Not a bad episode, having successfully avoided spoilers I was prepared by being unprepared. And as a bonus my daughter fell asleep in my arms just at the start, so no reading stories half way through (she’s more of a Trekkie than a Whovian :p)
No silly Bad Wolf deus ex machina, events fold rather logically. Perhaps now that Rose has her humanised Timelord to keep her happy, we won’t have to put up with her continued return.
Davros had a fine exit, perhaps this will make up for all those stories he allegedly ruined for the fans (he sort of did and didn’t for me). I wonder what this holds in store for the Daleks, now that they’ve been completely, totally, finally, ultimately wiped from all existence, no emergency temporal loops or the like.
The German Daleks were more convincing than the “real thing” It felt a bit cheeky having the little tin pot madmen marching around Nuremburg, but it was sort of appropriate.
There is no fucking way that that was a good place to leave Donna. After all that she’s seen, and been, and become. Ended up the as the stupid oblivious Donna we’ve seen her caricatured as before. Gaaaaaaah. Donna better turn up in one of next years specials or else that counts as one of the worst payoffs for one of the best characters that Who has ever had.
And an honorary mention to Mr. Cribbins. When he was going on about looking up at the stars, I really hoped that the Doctor was going to take him for a spin, to let the old man see the stars up close.
Good plot for an episode by RTD. No Bad Wolf type ending. No time reversal so that it never happened. Finally an end of series that really worked.
I’m sure that this will not be the last time we see the Daleks, especially as they are consistently voted as the favourite villains by fans. But I hope they are given a nice long rest.
I second Struan I would have loved to see Bernard Cribbins being given a spin in the TARDIS. Maybe in one of the specials?
I’m a bit torn about the whole Donna thing, from one point of view it was a good ending, as we can’t have too many Doctors running around, but on the other it was a strange palce to leave her character, particularly as she seems to have a built in self destruct now. Maybe it won’t be the last time we see her.
[spoiler]Not sure whether this should be in a spoiler box or not, so just to be on the safe side:
It looks like Martha and Mickey are off to swell the diminished ranks of the Torchwood team and apparently Sarah Jane is getting a second series. Spin offs abound.
[/spoiler]
Just hope they bring back the Master in the next series.
I really like how Tennant can -subtly - show the viceous personality of the Doctor. I was afraid that RTD was gonna parade his creations in this episode. In a way, he did, but the overall purpose was greater than the show off.
DonnaDoctor was a brilliant touch and all spoilers and speculations about Donna’s fate came to a screeching halt.
Kudos to RTD for fixing all loose ends and giving a clean slate to Moffat. The new showrunner is free to re-use old characters or just continue without having to re-boot the franchise.
Caveat: The content of this post is not totally coherent. The poster uses English as a second language and has consumed in excess of a bottle of claret.
I concede that this episode definitely made up for the pile of manure that was last week’s episode, although I did yell at my television “What a fucking cop out!” when Tennant regenerated as himself.
I liked Doctor Donna too, and am not in the least surprised that Tate pulled it off so well as she is very good. I’m really glad to see so many people switch on to liking her over the course of the series, she deserves to be recognised as a good actress.
As for the Daleks being wiped out, well this would be the, what, seventh time that’s happened? I’m sure one more back-from-the-dead event won’t break the bank. However I got really pissed off with the Doctor at the end: “He committed genocide”. Um, yes, it’s called kill or be killed. In case you weren’t paying attention the Daleks were about to kill every living thing in the multiverse, I think the alternative we got was slightly preferable. Could you possibly, just this once, not take your daily dose of self righteousness?
Oh, did anyone else expect Jenny to show up and save the day?
Illuminatiprimus, I also went “WTF? LAME!” when the Doctor regenerated into himself right away, because all the theorizing I’d done this week was based on the premise that there would be a new incarnation for at least part of the episode. But I got over it when the other Doctor was created, because that was neat. And yeah, I was also expecting Jenny to turn up.
I loved all the cooperation and hugs and happiness, because I am a sap. And I think Doctor/Rose was resolved perfectly, in a way that I wasn’t at all expecting.
I’m so upset about what happened to Donna. I absolutely loved her, and I was so glad that she came to realize that she was important, and now she’s back to the way she was and AUGH! I haven’t decided if I think it should have been handled differently or not, but it has me all depressed now.
That was epic. Perhaps a bit too epic - RTD seems to like “destroy humanity, destroy the world, destroy the galaxy, destroy the universe, destroy reality itself!” type of nonsense.
But it was fun and exciting and a thrill ride, with a somewhat more satisfying conclusion, if upsetting, than he’s written in the past.
Spectacular. I liked this season a lot more than the past ones, it’s worked for me on almost every level.
I really liked this ep, but you know, it would be okay with me if they let a companion hang around for longer than a season. I feel like I just got to know Donna, and now she’s gone. (Well, mind-wiped into oblivion; same thing for now, anyway.)
Enjoyed the episode, but man do I hope that’s the last we see of those stupid pepper pots. But what do we get for Christmas? Yet another re-tread of a tired old villain. Bleagh! Doctor Who is at it’s best when it’s not re-using the same old thing over and over again. They should leave them dead, wipe out the Cybermen during Christmas and start the next season fresh.
Yeah, I kind of wanted Doctor the Second to say, “That’s the four pots calling the kettle black,” to that. It was bad enough when the Doctor got self righteous in the Jenny episode over the conflict but he’s committed attempted genocide on the Daleks more times than I can count.
I’m ready for a moratorium on Daleks now myself. They’ve lost their impact and menace which comes from overuse. The only interesting thing to come out of their appearance this time is them shouting in German. Perhaps they could let them rest for the next year of specials and proper season before bringing them back for a big story after that.
From the thread it looks like I might be the only person who wasn’t really happy with this episode. Way too much technobabel being thrown around and having the plot jump around. Davros just kind of hangs around not doing anything which makes me wonder why he was even thrown into the story.
I did wonder about this - if Davros has sired an entirely new Dalek race from his own genetic code, why is he not more than “a pet”? That wasn’t explained very well i.e. at all.
Oh, and I expect Martha and Mickey to turn up on Torchwood. Hopefully Mickey will be the first person who’s not willing to bend over for Jack, god knows everyone else does.
Davros has always had a love/hate relationship with his kids but that’s backstory that wasn’t in the episode. Come to think of it there wasn’t a lot of backstory provided on him in this or the previous episode. Old Dr. Who fans knew who he was and why his return was dramatic but all we got from him in this story was that he remade the Daleks for some reason and has a history with the Doctor.
Oh and thinking of poorly explained story elements what was up with the Bad Wolf messages a few episodes ago that were not followed up at all? I thought we’d get some revelation that “Bad Wolf” was more complex than the sudden deus ex machina of season one. So that great cliffhanger and then it’s completely dropped…
Bad Wolf doesn’t actually mean anything specific. Rose originally used it as a message to herself that “something” was wrong and she was destined to fix it. It was her future self reaching out from the alternative dimension that she ended up in (the alternative dimension is running ahead in time to the original dimension - not sure by how much, but seems to be as much as years different). She chose the words Bad Wolf because “Bad Wolf Bay” was (became) a significant place for them both.
This time she used it as a warning to the Doctor; that she was reaching out to him, and it was for a deadly serious reason.
It felt a bit cheeky having the little tin pot madmen marching around Nuremburg, but it was sort of appropriate.