Doctor Who S30E13: Journey's End [Spoilers]

[Chardok]

So...what happened to Doctor #2? Did his face just melt? I mean, he had to mindwipe Donna.....so, like, it's okay for TimeLord + Human but not Human + Time Lord? that makes my balls shrivel.

[Ryushikaze]

^Presumably, he can handle the extra bit of brain baggage compared to Donna suddenly getting 900 some years worth of infodump all at once.

[Drooling Iguana]

As bad as this was, I wouldn't mind seeing Doctor 10-2 coming back as a villain in a future episode, preferably at least one regeneration from now.

[Stark]

As bad as this was, I wouldn't mind seeing Doctor 10-2 coming back as a villain in a future episode, preferably at least one regeneration from now.

Would his evil plan involve saving the universe and untold numbers of lives? Is his villain characteristic being immune to moral cowardice? Or being able to refute hilariously black/white fallacies like 'hey those guys fighting to save the universe are pretty much as bad as these space nazis who want to destroy all creation, right'? Or just shacking up with a super-rich twenty-year old?

[Thanas]

^Just for that, Stark wins this thread.

[Gandalf]

Would his evil plan involve saving the universe and untold numbers of lives? Is his villain characteristic being immune to moral cowardice? Or being able to refute hilariously black/white fallacies like 'hey those guys fighting to save the universe are pretty much as bad as these space nazis who want to destroy all creation, right'? Or just shacking up with a super-rich twenty-year old?

Add in the Doctor's daughter and you could have something suited for an eight thirty on Monday timeslot! There'd be sexual tension, PG violence and attractive leads to distract from the writing!

[Drooling Iguana]

Would his evil plan involve saving the universe and untold numbers of lives? Is his villain characteristic being immune to moral cowardice? Or being able to refute hilariously black/white fallacies like 'hey those guys fighting to save the universe are pretty much as bad as these space nazis who want to destroy all creation, right'? Or just shacking up with a super-rich twenty-year old? :lol:

Well, the idea was that he'd have gone crazy after spending a few years on Zepplin-world with Rose.

[Stark]

Well, the idea was that he'd have gone crazy after spending a few years on Zepplin-world with Rose.

You mean 'gone awesome' I presume? I'd be happy if the bloody Earth had exploded and the whole bloody show moved to Pete's World.

Oh and you forgot that the universes closed 'forever'... again. Obviously it's impossible to come back, lolololololol uninspired hack comicbook writing lololololol.

[Thanas]

Well, the idea was that he'd have gone crazy after spending a few years on Zepplin-world with Rose.

Eh? Why?

Besides, her Torchwood is actually the competent version which managed to built a time machine for her, so I don't really think there is any reason for him to go mad at all. Besides, Rose has been pretty good with keeping him occupied in the past. He'll have plenty to do (including her).

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

My favourite parts:

*The mad rush at the beginning to conclude the cliffhanger from the last episode as quickly as possible. Then again, considering how bad of a cliffhanger it was, that was probably the best way to handle it.

*UNIT's plan for alien invasion: try to find the Doctor, then surrender, then blow up the Earth. Suicide definitely fits into their gung ho characterization. What else are you going to do with nukes other than bury them in the Earth? And have it controlled by people on satellites, the safest place to be during an alien invasion.

*Endless amounts of Technobabble. Is there anything audiences love more than technobabble saving the day? Especially when delivered by an actress who makes it impossible to even understand what's being said.

*Once again the Daleks fail because they really don't like killing people (at least those with their names in the credits). They leave the Doctor and his companion alive because...who knows? Hell even when they do decide to kill someone, instead of shooting all they do is repeat "Exterminate" over and over again until someone can step in and save the day.

*The "Supreme" Dalek coming down and shooting (wait, what happened to stopping Dalek weapons?) the console (but only the "teleport planets" button, not the "destroy all Daleks" button) instead of the people with guns, and therefore immediately getting blown away by Jack. How did the Time Lords not beat them again?

*Speaking of Jack, didn't the TARDIS run to the end of the universe to get away from him last season finale? What changed?

*The Doctor once again spending more time being angry at the good guy who does the smart thing than the bad guy, and instead offering the bad guy yet another chance (well he offered Davos another chance, Caan, who actually changed can go fuck himself I guess)


There's more (useless guest stars, the magic warp core necklace, what happened to the Shadow Proclamation, etc.) but really this episode was just a fucking trainwreck, and therefore a fitting finale episode for the season, and for RTD.

[Revy]

Just out of curiosity, in the Rise of the Cybermen episode in season 2 when the TARDIS fell into the other universe, did they ever clear up WHY that happened? I think the Doctor said something about falling through a crack in the time vortex (come again?) but I got the feeling at the time that it was because he had Mickey holding down a button for about half an hour longer than he needed to, and that caused some sort of malfunction (after all, they fell into zepplin world moments after he let go of the button). If that's the case, then can't he just repeat that if he ever wants to get back there? But bring some spare power cells?

Also, why is it that so many things were easier with the Time Lords arround? He said that back when they were alive, you could hop between universes easy, and that paradoxes like 'Fathers Day' would have been fixed in a jiffy. How? Did the Time Lords have some kind of special tech on Gallifrey to make these things possible? If so, can't someone just rebuild it?

And I can get that the Time War is Time Locked, so you cant normally go back there, but Gallifrey wasnt in a Time War from the moment it first appeared. So can't the Doctor go back to Gallifrey before the Time War happened, and bring some Time Lords to the present? Or some of their magic 'make everything easier' machines?

I take it as well that the Skasis Paradigm was never brought up again? That sounded like a perfect oppertunity for fixing/messing things up - at the very least it could have made another BadWolf to destroy the Daleks and replace the earth, rather than having a silly Dalek-kill switch and that bizare earth towing scene. It could surely be used to just rid us of the Time War altogether (seeing how much of a joke it has become) and bring back Gallifrey, which would make for a nice change in the show premise. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the Doctor had another Time Lord as a companion for a change, instead of yet another 21st Century London woman? It would also mean that he could flit between universes at will and mess with time all he wanted without destroying the universe. Sure that would mean Rose coming back, but they're bound to bring Dr Two into the story again at some point, and it might as well be in an episode that killed her off properly (filling Caans prophecy as well).

[General Zod]

Just out of curiosity, in the Rise of the Cybermen episode in season 2 when the TARDIS fell into the other universe, did they ever clear up WHY that happened? I think the Doctor said something about falling through a crack in the time vortex (come again?) but I got the feeling at the time that it was because he had Mickey holding down a button for about half an hour longer than he needed to, and that caused some sort of malfunction (after all, they fell into zepplin world moments after he let go of the button). If that's the case, then can't he just repeat that if he ever wants to get back there? But bring some spare power cells?

Where's he going to get the spares from? It's not as if there's anywhere left that makes Tardises anymore.

Also, why is it that so many things were easier with the Time Lords arround? He said that back when they were alive, you could hop between universes easy, and that paradoxes like 'Fathers Day' would have been fixed in a jiffy. How? Did the Time Lords have some kind of special tech on Gallifrey to make these things possible? If so, can't someone just rebuild it?

The Master was able to build a paradox machine in Utopia and circumvent such things by cannibalizing the TARDIS. Someone quite probably could rebuild it . . .but that would involve having an infrastructure that's been obliterated thanks to the Time War.

[Stark]

The Time Lords did all kinds of things to protect the universe; they had the capability to suppress paradoxes on the fly, drop time loops at the push of a button, move planets, etc. Without the Time Control Room and the Time Lord science behind it, all kinds of things now have the 'natural', dangerous consequences, as seen in Father's Day. They basically had machines with reach throughout time and the universe. They didn't just CALL themselves Lords of Time. They had a handheld weapon that erased someone's presence from time, for fucks sake.

The Three Doctors is awesome with shit like that. 'Oh noes, you can't cross his timeline it'd be a paradox' 'pfft, who cares? We're Time Lords!' 'But it'll take too much power to maintain it'. Too bad they turned into the House of Lords.

[loomer]

And I can get that the Time War is Time Locked, so you cant normally go back there, but Gallifrey wasnt in a Time War from the moment it first appeared. So can't the Doctor go back to Gallifrey before the Time War happened, and bring some Time Lords to the present? Or some of their magic 'make everything easier' machines?

It's a bloody Time War. They don't start and end linearly. It is entirely possible that the date at which the Doctor ended the time war, using non-TL time keeping (goddamn that must be a confusing system. When your entire society is based around time travel, how do you keep track?), could have been far before the war officially started.

When you can go back in time, when do you go back to in order to kill an enemy? Before they even exist. Etc.

[DaveJB]

Just out of curiosity, in the Rise of the Cybermen episode in season 2 when the TARDIS fell into the other universe, did they ever clear up WHY that happened? I think the Doctor said something about falling through a crack in the time vortex (come again?) but I got the feeling at the time that it was because he had Mickey holding down a button for about half an hour longer than he needed to, and that caused some sort of malfunction (after all, they fell into zepplin world moments after he let go of the button).

I think the idea was that the Dalek's void-travelling sphere that showed up later in the season had punched a crack through the universe barriers in the process of escaping the Time War, and the TARDIS fell through one of them. Guess it was just lucky that Eccleston's doctor never happened on one of the cracks.

[NecronLord]

Yegads. I just watched it again. Ordinary-Tennant-Doctor is so fucked up. Seriously.

<Doctor> "Davros come with me..."
<Dalek Caan> "Hey. What about me. Octopus suck in a chair here, about to be burnt to death!"
<Doctor> "You're not evil enough for me to want to help you. I want to help the cockbag that just tried to destroy the Universe."

Also, why is it that so many things were easier with the Time Lords arround? He said that back when they were alive, you could hop between universes easy, and that paradoxes like 'Fathers Day' would have been fixed in a jiffy. How? Did the Time Lords have some kind of special tech on Gallifrey to make these things possible? If so, can't someone just rebuild it?

That's precisely what happened in this episode. The Daleks were around, with near-time-lord technology, doing the 'lords of time' thing, so at the end of the episode, all they had to do to go to Pete's World was punch the coordinates into the TARDIS (this is about how difficult it was in Inferno to reach parallel worlds, too). However, because the Daleks were destroyed, all is reset back to the Holy Status Quo.

And I can get that the Time War is Time Locked, so you cant normally go back there, but Gallifrey wasnt in a Time War from the moment it first appeared. So can't the Doctor go back to Gallifrey before the Time War happened, and bring some Time Lords to the present? Or some of their magic 'make everything easier' machines?

Even if that were possible, the notion seems to be that Time Lords can't travel into Gallifrey's relative past.

I take it as well that the Skasis Paradigm was never brought up again? That sounded like a perfect oppertunity for fixing/messing things up - at the very least it could have made another BadWolf to destroy the Daleks and replace the earth, rather than having a silly Dalek-kill switch and that bizare earth towing scene. It could surely be used to just rid us of the Time War altogether (seeing how much of a joke it has become) and bring back Gallifrey, which would make for a nice change in the show premise. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the Doctor had another Time Lord as a companion for a change, instead of yet another 21st Century London woman? It would also mean that he could flit between universes at will and mess with time all he wanted without destroying the universe. Sure that would mean Rose coming back, but they're bound to bring Dr Two into the story again at some point, and it might as well be in an episode that killed her off properly (filling Caans prophecy as well).

That seems most unlikely to ever happen.

[DarkSilver]

I finished watching it on youtube....

What the fuck?

I mean, seriously.

What.

The.

Fuck.


I won't restate what's been said before in the thread, but come on. You mean RTD couldn't give us a BETTER ending than this to his time on the show? Doctor Donna was annoying....Dalek Cann was about the only one that was awesome in this, though Tennat does manage to play his part rather well.

Am I amoung the only ones who actually liked Rose Tyler more than Martha Jones or Donna Noble? Though she was rather useless in this instance...

[Big Orange]

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?

They could shut down the TARDIS' power with that energy ring, which was pretty impressive, and used a realtime scoop thingy to take it to the Crucible, but it was not as impressive as transmatting the Doctor and his companions from within the TARDIS when it was going through the Time Vortex, a technical feat perhaps only shown once before by the Time Lords way back in "Genesis of the Daleks".

Also the Dalek's brief taking over of Earth seemed clumsy, over staffed and underpowered, calling for them to swarm over UNIT targets with a reduced sense of aloof invincibility that they have shown before in “The Parting of the Ways” and “Doomsday” (I bet a Time War era scout ship with just a infantry section of TW Daleks onboard would've done the same work in a quarter of the time).

It would've been a better climax if DoctorDonna revealed the Crucible to the Shadow Proclamation's grand armada assembled around the Medusa Cascade, which then proceeds to destroy most of the Daleks in pitched battle (but many escape the Medusa Cascade, including Davros and Caan, going into hiding in the Time Vortex) instead of having a retread of "The Family of Blood"'s ending coupled with "The Evil of the Daleks" climax.

There may have been some murky Dalek/Davros politics behind the master control console in the Crucible's Vault as well, but it was never really explained and seems the most likely reason why the Doctor and his two 'offspring' could mess the Dalek's shit up from a single point of the Crucible, since the Daleks should be smarter than that. I found the ending very silly and the Daleks should not be brought back and erased repeatedly, it‘s gotten very old.

For such an inherently naff and relentlessly trashy episode, “Journey’s End” attracted 9.4 million viewers, had an audience appreciation index of 91 and was the number one most watched programme of last week. Depressingly successful for such flashy cobblers (which I enjoyed despite it’s actual quality, not unlike devouring a mountain of Pringle potato chips and cheesy meat pizza, served with gallons of Pepsi Max; Moffat‘s library story, “Midnight“ and “Turn Left“ would be akin to eating a gala meal at the El Bulli).

I'd say "Doomsday" was the most polished of Russel T. Davies' overwrought epics, while "Last of the Time Lords" was something of a damp squib but John Simm was excellent and you had the more masterful "Utopia" propping it up. "Journey's End" was just disposible hokum that makes my logical side glad that Steven Moffat is taking over things, while my idiot side enjoys the whizbangs.

I'm not so sure about Patrick Degan's assement that Captain Jack was acting out of character when he was given more to do this year than last year, while Rose felt more redundant.

[NecronLord]

They could shut down the TARDIS' power with that energy ring, which was pretty impressive, and used a realtime scoop thingy to take it to the Crucible, but it was not as impressive as transmatting the Doctor and his companions from within the TARDIS when it was going through the Time Vortex, a technical feat perhaps only shown once before by the Time Lords way back in "Genesis of the Daleks".

No, the Doctor was using a transmat beam at the end of the previous episode. The Time Lords snatched it up in flight, and rematerialised it in a different space and time.

[petesampras]

Dalek Cann was about the only one that was awesome in this

The coolness of insane Dalek Caan is about the only point most fans seem to agree on with this episode. If they bring back the Daleks, he would have been a good recurring character. Unfortunately, they spoiled it at the end, replacing his insane ambiguity with a secret plan to rid the universe of the Daleks. I'm sure there's a plot hole there somewhere, given he was the one that brought them back.

[Ryushikaze]

Dalek Cann was about the only one that was awesome in this

The coolness of insane Dalek Caan is about the only point most fans seem to agree on with this episode. If they bring back the Daleks, he would have been a good recurring character. Unfortunately, they spoiled it at the end, replacing his insane ambiguity with a secret plan to rid the universe of the Daleks. I'm sure there's a plot hole there somewhere, given he was the one that brought them back.

Well, if his intention was actually to get rid of them for its own sake, as opposed to using the rise and fall of a new dalek force as a cog in the machine, there would be. He did tell the doctor that he was controlling events. If the entire scheme was just a way for him to tell the Doctor he was pulling strings, that would be fit his madness.

[Admiral Valdemar]

He went mad. Whatever intentions he had prior to the events in Manhattan circa 1930, they obviously didn't come into play for his future incarnation. It was quite obvious that he wanted to bring down the Daleks for whatever reason he saw reveal itself to him in his trip through space-time in the borked emergency temporal teleport. Why will remain a mystery now, but whether it was to prove something to the Doctor or to show he can orchestrate the rise and then massive fall of Davros and his ilk, he was certainly more worthy of saving than Davros himself. If anything, he may have been a good ally, even if his oracle powers ended at the point the finale finishes on.

[NecronLord]

I've finally decided, one line could have redeemed this episode utterly.

"Mickey... shoot him."

God, I miss Pat Troughton's "some things are evil, and they must be fought" attitude.

[El Moose Monstero]

He went mad. Whatever intentions he had prior to the events in Manhattan circa 1930, they obviously didn't come into play for his future incarnation. It was quite obvious that he wanted to bring down the Daleks for whatever reason he saw reveal itself to him in his trip through space-time in the borked emergency temporal teleport. Why will remain a mystery now, but whether it was to prove something to the Doctor or to show he can orchestrate the rise and then massive fall of Davros and his ilk, he was certainly more worthy of saving than Davros himself. If anything, he may have been a good ally, even if his oracle powers ended at the point the finale finishes on.

I was kind of hoping that Bad Wolf would turn out to be something relevant to Dalek Caan - it wouldn't have been cool to use the same plot device twice, but after the end of Turn Left with Bad Wolf appearing everywhere, I was expecting something relating to that. Was there a reason for Bad Wolf actually appearing? Any form of connection? Was there bollocks. If we'd kept seeing bad wolf strewn throughout the universe surrounding the Doctor, I can accept it, but my impression from PotW was that Rose seeded it backwards in her own personal timeline. Otherwise, there was no connection at all. You could have had Caan absorb the heart of the Tardis in a previous episode, giving him the power and the insanity to go back to break the time lock, and then you could also have provided a method to neutering the Doctor as they seem determined to do in these sorts of finales. The Tardis could have been powerless and stranded wherever, leaving the Doctor with no choice but to call up the Shadow Proclamation dudes and give them an actual role to play.

Not that the current plot would suit that, there were already too many half arsed ideas in there.

I also think Rose should have died - it would have been a cop out, but given the half arsed way of giving a happy ending that we actually got... What, Rose is happy with the Doctor's word that the clone is like him.

Was it just because he whispered 'I love you' in her ear?

Easiest lay ever.

At least if they'd killed her, it would have actually fulfilled the prophecy of the Beast. You could have had her doing something important - hell, if you really wanted to do something with Rose, regenerate the Doctor before Ecclestone as part of a time travel / multiple doctors thing (product of Dalek Caan's fucking with the timeline, whatever), and then have Rose killed just in time to see the Doctor regenerate to Ecclestone. A sad ending, not too much of a copout response in comparison, would have had my sister in tears.

Or something like that, anyway. Point is, if RTD had actually wanted to explore any of these plotlines, he'd have had to write a FOCUSED plot. Hah!

Truth be told, I can't think of any decent resolution to the Rose idea and she was best left in the alternate universe - but at least her death would have bypassed the lame attempt to avoid hearing the Doctor say 'I love you'. It was irritating in Doomsday, but at least then it had emotional impact.

Hell, maybe he didn't whisper 'I love you'. Maybe it was 'you're the sexiest girl on this whole beach' .

[Admiral Valdemar]

I've finally decided, one line could have redeemed this episode utterly.

"Mickey... shoot him."

God, I miss Pat Troughton's "some things are evil, and they must be fought" attitude.

"Mickey! Chap with the bad skin there -- five rounds rapid."