Doctor Who 4x13: Journey's End

Don't worry, Wesley Crusher isn't going to show up. Which is odd, because just about everybody else has. Last week saw the Doctor's companions (and respective spinoff buddies) unite to summon the Doc to Earth after it was teleported to the mysterious Medusa Cascade by the Daleks and their creator Davros. It also saw a rather worrying turn of events which left us with a cliffhanger of epic proportions - the Earth conquered, UNIT decimated, Torchwood under attack, Sarah-Jane Smith in a small green car about to get shot at and worst of all the Doctor... well, the pic below might give you a clue.

The UK media is in meltdown at present speculating on what this all means, Russell. T. Davies is no doubt rubbing one out with glee at the frenzy he's managed to create with his final series ending... how's it all going to work out?

Ooooo..didn't see that coming.

Sad ending to it, Tamar should be happy thro.

Which bit?

I sorta knew about the regeneration, and the twist later on, but not the last bit of the twist with Donna...

The regeneration was trying to work out how they would do it.

Next year's gonna be tough for Who fans, with only the three specials (plus the 2009 Xmas one and only five episodes of Torchwood (for those who don't know, Torchwood is moving to BBC1 and will have one episode per night for five days, one big storyline)... might have to rely on the Sarah-Jane Adventures since she seems to be getting a full 13 eps...

I wrote this a week ago:

I was pretty close!

I would have killed her outright. A companion has been killed before.

I don't get the Donna hate. I think she was a good companion. Much better than "oh, I'll never leave you Doctor, I'll love you forever" Rose.

As soon as

I guess I'm being a little thick this morning, but what was the whole deal with the "there is something on your back" that everyone kept telling Donna.

Did I blink and miss something?

Did you see the episode, "Turn Left"?

Not that I like the whole Rose/Doctor thing ('cause I don't), but I'm glad they didn't just kill off the other Doctor. It always seems so lame when a sci-fi series has a duplicate and they always end up killing him off by the end of the episode.

At least in Farscape they kept a duplicate around for several episodes before offing him.

And now if Doctor Who goes on long enough and the Doctor regenerates, he'll still be able to go back and revisit his old (and appropriately aging) self if Tennant come back for a reappearance.

Two criticisms:

1. It seemed like Doctor #1 and Rose spent too much of the episode standing under spotlights, watching events unfold around them.

2. While the TARDIS was towing Earth back to the solar system, I couldn't help but wonder how many people were killed in second and third world countries as their houses collapsed from all the shaking.

Not nearly enough.

I love and adore Who, but you have to suspend so much disbelief in this episode that it is just silly.

Some of it was excellent and fun to watch but some of it just left me feeling kind of empty, sad and disappointed and I can't even say why exactly.

I think part of it was that all the goodbyes went on for too long, with no cliffhanger to liven things up at the end. That's what killed the energy for me, at least.

It was still better than turning the Doctor into Dobby the house elf like they did on the previous season.

Yep, I think it was better than "Last of the Time Lords" but not as good as "Parting of the Ways" or "Doomsday".

I really liked "Last of the Timelords", despite the disappointing plot turn.

I didn't like this. There were some sweet moments there, but the story didn't make the least bit of sense in terms of character development or revelation, the plot didn't make the least bit of sense in terms of solving a mess they got us in by the means we'd expect possible, and the bit with Donna at the end didn't seem to have any reason to it whatsoever.

But most importantly,

Indeed.

Rose absorbed the friggin time vortex, and she got better without any complications.

Well, she had access to a Doctor who had the power of a God with which to repair any physical or mental damage she might have suffered. And there were complications - just not to her health. The Doc had to regenerate.

Perhaps if Donna had received a bit of Time Lord physiology along with the Doc's mind, there might have been enough to work with - fool the Chameleon Arch into either rewriting her back into a human (and putting the extra memories in a fob watch) or even into making her a full Time Lady... but then if that were an option Doctor 10.5 would've been able to use it.

As for the "leaves death and destruction but also stories" well... the stories are still there, as the Doctor pointed out at the end. It's tragic that Donna can't remember any of it, but in the same way Agatha Christie's stories live on to the end of human history (and Shakespeare's) long after the author is dead, Donna Noble will be remembered by entire worlds.

I read yesterday that there was actually a deleted scene from near the end of this episode.

As Donna is on the phone to her friend she hears the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising as the Doctor leaves, and looks up for a moment like it was something familiar, before shaking it off and going back to the conversation.

There were lots of faults in this episode, but it was fun to get all of the characters from the RTD run together for one last hurrah. Once Moffat takes over I doubt we will be seeing any of them again (with the possible exception of Sarah Jane)

I'm not convinced that bringing Rose back was a good idea. While it was tragic, the Doomsday ending was a good solid ending to their story together. This one seems like it was trying to give a more final solid ending but the whole thing with Rose settling for Doctor Two when it was obvious she wanted to go with the original one just doesn't feel like an ending.

If they did want to have a semi-happy ending while still leaving the Doctor alone I would have actually preferred to see Rose end up being the real Doctors companion again, but have it all happen off screen. When it seems like the end of the episode they fly off together to go visit some random planet but instead of the credits it fades to Roses death bed with her as an old woman while the Doctor looks the same as always. She dies and he heads off in the TARDIS alone again. They have constantly talked about how the Doctor is cursed in a way with his long life, it would be good to see it shown.

I would have loved this. Much better idea than what we got.

My wife claims that Rose got suckered.

That would explain her oversized lips, but the Daleks normally go on to crush the whole skull...

The original scene would've played better, but it got cut. Apparently, the Doctor was going to leave Rose and nuDoctor with a chunk of the TARDIS they could use to grow their own. I think they figured that didn't tie in with the offscreen hints that Jack is growing a TARDIS at Torchwood (that big piece of coral on his desk) and that "in 500 years, the carving process begins"... since Rose and her part-human Doctor won't live that long, but Jack will.

Well was it even ever established where Jack got the initial material for his from? It could have easily been explained away by the Doctor giving them a decent sized chunk to start with rather than whatever scrap Jack used.

And just giving a quick "Takes centuries to grow normally, but you know how to speed it up."

Then again, DOC #1 may not *trust* number 2 with a TARDIS.

But he trusts him with Rose?



Anyway, I thought the TARDIS didn't work in the alternate universe?