Doctor Who S30E13: Journey's End [Spoilers]

[Manus Celer Dei]

It was mentioned last episode, thats how they tracked down the Earth, bees & lasers, with protons & etc...

Oh sod, so they were. Spacebees. Jesus...

Needs Rani.

Thinking about it ... just who was it that picked up the Masters ring from his funeral pyre at the end of the season three finale

I think the Doctor Who Confidential for that episode had RTD joking that it was "The hand of the Rani".

[mr friendly guy]

Right. 3/5.

What was average

1. Multiple companions.

As I said before, its risky having so many characters squeeze in, as they run the risk of being padding. I thought RTD did an ok job. At least some of the companions did something.

2. Ostehagen key

I was worried this would be a deus ex machina, but it turned out to be a scorch earth policy. I can so imagine humans doing this.

3. Second Tennant doctor. Ignoring for a bit the deus ex machina involved in his creation, it had the feel of classic Doctor crossover stories, where the Doctor helps himself, sometimes when one is a prisoner. Given the "real" doctor didn't do anything facilitate his escape it made this a bit of a let down. Even in the two doctors, Patrick Troughton's doctor made attempts to escape, even trying to challenge a Sontaron to battle. He didn't just wait for his future self to rescue him.

4. Rose ending up with the part human doctor.

I am sure it cheapens the unrequited love theme, but since I don't really give much of a damn about that anyway, I give this concept an average.

5. A companion is going to die, but she just loses her memory.

Yeah, it makes people feel cheated that the foreshadowing was seen miles away. Yeah, its cool once, when Rose cheated the foreshadowing of death, but it becomes worn out if used too often. However, since I don't actually have an irrational hate for Tate's character, I shrug, and give it an average.


What was good.

1. Dalek wank tech. Its not just universe destroying, it destroys several universes. Ha ha ha (crackles insanely). Ignoring for a moment Davros confuses the strong nuclear force with the electromagnetic force.

2. No full reset button.
This was what I wanted, and normally I would consider this in an average, but given last seasons use of it, I will give RTD above average for not using it.

3. Daleks dealing with the ostehagen key and warpstone with simple teleportation.


What was bad

1. What the hell happen to the dalek forcefields.

2. The doctor standing round without a back up plan. In bad wolf the doctor used a force field when confronting daleks. He at least had a back up plan. Now he just sits there waiting for ... something to happen.

3. Daleks wiped out again. They will be back.

4. Warpstone. Oh, I just got this warp stone from some alien soothsayer. That reeks of trying to set up a deus ex machina. Its only partly saved by the fact that the Daleks dealt with it so easily.

5. Martha's attempt to bluff the daleks.
Hey I will destroy earth. You need 27 planets for your technobabble device, but now you only have 26. I can imagine Davros saying, so what? We can just use the magnetron and pull another planet.

Even if Martha went through with it, all it would do is delay the Daleks.

6. Donna doing things the doctor would never think of.

Its because of the human part. As someone who detests the human wanking syndrome in sci fi, I really didn't buy this. One might say humans are more aggressive than TL, and maybe even more creative than the average TL (although they advance slowly, they have made technological gains over the years, and they aren't just in a technological stasis), but more creative than the Doctor. WTF?

7. Metacrisis- WTF? Granted RTD didn't do too bad once you accept that a 2nd doctor appears, but the plot device required to get the second doctor in the first place was bad.


On other comments

1. I thought the Valeyard was supposed to be an alternate version of the Doctor, ie one which he became evil. There is no guarantee the the 13th will become him

2. Cybermen are back? As someone who wants new monsters, I view this with somewhat apprehension. The reason is that there becomes a temptation to milk the old monsters, so there becomes less need to create new ones. That being said, I wouldn't mind some classic monsters (not seen in the new series) come back. And I wouldn't mind a sontaran story with the Rutans.

3. Any one know the title of the new DW book advertised at the end. I couldn't make it out from youtube.

4. I was actually speculating that Donna was the Rani. It would have made more plot sense that Donna manages to save the day.

[TC Pilot]

Ugh...

There's way too many parts of that I didn't like to list them all (hyper-Donna, Dalek humiliation, "Supreme" Dalek getting pwned in one shot, mind-wiped-Donna, Mikey and the easiest prison break of all time, the Doctor shovelling Rose in the alternate reality) on top of parts that I did like (German-speaking Daleks, dumping Donna off, Davros and the Daleks totally wrecking the companions' plans, Davros shooting Donna).

For a brief moment there, when Donna touched the hand, I honestly thought Eccleston was about to come back.

It was also nice to finally see the Daleks at least getting back to their whole "purge the universe of everything different" form, if only for a short while.

Still, a generally awful episode interspersed with some good parts.

[Soontir C'boath]

I felt this was 3.5 so up it goes to 4 on this poll.

What I enjoyed:

1. Highlight: Davros: I love how he turned the tables around on the Doctor showing a different view of what he does.
2. Rose getting what she wants.
3. German Daleks.
4. K9 making his very small appearance.

What I found fine:

1. Hurray for Torchwood, they were actually useful for something.
2. Wow, we turned full circle all right. Pushing Daleks across the room just like the First Doctor's time, hell yea!

What sucked:

1. The Worst: How one terminal where Davros is held 'prisoner' can fuck everything up. You'd think it'd be more secure with Dalek Supreme and the shitload of Daleks surrounding him.
2. Sarah Jane and the warped star thingamajig. By god, she could've been one less character to come.
3. Mama Tyler and Mickey Smith, just no. Out of all the characters that definitely didn't need to come back, they are these two.
4. Donna spouting off all that junk. You got the mind of the Timelord, we get it.
5. Martha and that key, yeaaaah we know that will never get used as the Earth survives to 5 million AD or whatever year it was. Another char. that could've been disregarded.
6. Dalek Supreme: A joke.

Maybe I should've just voted 3 but I certainly had enjoyed this more than last week's episode.

These finales have been very over the top and stupid. Hopefully Moffat will get it down better.

The Cybermen, were only seen very briefly in the Christmas special preview. I don't recall if they were Cybus or not. We didn't get a good shot of the chest plate.

Cybermen are the Cybus ones. They have the Cybus logo on their chests. If RTD is helming the Christmas Special, he's a fucking ass. Moffat more so. Granted it's been two seasons but really, cool it!

[Drooling Iguana]

The Cybermen, were only seen very briefly in the Christmas special preview. I don't recall if they were Cybus or not. We didn't get a good shot of the chest plate.

Just watched it. One turns toward the camera right at the end of the teaser. It's a Cybusman.

Decent episode, at least compared to last week. The plot didn't make much sense and was basically one deus ex machina after another, but it had some decent scenes and one of the better Davros performances. Better than Last of the Time Lords, I'd say, but worse than Parting of the Ways and way worse than Doomsday (the only DW finale so far to actually be good.)

At least there were no major changes to the status quo other than the Daleks being wiped out yet again (good riddance) and the general public knowing about aliens (should have happened long ago.) I was afraid that RTD had decided to introduce the 11th Doctor here just as a Braga-style final "screw you" to his successors, but I suppose he's above that.

Still, this was without a doubt the worst season of the new series, with only three good episodes (Fires of Pompeii, Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead.) I really hope Moffat can turn things around.

[Soontir C'boath]

There's this one Dalek with a new appendage replacing the plunger, have we ever seen what it does? All it stinks of is another toy variant for people to buy.

Davros, I look forward to owning you in toy form. Muahahaha.

[Tychu]

On the plus side: EXTERNIMINERUM! German Daleks were fun.

That's about the only thing of the plus side I can think of though.

Davros' ranting insanity made sense? There was no reset button? They actually 'killed' a companion?

They did the same bullshit meaning of killed as they did in Doomsday. Donna is not dead.


On that train of thought if the Chrismas special is set present day, Mickey better be in it and fighting Cybermen.

If you let me play devils advocate here, i can explain why it works that a companion does in fact die in this episode. Donna is dead. Think about what makes you, you. Your experiences, your life goals and the people you know are (is?) what makes up you. Since Donna no longer has those experiences and forgot a few people, the Donna we have known for the past 2 years is no longer that Donna. The Companion Donna is dead and is replaced by another Donna.

Its the same thing as Darth Vader/Anakin. The Anakin we all know died when he became Vader

[Spanky The Dolphin]

It'll probably be about a month before I see this episode, but unless Donna actually died at some point in the episode, isn't that taking thing a little too melodramatically? Saying Donna "died" just because a significant amount of time from her memory was erased strikes me like saying Jamie and Zoe "died" after the Time Lords erased the memory of their travels with the Doctor in "The War Games."

[NecronLord]

There's this one Dalek with a new appendage replacing the plunger, have we ever seen what it does? All it stinks of is another toy variant for people to buy.

It's a claw-arangement only present on the daleks in Davros' Dungeon, so they can share the same tools as him. Hence why there were actually buttons donna could use in that room.

[Lord Woodlouse]

5. Martha's attempt to bluff the daleks.
Hey I will destroy earth. You need 27 planets for your technobabble device, but now you only have 26. I can imagine Davros saying, so what? We can just use the magnetron and pull another planet.

Even if Martha went through with it, all it would do is delay the Daleks.

Wasn't it implied (or explicitly stated?) that they needed those specific planets?

Why, I have no idea. But then why they'd need planets at all for their reality bomb is never really explained beyond "they're a giant transmitter".

[Chris OFarrell]

You know, thinking about this episode, if they REALLY wanted to push big reset buttons, REALLY wanted to fuck with the universe...

They should have gone to the next level. I mean in for a penny, in for a pound.

I mean, we have the whole buildup with the Universe crashing down, the barriers to the void breaking, all that good stuff...then nothing.

If you had balls, why not make Dalek Carn's actions in breaching the 'unbreakable' time-locked Time War mean WAY more? Like say having the only option to prevent EVERYTHING from going up in smoke, to be reversing time and space on the 'higher levels', reformat the whole thing to bring back the Time Lords and all the higher level species? Perhaps Davros secretly backstabbing the Daleks who refuse to take this path to save his own skin or something?

I mean end it with an utterly disbelieving Doctor's Tardis arriving on Galifrey to thunderous applause from hundreds of Time Lords, with a familiar face saying that she KNEW the Doctor could do it...

Allowing the Doctor to end the season with a disbelieving 'What???' yet again.

I mean if you keep bringing the Daleks back again and again and again, what is the POINT of the Time War, where the greatest heroes and villains mutually destroyed each other?

Just a mild rant of thought.

[Gandalf]

What the fuck was that?

The cliffhangers were a complete load of crap that got handwaved away. Daleks have stopped exterminating things, and just keep talking about it until someone shoots them in the back. Doctor Donna was just annoying. The Shadow Proclamation was completely abandoned. Rose's happy love ending was pissweak. No good guys died. Daleks are now just complete jokes. The only reasons I gave it two out of five was that I liked Camille Coduri, and the German Daleks.

Also, wouldn't it have been neat if Caan's action's altered the time war in such a way that there was a definitive winner? The whole theme of the finale could have been that there was no fate but what we make for ourselves.

Voyager's Endgame was better than this.

[NecronLord]

If you had balls, why not make Dalek Carn's actions in breaching the 'unbreakable' time-locked Time War mean WAY more? Like say having the only option to prevent EVERYTHING from going up in smoke, to be reversing time and space on the 'higher levels', reformat the whole thing to bring back the Time Lords and all the higher level species? Perhaps Davros secretly backstabbing the Daleks who refuse to take this path to save his own skin or something?

I mean end it with an utterly disbelieving Doctor's Tardis arriving on Galifrey to thunderous applause from hundreds of Time Lords, with a familiar face saying that she KNEW the Doctor could do it...

Allowing the Doctor to end the season with a disbelieving 'What???' yet again.

People would whine about the undoing the time war. But it would be pretty awesome to see, right after the towing-the-earth scene, the recall circuits mysteriously activate, and all nine or so of them bemusedly stumble out of the TARDIS onto the panopticon floor.

[Stark]

The sentence '...awe some to see, right after the towing the Earth scene...' is utterly terrifying to me. Let's all try to out fanservice the worst finale in four years!

[Starglider]

Oh joy, an episode formed from congealed, refined melodrama seasoned with an overdose of technobabble. As I suspected, RTD refused to go down without one last explosion of crap to mark his passing.

I can't really critique this any better than people have already done so, so I'll just say that once again RTD excels at cool buildups to utter disappointment.

[Manus Celer Dei]

The cliffhangers were a complete load of crap that got handwaved away.

That gave me a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia for the gloriously contrived cliffhangers of the old series.

[NecronLord]

The sentence '...awe some to see, right after the towing the Earth scene...' is utterly terrifying to me. Let's all try to out fanservice the worst finale in four years!

Hey. I liked the concept. It was wanktastic¹ and camp as a row of tents, but I'm sorry, this is the show that produced this:



I expect and require camp and wank, from time to time.

And yeah. The pathos and drama of the Time War is dead. At least if they brought back Gallifrey, they'd stop the concept being violated any more, by getting it done in one go.

¹ By any sane standards. Compared to deflecting a neutron star, this isn't terribly implausible.

[Big Orange]

I give this insanely ludicrous RTD blowout aa 5/5, bitches, so push me down a Dalek owned mineshaft.

While the Daleks should definitely be laid to rest for many years and the Time War mythos should be left to cool down for now (the Time Lords are still extinct, so enough mystical angst for another few years), I really didn't mind the handling of the Daleks in this episode for the most part - they made Davros into a pet and intended to erase the Multiverse, while their sudden defeat was not exactly unexpected (considering it is RTD and the vile Daleks deserve to lose).

Rose felt like a fifth wheel like Jack was in the last two episodes of S3, while Donna's fate was genuinely infuriating (but in a good way) and I wonder if it's the last we see of the Doctor Hand Clone. Davros was rendered a bit better than he was in "Remembrance" and Cribbens deserves a Knighthood.

Also the Dalek taskforce featured here doesn't seem to be quite as formidable as the Doctor made them out to be, due to the seemingly poorer quality of their ships and casings, and that planetoid lair (the Crucible) being cobbled together. In fact they seemed more degenerate and insane than the Dalek Emperor's dogmatic hybrid force, even though they had access to some very heavy technology that would make Q wet himself (although that would be down to Davros and perhaps Caan being the Kaled growth templates).

[NecronLord]

Yes. Enough of daleks. I didn't mind their handling too much, or even the pathetic way they were dealt with, but there was a lot of bullshit in this episode 'these are more advanced than the Emperor's daleks' - what? The Emperor's daleks, whose slave managed to kidnap you and Rose right out of the console room?

[Vanas]

Finally, actually saw one.

And most of it was decent enough. Annoying niggles like the lack of shields on the Daleks were there as well as Alt-Torchwood's lolDalekpwn cannons. (Though at a stretch, they make have uprated their Cyberman toasting devices with the Doctor's spec and as these ones are too dense to use shields...). German Daleks were a nice touch as was Davros apparently having read from the Evil Overlord's Handbook a little.

Bad: The ending. Everything up to this point was gloriously insane. Then it just fell apart. Baby Jesus wept upon seeing it.

As a side note, hasn't the Doctor committed genocide about 20 times over already anyway?

[Darth Tanner]

Meh. Pretty bad.

Who would have guessed an entire Dalek fleet and death star could be destroyed by a single control panel built into a 'pets' cellar and that it wouldn't be password protected. The magical field that blocks Dalek weaponry was a particularly sad touch.

Donna goes god and saves the day was rather crap but not unexpected for typical Dr Who.

As a side note, hasn't the Doctor committed genocide about 20 times over already anyway?

Maybe but he feels bad about it so its alright. I can't stand this modern Drs weird pacifism/treason. He tried to save Davros!!! During the time war I can understand it as merely being the protocol of war and that he would have the Time Lords to help deal with him but seriously, the guy just tried to kill every single being in the universe and you want to what? Put him in prison? Keep him on the Tardisk?

And being angry that the Dalek fleet of genocidal doom had been destroyed! Jesus Christ on a stick.

Was there a reason in this episode for any of the other companion characters than Donna? I forget what did Rose do? Except get the Dr shot of course.

Cool opportunities wasted-
Caan, the Dr should have saved him, he would have made an incredible companion or at least a recurring guest character. Maybe for the next time the 'last of the daleks' turn up.
Shadow Proclamation. Seriously, who are these guys? They served one purpose, an intergalactic news service on which planets had disappeared for the Dr and that was it. I want Jadoon shooting it out with Daleks I tell you!

Good things.

German Daleks.
The Ostehagen key, it might have had no impact on the plot at all but it was nice to see us humans standing up and saying to the universe, come here, rape our world and we'll kill ourselves. The daleks dealing with it so simply was a nice touch however.

No companion died. Full stop. Losing your memory of the last few months does not equate with dying.

[Drooling Iguana]

The guy committed genocide against the Daleks the first time they met.

He only started getting uncomfortable with it after the Daleks had proven themselves to be a huge threat to the Universe. When they were confined to Skaro he had no problem watching them all die.

[Straha]

I was watching this in the same room as my girlfriend.


I could have been watching bestiality porn and I wouldn't have felt so... ashamed.


At least it wasn't quite as bad as I feared it was going to be...

[El Moose Monstero]

God, that was awful. That was the worst episode of the past 4 series for me. The only thing that kept me entertained was the Doctor Strangelove parallels - I kept waiting for Davros to shout 'Doctor! I can walk!'. At some point I may sit down and write a long paragraph about why it was a pile of shit, but I'm not sure I could bring myself to rewatch it. Such a let down.

[Zixinus]

That's it, RTD needs a fuckin' kick in the balls, this shit is BAD. The plot was shit, only the ending was worth anything. But the rest was a sorry excuse for just brining down that ending. Hell, most of the show was the ending.

The half-human/half-Timelord was capital and complete bullshit. The writers are simply pulling way too much motherfucking bullshit that its sickening.

I know that this is Dr.Who but this is sickeining. I mean, this wasn't just deus ex machanica, but deus ex fucking lazy. Everyone had to be fucking stupid to pull this off.

Gah, just thinking about it.