What A Waste

Doctor Who: Journey’s End

It could all have been so different. We could have had a gurning David Morrissey/James Nesbitt/Robert Carlyle (delete as to your preference) say something stupid before the titles and at the end it could have been revealed that Donna was Susan/Romana/The Rani/Rodan (again delete as to your preference) after using a chameleon arch during the Time War. Then once she had discovered who she really was, she proceeded to help the Doctor to destroy Davros and the Daleks.

After the way the previous episode ended I just knew that I was going to be disappointed because as I said in my last review nothing short of a proper regeneration would have been good enough for me and loe and behold there was some stupid technobabble and he didn’t regenerate at all. Now this really annoyed me when I first saw the episode because it was the biggest cop out ever, but once I watched the episode all of the way through it wouldn’t have worked in the same way if he had of regenerated.

I still felt cheated that we had been goaded in such a way as to believe that he might regenerate because it would have been such a shock if that had happened. I didn’t know what to think at the end of The Stolen Earth when he started to regenerate but they would never have been able to resolve that cliffhanger satisfactorily for me without regenerating him properly and they were never going to have the balls to do that there and then, more’s the pity.

Although that moment at the start of the episode did cast a shadow over the whole episode for me I did manage to enjoy the episode on a second viewing once I knew that the Doctor wasn’t going to regenerate, and there was plenty to enjoy in the episode, most notable the fantastic unhinged performance as Davros by Julian Bleach who is easily the best Davros since Michael Wisher after his turns in these two episodes.

Bernard Cribbins was excellent once again and his lines at the end to the Doctor were heartbreaking and, I am not ashamed to admit it, I cried. Not for the Doctor, but for Wilf and for Donna. If Bernard Cribbins does not win the best guest start in the DWM season poll then there is no justice in the world.

The biggest crime of all though in this episode was the treatment of Donna by the Doctor at the end of episode. That was beyond cruel, and in some ways is worse than her dying would have been. Catherine Tate has been by far and above the best thing about this series of Doctor Who and to see her character go through such a journey only to have her mind wiped right at the end, just doesn’t seem at all fair to me and since when did Time Lords have the ability to wipe people’s minds anyway?

I had no sympathy for the Doctor at the end of the episode when he looked all sad and miserable. Good, I thought. He deserves everything he gets after the way he treated Donna. He basically bought it all on himself and he can have no one else to blame. I have never liked the character of the tenth Doctor, and I like him even less now. She has been the best companion in decades and the treatment of her at the end by the Doctor was just unforgivable in my opinion.

Another excellent bit was the recognition of Sarah Jane by Davros, a nice little aside for the long-term fans of the show, and one that doesn’t affect the scene even if you had never seen Genesis of the Daleks, as it was explained in that little dialogue exchange exactly when and where they met.

Now not only was the episode bad enough because the Doctor didn’t regenerate but instead we got two tenth Doctor’s for the price of one due to the whole thing with the hand. I mean since when did Time Lords have the ability to re-grow lopped off body parts just after regeneration? I must have missed the episode where that happened, unless it was in the one of the Virgin novelisations! Personally I think that it was a pity that the hand didn’t spawn another ninth Doctor (well this Doctor did wear one of the ninth Doctor style jumpers, and like the Doctor said at the end, he was more like the ninth incarnation) because that would have been much more interesting that two tenth Doctors, both for me and for my wife!

Although it was nice to see Mickey and Jackie again they really did nothing else after they rescued Sarah from extermination from the Daleks. It could just as easily been the Brigadier, Sgt Benton and Captain Yates in a souped up version of Bessie coming to her rescue. After they had rescued Sarah Mickey and Jackie’s part in the story was pretty much over, and all that happened in the end was the intimation that Mickey might join the Torchwood team (that is if Captain Jack will have him) it was a shame really that they didn’t have much else to do, but it was nice to see them again as a viewer of the new series since 2005.

Christ knows what people thought of this episode who had never seen any of the previous 3 series though as this final episode bought to a close a couple of plot threads that were not yet satisfactorily resolved, most notably the whole Doctor/Rose story which had been going on since the start of the revamped series.

Quite how Rose is now better off being stuck in the parallel world she spent ages trying to escape to find the Doctor, with a clone of the Doctor created from his hand, albeit one who will tell her he loves her and would probably shag her, I don’t know. It is one way to end the story of Rose, but was it a good way to end it, when she clearly didn’t have what she wanted? What she wanted was the Doctor and what she is left with isn’t really the Doctor, it is basically an animated sex doll with genocidal tendencies who happens to look a lot like the bloke she fancies. Sure it’s closure but not necessarily in a good way.

I did enjoy Journey’s End, but I won’t be watching it again anytime soon, least of all because I don’t want to be reminded of Donna’s fate. I know that you could argue that, after the events in Turn Left, that Donna does have the potential to become the person we know and love from series 4 without the Doctor, but I want to remember Donna as she was, up till the bit when the Doctor did his mind wipe on her, the best companion for decades.

The Beginning of the End

Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth

So, was that a mad episode or what?

By the end of it I just didn’t know what to think. Was my wish going to come true and the tenth Doctor was finally going to regenerate. Judging by the last scene in the episode you would have thought so but I don’t really think that it is going to happen. I would love for it to be a proper full regeneration as that would be a fantastic way to resolve the cliffhanger of the previous episode and we would have the excitement of a new Doctor, but would they really be able to pull the wool over all our eyes (ming-mongs included) and actually regenerate the Doctor in front of our eyes?

I mean it would be the biggest shock of the series so far if that actually happened and would be the most exciting thing to happen in the show probably since it came back in 2005 but what really are the chances of it happening especially when there have been pictures of David Tennant in costume filming the Christmas special.

Of course it could be a total bluff, and they deliberately had Tennant on set just to fool all of the sad fans who go and watch the show being filmed, and all of the press into believing that Tennant will be in the Xmas special, and then pull this stunt as the cliffhanger into the finale episode. If they have managed that then I would have to take my hat of to them (if I were wearing a hat).

Who else thought that it would have been Rose who was shot by a Dalek, rather than the Doctor, in that scene when they ran towards each other? It was never going to end well was it really, but I was shocked when it was the Doctor that got shot, I would have put money on it being Rose, I really would have done. What I want to know is why it has taken the Daleks 45 years to finally exterminate the Doctor. I am sure they could have done it before now if only they had tried harder.

The Donna story is getting more and more interesting now what with the line from the woman in the shadow proclamation about her ‘loss that was yet to come’ and the strange double heart beat that was heard. Either that is a major double bluff or Donna is actually a Time Lord. Some people have said that she could be the Rani but I reckon she could be someone much closer to home say Romana or perhaps even Susan. Imagine the Doctor Who message boards if Donna does turn out to be Susan!

Julian Bleach was fantastic as Davros. As soon as I heard the rumour and once I had seen him in Torchwood I just knew that he would be right for the role of the creator of the Daleks. It is uncanny how much he sounds like Michael Wisher did in Genesis and even some of his mannerisms have come from Wishers portrayal which can not be considered a bad thing since Wisher was by far the best of the Davros’. I liked the little twist about how Davros was saved from the time war and about how now all of the Daleks are pure Kaled and are probably more evil than a lot of the Daleks we have met before, probably since the ones from Genesis themselves!

It was nice to see Harriet Jones once more and it was quite sad to think that she may now be dead after being exterminated by the Daleks. It does seem odd though that they sent more than one Dalek to Harriet Jones when they only really needed one to exterminate her.

I liked the scenes between Harriet Jones and the others and really felt for Rose that she was being left out. That was rather sad I thought. Rose seemed to be a bit more bothered by the sight of Martha than she did by Donna didn’t she? I can only hazard a guess that she sees Martha of more than a threat then she does Donna. Whatever it is she certainly wasn’t happy when she saw her!

The Daleks were on top form as usual and I loved their retort “We know who you are” to Harriet Jones. What is it with that woman that everyone in the whole known universe is aware of her? Then there was also the “My vision is not impaired” when Wilf shot the Daleks eye with a paintball gun.

Good old Wilf. He ain’t scared of no aliens, especially not if they are after his family. Wilf had some of the best lines in this episode including “want to swap” when he saw Rose with her very big gun and when he admitted that he wanted a webcam but his daughter wouldn’t let him have one.

Ianto was also on form in his small appearance in this episode being very much the Ianto from the second season of Torchwood rather than the withdrawn Ianto of the first series of Torchwood.

I am pretty sure that some fans would have fainted with excitement at the legend “with Elisabeth Sladen” in the title sequence and the Sarah we met in this episode wasn’t the rather sad Sarah from School Reunion but the stronger Sarah who we have seen in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

These little scenes of the minor characters are great if you have seen both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventure but it doesn’t matter if you had never seen either of them because the majority of the audience would be aware of Captain Jack and know that he worked for Torchwood and also would know Sarah Jane from her appearance in the second series.

They aren’t really that significant to the story so it doesn’t matter if you don’t know who they are because Sarah tells everyone that Luke is her son, and Gwen and Ianto were mentioned in the previous episode as being employees of Torchwood.

Personally I loved the little shout outs to Tosh and Owen from Torchwood and to Maria and Clyde from SJA. They were nice little references that either makes you smile, or just go completely over your head if you have never seen either of the spin-off shows.

Either way it will not affect your enjoyment of the story unless you are that much of a pedant that you have to know who every one is in the story even down to the ones who are only referred to in passing that is.

God know what is going to happen in the second episode of this story. It is even going to be fantastic or the biggest load of rubbish ever. I reckon you will know which it is going to be before the title sequence when we find out, once and for all, whether we have a new Doctor or not.

I hope we do, but I am not expecting miracles and wouldn’t be at all surprised if just suddenly stops regenerating and they have some stupid explanation why, which I won’t buy. If he is regenerating at the end of this episode then in the next episode he should regenerate into a new body. That is how regeneration has always worked and how it always should work. We will have to wait and see if they have the balls to do that or not!