek story) but rather at the will of Martha Jones. Digression aside, the point is this: what Martha has become, the Doctor can't help but be ashamed of, but it makes for good television and is a natural continuation of Martha's character. Meanwhile, Martha finally meets Rose and, after Rose's attitude toward her last week, the two finally accept one another: case closed. All right, a little bit more face time between them might have been nice, but its absence does not ruin the episode by any means.

Speaking of Rose, the conclusion to her four-season-long arc was by far the most gratifying, largely because the Doctor actually said certain things about his relationship with Rose that I've been saying for years. I've never been one to believe that the Doctor requited Rose's feelings for him. I have, however believed that their relationship was special because she made him a better man. She made the bitter and jaded Christopher Eccleston into the more optimistic (though still scarred) David Tennant. She helped him get over the horror of destroying two civilizations, one of which was his own. The Doctor basically says as much in this episode, and gives Rose and the Hand Doctor exactly what they deserve: each other. I don't really understand why a fully-fledged copy of the Doctor has been interpreted by the fandom as a sex doll, but then again, I've never owned one, so I suppose I don't know what I'm talking about. As far as I'm concerned, this is the perfect conclusion to Rose's story. Last time we visited Bad Wolf Bay, we were told that Rose could never return, but that had zero credibility (I mean, come on, Mickey had already done it!) and there was no real closure: the shadow of Rose continued to hang over to program. That shadow is now lifted, and both she and the Doctor can get on with their lives; the story no longer calls out for resolution but the possibility is left that sometime two, five, ten, or twenty years down the road Billie and David can both return to the program, together, if the need should arise.

Davros' role in this story served in part as the culmination of two major arcs: the "arc" of bringing back classic series icons one at a time, and the arc of the return of the Daleks that has been developed over the course of the series. This was simply the most effective use of Daleks since 2005's Dalek. The rivalry between the Doctor and the Daleks is iconic, but that was covered so marvelously in the afforementioned episode that there was nowhere left to build as far as that was concerned. The only thing that could develop the Daleks would be to do Daleks as characters in their own right: first the Dalek Emperor, then the Cult of Skaro, and here we culminate with three different Dalek characters: Davros (not literally a Dalek, obviously, but part of the Dalek mythology), Dalek Caan, and the Dalek Supreme.  The Dalek Supreme did exactly what it says on the tin: he was a superlative version of what made a Dalek: more arrogant, more likely to shout, more dangerous-seeming. Dalek Caan was not only creepy and funny at the same time but also a gratifying payoff to the Doctor's feeble attempts to convince the Daleks that what they're doing is wrong. And Davros was everything that he should be. The level of charisma and intelligence was such that he seemed the fitting counterpart to the Doctor that he's always tried to be but never, in my opinion, quite succeed at before. The only problem I can identify is that it's done so effectively that it steals a bit too much thunder from John Simm's excellent portrayal of the Master. But I suppose it's all right because, although they are both counterparts to the Doctor, they are done in such different ways that it's not really a problem. And Julian Bleach's performance in the role is phenomenal. A joy to watch, and truly insane. That doesn't mean that the garden-variety Daleks don't have a shining moment in this episode as well: I am referring, of course, to the German Daleks. I don't think it's bigoted of me to find the German-speaking Daleks even more terrifying because of the Nazi connection. The Daleks have always been Nazi-like, and it is from this that they derive much of their terror. Amplifying that only makes them more frightening.

That Donna's departure disturbed, upset, and, ultimately, bovvered so many fans is to the credit of both Russell and Catherine.

Now, about Donna. It's heartbreaking, it's sad, and she doesn't deserve it. It really, truly hurts. But that's not something that should be held against the episode, because that's how stories are told. And this one has been told excellently. That Donna's departure disturbed, upset, and, ultimately, bovvered so many fans is to the credit of both Russell and Catherine. But the departure was strangely appropriate. The threads leading to this finale have been woven through the fabric of this series. The Doctor and Donna as a single entity was hinted at ages ago. I'm thinking in particular about the notion of Donna (and companions in general) as a part of the Doctor that has been externalized, that Donna acts as the Doctor's conscience. I mentioned this specifically in my review of Planet of the Ood, noting the similarity between this concept and the tripartite consciousness of the Ood. Not to mention the foreshadowing of Donna's fate through the false lives she lived in Forest of the Dead and Turn Left. Donna's fate is the logical culmination of what we saw this series, and as tragic as it is, I can think of no ending for her character that is anywhere near so devastatingly fitting. In the end, Donna and the Hand Doctor share the same horrible fate: Just as Donna is reset to the meaningless chatter of her former life, the Hand Doctor is reset to the genocide of the Time War. Sure, the Hand Doctor has been given Rose to make him a better man, just as she did once before, but hasn't Donna also been put in the capable hands of her grandfather? Surely now that Wilf has seen firsthand what Donna can become he will stop at nothing to encourage her much the same way the Doctor has, won't he? Surely the Doctor struck a nerve when he rebuked Donna's mother, and things will be different from now on, won't they? Surely her family can save her from the falseness of her existence just as she was saved by Miss Evangelista and then by Rose, right? I'm not just imagining these implications, am I? I just wish they had been more explicit, like they were with the Hand Doctor and Rose! It is my fondest hope that sometime in the future, the Doctor will encounter Donna in some capacity and see that she is living a life of meaning and happiness, and smile to himself because of it. Will it ever happen? I don't know how likely it is, but the hope that Donna can be a better woman even without the Doctor is all we as fans now have. Regardless, Donna's ending is more powerful than any death would have been, and despite its similarity to both Parting of the Ways and Doomsday, it was one of the best things about this episode.  However, talking only about the elegant closure of the arc doesn't cover half of it, because this final performance by Catherine Tate is truly astounding. Not only does she clinch her status as an iconic companion, she also delivers what can only be described as the single most convincing case ever made for casting a female Doctor. The emotional range she displays in this episode is truly astounding, as we see her at her highest and lowest moment and easily believe every second of it. Donna is one of the best things that could ever have happened to this program and seeing her go is tough.

Yeah, the episode wasn't perfect. I freely admit that. The regeneration felt like a cop out, although it wasn't, because it ultimately had major consequences. You say it's a bit preposterous? Yeah, maybe, but no more so than Romana's regeneration in Destiny of the Daleks. And on the bright side, the Hand has handed down its last deus ex machina after spending far too much time kicking around the Whoniverse and acting as a convenient plot device. Last week, I knew, as we all did, that the regeneration was fake, but what I said was that I would be fine with it as long as it was a fake with consequences worth watching. And this was worth watching. Another major flaw was the lack of anything important for Mickey and Jackie. But these are characters which I originally hated but came to love after two series, and their main function here is just to have them along for the ride. And that's fine, though it's rather awkward that Mickey and Rose don't even interact. I understand that resurrecting the Doctor/Rose/Mickey love triangle would have distracted from the other arcs that needed treating, but the lack of closure here still bothers me a bit. If Mickey is truly joining Torchwood, then will the shadow of Rose hang on that show as well? God, I hope not. That's the last thing Torchwood needs. Another serious flaw was the use of sudden last-minute time bubbles, teleports, and transmats to move the plot in a way that was simply lazy. However, this didn't detract much from my enjoyment of the episode either because anything other than a quick and dirty resolution would have wasted time and thrown off the pace. I'm fine with Tosh's time bubble as long as it prevents a Ianto-and-Gwen-fight-Daleks subplot, from which the episode would have suffered more severely.

Ultimately, though, in spite of all of the faults, and even if I'm really just crazy, seeing tied-up threads where none exist, it still has to be said that this episode was a blast nonetheless. Big, explosive, scary, full of thrills, and full of heart. Watching it was a pleasure and re-watching it was even more of a pleasure, for all the reasons I've listed in my review but also for all the reasons Stuart listed in his review. There was something for everyone in Journey's End, and it's a pity more people didn't find it. So, I'm sorry I can't join the angry mob, and I fear I'm about to be lynched by the newly energized and expanded throng of RTD haters, but that was my honest opinion and I'm sticking by my guns here. This is easily the best finale Russell has given us so far and it was a fitting end to a phenomenal series, not to mention a largely successful four year stint in the hardest and best job in television. This was a marvelous celebration of Doctor Who past and present, and I applaud it.

Traveller's Rest

Doctor Who: Journey's End

Christmas.  I love Christmas.  The annual build up, buying presents, putting up the decorations, the real tree, Christmas Day, opening presents, even the anti-climactic Boxing Day because you know you the cycle will begin again in January with the sales.  Some people don’t like Christmas.  They don’t like the hassle of the shopping, think decorations are pointless, buy a cheap plastic tree because they can’t be bothered watering ‘a proper one’, the inevitable disappointment of the actual day which can only be solved through the juice with the even more depressing prospect of the following bank holiday knowing that your misanthropy is set to continue.  I think the world can roughly be split between people who like Christmas and those who don’t and with the exception of those who’ve a decent reason (family bereavement at around that time, religious conviction), I don’t think I’ve ever gotten along with people who don’t like Christmas.

Which is the only way I can really understand the reaction to Journey’s End, which has polarised fandom more than any episode this series.  I'd hoped to come here and join in the celebrations of a job well done by everyone at Upper Boat.  Here is a photo of me banging my head against the table (not really) on Saturday night as I read the comments in the reaction thread here and elsewhere online.   Once again, everyone seemed to have missed the point, become oh so very serious and forgotten one very specific thing, even though it's reiterated over and over to the point of cliche, and somewhat more articulately by John last week. 

Doctor Who isn’t just made for us fans.  It never was.  Well apart from that moment in the early eighties when John, Nathan and Turner tried it and got everything catastrophically wrong.   

It’s for kids and we’ve grown up and forgotten (well, I say ‘we’ I mean you).  Remember how exciting it was to see The Five Doctors, all of those different versions of the same man together on screen at the same time, the ones we’d all read about but not seen in Target novelisations.  It didn’t matter what the story was, we didn’t notice flaws, and though the script teased us nine year olds by keeping them apart for most of the story, when they finally met it was magic.  I think you’ve already worked out what I’m going to say – Journey’s End is as it should have been, nu-Who’s The Five Doctors, this time with all of the Doctor’s companions fighting together, many for the first time.

I love Christmas.

Like The Five Doctors, these meetings were imperfect – something Russell T Davies seemed to acknowledge when he had Sarah Jane introduce herself to those of the Doctor’s friends she’d not been acquainted with yet in much the same way she did beside to Rassilon’s tomb.  After a couple of season’s build-up we didn’t get to see the meeting between Rose and Martha, just some comments over a viewscreen and the glimpse of a hug in the Tardis console room.  Jack and Mickey were unbelievably happy to see one another considering they’d last met briefly in Boomtown and Rose didn’t find out that it’s her fault that Jack can’t die.  But kids really don’t care about all of that – they fill in the blanks – it gives their imagination something to play with.

Since I am in the process of reviewing the fan reaction more than the episode, I should note that I also simply don’t understand how anyone can say that ‘Rose/Jacqui/Mickey was wasted’ as though every character in a drama has to be a function of the plot (tell that to Shakespeare and Robert Altman).  Isn’t it just nice to have them along for the ride?   Davies need not have brought back all of those characters; he could have told yet another rather linear story featuring a timelord and companion that might have been just as exciting.  Instead, he decided to repay viewers for their four years of viewing in a way that few series care to, and give the kids a big Christmas present in the middle of the year as we saw them collectively guiding the TARDIS towards victory (which is actually more than anyone did in The Five Doctors).

Kids love spectacle.

Kids love spectacle.  When that fabulous shot of the Tardis pulling the Earth through space aided by Mr Smith and the Rift, both of which have a functionally similar place in their respective spin-off series, the last thing in a child’s mind are tectonic stresses, the gravitational positioning of the rest of the solar system and the structural integrity of buildings.  And it just doesn’t matter.  This is fantasy and like the secret conversations, there’s clearly going to be some unseen exposition to explain it.  How boring would the scene be that explained it though (as seen too many times in Star Trek), a point acknowledged when Donna confused the Daleks using her typing skills and some of the Doctor’s knowledge, the stream of poetically meaningless technobabble economically and amusingly demonstrating that some interesting reprogramming had occurred in her brain.

There’s also people like my mother who hasn’t watched an episode before, yet after seeing the final twenty-five minutes, explained she’d been in buckets of tears and said ‘Isn’t Bernard Cribbins great?’  And he was.  It might well have been the best performance he’s given and deserves an award which he inevitably won’t get because Catherine Tate will.  Even Mum understood the tragedy of Donna’s loss of self, her degeneration.  That people have been so upset by this cruel and unusual approach to a companion leaving is a tribute to Tate, the various writers and directors who made sure that we care about this temp so much. 

The loss of a companion is rarely satisfying.

The loss of a companion is rarely satisfying.  With the obvious yellow tabard wearing exception, they tend to just walk away or marry someone who isn’t the Doctor, so how surprising and special to see Donna leave and have it mean something, an expression of how important our life’s experiences are and how our acquaintances have the capacity to change or help us to become someone else.  Sure there’s a selfishness to the Doctor’s action since it means that he won’t see another of his friends becoming a soldier in the way that Davros to deliciously explained.  As shown Donna isn’t given much of a choice as to whether she’d rather die with her memories or exist as the person she was without them.  But he’s also fulfilling his ongoing promise to always bring them home, assuming they have a family waiting for them.

I’ve spent the past week fielding questions about whether David Tennant is leaving and it’s those people who tuned in on Saturday night to find out if a beloved actor had been lost to theatre.  They didn’t care about photos of the Christmas special, that historically we’ve all known months in advance who’d be playing the role if there was to be a change and that nothing is kept secret any more.  They're very pleased that Tennant’s still here, at least for a year or two.  It was a bizarre cliffhanger anyway, because the character of the Doctor’s life wasn’t threatened and already in a process of renewal.  It was a cliffhanger based on the continuance of an actor in the role, one of surprise, exciting for reasons related to the production and unrelated to the actual narrative.

it was made for us fans.

And yes, it was made for us fans.  Those of us who remember Sarah-Jane meeting Davros on Skaro and who like Donna has become a more inquisitive character through her association with the Doctor.  The funny moment when the similarity between Gwen and Gwyneth was randomly noted and a whole pile of other stuff listed at the Wikipedia.  We revel in Julian Bleach’s recreation of the Dalek creator and the gut-wrenching monologuing in which it seems as though he’s spent his life working towards creating the very experiment suggested to him by the Doctor in Genesis of the Daleks about snuffing out the whole universe and when he finally incontrovertibly gets one over on the increasingly mislabelled ‘last of the timelords’.

But finally, egotistically, it was made for me, for the instants when I cheered and cried and laughed throughout that hour or so.  I loved every moment of it, even the bit in Bad Wolf Bay and like Christmas I'm not sure I could get along with anyone who didn't, the kinds of people who describe it as 'appallingly bad' or some such apparently because it didn't fulfill their impossibly high expectations.  Christmas is never as brilliant as you expect it to be, but I still love it for all that.  Similarly,  Journey's End isn't above criticism, it's just the vitriol and I've seen makes me wonder if I watched a different programme.  Predictably the reviews by professional journalists and the people who don't take the show quite so seriously have been overwhelmingly positive.

At the close of my review of Rose in 2005 I said:  “I keeping asking myself why I'm so excited about a new television series when there is still lots of other really good Doctor Who going around. It's about hope. It's about the fact that if enough of the right people care about something, and enough of those people are in the right position to doing something about it, wonderful things can happen. If that doesn't make you choke up, you must be an Auton” and that is still true four seasons later.

Reality Boob

Doctor Who: Journey's End

I bet Gillane Seaborne was livid. She's sat at home, downing another glass of Chardonnay, and then next minute she's plonked in the BBC News studio trying her best to explain to the newsreaders and anyone now bothering to watch what exactly that last 65 minutes on BBC1 was about and why, for fuck's sake, Tennant was still Doctor Who when they'd all convinced themselves he was going. All she wanted to do was get back to her glass of wine rather than try and defend the whole cop-out regeneration and three Doctors bollocks (not a physical aberration, more a creative one). I had visions of a baying mob outside the newsroom screaming for Russell's blood. But no, the baying mob is on the internet and they're mad as hell and aren't gonna take it anymore.

The problem with Journey's End is that, far from just being a desk clearing, valedictory conclusion to four years of the Russell T Davies masterplan, it ends up leaving a bitter taste in the mouth. With the symbolic death of Donna Noble it has a stark, melancholic message to declare. After bigging up how marvellous ordinary people are, is Davies now seriously saying, actually, they're never going to reach their potential because they'll never have the opportunity to do so? Is he telling us we should just know and accept our place in the world because we're nothing special? Cheeky sod. Donna's fate is quite honestly one of very few reasons why you should even bother to watch this episode. The 'everlasting death' of the character is heartbreaking and almost redeems Journey's End from being just the tartrazine fueled ravings of a writer channeling, nay mind-raping, his inner seven year old. I know, I know...we all saw it coming and knew Davies would do anything to avoid the grand scenario we'd actually constructed in our own heads for the finale. We're our own worst enemies. Still, I have to sneakily admire the use of the regeneration as a cliffhanger because the media fell for it hook, line and sinker and for a minute I thought I hadn't actually been told what would happen months ago by those in the know. For a minute there he had me going.

...she's reduced to facile bantering on her mobile phone in her mother's kitchen

If indeed Journey's End is about the nature of reality, then it's a very cruel and dark vision we're left with. Donna, perhaps the best of the companions featured in the new series thus far, has all the life building experiences and adventures wrenched away from her and she's reduced to facile bantering on her mobile phone in her mother's kitchen. Granted, the Doctor has a go at Sylvia for all the years that she's undermined her own daughter but isn't the Doctor guilty of offering false hopes too? It's an upsetting, moving and ultimately cruel conclusion and you could argue that Donna now has an opportunity to start again. But it just seems so crushingly sad. Here, Donna's become the postmodern symbol of all postmodern symbols where the Donna that bloomed in front of us will now be just a dead meaning and frozen form cycling and mutating into new combinations and permutations of the same - all the way through Series 4 when we choose to rewatch it. Wilf's speech at the end of the episode does provide some salve to this wound as it does offer an ability to acknowledge her achievements rather than the closure that Sylvia suggests. Catherine Tate and Bernard Cribbins were quite brilliant in those final scenes. Tate superbly conveyed the horror of Donna's return to reality and indeed what was her 'fate worse than death'. Cribbins quite rightly ensures that there isn't a dry eye in the house with that touching final speech. He has been a real asset to this series.

Now if the bomb just destroyed all the crap reality television in all the multiverses then I'd say that was a plan.

The other reason to wade through this overindulgent mess is for that fantastic scene with Davros. It's a thoughtful examination of the Doctor's motivations and his use of the 'children of time' as weapons. Davros draws parallels between himself and the Doctor and exposes the 'soul' of the Doctor. In the end, Davros argues, the Doctor is simply a general leading his troops into battle.  What was quite amusing here was that this argument was played out after both Martha and Sarah's 'final solutions' had been neutralised by the all seeing Caan. Julian Bleach certainly made Davros his own and was rather good in that confrontation, especially the goose-bump raising moment of recognition between him and Sarah. Caan's prophecies, the Daleks, Davros were an all conquering force at this point in the episode. And then it got a bit shit. Davros' plan to destroy all the realities of the multiverses just didn't have any reasoning behind it. Was he doing it out of spite? And in doing so wouldn't the Daleks then be masters of absolutely nothing? Or is that the idea? Masters of nothing. The Daleks trashing the Earth in The Stolen Earth was reduced to pointlessness as there wasn't any explanation for rounding up human hostages on such a huge scale when all they wanted was a few guinea pigs to test out the reality bomb. Now if the bomb just destroyed all the crap reality television in all the multiverses then I'd say that was a plan. But then Davros turns out to be a 'pet' of the Daleks in a vain attempt to make the Daleks look more important than their creator, which has always been something that the series has wrestled with, and the Crucible blows up and you wonder what was the point of him being there at all. Him and the Supreme Dalek. This Christmas' merchandising sorted out then

And then we get the resolution from that cop out regeneration. Three Doctors. And a load of gobbledegook about the Time Lord energy going into the hand and Donna touching the hand and becoming part Doctor. We knew Tennant wasn't leaving so the misdirection of the regeneration simply turns into an excuse to create a sex doll version of Tennant's Doctor that Rose could then keep and a version living inside Donna's head. One goes all genocidal and one is forced to forget who she really is. This does two things. First, it pisses all over the conclusion to Doomsday and the ongoing angst about Rose and, second, it turns Catherine Tate back into the comedy-variety abomination that many had long feared would be her contribution to the show. Fobbing Rose off with another version of the Doctor was the most bizarre and perverse notion because it simply didn't work as an emotional closure to the relationship. Instead it's rather cruel of the Doctor to hand him over with the reasoning behind him being the war damaged version she met in Series 1 and made better not really ringing true. The clone Doctor doesn't need to be made better because surely he has all the real Doctor's memories of being with Rose, Martha and Donna anyway. I'm afraid that the cop-out meter just went off the scale again at that point.

Donna then becomes Reginald Dixon at the mighty Wurlitzer organ and simply forces the Daleks into a spot of Come Dancing.

Making Donna the Doctor/Donna was really stretching the concept to breaking point. Perhaps Russell himself needs a companion to tell him when to 'stop'...stop writing such utter nonsense. Sex doll Doctor aside, Donna then becomes Reginald Dixon at the mighty Wurlitzer organ and simply forces the Daleks into a spot of Come Dancing. This is such end-of-the pier stuff and utterly undermines any threat that had been building in The Stolen Earth and to the half way mark here. And the cherry on the top of this particularly calorific pudding is Caan. Caan is RTD. Driven mad over four series he brings the Daleks back as a vast, all conquering empire only to want to see them destroyed...again...and again. This time by a shrill temp doing a David Tennant impression and 100wpm on a conveniently placed cinema organ. No wonder the Doctor mind-wiped her, he obviously couldn't stand himself. This yet again is an example of Russell's inability to provide proper resolution to big action plots. He's great at character but can be really lousy at plot construction and denouments. You get the sense of him constantly and frantically pulling rabbits out of hats to divert the audience through the last hour of that episode.

And the rabbits and hats charade of ignoring Caan's prophecy, grinning companions in the TARDIS (I think they had more fun than the audience), the TARDIS towing the Earth in the series' pinnacle of bad science, bloody K9, the connection between Gwen and Gwyneth, an impromptu firework celebration...is just overkill. It's just bluster to cover Russell's continual use of the Escape key on his keyboard.  A frenetic, pacy, glossy spectacle, catching that sense of closure I spoke of last time with good, solid direction from Graeme Harper and splendid visual effects from the Mill, Journey's End sums up his era, an era full of moments of sheer brilliance colliding with toe curling pulp excess. Often he makes it work wonderfully but here it is very much an own goal. And it's too early to think it's all over...as bang, bang, bang...here comes the Christmas special and four more salvos of narrative contortions in 2009. And when Tennant does eventually regenerate no one will really give a shit, will they?

The End of the Line

The Doctor Who News Page reports that unofficial overnight figures show Journey's End got 9.4 million viewers (a 45.9% share).

Even now, a crack squad of very good bearded scientists, in a secret underground installation in Switzerland, are building an electron microscope so powerful, so immense, as to be able to detect infinitesimally small particles and the ITV1 ratings for Doctor Who's timeslot opposition Kindergarten Cop.

Metacrisis on Infinite Dearths

Before Journey’s End started, I had a moment of panic singularly unique to Glasgow in summer.

About an hour before the episode started, the massed ranks of the Orange Order descended on the road outside my flat, giving it yahoo with their particular brand of marching. 

For a moment, a brief moment, I panicked.  The horrible thought struck that this year’s season finale would be less Journey’s End, more the The Sound of Drums and Flutes.

Thankfully, after about 10 minutes, they passed, marching up Paisley Road with their entourage in tow.

60 minutes later, I was wishing they’d taken up camp outside my window and given it the full Murray Gold.

Doctor Who: Journey’s End

It seems curiously appropriate, on the 60th anniversary of the NHS, we get an episode with more Doctors than at any point in the modern history of the show.  Although only one of them is fully qualified, the other two still being junior Doctors, busy arsing about and running around showing off the obscure jargon they’ve learned while they play with their remote control Dalek set.

It was a surprise they didn't start wheeling Davros down the corridors and offering Dalek Caan a rag mag.

And if that sounds a dumb, ridiculous and over the top idea, then it’s no more than this episode deserves.

This was Doctor Who at it’s best and worst, in sadly unequal measure. 

Now, last week I was hugely disappointed, but the berating I received over my review,  and the insanely high audience and AI figures for the episode, would suggest I’m very much in the minority.  So if you disagreed with my complaints last week, you might want to look away now. 

It was Abraham Lincoln who said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.  But The Stolen Earth’s incredible rating and the hype surrounding Journey’s End suggests old President Beardy Chops hadn’t factored on Russell T Davies into that particular concept.

at least they can make a good fist of their relationship this time round - in all senses of the term

Clearly Russell wants to clear the decks before he clears his desk, and make sure everything is neat and tidy in the toy box before Steven Moffat takes charge.  Which explains the Lord of the Rings-style multipart ending.  So Mickey and Martha are factored into Torchwood, as was previously rumoured, to join Gappy Riftmouth and former Big Brother housemate Glynn.  Sarah’s safe and well and away to look after Luke and Mr Smith for another series on CBBC, just in time for more school-based alien invasions.

Meanwhile Rose and Jackie are back where they belong, locked away in parallel Norway - although at least this time the Doctor left her something to remember him by -  the Time Lord  equivalent of a sex doll.  Still, at least they can make a good fist of their relationship this time round - in all senses of the term.

And then there was Donna.  Oh, Russell T Davies, why?  Why did you do this to us?  What was this, an exercise in point scoring?  A reminder to us plebs that ultimately you’re in charge?  Because that’s what it felt like.  It felt like Russell saying a big up yours to the naysayers.  Perhaps this was his punishment for all the criticism of Catherine at the start.  ‘Oh, they think she can’t act then?  They think Donna’s a horrible character? I’ll show them.  I’ll write her into being one of the best companions the show’s ever had, and give Catherine every opportunity to showcase her skills as an actress, to the point where you really, really care about her.  That you forget the criticism you had of Donna and of Catherine from The Runaway Bride.

‘Then BANG!  Fuck you for falling for my manipulative writing.  Fuck you for your emotional investment.  Now you’ve learned your lesson.  Never doubt me again.’

Because this was the most ignominious exit Donna could have.  It wasn’t dark, it wasn’t heart-wrenching, it was brutally, cynically manipulative.  Even just killing her, melting her brain under the sheer weight of Time Lord knowledge, would have been a more noble exit for Noble. 

Russell’s self-proclaimed desire to never kill off a companion, even allowing for his ever-more-pompous attempts to work the DWM audience, has effectively forced him to do something worse.  After managing to imbue Donna Noble with a sense of dignity lacking in The Runaway Bride, he denies her a dignified end.  We're supposed to feel sorry for Donna's loss, and sorry for the Doctor's.  But ultimately, his mindwipe solution just left me feeling hollow.

a celebratory hug in the TARDIS so cursory it’s practically off-screen

His solution highlights what was biggest problem with Journey’s End - the writing, and how much the episode exposed the showrunner’s biggest faults as a writer.  Doctor Who has become an exercise in spectacle, every climax bigger and more bloated than before.  But each time, it needs more coincidence, more deus ex machina, more gratuitous technobabble and more suspension of belief than ever before.  And eventually it means writing himself into a corner.

Witness the cliffhanger resolution for instance.  Mickey and Jackie teleporting in I can just about cope with - Rose had already set the precedent last time.  Diverting the regeneration energy was daft, but at least it had a purpose, to set up the semi-Doctor.  But the ‘time lock’ at Torchwood?  What?  It wasn’t even a case of not having an adequate resolution to their dilemma as it was him not having any ideas for the Torchwood team full stop.

The episode as a whole was just... it just failed.  It failed on so many levels.  Too many ideas set up in the The Stolen Earth were just dumped or ignored.  The Shadow Proclamation, for instance.  Last week they were just a bunch of Albinos running what looked like a deep space branch of Nobu.  But we were supposed to believe they were preparing for war, that they were coming and needed the Doctor to lead them into battle.  The Osterhagen key - this ultimate threat, revealed as a planet-busting set of bombs... neutralised by a transmat.  That heartbeat Donna’s been hearing?  Those timelines converging on her?  All just more wibbly-wobbly timey wimey nonsense, but without even using the catchphrase.

And more crucially, Rose and Martha.  A meeting that’s been building for two seasons, and one we needed done properly, especially after Rose’s bitching at the social networking webcast last week, and the shadow Blondie cast over Martha’s stint as chief ankle-twister. 

Instead we got a ‘she’s good’ as Martha appears on the big Dalek telly, and a celebratory hug in the TARDIS so cursory it’s practically off-screen.

As for towing the Earth, a phrase that even written down just looks ridiculous... I refuse to dignify it with any comment.

when it comes to Doctor Who he’s just a carny - Vince McMahon with a BAFTA on his mantelpiece

The one thing that did carry over - in fact, got shoehorned and highlighted so much that it’d have been more of a failure NOT to rely on it - was the hand.  I’m all for the principle of Chekhov’s gun, but as a friend remarked, this was more like Stanislavsky’s Great Big Fuck-Off Crowbar.

Russell T Davies has done this too often to get a pass now.  He may be an award-winning writer and producer, but when it comes to Doctor Who he’s just a carny.  A showman. Vince McMahon with a BAFTA on his mantelpiece.

Davies says he’s not going to write for the show again, once Moffat takes charge, and blasphemous though it may be I’m not going to miss him.  He writes fantastic, beautiful character moments then flattens them against leaden plotting and storylines that leave you drooling in stupefaction.  The man responsible for the sublime Midnight was also responsible for this ridiculous nonsense.

And there were beautiful moments in Journey’s End, don’t get me wrong.  As an episode it failed, utterly, but as a collection of scenes it had moments that made me practically cheering.  Most of them, in some way, involved Julian Bleach, who’s performance as Davros was stunning, truly stunning.  In the same way that Christopher Gable managed to make Sharaz Jek a charismatic monster while hidden in a gimp mask, Bleach’s performance shines out from under layers of latex.  His interplay with the Doctor is exactly what we should have got from Tennant and Simm last year.

The German Daleks were a nice touch.   Not only do the dustbins know who Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister, is, but they also apparently did a Berlitz course before invading the planet.

Tate’s business with the semi-Doctor as he realised who he was, and then more importantly who she was at heart, was wonderful, and the perfect underlining of their screwball relationship.  It paid off wonderfully as the Doctor berated Sylvia at the end, a moment of domestic in Doctor Who that actually, for once, meant something and really worked.

And Bernard Cribbins, of course.  Wonderful throughout his appearances in the series, his sad farewell speech to the Doctor, as he alone realises how lonely and forsaken the Time Lord is, was again pitch-perfect.  As was that final shot, the rain-sodden Doctor all alone at home.  Any kind of ‘what?!’ moment to set up this year’s Christmas special would have undermined what was an intensely strong moment.

In purely production terms, actually, there wasn’t a lot to fault.  Visually it looked great, again everyone did their job in terms of performance with skill, to the extent that even Barrowman seemed good, and the direction carried Graeme Harper’s now traditional blend of breathless energy and poignant stillness.  Watch Journey’s End with the sound off, and this would have been a visually blow-away piece of television.

looks like old Abraham was wrong after all

No, everything that was wrong with Journey’s End came from the script - structurally, conceptually and creatively, this was a bellyflop from the high dive board.

With the hype, the weather, Wimbledon and the summer holidays not quite having started yet (except for viewers in Scotland) I’m expecting this to absolutely shatter the viewing figure records for nu-Who.  As I write this it’s just a couple of hours until they’re available, so without the benefit of some timey wimey foreknowledge I can only guess.  But with the mainstream media, and even BBC.co.uk’s own News homepage, running stories last night that Tennant hadn’t gone, it’s clear something huge has happened to Doctor Who.  It looks like old Abraham was wrong after all. 

The world shifted last night.  And I think it left me behind.

The Twee Doctors

Doctor Who: Journey's End

Blimey, wasn't David Morrissey fantastic tonight? I mean, WOW! And phew, too! Just imagine how disappointed we'd have been if David Tennant had regenerated into himself or something pathetic like that! That would have been a massive cop-out and they'd have lynched RTD for sure. And top marks for pulling off a Paul McGann Time War flashback so we could watch him regenerate into Eccleston. Brilliant! But killing Rose and Martha - who saw that coming? However, I have to admit that shoehorning Harriet Jones into the Dalek Supreme and McCoy's cheeky cameo as "Dr." Osterhagen did over-egg the pudding a little, even it was cleverly done (I loved the subtle reference to the Kandyman). And while I'm having a hard time swallowing the fact that Donna was actually Romana all along (Temp = Time, Noble = Lord - slaps forehead - of course!) that bit at the end when John Simm unleashed all of those Cybermen into the TARDIS was f**king mental! What? What? WHAT?

Is it Christmas yet?

5/5!

Hooray!

OK, so that's what might have happened if Russell had turned left (or listened to some of the more insane suggestions on the DW forum over the past couple of months). Unfortunately, what we ended up simply couldn't compete with that level of hype and speculation. Sure, Journey's End was completely off-its-tits mental but compared to what might have been it somehow manages to feel slightly tame and a little bit of a let down. Now, is that Russell's fault or ours?

Top marks for pulling off a McGann Time War flashback so we could see him regenerate into Eccleston. Brilliant!

I suppose he did ask for it. After all it was his decision to plump for the biggest and boldest cliffhanger imaginable, and while it certainly generated more anticipation, excitement and column inches than I thought possible, he must have known deep down inside that the resolution would polarise the audience: giddy relief for those of you who love David Tennant and acute disappointment for those of us who don't (or who just wanted last week's surprise to be "real"). Ramping up the tension by claiming that only a handful of people knew the truth - not even the Head of Drama had seen it (what, really? the Head of Drama didn't have a say in the casting of the 11th Doctor?) - was simply asking for trouble as well. Perhaps Russell watched it 15 times in the week leading up to transmission so he could work out exactly what the hell was going on. 

Personally, I knew what was going to happen; if you don't believe me you can ask John Paul - I gave him a sealed envelope on Wednesday where I spilled the beans (ending the note with a pretty emphatic "How shit is that?") so I'd managed to inoculate myself against the fake regeneration. Look, there have been spoilers on the net about two Tennants, a Donna mind-wipe and Bad Wolf Bay for months. Either you weren't looking for them (good for you) or you don't know how to use Google properly. Come on, we've all known for ages that all of the Doctor's companions would end up piloting the TARDIS to take down Davros because there are no secrets in television anymore. Do you honestly believe that The Sun wouldn't have known that James Nesbitt had turned up to film a whole episode, let alone a quick cameo? The only real surprise is that the BBC still have the rights to use K9.

Not that this stopped Caitlin Moran, the TV critic for The Times, who appeared on the news yesterday entertaining the notion that the BBC may have successfully kept the recasting of the Doctor a secret. Ain't It Cool News confidentially predicted that Robert Caryle would turn up in tonight's episode and even the bookmakers had stopped taking bets on Morrissey due to "suspicious" amounts of money being placed on him. I just feel sorry for anyone who believed that they were going to witness a new Doctor tonight. Even a temporary one. Sadly, two Tennants just doesn't cut the mustard, even when one of them is butt-naked (is that the sound of Live Journal blowing up?) and it must have been a painful anti-climax for many of you. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. Talk about "the biggest backfire in history".

there are no secrets in television anymore...

Journey's End makes Last of the Time Lords look like Waiting for Godot when it comes to overblown spectacle and incident. It's an all-you-can-eat-buffet of continuity, explosions and people talking really quickly in confined spaces, and if you love that kind of thing you can skip to the end of this review where I say some really nice things about Bernard Cribbens.

Let's get the inexplicable nonsense out of the way first: Jackie Tyler - with a gun (why was she doing there in the first place? What function does she perform apart from doing a great impression of Polly?); so Davros creates a handy control panel that can undo all his nefarious plans and then he places it in the same room as the Doctor and his companions (will he never learn?); Caan goes to all that trouble of bringing back the Daleks just so he can kill them again, eh?; the 27 planets do what again, exactly?; I still don't get how Donna ended up being in the right place at the right time and who or what was manipulating events so they weren't just whacking great coincidences (was it Caan?); and who didn't flinch when the Doctor took some time out to fanwank all over Gwen Cooper?

But all of this pales into insignificance when you're faced with the TARDIS towing planet Earth back to the mutter spiral like it's a sack of potatoes. It was so bad I actually had to leave the room for a bit. Putting aside the crap science (what was the Moon orbiting around while it was gone?) it just looked f**king ridiculous, not to mention self-congratulatory. Just look at those grinning loons as they pilot the TARDIS back home, especially Jack who is pumping away and checking out Sarah Jane at the same time. I really hated everyone at that moment and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the vibe Russell was going for. It may be the end of an era (even though it isn't) but there's only so much smug backslapping that I can take; they looked like the cast of Big Brother winning a food task.

The technobabble reached new levels of incomprehensibility this week as well.  Normally I don't really care about this (it's part and parcel of the show) but there were so many competing thingamajigs and whatsists - from that warp core necklace to the reality bomb and practically everything that flows out of Doctor-Donna's mouth - nothing made any practical sense. In fact, the only thing that did make perfect sense was the Osterhagen key - and that turned out to be a red herring. Incidentally, I loved that poor UNIT chap from Liberia who didn't want his name to go down in history for destroying the planet (er, who was going to know?).

skip to the end where you'll find a nice bit about Bernard Cribbens...

But Journey's End isn't a disaster by any means. There are some really powerful ideas buried beneath all the bullshit and bluster. When Davros (perfectly brought back to life by Julian Bleach) makes the Doctor concede that he weaponises his companions (as they prepare to commit genocide at the drop of a hat) was chilling stuff and it was great to see the Daleks working towards a "final solution" (reinforced by the appearance of some German Daleks, which was very neat). In fact, Davros has never been better and his ranting, taunting madness was the only thing that actually felt right.

And whatever this episode's faults, it more than makes up for it with two incredibly powerful epilogues (plus one really bad one involving the new Torchwood crew, but such is life).

Donna's storyline is wrapped up perfectly.  It may be the most blatant reset yet but it's also a cruel, tragic and very, very dark fate; practically pitch black compared to anything else we've seen in the series so far. And while I can't say that I enjoyed the journey itself (turning her into a time lord and then mind-wiping her with a single touch was pretty naff, whichever way you look at it), the final destination broke my heart. To think that Donna will end up living a life eating chips and gossiping on the phone, never realising her true potential, is the bleakest and most unforgiving thing this series has ever shown us. Those convenient retcons in Torchwood meant shit to me but this one meant everything.

Of course it's a only a symbolic death; RTD was never going to kill anyone for real. Cue montage of secondary guest stars popping their clogs in a desperate attempt to make it seem possible, but when you're reduced to showing clips of sentient pavements then the game is well and truly up. So why bother? Why tease us like that? It's Rose "dying" in Doomsday all over again! Either kill someone for real or stop trying to insinuate that you will. It's cheap.

Oh sod that, Bernard Cribbens was bloody magnificent, wasn't he? He's been a revelation in this series and that moment on the doorstep, in the rain, was so beautiful, so heartbreaking, all of my complaints somehow fade away to nothing.

But the killer punch, the real kick in the teeth, is that casual goodbye between the Donna and the Doctor. Having watched it again I can't believe I didn't well up the first time. Too busy tutting, probably. It makes Pertwee's goodbye to Jo Grant look positively jolly.

the bleakest and most unforgiving thing this series has ever shown us...

Even the "heartwarming" scene where Rose gets to live happily-ever-after-with a clone of the Doctor is problematic, to say the least. It's certainly didn't deliver the syrupy pap that I'd feared. It felt incredibly odd and slightly perverse, and it's played like that too, thank heavens. And while Rose is doing her best to embrace the possibilities of a life with the next best thing, it's still so very wrong on oh so many levels. It opens up all sorts of questions, too. For instance, how long will it take her to tire of an aging bloke with no time machine? I'm waiting for the inevitable slash fiction where they go through a really messy divorce and the Doctor ends up living with Jackie instead.

That Tennant is a lucky bugger, though. He's basically managed to guarantee himself return appearances in perpetuity, even if he puts on loads of weight and loses all of his hair. Who knows, he might even turn nasty and try to take down our Doctor so he can steal his remaining regenerations, becoming a new nemesis for our hero - an anti-Doctor, if you will. He did just commit genocide after all. And remember, he knows where that book full of future spoilers can be found. And maybe Harriet Jones temporal shifted at the last moment and Wilf is really Borusa and Sylvia is the Rani and there's still a beetle on Donna's back and... and... and...

Doctor Who. Don't you just love it?

Journey's End: Initial Reactions

Please use this thread to post your initial reactions to Journey's End.