Reality is the playground of the unimaginative

Friday, 1 January 2010

Doctor Who: The End Of Time (part two)

After the mixed bag that was The End Of Time (part one), I approached The End Of Time (part two) with a combination of trepidation and excitement.

We all knew that David Tennant would be saying goodbye to The TARDIS and that his time as the The Doctor was coming to end, but there was an undeniable - almost ghoulish - fascination in seeing how outgoing showrunner Russell T Davies would send the Time Lord off.

If you thought Part One suffered from a surfeit of story, then Part Two had even more for you with some of the loose threads being tied up and others (such as Donna's involvement) turning out to be bizarre red herrings.

Even Wilf turned out to be nothing more - or less - than he appeared.

The Time Lords returned, with Gallifrey in tow, and then were sent back into the void almost as fast as they arrived, pausing only to release the human race from its latest bondage, and then taking with them The Master.

Every one of the main performers - from Tennant himself and John Simm as The Master, to Bernard Cribbins as Wilf and Timothy Dalton as The Lord President - pushed their performances to 11. This wasn't an episode for quiet contemplation or nuanced subtly, but big, brassy, ballsy turns to match Murray Gold's bombastic score.

All this sound and fury/blood and thunder though was just the prelude to The Doctor's farewell tour; knowing he had absorbed a lethal amount of radiation he took time out to pop in on all his old friends - leading to some marvelous cameos, including: Martha (Freema Agyeman) and Mickey (Noel Clarke) as a married couple fighting a sontaran; Captain Jack (John Barrowman) drowning his sorrows in an intergalactic cantina (à la Star Wars) with Midshipman Frame (Russell Tovey) of Voyage Of The Damned; saving young Luke Smith (Tommy Knight) from an road traffic accident outside Sarah Jane Smith's home; and a few words of encouragement for a pre-Rose Rose Tyler (Billie Piper).

It was a fantastic, touching journey which made you forget the wild, over-the-top, often nonsensical, ball of RTD-infused insanity that had come before it, and just wallow in sentiment and nostalgia.

The main story may have been a mess of tangled plotlines, but the unrelenting excitement of the whole affair was enough to carry you through with only the odd WTF moment (Rassilon? Really?).

As to the enigma of Claire Bloom's role as the mysterious "woman", who surprised no one by turning out to be a Time Lord, while the popular opinion (that is the same people who were convinced Wilf was a hidden Time Lord) is that she was Romana, I like to think she was Susan, The Doctor's granddaughter.

I cannot deny that there were manly tears shed as The Doctor expressed his unwillingness to go... before regenerating into Matt Smith's 11th Doctor; and blowing away - in those mere seconds he had on screen - any lingering doubts I had about his ability to play the role.

The Doctor is dead! Long Live The Doctor!
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Inscribed by Tim Knight at 1/01/2010 08:00:00 PM
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10 serfs have something to say about this!:

  1. It really was a horrible mess at times, wasn't it? On the other hand, there were some great moments, but those were mainly down to the performances, I thought.

    I have no idea what they were going for with the mysterious woman. Like you, I thought she might be Susan, but a newspaper report from April suggested that she was the Doctor's mother, and the Doctor did give a significant glance towards Donna's mum when Wilf asked who she was.

    Perhaps the most intriguing part of the whole thing for me was Rassilon's reference to the abstention votes (who I took to be the two "shamed" Time Lords) as "weeping angels". That's far too loaded a term to be chucking around...
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  2. A glorious mess, I'd say.

    A phrase I've already seen bandied around on the Interwebs is that RTD had "run out of steam", but I prefer to think that he simply had TOO MANY ideas he wanted to cram in to his final story... rather than running out of anything.

    And, yes, I noticed the passing comment to "weeping angels" as well and hope that is revisted at some time (maybe in the upcoming 11th Doctor story with the 'weeping angels'!)
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  3. Yes, you can't fault RTD's enthusiasm, and he was certainly determined to throw in as much as possible and push everyone's buttons.
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  4. The episode does a good job of RTDing us out. Whatever you loved or hated about his writing is in here, and either way, that alone is enough to make you accept the passing of the torch.
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  5. I think we are well and truly RTDed out for a good while now!
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  6. Finally, at least someone else thinks the woman might be Susan and not the Doctor's mom or Romana.
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  7. Thank you - I just didn't see why it should be Romana and I would hate to think of The Doctor's parents popping up (and turning the show into a full-on soap opera), so Susan seemed the logical, emotional choice to me.

    And it would also silence all the people who reckon Susan wasn't a Time Lord!
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  8. I thought it was absolutely bloody brilliant! Part one was a little hit and miss (though I enjoyed it) but part two just blew me away. I love extended stories that complete a circle - the beginning of new Who saw the Doctor just emerging from the Time War and here at the end we head back there and to the Time Lords. Plus the Doctor saying goodbye (or was it hello?) to Rose.

    And Wilf was more than we thought. He was he one that knocked four times (that was a 'nice', sad twist).

    I didn't think it was a mess - it was well wrapped up in the end. Except, of course, for the mysterious woman. Me, I thought she was the Doctor himself (or herself). She realised how dangerous the Time Lords were becoming, stopped them, got out of the time "bubble" and regenerated into the 9th Doctor.

    Mmmm, maybe not.
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  9. lol i like nimbus's idea.


    RIP 10th doctor (DT)



    (season 5 tardis inside looks cool though.)
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  10. Very convoluted, and far too many strands to make it totally satisfying. Whilst everyone gave great performances throughout, I did feel that the overall pace was all over the place, with far too much sentimetality thrown in which tended to slow the momentum down to a halt! It needed to be more like 'Caves of Androzani' (Davison's swansong) which gained momentum, and built upon what went just before. Where as in 'The End of Time' it was stops and starts. Whilst I think overall RTD has done a fantastic job of ressurecting the show, and having some very good stories. He has also done some downright convoluted messes. 'Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords' springs to mind.

    In my opinion David Tennant could have gone out of the series with a better more dramatic finale. 'The End of Time' is good, but it's not my favourite 'regeneration' story.
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