Doctor Who "The End of Time Part 2" [spoilers]

[mr friendly guy]

The whole time lock thing is really a non-factor anyhow. We've seen that a single Dalek can break it (though it sent it insane) at a moments notice. I can only assume that a prepared bunch of Time Lords could manage it without too much hassle - all they'd have to do is avoid the insanity bit. I'd imagine a TARDIS could easily do it.
"So, our plan failed, President 'Rassilon'."
"Yeah, bugger it. Stupid time lock around us. Oh well, back to sitting around a cool table and listening to a crazy tattooed woman for us, I guess."
"Yes, times like this you wish you had a bunch of time vehicles which could penetrate the barriers around universes, time and even go outside of spacetime, don't you."
"..."

I was a bit bothered by this. Why didn't they escape to parallel time lines or even the great void (while TL haven't demonstrated that technology, one of my sourcebooks mentioned that the war spread into the space between universes, so I assume TL could do it).

RTD may understand various aspects of canon and isn't afraid of using throw away lines, but he doesn't think about the implications of canon technology. The moment you write in a useful piece of tech, then you run the risk of looking stupid when said technology is so useful in a situation but you do not think about using it.

[Thanas]

I think the fundamental problem about RTD and his canon is that he does not care about technology and its implications. His vision of the Doctor is not one about conventional scifi, it is how travel with the doctors shape ordinary humans. This is also why his companions are not extraordinary in any way when we meet them - they are all ordinary people, even very unimpressive ordinary people. Rose was a shopgirl, Martha a low-grade doctor, Donna was a secretary.

RTD does not really want to write about spaceships and explosions, he wants to write about how ordinary people are lifted up and transformed by the doctor into something better. Even the final act of the doctor, sacrificing himself for Will, was done in defence of ordinary people, or, as a cynic would write, in defence of mediocrity.

RTD is good with character work (at least in the first two seasons he was) and it is no coincidence that the tenth doctor's greatest moments on the confidential montage were 70% from Season 2. This phenomen is not limited to RTDs work alone, even the best episodes from S3, the family of blood, not written by him, were mostly character pieces. The same with Midnight.

Thus, one might say RTD is reasonably decent with character work (as also shown in children of earth), but he absolutely has no idea with classical sciencie fiction elements like technology. And what is worse, he does not seem to care much about that.

[Rye]

I really tried to watch it, but I couldn't get past Donna's dad, in full knowledge that there's a phone trace on his daughter, telling her to "run" over and over again, without thinking to tell her to turn her phone off. I'm sorry, that was so fucking stupid and the music was so intrusive I think I just ended up playing Wipeout Fury instead.

I also really dislike how little dignity the Master seems to have in this representation. I mean the Doctor tries to flatter him with stuff that sounds like it should apply to the Master, but Simm can't brood like the Master should. I like the guy as an actor, but either his direction or the writing are off somewhere. Every time I see the Simm Master, I think about how much better Anthony Stuart Head would've been for the role.

[TC Pilot]

I really tried to watch it, but I couldn't get past Donna's dad, in full knowledge that there's a phone trace on his daughter, telling her to "run" over and over again, without thinking to tell her to turn her phone off. I'm sorry, that was so fucking stupid and the music was so intrusive I think I just ended up playing Wipeout Fury instead.

I think that might be a bit overly harsh on the guy. He's at least 80 years old, so there's at least a reason for him not to be tech savy.

I also really dislike how little dignity the Master seems to have in this representation. I mean the Doctor tries to flatter him with stuff that sounds like it should apply to the Master, but Simm can't brood like the Master should. I like the guy as an actor, but either his direction or the writing are off somewhere. Every time I see the Simm Master, I think about how much better Anthony Stuart Head would've been for the role.

It was probably a deliberate choice on the their part to make the Master that way, considering how Jacobi played the role in S3.

[Gramzamber]

I believe they wanted Simm to act this way, to be the equal and opposite counterpart of the 10th Doctor who is - and I say this with more affection than most - a hyperactive twat.

[Straha]

I was going to make a really long post here, but it's not worth it. I will say that, disgusted as I was with how the Time Lords were used, I was pleasantly surprised that RTD didn't follow his usual lead and make the second episode incredibly worse than the first. In fact, personally, I liked the second Episode almost as much as the first one, a completely new feeling for an RTD two-parter.

That said, I lost my temper at:

1. The Doctor arriving at the Ood planet, rattling off a list of interesting and important adventures that were heavily foreshadowed, and then dismissing them. The worst was "I got married... that was a mistake, met good queen Bess!" Which makes what was perhaps the most interesting part of the Silence in the Library fall completely flat, and completely destroys its emotional climax in hindsight. Then he stares at the Ood planet, declares "This shouldn't be!" and then NEVER BRINGS IT UP AGAIN. The first part made me rage, the second just ticks me off.


2. The MacGuffin and Master. Imagine, if you will, Mrs. Saxon explaining the future to a guard who has just strip searched her:

"Yes, I know it might seem slightly insane to be hiding a bottle of unidentifiable liquids in my Hoo-hah, but there's a reason for this! The Master, my ex-husband, is going to be brought back by a secret society that he set up centuries ago for just such an occurrence as his death, but another secret society about whom we have heard nothing, who has no reason to exist at all, and about whom you will never hear again has given me this potion. If I use it during the resurrection ceremony on the Master it will make him constantly hungry, slightly more unbalanced than usual, able to run at incredible speeds and jump incredible heights, and every so often he'll sparkle."

And when the Guard points out that the Master sounds pretty much like a Twilight Vampire Mrs. Saxon will say:

"No! You see, he'll also be able to shoot lightning out of his hands! Zap! Zap! KAPOW! It'll cost him "Life Force", but that doesn't actually have any meaning and he'll get away with it pretty much scott free. He'll still be captured though, used to rebuild a device that will change everyone on the Earth into a copy of him, even though they wont suffer from his lack of life force or botched resurrection, and try to take over the world and turn it into a giant warship. Oh, and this other Time Lord, the Doctor, a girl, Donna, and two aliens will not be effected by this machine, for no real reason. Don't worry though, it'll all be undone with a literal handwave."



One final thought: I refuse to believe that woman is the Doctor's Mother. Simply because, if she were, she'd be effected by the Time Lock and wouldn't be able to get out of Gallifrey. Moreover, if she somehow knew the way to do it she still wouldn't because then, like with the Master, something is existing outside the Time Lock which would give the Time Lords a "connection" and let them escape their fate.

My bet is the White Guardian.

[andrewgpaul]

I was going to make a really long post here, but it's not worth it. I will say that, disgusted as I was with how the Time Lords were used, I was pleasantly surprised that RTD didn't follow his usual lead and make the second episode incredibly worse than the first. In fact, personally, I liked the second Episode almost as much as the first one, a completely new feeling for an RTD two-parter.

That said, I lost my temper at:

1. The Doctor arriving at the Ood planet, rattling off a list of interesting and important adventures that were heavily foreshadowed, and then dismissing them. The worst was "I got married... that was a mistake, met good queen Bess!" Which makes what was perhaps the most interesting part of the Silence in the Library fall completely flat, and completely destroys its emotional climax in hindsight.

Huh? What does it have to do with Silence In The Library? It was a callback to The Shakespeare Code, albeit a rather cheap one.

[Ryushikaze]

There is only one way to make any of this tripe even remotely sensible:

The Doctor is completely insane.

Much, if not everything we've been seeing in nDW, has actually been our view into a deepening psychosis the Doctor is suffering, perhaps as a result of the Time War or something like it. As the condition has worsened over some unspecified period of time, the Doctor's view of reality has become increasingly warped and nonsensical. Really, this would very adequately explain everything that has proceeded in the last three years. Others on the outside —Time Lords, UNIT, the White Guardian, Eternals, the TARDIS, or whomever— have been trying to heal the damage to the Doctor's mind. Meanwhile, he's been living in his own little insane world inside his own head. He may be raving or he may be catatonic somewhere but of course to him everything he's "experienced" over one and possibly two regenerations is utterly real.

Now really, would this not make a lot more sense than trying to explain RTD's last three years as anything remotely logical? The Insanity Theory simplifies so much: economically explaining the Doctor meeting four versions of the same dreary "family", the Freudian TARDIS interior, the spontaneous regrowing of a severed hand, his baseless idealisation of a 19-year old little bint as a demigoddess who he then dispenses with by dumping off a double of himself with her in an unreachable "parallel world", the wild emotional swings, the increasingly shitty decisionmaking, his very uncharacteristic emo over evil little fucks which, in the real world, he never shed a tear over while watching them burn (Davros, the Master), the apparent "Year That Never Was" which he spends first as a shriveled up old man on a dog-leash and then as Dobby's little brother in a golden cage and subject to the whims of a psychotically cruel owner (talk about Freudian!) before going Jesus on his ass after a moment of perfect worship from billions of people, the End of Time™, &c, &c, &c...

All of it the evident product of a very disordered mind.

No, I think it all happened- he didn't just imagine it- but I do agree, he's gone entirely off the deep end. The 9th and especially 10th doctors are examples of self loathing and insanity. The last four seasons, we've been watching a Doctor who now hates what he and his people became in the time war, hence his absurd adoration of the nobodies and manic depressive mood swings, etc.

Hopefully, the new doctor under the new head writer will deal with this bullshit and stop being emo.

[NecronLord]

1. The Doctor arriving at the Ood planet, rattling off a list of interesting and important adventures that were heavily foreshadowed, and then dismissing them. The worst was "I got married... that was a mistake, met good queen Bess!"

Umm, watch it again? He married Queen Elizabeth, deflowered her (her nickname that he says is no longer accurate is 'The Virgin Queen') and then ran off. Nothing to do with River Song at all. River Song is in the trailer for the next series.

[PREDATOR490]

The relationship with Rose and River Song is undermined by this throw away spiel. We spent the better part of 4 seasons worth of the Doctor longing for Rose and his unfathomable inability to even say he loves her and River Song was introduced as being someone of massive importance due to the relationship she apparantly experiences with the Doctor.
Yet here we have a throw away reference to him marrying and banging Queen Elizabeth as nothing more than a pathetic attempt to tie up that loose end in the Shakespear episode. Although incidentally, Tennant leaving has already lumbered Moffat with having to rework Silence of the Library so that River somehow can recognise and identify Tennant Doctor like she did while interacting with Matt Smith as the ACTUAL Doctor she is going to meet.

That said, I cant really be bothered with RTD's stupid romance angle around the Doctor. Ok, the Doctor is an interesting character but having everyone fancying him really got old. I was rather annoyed how Sarah Jane's reintroduction into season 2 was retroactively altered around the idea she had a romantic relationship with the Doctor and it seems RTD is of the mentality that the Doctor cant travel with a female companion without some romantic angle being involved. Hopefully, with River Song coming up, Moffat would feel the need to use the new companion like that.

[Patrick Degan]

That said, I cant really be bothered with RTD's stupid romance angle around the Doctor. Ok, the Doctor is an interesting character but having everyone fancying him really got old. I was rather annoyed how Sarah Jane's reintroduction into season 2 was retroactively altered around the idea she had a romantic relationship with the Doctor and it seems RTD is of the mentality that the Doctor cant travel with a female companion without some romantic angle being involved. Hopefully, with River Song coming up, Moffat would feel the need to use the new companion like that.

It's not that I have a particular problem with the concept of a romance angle to a Doctor/companion relationship per-se, but have a huge problem with RTD having made it his pet obsession and slathering it all over the series under his management. And yes, the idea that there must be a romance with every companion is patently absurd. Furthermore, since it tends to complicate storylines, it's really best if it's only subtletly hinted at most if it has to be there. I'd rather see the two of them trying to extracate their way out of the latest problem they've landed in the middle of than endless angst about solving their emotional problems. Oh and for fuck's sake I hope we've seen the very last of a companion's family in Doctor Who. These domestic minidramas in what's supposed to be a series about a time traveler adventuring around the Universe with whatever friend he's decided to share the ride with have been truly tedious.

[Blayne]

I think it would be a cool interesting step if they have the new girl as more of a opposite-Donna, someone who is there as a friend but not as a mother figure that Donna sorta became.

Also would be cool to have some male companions, people to fill in the gaps in the Doctor's character, someone we the audience can indentify with and go "awesome, hes exactly where I want to be".

[PREDATOR490]

RTD tried getting male companions and we ended up with Jack Harkness and Mickey Smith. Both of which were quickly in favour of playing the female romance angle and naturally having hot companions is a cheap hook for male audiences.

Unfortunatly, with the new trend towards getting younger pretty boy Doctors it reduces the chances of getting more dynamic companions, especially male. The biggest example is Eccleston vs. Barrowman. Eccleston was a strong Doctor with the kind of attitude and look that made it plausible for him to keep someone like Jack Harkness under control. Tennant on the otherhand is scrawny and comes across as weak to the point he has very little projection without help from the script. Naturally, the best way to do that is to bring on companions that will not over power the Doctor, thus resulting in the brainless Rose, the love lorn Martha and making Donna's "bluff" comedy relief most of the time.

I dont know Matt Smith so he is an unknown element but looking at the basic preview of him 'in action' makes me doubtful he can match someone like Eccleston for physical projection , Tom Baker for Charisma or McCoy for intellect. That said, if they are bringing in River Swan, I suppose the hope that Moffat is aiming to make Matt Smith into the kind of Doctor that will be capable of matching a woman with that personality might exist.

[Darwin]

I dont know Matt Smith so he is an unknown element but looking at the basic preview of him 'in action' makes me doubtful he can match someone like Eccleston for physical projection , Tom Baker for Charisma or McCoy for intellect. That said, if they are bringing in River Swan, I suppose the hope that Moffat is aiming to make Matt Smith into the kind of Doctor that will be capable of matching a woman with that personality might exist.

On first glance he's got a sort of 'George McFly' nerdy awkwardness that probably isn't going to help. The bowtie makes it even worse.

[Patrick Degan]

Well, I've just gotten through actually viewing EoT.

What.

Utter.

Shit.

[Vympel]

I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly have a positive reaction to the mind-numbing tedium of this episode. Aside from all the other problems which I summarised in my one-liner post, I must once again single out the music. It's so fucking distracting, so inappropriately EPIC!, so damn bombastic and over-the-top, it just drives me completely barmy.

Like RTD's Doctor is, as Patrick Degan so aptly pointed out.

[Parallax]

I think the biggest problem with the story was that you could clearly see the potential for a really outstanding tale. It's sitting there, for all to see. It's doing the doggy equivalent of sitting on the sidewalk, on it's hind legs with a bowl in it's mouth and whining pitifully for attention.

And the show creators went in the complete opposite direction.

[Big Orange]

- the music was good, as always.

Murray Gold is coming back:

Composer Murray Gold has confirmed he's one of the few choice members of team-RTD who'll be back on Doctor Who for Matt Smith’s first season as the Doctor.

In an interview with Music From The Movies he also reveals that he’s arranging yet another new version of the theme tune.

"I’ve been approached and we’ve talked about it and by December I should be working on things for Series five," he says in the in-depth interview about his work on the last few specials. “I have started writing some themes and it all looks good. I really wanted to work with Steven… I love Steven Moffat’s stuff. I mean I’ve read scripts and they’re amazing. Episode One is just complete joy.”

He also confirms that Mark ("The Unquiet Dead") Gatiss and Gareth ("The Shakespeare Code") Roberts will be providing scripts for the new season.

And controversial 1990s novelist for Doctor Who, Lawrence Miles, has posted his snarky recap for "The End of Time" and the subsequent S5 trailer over on his blog (righthand of page and titled "Thirteen Cheering Thoughts for 2010").

[Lord Woodlouse]

And controversial 1990s novelist for Doctor Who, Lawrence Miles, has posted his snarky recap for "The End of Time" and the subsequent S5 trailer over on his blog (righthand of page and titled "Thirteen Cheering Thoughts for 2010").

l find it hilarious that he considers himself such a high authority on Doctor Who. RTD is a deeply flawed writer, but Lawrence Miles makes him look like a modern day Shakespeare.

More so is the fact that he keeps talking about how doomed the tv series is, in spite of the fact that it's not lost any popularity from the general viewing public.

[Gramzamber]

What I really hate is how RTD has constantly beaten us over the head with how the Time War was this massive, badass universe and time spanning conflict yet every single time he has an opportunity to actually, you know, SHOW us he runs away like a mouse. It was bad enough after TW Daleks appeared for the 70 billionth time but now he does it with the Time Lords too, for a quarter of an episode no less and everything goes back to normal.
I mean just what *was* the Cruciform? Or the Moment? What were the Skaro depridations? (and how does Skaro get any worse than it already is, feces shooting monkey-Daleks?)
We'll never know because RTD is a coward., shooting off big names that sound like they're supposed to mean something but don't.

And yes I know showing the Time War would be a high budget thing but hey, take out some of that let's move Earth around with 27 other planets or Starbug playing tag with missiles or Gallifrey playing interstellar snooker with Earth and there you go. Doesn't have to be spectacular, just give us an idea.

[Starglider]

And yes I know showing the Time War would be a high budget thing but hey, take out some of that let's move Earth around with 27 other planets or Starbug playing tag with missiles or Gallifrey playing interstellar snooker with Earth and there you go.

It's inexcusable because all that is needed is a few quick flashes of CGI, say a second each, of bizarre and monstrous things. You don't have to detail everything mentioned, just give us some scary images and vague impressions of anything mentioned more than once (like the 'Nightmare Child'). That's easily within the capability of the production team. But no, RTD prefered to spend the budget on the David Tennant Mope-A-Thon instead.

Every story RTD writes has a reasonable setup that turns into massive dissapointment. The first eposide of all the ending two-parters has been at least acceptable and sometimes quite good (Army of Ghosts, The Sound of Drums). The final eposide is usually awful - Doomsday was the only exception and even that falls far short of its potential.

[Thanas]

Doomsday was saved due to the performances by the actors and because you had the feeling that actions really had consequences there (which was also true for the parting of the ways).

It is too bad that RTD then went on to do every final episode as a remake of his first two hits, but with the consequences bit taken out or hyped ad absurdum..

[PREDATOR490]

After seeing the pictures on that blog... I yet again see the woeful indication of a companion thats going to be fancying the Doctor. Even if it turns out to be a contrived situation, it just strikes me as further proof that Doctor Who writers cant seem to have male / female interactions without playing to some romantic attraction.
A 900 year old Timelord who has went through an 'epic' unseen war where apparantly all manners of horrific acts occured, lost his wife and children is 'made better' by traveling with young companions. Which begins to seriously make the Doctor look bad. We go through epic amounts of emo whining and his wild erratic mood swings which his companions have to take the brunt of.

[Thanas]

^Was the doctors wife ever shown? I know he had Susan, but I can't remember ever seeing his wife.

[lance]

Then he stares at the Ood planet, declares "This shouldn't be!" and then NEVER BRINGS IT UP AGAIN. The first part made me rage, the second just ticks me off.

I thought he also explained why after saying it shouldn't be, and a bit more dialog to the point where the point was closed.

2. The MacGuffin and Master. Imagine, if you will, Mrs. Saxon explaining the future to a guard who has just strip searched her:

"Yes, I know it might seem slightly insane to be hiding a bottle of unidentifiable liquids in my Hoo-hah, but there's a reason for this! The Master, my ex-husband, is going to be brought back by a secret society that he set up centuries ago for just such an occurrence as his death, but another secret society about whom we have heard nothing, who has no reason to exist at all, and about whom you will never hear again has given me this potion. If I use it during the resurrection ceremony on the Master it will make him constantly hungry, slightly more unbalanced than usual, able to run at incredible speeds and jump incredible heights, and every so often he'll sparkle."

I thought it was a guard that handed her the liquids, while she goes into a big speech how her family bought a crap load of people off.

One final thought: I refuse to believe that woman is the Doctor's Mother. Simply because, if she were, she'd be effected by the Time Lock and wouldn't be able to get out of Gallifrey. Moreover, if she somehow knew the way to do it she still wouldn't because then, like with the Master, something is existing outside the Time Lock which would give the Time Lords a "connection" and let them escape their fate.

My bet is the White Guardian.

This makes little sense as to what we were shown. The Time Lock was broken and she voted against the breaking of it.

Unless she was the same girl as the one Wilt saw, then I have to agree, but I thought she was younger than the Face covercrying girl(I really don't know what to call her)