Writer: Russell T. Davies
Director: Graeme HarperCast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna), Billie Piper (Rose), Freema Agyeman (Martha), John Barrowman (Captain Jack), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah-Jane Smith), Noel Clarke (Mickey), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Thomas Knight (Luke Smith), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Bernard Cribbins (Gramps), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Adjoa Andoh (Francine Jones), Julian Bleach (Davros), Valda Aviks (German Woman), Shobu Kapoor (Scared Woman), Elizabeth Tan (Chinese Woman), Michael Price (Liberian Man), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek, voice) & Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith, voice)
Davros reveals his master plan, as the Doctor's companions race to prevent the destruction of reality itself...A cloud of secrecy descended on Doctor Who this week, as viewers were left shell-shocked by the apparent regeneration of David Tennant as the cliffhanger ending to "The Stolen Earth". Voracious speculation sent forums and blogs into meltdown, while the nation's kids were left on the precipice of bereavement for their hero. But, as predicted by those aware of the various "get-outs" available to Russell T. Davies, the popular Tennant lives to regenerate another day...
"Journey's End" continues the story with the exact same temperament; furiously paced, mostly illogical, and continually threatening to disappear up its own backside. Still, with your brain disengaged and focused on the sweeping emotion of everything, this conclusion was easy to enjoy and got enough right to make the journey worthwhile.
Perhaps inevitably, the solution to The Doctor's life-or-new-life crisis is solved within seconds -- a simple transference of his regenerative powers into the hand lopped off in "The Christmas Invasion", after his wounds have been healed, but his bodily transformation had yet to begin. From there, the storyline once again splinters into various strands: The Doctor, Captain Jack (John Barrowman) and Rose (Billie Piper) brought aboard the Dalek Crucible mothership by Davros (Julian Bleach); Donna (Catherine Tate) trapped aboard the TARDIS as it's sent to a fiery destruction; Martha (Freema Agyeman) teleporting to Nuremburg to use the Osterhagen Key as a last-ditch effort to save the planet; and Sarah-Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) teaming up with Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri) and Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) aboard a Dalek detention centre...
For a 65-minute episode, events fortunately didn't drag as badly as the similarly-long "Voyage Of The Damned" special, as Russell T. Davies clearly uses this episode to bring a sizeable number of plot-strands to a close – stretching right back to season 1. Primarily, Rose's love for The Doctor is imaginatively brought to a close, thanks to the arrival of a Human-Doctor hybrid clone, grown from The Doctor's dismembered hand after Donna touches it...
While the plausibility of nearly everything is stretched to breaking point, the greatest success of "Journey's End" is a central gambit – with Davros taking perverse delight in demonstrating to The Doctor how his "children of time" have learned nothing – ready, willing and able to destroy billions of people on Earth for a kamikaze-style victory. The scenes between a captured Doctor and Davros are amongst the best, as Tennant is finally able to face-off against a villain with an interesting viewpoint, beautifully performed by a rasping Julian Bleach.
The sheer volume of returning characters means most suffer: particularly Jackie Tyler (used purely as comic-relief), Mickey (always irritating, and now palmed-off into Torchwood – god help us), Sarah-Jane (whose history with Who mythology continues to be her only interesting aspect), Martha (who came across as a reckless idiot who's learned nothing), Captain Jack (a character who rarely operates above gun-toting cheeseball), and the pointlessness of Gwen (Eve Myles), Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) and Luke Smith (Thomas Knight).
Fortunately, the actors that count got interesting stuff to do: David Tennant was relegated to standing around watching others try to save the day at times, but was never anything less than compelling otherwise (and got a fun dual role as a Doctor tinged with Donna's impertinence); Billie Piper was lost in the mix for awhile, but the poignant beach-set resolution to her affection for The Doctor worked better than it should have; but Catherine Tate stole all the memorable stuff – "mothering" a cloned Doctor, being endowed with The Doctor's knowledge (and mannerisms), before ending the season on a bittersweet note. Bernard Cribbins had very little screen-time as her Gramps, but showed his experience by tugging at the heart-strings with greater ease than everyone else put together.
In terms of production, the special FX were excellent throughout – the Dalek Crucible was incredibly detailed and well-designed, scenes of flying Daleks were free of digital judder, and epic shots of multiple planets and ships evidenced the money lavished on these last episodes. If anything, it's hard to imagine the visuals getting any grander, or the stakes being raised any higher than the total destruction of reality itself, so I'm guessing future-boss Steven Moffat's automatically going to employ a "less is more" tactic when he takes over...
Overall, if you enjoyed "The Stolen Earth" you'll definitely enjoy this, and vice-versa. It's every bit as questionable and freewheeling as last week, but doesn't contain anything to rival events in the juicier set-up. Still, everything drew to an effective conclusion and left 2008/9 a clean slate for the 4 specials before Steven Moffat inherits the show in 2010.
There are plenty of nitpicks (Sarah-Jane just happened to have a necklace-bomb?), lots of silly moments (German Daleks!), and accusations of RTD overstepping the mark will fly around for weeks, but this was still an entertaining series swansong. The strong performances from Tennant and Tate (the latter of whom earned a turnaround in feeling about her casting), helped pull you through moments of silliness, and a storyline that felt half-improvised. And I liked the scene of The Doctor and his companions piloting the TARDIS back home – perfectly reflecting the episode's theme of friends working together to save the day.
'Till Christmas, then...
5 July 2008
BBC1, 6.40 pm
A Cracking end to a cracking series! although I do feel slightly disappointed, not sure why, maybe because there's nothing more to look forward to or maybe the episode didn't live up to the expectations we were all hoping for…
but as you said... 'Till Christmas, then... Cybermen are back!
I actually don't find Mickey irritating at all. He's one of the few companions from Nu Who (along with Martha) who's realised he shouldn't be near the Doctor too much.
Additionally, Noel Clarke is an accomplished actor and writer so if he really is going into Torchwood he can only improve it. But lets face it, improving Torchwood isn't hard.
Overall though I do agree with your review of this episode and Bernard Cribbins did indeed manage to deliver the right level of emotion. He blew away all the previous goodbye scenes without even trying. What a performance.
Any cliff-hanger that can be got out the way in less than 30 seconds is a cheat, in my opinion. The least they could've done is have Tennant affected a little more by his ordeal. Instead he just shrugged it all off and got on with things. Very disappointing. And the episode had my pet sci-fi peeve: Solving the plot by having a character spout a load of techno-gubbins and then pushing a button. Frankly, it made SOD/LOTT look clever.
But still... it was entertaining enough. The German-speaking Daleks and towing the Earth home standing out for me. Donna's fate was quite moving, far more so, for me, than Rose getting her own Doctor.
At least the Xmas trailer looked good.
Noel Clark's a talented guy, I just don't think he's ever fitted DW very well. I never believed him as Rose's boyfriend and he stank up s1 especially. He clearly prefers writing/directing his own gritty teen crime stuff (Adulthood, etc), so DW/TW look like an easy pay cheques for him. IMO. He'll work better in TW (with its "adult vibe"), but I've always found him terrible in DW. This episode: kissing the gun. *cringe*
I didn't think the Xmas trailer looked very good at all. They seemed to have very little to show, and what we saw we already knew about: David Morrissey and Cybermen. And as the Cybermen were one of s2's biggest disappointments, I'm not very psyched for Xmas.
And yes, I think the ease with which the regeneration was back-peddled was unfortunate. But I shrugged and got on with it, like RTD did. I know a lot of people say it ruined it, or at least upset 20 mins of their viewing... but... this was an RTD episode, so you half-expected a disappointment.
They seemed to have very little to show, and what we saw we already knew about: David Morrissey and Cybermen.
Well, it may just be that the trailer (all 3 seconds or it, admittedly) looked good compared to the episode that preceded it. But I'm optimistic: I think the period dramas are some of the more interesting DW stories, and it's got some great actors in it (*Shudders at the memory of Kylie*).
Yeah, it's worth being optimistic for, I guess. But I have some friends who only see the Doctor Who Xmas Specials, and they're annually left with the impression that new-Who is a big, brash, pantomine of a sci-fi cheesefest. And that bugs me.
I haven't read your review just yet (will do a bit later) but about the episode itself I knew I'd be disappointed and I was. Okay, it wasn't as bad as last year's finale and while anything would be better than "Doctor... Doctor... Doctor...", the use of Donna to turn things around and the destruction of the Daleks was nicely done. However, while I know Tate was only in it for one series, it's such a shame how her character turned out in the end as my opinion (post-Christmas Bride) has completely changed and she's far better than Rose or Martha have ever been.
Of course, we didn't see the extermination (ahem) of Dalek Caan nor Davros, so they can still come back no doubt.
Seeing the trailer at the end was another disappointment. While it would've been a bit much to do as they've done every year since and drop the Doctor right in it at the last moment, and while I didn't know about the content of the Xmas episode until last night, ok, David Morrissey is an excellent actor but all I could think was...
Cybermen? Again?? Oh, for crying out loud, Russell, you're like a US President running out your last year in office - doing nothing but treading water and rehashing old ideas rather than coming up with something new and exciting.
An hour's worth of tedium and no doubt Captain Jack'll turn up, wanting a metal foursome as he wanted a Doctor foursome last night(!)
The returning villain syndrome has other factors, remember: it costs a lot to create these villains, so it makes economic sense to bring them back (Daleks, Cybermen, Face of Bo, Judoon, Slitheen, etc.) And, in the case of the Daleks, there was a legal reason for them having to use them in every season (which I can't remember the specifics of right now).
And, while fans of the old-style Cybermen generally don't like the new ones, kids love them. And introducing a new villain always soaks up some valuable time, so the pace should be better in Xmas '08 because everyone's aware of what the Cyberman are all about.
Hi. Hope you can help, I have 16 questions about this season ender and
hope you can help answer them here:
http://youwillbeforever.blogspot.com/2008/07/doctor-who-journeys-end-finale-loose.html
Thanks!
Jomar
I really liked this episode, of course I suspended my belief as much as possible so it was far more enjoyable or else I would have spent an hour muttering "that's just bloody stupid". Donna's fate was really moving, much more than Rose's who just wanted to kiss the Doctor since Donna ended up with what she's been dreading so much, a dull life where she's nothing special. I don't think I could rewatch season 4 with a pinch of sadness :)