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

[Thanas]

How did she manage to break the timelock and talk to Wilf? I wonder about that one.

[PREDATOR490]

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

I dont even know who Susan is so I cant coment on that.

S4 had the Doctor specifically state he had children and a wife to Donna in the 'Doctor's Daughter' and thats as far as it went. Needless to say, I would have assumed the woman in End of Time WAS the Doctor's wife if it wasnt for the apparant indication that she is his mother. It could still be his wife and RTD is lying to keep the 'suspense' or simply being an idiot but thats all up to Moffat now.
Although, I dont see how the Doctor can really be expected to have a relationship like that when by nature he lives for adventure. The idea of the Doctor settling down and having children seems unlikely and after watching his relationships with companions so far it becomes apparant the Doctor is emotionally disturbed to the point he cant even admit to Rose he loves her. Yet, apparantly he can marry Queen Elizabeth without any acknowledgement of what made Rose or Martha unacceptable.

Additonally, wouldnt the Doctor be able to save Wilf using the TARDIS if he legs it then goes back in time to the point JUST after he leaves the room ?
He cant cross his own timeline directly in large scale events but if his action is minor it dosent seem to count. A.K.A Letting Rose see her dad die one last time or the cheap trick with Martha.

Incidentally, I found the introduction with him 'locking' the TARDIS rather questionable. He is meant to be able to open the doors of the TARDIS with a click of his fingers, he can now remotely make the TARDIS de-sync with time and he can lock it like a car. Of course, we wont metion that he can remotely summon the TARDIS with a battery so why cant he remotely summon the thing on command ?

[Thanas]

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

I dont even know who Susan is so I cant coment on that.

His granddaughter from the first series.

Although, I dont see how the Doctor can really be expected to have a relationship like that when by nature he lives for adventure. The idea of the Doctor settling down and having children seems unlikely and after watching his relationships with companions so far it becomes apparant the Doctor is emotionally disturbed to the point he cant even admit to Rose he loves her. Yet, apparantly he can marry Queen Elizabeth without any acknowledgement of what made Rose or Martha unacceptable.

Yeah, I agree. However, it should be pointed out that 10.1 had no trouble saying it, so he might have changed over the years. Come to think of it, the longer the specials went on, the more he acted like 10.1, especially in the waters of mars special.

Additonally, wouldnt the Doctor be able to save Wilf using the TARDIS if he legs it then goes back in time to the point JUST after he leaves the room ?
He cant cross his own timeline directly in large scale events but if his action is minor it dosent seem to count. A.K.A Letting Rose see her dad die one last time or the cheap trick with Martha.

It might be that this counts like a more major event.

[andrewgpaul]

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.

I'd rather they didn't frankly. Showing us the Time Lords in big goofy robes was bad enough*, I'd rather keep the Time Lords' WMDs in my imagination, please. Perhaps you could expand on them in a novelisation or something.

*yes, I know that wasn't RTD. Just goes to show that other producers could fuck things up, I suppose.

[Patrick Degan]

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.

Oh yes... The whole matter with the Drums™ would have been the Time Lords' own insurance policy. A mechanism to drive the Master to eventually work out the source of the signal, open the link, and they escape the Time War. You could have a far less cartoonishly villanous President Bondrusa explaining afterward that this was the precise reason they reincarnated the Master in the first place: they knew he'd put his own survival before that of Gallifrey, so they had a very good chance of their plan working as a result. They could also have explained how they knew the Doctor would burn Gallifrey rather than let the Daleks win and counted on that as well. They could have also have put the Doctor's uncharacteristic affinity for the Master in his head as well, to keep him alive long enough to work the Plan. Both the Doctor and the Master would have been their pawns. And it could have been neatly done without The Matrix Regurgitated crap we get in the episode instead.

[Drooling Iguana]

Murray Gold is coming back:

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I do like Murray Gold's work on the show, but I think that, since so much is set to change in the next season, the music style should, too. Hopefully Gold has enough range as a composer to make his D11 cues significantly different from his D9 and D10 stuff, since it would be a bit jarring to keep hearing the same leitmotifs when everything else about the show has changed.

[Gramzamber]

I'd rather they didn't frankly. Showing us the Time Lords in big goofy robes was bad enough*, I'd rather keep the Time Lords' WMDs in my imagination, please. Perhaps you could expand on them in a novelisation or something.

*yes, I know that wasn't RTD. Just goes to show that other producers could fuck things up, I suppose.

It violates the principle of show, don't tell to talk about it so damn much and never show us anything.
There doesn't need to be a point by point rundown of the war and who used what weapon but RTD rode on the concept of the Time War to the very end to create drama and that's a very cheap way of writing.

Also, Time Lord robes rock.

[Stark]

If they'd left the Time War as a continuity reset to allow new viewers in and do something interesting with the Doctor's character, it would have been fine. They did that; then they continued to rant on about it while at the same time constantly invalidating it (constant returning Daleks, outrageously stupid Master shenanigans, etc). Anything they will ever show us about the Time War will suck, so whether it 'violates' a principle is irrelevant.

One might say they can't beat that dead horse any deader, but even I kinda hope this show drags itself out of the shithole and becomes watchable again one day.

[mr friendly guy]

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.
.

I take it you have seen the posts on spacebattles? As much as I gave this only a "meh" as opposed to suck donkey balls, it seems RTD manages to get people to watch his writing. Don't ask me how, but from his perspective if people still watch it he must be doing something right. Shrugs. I am going to see how Moffat carries over next 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").

Lawrence Miles seems to have a chip on his shoulder. He came up with some good ideas, but a lot of his ideas also sucked - Faction Paradox 11 day Empire anyone? I know some people at SB.com love his "book of war", but it seems for every good idea he has he comes up with some other retarded ones. Personally I would love if there was a season where they made a reference to Faction Paradox (without violating Mile's copyright on it) only to have said Faction killed off in horrible ways, and quickly. It would be more insulting than the Faction simply not existing, since we hate them so much it just has to be destroyed, brutally.

[Themightytom]

I'd rather they didn't frankly. Showing us the Time Lords in big goofy robes was bad enough*, I'd rather keep the Time Lords' WMDs in my imagination, please. Perhaps you could expand on them in a novelisation or something.

*yes, I know that wasn't RTD. Just goes to show that other producers could fuck things up, I suppose.

Woah back off buddy you're mocking my next halloween costume.

Enjoyed the final, don't see why people are complaining about "Writing quality" ummmmm because its Dr Who, one of the things i specifically like about this franchise is that it doesn't take itself too seriously, and ahs a theatrical air to it. Though i agree the Doctor's Quickening lighting up the TARDIS was needlessly silly, the next doctor wakes up just in time to die?? You're an asshole 10... an asshole.

I do like Gandalf style implication that each incarnation of the doctor is a seperate person which feels itself dying. This one managed to cheat regeneration once, a testament to the feisty nature observed when he first explaimed "These are fighting hands!

Galifrey is several times larger than Earth, is the gravity the same?
It appears to be on fire, however the master made a comment about Red Grass soooo i'm confused.
is the Fist of Doom the president has a feature in the earlier Time lord episodes? it appears to trump Sonic screwdriver several times over yet offered no protection against Sith lightening.

I retract what I said about ignoring shoddy writing just long enough to say "Aaaaaargh, ascending to pure consciousness?? That old Chestnut???"

I got the lottery ticket part obviously but waht was the reference to borrowing a quid from mr. noble about?

Why is Donna's brain back to normal?

[Drooling Iguana]

I take it you have seen the posts on spacebattles? As much as I gave this only a "meh" as opposed to suck donkey balls, it seems RTD manages to get people to watch his writing. Don't ask me how, but from his perspective if people still watch it he must be doing something right. Shrugs. I am going to see how Moffat carries over next season.

For my part, I've only kept watching it because they always dangle hope that the next season is going to be better than the last.

Well, the first season didn't need any excuse, it was awesome on its own terms. I found the second season to be a fairly big disappointment - Tenant seemed like a good actor but his relationship with Rose was way too cloying. Still, I stayed for season 3 hoping that a new companion would turn things around. It didn't, of course, and if anything the series got even worse, but the last few episodes were pretty good (with the exception of the finale) and I'm pretty sure that RTD had already announced his intention to leave by the time season 4 started. Since then I've just kept up with the show out of a combination of morbid fascination and the hopes that things'll get better under the new crew next season.

[NecronLord]

I got the lottery ticket part obviously but waht was the reference to borrowing a quid from mr. noble about?

That's Donna's dad, who was played in one episode by an actor who promptly died, and his death was written into the series.

Why is Donna's brain back to normal?

Apparently what actually happens when she sees something traumatic is that she burps out golden stun beams and falls back into amnesia.

The Gauntlet of Rassilon was new. Not that it matters for comparison to a sonic screwdriver; if the Doctor wanted a weapon, he could doubtless have had a staser long ago.

[NecronLord]

Lawrence Miles seems to have a chip on his shoulder. He came up with some good ideas, but a lot of his ideas also sucked - Faction Paradox 11 day Empire anyone? I know some people at SB.com love his "book of war", but it seems for every good idea he has he comes up with some other retarded ones.

It has bits that are fun (hello, Attack of Ignorance) and cool, but for the most part from the samples I've read, it seems to be inane wanking to the likes of Babbage and princess Anastasia. And of course, his own Faction Paradox, who're so awesomesauce that they can survive during this Time War despite being mutual enemies of both sides and with supposedly inferior resources to both. It also seems to treat the all powerful Time Lords like they're solely concerned with the 'Spiral Politic' (read Milky Way galaxy).

I am tempted to buy it, but that'd mean giving him money.

And the eleven day empire is perhaps the most retarded thing ever.

[Jade Falcon]

I haven't watched this yet, I've got it recorded on the Sky + box, but why am I not surprised that RTD managed to shoehorn bloody Rose into it yet again. I really hope this will be the last we see of her.

[mr friendly guy]

It has bits that are fun (hello, Attack of Ignorance) and cool, but for the most part from the samples I've read, it seems to be inane wanking to the likes of Babbage and princess Anastasia. And of course, his own Faction Paradox, who're so awesomesauce that they can survive during this Time War despite being mutual enemies of both sides and with supposedly inferior resources to both. It also seems to treat the all powerful Time Lords like they're solely concerned with the 'Spiral Politic' (read Milky Way galaxy).

I am tempted to buy it, but that'd mean giving him money.

And the eleven day empire is perhaps the most retarded thing ever.

I got a copy of the book of war, bought when I first started working full time after I graduated from university. It does have some good ideas but he suffers from a few problems

1) organic wanking - organic = better, because .... author's fiat. That is organic TARDIS er I mean time capsules for the win.

2) butchers quantum physics and the observation changes things trope - he literally comes up with the idea that matter has a "meaning mass" to explain how conceptual entities (Anarchitects) can somehow alter matter, except it doesn't but it somehow does the same thing as if it did. Whatever.

3) Suffers from RTD syndrome of saying but not show, albeit to a lesser extent. For example he would wank off on the Enemy giving vague allusions that they are more than just a civilisation, but a process. No explanation of what he means by this, but I gather its supposed to sound impressive with the "more than just a civilisation" part.

4) Pompous way of saying things without explaining it- similar to 3. Its a simple technique, just stating several times that the word he uses to describe something is inadequate, but you are left with the impression its the best word we got and we readers are just too dumb to understand it.

Its the same trick theists use when confronted with logic and facts. State the human mind cannot comprehend. To use the above example, he would state the enemy is poorly understood and to give it a name implies that we understand it (no it doesn't Mr Miles, but I digress) when we really don't understand it. No Mr Miles, its because you don't actually explain what they mean most probably because you don't have a freaking clue yourself.

5) Ideas which are just plainly stupid and butchers science in a way that Star Trek never bothered to go. This might seem strange since DW has always had advance science that it seemed like magic, but I don't think they ever went out of their way to screw with proper definitions. To give you an idea I will use a few examples.

a) the 11 day empire which stupidity can be summed up as "Their stronghold on Earth exists in a version of London, within what they call "The Eleven-Day Empire", bought from the British government in 1752. In that year, the British Empire first adopted the Gregorian calendar, and in so doing had to correct their dating scheme by 11 days (September 2, 1752 being followed by September 14, 1752). Faction Paradox claimed the missing 11 days as their base (even though, logically, only the numbering scheme changed and no days were actually "missing")."

So the faction have some place in time which is "missing" hence difficult for time travellers to access. Only thing is no days were actually missing and this is purely poetic, but it still butchers science and logic IMO worse than Star Trek ever did.

b) biodata - give you a clue, it doesn't just mean DNA. It also somehow codes for what your time line does / will do or something to that effect. This idea sounds retarded especially since he allows someone to "corrupt" time (ie change events) by simply affecting the genetics, er I mean biodata of a person involved in the events.

c) missing shadows - ok when someone becomes corrupted by the Faction they lose their shadows. But shadows aren't physical things, its the absence of light. At least with creatures like the Vashna Nerada they only look like shadows and hide in them. Miles takes this a step ahead into absurdity. You might not produce a shadow (say in the dark).You however can't "lose" a shadow because it was never there to lose.

He also created a Faction Paradox spin off audio, of which I have the first few. I must admit the Doctor Who or their spin off audios as a rule haven't impressed me much. This link summarises some of his audios. Checking this today, apparently in later audios he has the Time Lords lay the smack down on the Osirians.

Apparently though, Lawrence Miles received some praise for his Who novels from the authors of the "I who" series (of which I have all 3 books which provide synopsis and reviews of Doctor Who novels and audios). Assuming those are good, I don't believe he has done anything else that is good, unless you consider Faction paradox itself to be good.

[NecronLord]

4) Pompous way of saying things without explaining it- similar to 3. Its a simple technique, just stating several times that the word he uses to describe something is inadequate, but you are left with the impression its the best word we got and we readers are just too dumb to understand it.

Its the same trick theists use when confronted with logic and facts. State the human mind cannot comprehend. To use the above example, he would state the enemy is poorly understood and to give it a name implies that we understand it (no it doesn't Mr Miles, but I digress) when we really don't understand it. No Mr Miles, its because you don't actually explain what they mean most probably because you don't have a freaking clue yourself.

Isn't pomposity sort of a bonus in something supposedly written by a Time Lord?

As for the thing about name, I thought the notion was that positively identifying them would lead to underestimating them on the part of the common Time Lord, and so it was some kind of need to know information. Which would rather dovetail nicely into "The Enemy" being Daleks.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Soooooo.... I am a bit late to the review though I just watched the two parter, and OI do I have gripes, OH do I have gripes.

First off?

Donnas Brain?
The whole "If she remembers, her Brain will BURN! she will DIE" that, not true, apparently she just faints and gives off energy. huuh kinda a shame the doctor didn't just get that over with since apparently Donna was in No real Danger whatsoever!

Donna's Family?
Was there really ANY reason to involve them? aside from getting Wilf into things? The whole Donna plot arch turned out to be pointless. As for Wilf, the ONLY service he gives in the WHOLE two parter is eventually having a Gun handy for the Doctor.

The 6billion Master plot?
I don't know about you, but once again I felt the thing was pointless. In fact the two parts of this episode felt like two totally different story ideas mashed together... Seeing HOW the Timelords came back, I would imagine there some other technobable way to send a single they could lock in on. And as for the 6 billion masters, It just felt so WASTED. You could have easily done a whole different "Part Two" as it where with the Doctor and Wilf saving the world and returning everyone to normal. And conversely, you could have had a totally Different "Part One" that much, much better intoned the return of the TimeLords.

The "Time Lock"?
Well apparently you could send things out of it willy nilly! They screw over the Masters timeline by apparently being the ones who give him "The Drums" single in his brain when he was just a kid... Huh, Funny one would think that driving him Mad would create a paradox or something, oh well, guess you can do things like that when your TimeLords, as well as send, diamonds? to Earth? You know, one again I fele there is just wasted material here, if you could so easily STILL manipulate time From within the Timelock... whats the point?

The return of the TimeLords?
You go thorough ALL this Drama and they are sent back to the abyss but well, the Doctor shooting the single Machine...
I'm sorry but consider the Timelords set this up, I don't buy that they didn't know what would happen if the machine was shot. More to the point if they still wern't back
'for good' and still needed the single to remain In Time as it were, then for FSM sake WHY are you dicking around taunting the Master and the Doctor instead of getting everyone Off Gallyfrey and sending out every TARDIS you have?

This Final wasn';t nearlly as bad as I htought, but, there was just SO MUCH they made me pull my Hair out.

[Johonebesus]

I've been hoping that the Timelords would be resurrected and Gallifrey saved, and at the same time dreading it, for exactly this reason. Here we've had several years of the Doctor angsting over the destruction of Gallifrey, how he had to sacrifice his people to destroy the Daleks, and now they're worse than the Daleks. It's like RTD just had to think of one last way to screw us over. As others have said, it could have been so good. The Timelords could have had a plan to manipulate the Doctor and the Master to save themselves while destroying the Daleks and sealing off the Time War. It didn't have to be some super-evil plot to destroy all of creation. The Doctor could have ended up pissed off at being lied to and forced to think he had destroyed his planet.

I also didn't like his attitude towards regeneration. None of the other incarnations seemed too disturbed about it. Romana forced a regeneration for nothing other than vanity. All that angsting over it was just annoying. Those last words just made me want to puke.

I sincerely hope Moffat does a better job.

[Patrick Degan]

The 6billion Master plot?
I don't know about you, but once again I felt the thing was pointless. In fact the two parts of this episode felt like two totally different story ideas mashed together... Seeing HOW the Timelords came back, I would imagine there some other technobable way to send a single they could lock in on. And as for the 6 billion masters, It just felt so WASTED.

For all the practical effect it had on the actual development of the "plot", it was completely pointless. Especially as President Bondrusa undid it so effortlessly with the Glove of Rassilon™. Basically a ripoff of the endlessly-replicating Agent Smith subplot of the two Matrix sequels.

[mr friendly guy]

The 6 billion Master plot point was only there to make President Bond look badass when he undid the Master's machinations with a wave of his hand. *

Which might not be too bad if that was what you were intending as a writer I suppose.

* come to think of it this seems like an extension of the Chameleon arch technology used by the Doctor to hide his TL biology from the Family of blood.

[Tychu]

The entire regeneration was a shambles - up until the image of Ten lying in the plastic box, it was fine. Very TWoK-ish, and I was convinced that he would regenerate there and then. Instead he jumps up, dusts himself off, and goes gallivanting round the planet seeing what everyone's up to. Then, you have him collapse in the snow after seeing Rose, and think "now he's going to regenerate", but no, he gets up, goes into the Tardis, wanders round for a bit, and then regenerates, trashing the console room in the process. And he then has to go and strike the bloody "Official RTD-approved Regeneration Pose".

Just so we are clear from the beginning. I believe the regeneration could have happend a lot better. The reason why the Doctor couldn't just collapse any old where besides the inside of his TARDIS and in space mind you is that he had absorbed all of the Nuclear radiation and blast. If he let it out and regenerated on Earth the Earth would have been destroyed.

My one complaint about the upcoming season is...... Why the bloody hell are there Vampires. Do they know that not everyone is in love with Vampires. I would like one TV or movie to pretend there is no word for Vampires and they were never created or exist.

[NecronLord]

My one complaint about the upcoming season is...... Why the bloody hell are there Vampires. Do they know that not everyone is in love with Vampires. I would like one TV or movie to pretend there is no word for Vampires and they were never created or exist.

Vampires have long existed in Doctor Who, of various sorts. Would you complain about Ice Warriors or Macra? Until they're made out as misunderstood emos, I don't see why you can complain.

[Tychu]

Vampires have long existed in Doctor Who, of various sorts. Would you complain about Ice Warriors or Macra? Until they're made out as misunderstood emos, I don't see why you can complain.

From the preview of season 5 clip they look like the classic Vampire. I haven't seen every story of Doctor Who but I am fine with an alien that does vampire-ish things. Like an energy sucking vampire or a life force sucking vampire. The Wraith from StarGate Atlantis is fine by me. But what they showed was a classic Vampire with fangs that is most likely looking to suck the blood of the good doctor and his companions.

Even if there were Classic Vampires in the series before, don't you think its a little bit convenient for them to pop up again now in this post 2008 Twilight Craze?

[Themightytom]

Even if there were Classic Vampires in the series before, don't you think its a little bit convenient for them to pop up again now in this post 2008 Twilight Craze?

Oh please, if its not vampires its zombies, if its not zombies its wizards and witches. Lets stop using mythical creatures every time some hack saturates pop culture with them.

[Parallax]

Vampires have long existed in Doctor Who, of various sorts. Would you complain about Ice Warriors or Macra? Until they're made out as misunderstood emos, I don't see why you can complain.

From the preview of season 5 clip they look like the classic Vampire. I haven't seen every story of Doctor Who but I am fine with an alien that does vampire-ish things. Like an energy sucking vampire or a life force sucking vampire. The Wraith from StarGate Atlantis is fine by me. But what they showed was a classic Vampire with fangs that is most likely looking to suck the blood of the good doctor and his companions.

Even if there were Classic Vampires in the series before, don't you think its a little bit convenient for them to pop up again now in this post 2008 Twilight Craze?

Yes, Thor forbid that Doctor Who ever has Vampires with fangs, pale skins, claws and the like on it. It's not like they didn't already appear in State of Decay or anything...