Doctor Who - The Series Finale

A sort of recap of what I was thinking at the time, although I didn't write it until a week later. Because I didn't want to, that's why.

0:00 Pretitles recap. The story so far: The Earth's been stolen, following which everyone pisses around trying to ring the Doctor for about half a bloody hour, and he arrives at meets Rose and Jack and my best friend's mum. Oh, and the he's regenerating. Tellingly, the entire episode's recap takes 39 seconds, which tells you how little happened last week. Except - seriously, he's regenerating, he's... bollocks to the theme music, he's regenerating for god's sake! He's...

1:36 What? That's it? He just... stops himself regenerating? That's it? He just stops???? Oh god, this is going to be bloody awful, isn't it?

1:48 Mickey and Jackie appear from nowhere and blow up the Daleks wot was about to kill Sarah Jane. How is it that people teleporting places seem to land in exactly the right place, with their guns pointing in exactly the right direction? At least in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, they arrive feeling desperately hungover. And Sarah's been rubbish in this episode, so I quite like the notion of her getting blown away while Micky and Jackie stagger around, looking for some Solpadeine.

2:25 Oh, the bullets that were about to kill the Torchwood team have stopped in mid-air. Weird. Is this some sort of side-effect of something or other? Does the imminent danger to the Universe have something to do with time stopping? Hang on, this is kind of interesting.

3:16 Even I'm sick of Doctor-Rose sappiness now, and I actually like Billie Piper. Even if she's obviously not been looking after her skin, meaning they have to cake her with half a ton of slap before letting her on-screen. Oh god, Catherine Tate's trying to flirt with Cap'n Jack. Which is what you might find in the dictionary under “waaay out of your league, love.”

3:27 How in the zark could Tosh have figured out how to stop time? She couldn't even figure out how to pull Owen, and now you're telling me she's a temporal engineer? When the Doctor made a time-loop in The Armageddon Factor, he needed five-sixths of the Key to Time to make it work, but... never mind. Oh well, the interesting “time stopping” thing's not interesting after all, and the big twist is going to be Davros working on a big super-bomb to destroy everything, which the Doc will avert by pulling a lever. I should really write for this show, I know how it works by now.

4:06 The Daleks have caught the TARDIS in a Temporal Prism, but the Doctor refers to it as a Chronon Loop. Has Russell T. Davies bought some new computer program which generates technobabble, or what?

5:31 Sometimes I wonder what people who aren't fans think when they tune into Doctor Who. The last scene has consisted of Martha babbling about teleport base-codes, then waffling about an Osterhagen Key, then having a really bad emotional scene with her mum, then vanishing off somewhere. Is this just what casual viewers expect when they watch the programme? One of the more sobering things about the Extras Christmas Special was that it showed you how other people really see Doctor Who, a pantomime of celebrities dressed up as monsters, hanging around while David Tennant talks very fast. Is the only reason that it gets such high audience appreciation figures that no-one even expects it to do anything better?

5:45 Ooh, German Daleks. Best bit of the story so far, that. Daleks should always be German from now on.

6:32 Sorry... Rose managed to convince god knows how many people to spend god knows how much money building a dimensional cannon, all so... she can travel across the universes and meet the Doctor again? What is she, a sodding Jedi? Even if her Dad became Prime Minister, it stretches credibility. “Dad, would you mind spending billions of pounds and countless resources to build me a transdimensional portal? There's this bloke I really fancy...”

7:03 Even now, when she resembles a Pretty Shit Actress rather than a Random Celebrity Who Wandered Onto Set Looking For The Toilet, Catherine Tate can bring a story crashing to pieces in a second. Her delivery of “I'm just a temp from Chiswick” is... oh god, I've banged on about this so much, even I'm bored of hearing me.

8:20 If Donna winds up saving the universe, it's all going to seem a bit soiled. It's like getting introduced to the girl of your dreams by someone you really, really don't like. You're going to be happy, but you know you'll have to be grateful to them... forever. Similarly, I'm not sure I'd want to live in a universe where I have to be thankful towards Donna Noble forever. I've got my pride. Nuke the fucker.

8:50 The Doctor telling Donna that she was “brilliant” might be the single wrongest sentence in the history of time, and this one has used the word “wrongest”. Twice.

9:47 Oh, the TARDIS won't let Donna out. See, even a sentient timeship thinks she's shit. Right, now more Tate-slagging from now on, honest.

10:15 Big Russell's so desperate for themes by now, he'll simply say things that sound perceptive in order to make it look like he's got a point to make. This is the second time this series we've been told that the TARDIS is a weapon (The Sontaran Stratagem trotted out the same line), but... how, exactly? It's got no offensive capabilities whatsoever, and it even looks a bit shit. I'm just worried that, now it's been classified as a weapon, I won't be allowed to bring my TARDIS key-ring onto planes any more. Oh look, finally they're trying to burn Catherine Tate. Hurrah.

11:30 Blimey, this is boring. We know that the TARDIS won't be destroyed, so we know Donna's going to be fine. They've really worked hard to prevent this show being dangerous at all, these days. And how come they keep trying to appeal to the Daleks' better nature? You're dealing with the most evil species in the universe and your mortal enemies, so why are they going to decide not to kill Donna because you point out that it's, like, really mean of them? It's like telling the school bully not to punch you in the face, because that's where it really hurts.

12:45 Oh for heaven's sake... now, the Doctor's hand has grown into a second Doctor, also played by Tennant. I did wonder why he started alternating between blue and brown suits, and now I know; it's to tell the difference between the two Doctors. Except... the blue suit first appeared in Series Three, which means that Russell's been planning this for two years. Surely something this half-arsed can't have been in the pipeline for two years? Oh, apparently Daleks measure time in Rels. Except, the countdown reveals that they're exactly the same time-span as seconds, so why bother giving them a name at all?

13:52 Hmm, “playthings of Davros.” Too... many... jokes...

14:15 You think that Tennant's “manic” acting is rubbish, then Catherine Tate says “You are bonkers” and it puts everything in perspective.

15:25 I'm going to slap Steven Moffatt for coming up with this “timey-wimey” thing, because it's leading to way too many cop-put explanations. Apparently, the heartbeat Donna's been hearing is the Doctor's heartbeat, echoing back in time from something which hasn't happened yet. Oh, don't be so stupid. Why exactly did we need to hear it at all, anyway? Except for a writer's way of saying “yes I know you don't like her, but she's going to do something important if you just show some patience.”

16:00 Whenever they do a Donna Character Scene, it just reminds you how good the character could have been if she'd been even vaguely competently played. “Shouting at the world, because no-one's listening. After all, why should they?” That's a real character, right there – a loud-mouth with a deep-seated inferiority complex. Doctor Who was huge when they cast Tate – they could have got anyone. Perhaps the worst condemnation of Tate is that Donna's Mum, who's essentially the same character, is sixty-three times as convincing as Donna is. Hey, we're in Germany again.

17:24 Is this Osterhagen thing going to destroy the world, or something? What's the point of that? They really shouldn't give Freema Agyeman butch lines like “I've got a job to do,” either. She's by no means a great actress, but what makes her work is her vulnerability; presenting her as a soldier is as wrong as presenting Hyacinth Bucket as the leader of the Rebel Alliance.

18:24 Russell T. Davies' lines are so bad that he's writing them in German now so we don't notice. This man was once among the best writers in Britain, but now he shovels out B-movie dialogue like it's actually acceptable. Has anything actually happened in this episode yet, except for characters changing locations every two minutes?

20:09 The Doctor tells Davros that he wants to know what's happening right here, right now. That makes two of us. Although I suspect the answer is “not much.”

21:54 They keep saying one of the Doc's companions is going to die. Ergo, no-one is. Moving on.

22:37 Now there's more prophecies about how we'll see the Doctor's soul revealed. The annoying thing about this “story” - because it barely qualifies as such – is that they keep banging on about what's going to happen, but ignore the fact that we'd quite like something to happen now. Something like...

22:47 ...well, something that doesn't sound as shit as a Reality Bomb. It's going to be a gizmo that destroys the universe for no apparent reason, isn't it? Maybe it's some sort of experiment that's going to go wrong, a weapon that Davros has misunderstood. 'Cos it can't be that pointless, can it? Can it?

26:15 I've got to stop expecting this story to be smarter than it seems. Davros wants to destroy the universe. Why? What's he going to do afterwards? If there's no suns left, isn't he going to freeze to death? And why has he tested it on human subjects, if it's supposed to destroy every form of matter? It would have been easier to take some sheep from Earth, really. Or sheepshit, for that matter.

28:56 One of the guys about to activate the Osterhagen Key doesn't want to reveal his name, as he thinks it's an awful thing to do. Why doesn't he – uh – not do it? It's not much of a moral stance; a bit like working in the concentration camps, but salving your conscience by doing it under a pseudonym.

29:10 Oh god, the Doctor's putting a magic gizmo together. It's obviously a red-herring, as everyone can tell, because Russell's last three season finales have been structured almost identically. I remember when this series was so good that I was actually shocked and disappointed by Doomsday. Seems a long time ago now.

29:56 Dalek Caan starts bleating about prophecies and someone dying again, and the Doctor responds with “I wish you'd stop saying that.” If you don't know what a Signal From Fred is, I suggest you google it. 'Course, the problem is that, if Davros sits there complacently saying “this is just as Dalek Caan foretold,” we know that the Osterhagen Key isn't going to work, so there's no drama to the situation at all. Three weeks ago, Russell T. Davies gave us Midnight, which was a masterpiece; the week after that, it was Turn Left, which was Very Good. Maybe he just wipes his brain of all writing ability before he does the season finales.

30:42 Riiiiiight. So the Osterhagen Key destroys the entire planet, if the suffering of the human race becomes so great that death is preferable. And yet it can be doled out to some UNIT medical officer by that bloke off of Dempsey and Makepeace. Don't we get a say? What about the cats, dogs, and platypuses – what about them? Strangely, this is the first thing in the story that's somewhat believable and quite disturbing, but the story doesn't seem to know it. If the Daleks didn't have the obvious ability to stop this at any moment, we might have something dramatic here. Instead it keeps waving Davros around, as if he's something other than your standard-issue maniac who most of the audience have never even heard of.

31:48 Speaking of which... Davros and Sarah Jane Smith have started having a chinwag about the events of Genesis of the Daleks, because the casual audience are definitely going to remember that.

33:10 Now we're doing flashbacks and Doctor-Guilt. One of the strangest things about Russell T. Davies is that he always writes the series finales to be about a war, but he doesn't actually know what a war is. Similarly, weapons. First of all, the TARDIS is supposed to be one, and now Davros is telling the Doctor that he fashions ordinary people into weapons. Except... a weapon is a thing designed specifically to kill or destroy, and isn't vaguely comparable to a human acting of their own free will. If the Doctor were to pack Martha's abdomen with dystronic explosive which he could detonate whenever he wanted, that would be turning her into a weapon. Oh Jesus, more flashbacks. When is this going to stop?

34:54 The script's given great emphasis to the fact that Davros is the Dalek's prisoner / pet / Court Jester... in spite of the fact that he's telling all the Daleks what to do. It's as though the innumerable big plot revelations can contradict each other, so long as there's enough of them. The other Doctor had better show up sharpish, he's done sod all except hang around in the TARDIS doing Donna impressions so far, and now there's a countdown to the destruction of the universe, or something. Oh, here he is, and he's got a magic gun to zap Davros with.

36:19 If you've got a gun, you just shoot someone, you know. You don't run at them with it and let them zap you with their finger. At least Donna's been killed, I don't think.

37:58 Ah, Donna's pulling the magic levers to fix everything instead. I suppose that just about counts as a variation to the formula... I didn't actually think it was possible for her to be any more annoying, but Catherine Tate doing Doctorish acting is like itching powder under your foreskin. The story's effectively over now, but there's still a good twenty-five minutes of airtime left. And if I wanted to watch people pushing buttons really fast, I'd watch a teenager texting someone.

41:14 Douglas Adams put huge quantities of technobabble in his scripts as a joke, and even he doesn't have this much waffle in The Pirate Planet.

41:47 I think all the ludicrous coincidences are supposed to be explained by the revelation that Dalek Caan has been manipulating the timelines. Erm – how, exactly? How did Dalek Caan decide where Donna parked her car? And why? He went back in time, through the infinite complexities of the timelines, in order to save Davros from the Time War... but in so doing, saw that the Daleks were evil and decided to destroy them instead. Forgive me my scepticism, but why not just leave Davros where he was?

42:15 At least that rubbishy red Dalek has been exterminated. Given that there's thousands of Daleks on the ship, quite why they only sent one Dalek down is anyone's guess. Maybe Daleks are in a trade union, and they get very touchy about demarcation.

44:12 That was almost two minutes of random things exploding. Davros has branded the Doctor as “The Destroyer of Worlds.” Pots and kettles leap irresistibly to mind.

44:57 Fanwank reference to The Unquiet Dead. My brain's going to melt.

45:15 I like that way that the Doctor can ask Sarah what her son's name is, then shout “Luke” at the console and instantly talk to him by remote control. Now there's some technology I'd like. I'd just wind up shouting “Samantha Morton” at my phone all day.

48:05 We've actually had almost three minutes of a lot of people flying the TARDIS. The human race didn't half organise fireworks displays quickly, given that the planet has been ravaged and millions have been killed. Still, it's not like there's any point spending money or time on trivialities like humanitarian aid, is there? Although, here's a point... the Daleks seem to have tested the Reality Bomb on about a hundred people. So why did they bother invading Earth at all? It's not like they did anything with it. It's like a bunch of scientists wiping out half of all white rats in existence, and then capturing the rest, because they need twenty or so to run down mazes and catch myxamatosis.

50:10 Oh look, a scene with Mickey that's actually pretty good. If he's in Torchwood I might actually watch it. Although the bugger's making films now, isn't he? I smell a guest appearance coming up, though.

51:00 So the Doctor's taking Rose back to the parallel universe... but why the hell has he dropped her back in Norway? Jackie's got a kid to take care of, for Christ's sake. How are they going to get home, hitch-hike? By the way, I know I said I wasn't going to have a go at Catherine Tate at any more (about two sentences before I did just that), but hearing her deliver the line “Don't you see what he's trying to give you?” is so thoroughly wooden that it's barely believable... and yet you don't really mind, because wooden is about as good as she can ever aspire to. She may be uncomfortable to watch now, but at least she's no longer actively attacking my insides; a bit like someone removed a ferret from my anal cavity, and replaced it with a hedgehog.

55:18 But now she's started doing impressions of David Tennant. Maybe I spoke too soon.

56:50 See, Donna having her mind wiped would have been a wonderful scene, if it had a real actress in it. At least she's unconscious now, she's actually not a bad actress when you don't give her any lines or facial expressions. And here's Bernard Cribbins. Three words which would have made even this series better: More. Bernard. Cribbins.

59:41 It may feature the explanation for the dead-companion cop-out, but Cribbins alone actually makes this scene moving. This is what good actors can do. Why couldn't they have the decency to cast one as a companion, for god's sake? Cribbins' expression at this point is one of those moments that almost, almost, makes this whole dull charade worthwhile.

60:31 ...and his look here is even better. He's only been this episode for five minutes or so, and he's stolen it. Tells you something.

62:15 The last shot is Tennant walking around the TARDIS, looking moody... for about a minute. Why was this episode 65 minutes long, exactly? Hey, it's some Cybermen in the Christmas special! If only I cared more. Still, at least if Catherine Tate ever tries to come back into Doctor Who, her brain's going to catch fire. Best we could have hoped for, really.