Here come the drums! Here come the drums!
With the leaked spoiler of the return of the John Simm Master in Series 10, I thought it only fitting to rewatch his moments of triumph in the Series 3 two-part finale. Most fans that I've heard from generally enjoy the Simm Master but his episodes have a rather negative reputation. The End of Time speaks for itself and I've already gone over that story. The Sound of Drums seems to be the most well liked of the four episodes that he stars in with things taking a bit of a dive in Last of the Time Lords. Are these reputations justified? Let's refresh the memory and see.
Plot Summary
Following the newly regenerated Master's theft of the Doctor's TARDIS at the end of Utopia, the Doctor repairs Jack's vortex manipulator and the three of them transport back to Earth. They land a couple of days after the election and find that the Master has been elected Prime Minister of Britain under the name of Harold Saxon.
In Downing Street, the Master kills his new cabinet with poison gas. At the same time, his wife, Lucy, gets a visit from a reporter who is also working as a Torchwood agent. She tells Lucy that Harold Saxon only appeared 18 months ago and has forged his past. Lucy acknowledges this as she already knew and the Master enters the room. The Master summons three alien spheres who attack and kill the reporter.
The Doctor, Jack and Martha head back to Martha's apartment where they work on trying to figure how the Master had taken over. The Doctor informs them that before the Master disappeared in the TARDIS, he locked the controls so that it only could operate between it's last two points of departure: 100 trillion years in the future and that day, give or take about 18 months. Observing Martha talking about Saxon, he realizes that the Master has set up some sort of hypnotic field but doesn't know how.
They are interrupted by a broadcast from Saxon that the UK has made initial contact with a new alien species called the Toclafane. They will be making a formal landing the following morning and Saxon intends to have it broadcast. As he explains, he states a key word and it triggers the timer on a bomb on the back of Martha's television. The trio rushes out before the bomb goes off and destroys Martha's apartment.
Panicked about the Master's knowledge of her, Martha calls her mom. Her mom urges her to come over even stating that her dad is over. Her father speaks as well but when Martha gets suspicious, he warns her and Saxon's men arrest him and Francine. The trio hop in a car and race to Francine's apartment. The agent in charge informs the Master of what has happened and he orders the arrest of Martha's sister Trish as well as she had been working as secretary to Lucy Saxon.
The trio arrives just as Martha's parents are placed in a police van. They open fire on Martha and they are forced to drive away. They ditch the car and walk away. Martha calls her brother who is in Brighton. She warns him to hide but their call in interrupted by the Master listening in. The Doctor takes the phone and he and the Master talk, the Master telling the Doctor of how he ran away from the Time War after being resurrected by the Time Lords. The Doctor in turn tells him that Gallifrey was destroyed in the Time War. The Master places their pictures on the television and has them proclaimed public enemies.
The trio runs and hides in an old warehouse. Jack and Martha gather both food and information. They learn that the Master set up a satellite system for phones now used by everyone called Archangel. The Doctor realizes that is how the Master is controlling people. To further help them, he takes the TARDIS key and splits it so they can each wear one. It is treated with a low level perception filter that causes people to look away, rendering them nondescript to ordinary people.
They leave the warehouse and head to an airport where the Master is meeting the new US President. Annoyed at Saxon's breach of UN agreements, he steps in and takes over the meeting with the Toclafane, which will take place on the Valiant, a UNIT airship. The Master is unperturbed and has his personal jet prepared to join the meeting. He also loads Martha's parents and sister aboard the jet to join him.
Knowing they need to follow, the Doctor uses Jack's vortex manipulator as a transport and takes the three of them to the Valiant. Searching inside, they find the TARDIS. Inside however, they discover that the Master has cannibalized it and created a paradox machine. They sneak up to the flight deck where President Winters is preparing to greet the Toclafane.
The Toclafane are not pleased to see the President and insist on meeting the Master. The Master stands up and vaporizes the President. He then pins the Doctor down and kills Jack with a laser screwdriver. Martha rushes to Jack as he revives and Jack gives her his vortex manipulator. The Master changes the setting on his screwdriver and ages the Doctor over 100 years, making him an old man. The Master activates the paradox machine and billions of Toclafane pass through the vortex and invade Earth where the Master suggests they kill ten percent of humanity.
The Doctor whispers something to Martha and she steps back and teleports off the ship. As the Toclafane destroy cities, she promises to return. She does a year later after wandering through the world. She meets a young man named Thomas. She asks Thomas to take her to see a rogue scientists named Professor Docherty. As they walk, Martha tells Thomas of her journeys and the sights of the ships and weapons the Master is building to take over the universe.
On the Valiant, the Doctor, the Jones family and Jack attempt to take down the Master but are thwarted by him. He has Jack killed and relocked up and locks the Jones family in a cell for a while as they had been working as servants. He places the Doctor back in his chair for later punishment.
Martha and Thomas find Professor Docherty just as the Master is making a broadcast announcing that the conquest will start tomorrow. He also sends a message to Martha as he zaps the Doctor once more with his screwdriver, adding all the Doctor's years to this single regeneration. The Doctor ages 900 years and shrinks to a tiny size as the Master cuts the broadcast.
Martha is unphased and asks the professor and Thomas to help catch a Toclafane using a electrical pulse. They do so and when they unseal the sphere, they find a human head. Martha realizes that the Toclafane are the remnants of humanity that fled looking for Utopia. Upon finding nothing, they built insulating containers for themselves and regressed into a child-like manner. When the captured Toclafane notes that they kill because it's fun, Thomas shoots it.
Thomas takes Martha to London after showing Professor Docherty a gun that uses four chemicals and can kill a Time Lord. Docherty signals the Master of this, who has her son as a hostage. When Martha reaches London, they hide with other refugees and Martha tells of her travels and the Doctor. As she does, the Master arrives and orders Martha to surrender or he will kill everyone on that street. Unwilling to allow that, she surrenders. The Master destroys the bag containing her gun and then kills Thomas as he rushes to attack him. The Master however decides to take Martha back to the Valiant to kill her in front of the Doctor.
In the control room, as the Master prepares to kill Martha, he also starts a countdown for the launch of ships and missiles to start the war. Martha begins to laugh and tells the Master the she did not have a weapon against him. She had spent the year traveling to tell people about the Doctor and how they should think of him when the Master's countdown goes to zero. As it does, the Doctor is energized by the collective psychic power of humanity connected through the Archangel network. He undoes the Master's aging of him, knocks away his laser screwdriver and frees humanity of their fear of him. He also cradles the Master and tells him that he forgives him.
The Toclafane head towards the Valiant to defend the paradox machine. Jack and two soldiers run down to destroy it. Jack, through several deaths, gets past three Toclafane and destroy the paradox machine within the TARDIS. This causes time to reverse to when it was first activated. The Master's work is undone and the Toclafane are sucked back to the year 100 Trillion. Only those at the center of events on the Valiant have any memory of the lost year as time resets to just after the Master killed the President.
The Master tries to escape but is arrested by several guards. The Doctor decides to keep the Master as a prisoner in the TARDIS but before he can, Lucy shoots the Master, having become resentful of his harmful treatment of her. The Master refuses to regenerate and dies in the Doctor's arms. The Doctor later burns the Master's body, though a mysterious woman steals his ring from the ashes.
The Doctor then prepares to leave in the TARDIS as Martha enters but she tells him that she is not coming back. She is tired and knows how fruitless it is to pursue the Doctor when he sees her only as a friend. She does give him her cell phone so that she can call him in an emergency. The Doctor then takes off but his flight is interrupted as the prow of an ocean liner crashes through the TARDIS wall. He is even further bothered when seeing that the ship is the Titanic.
Analysis
The expression, Deus Ex Machina is one that should be pretty familiar to Doctor Who fans as a form of it is used fairly often in this show. However, I don't even think that some of the wildest uses of it have ever gone so far as to turn the Doctor into a literal embodiment of God. It's actually mildly amusing to think of RTD, who is a fairly staunch atheist, going so deep into a Christ metaphor and then going even the extra mile and having the Master comment on it.
Like nearly all the RTD season ending two-parters, this is a tale of two halves. The Sound of Drums is largely the Master's tale with the Doctor, Martha and Jack restricted to a more passive role. Last of the Time Lords, despite it's title, is essentially Martha's tale with the Doctor providing the solution at the end. Right off the bat, without any other considerations, you can immediately see the potential problems. The Master is an outsized personality, easily able to carry a story and even more so in his almost Joker-like iteration of the John Simm Master. Martha on the other hand, has spent the series playing second fiddle to the Doctor both as companion and unrequited love interest. At almost no point in the series has she been given agency to be the central focus of the story. Even in the Family two-parter (arguably her best story) her story line comes after the mystery of what will happen to the Doctor. To expect her to be able to fully carry the story here is a tall order.
As mentioned before, the John Simm Master is almost like a British version of the Joker. He is wild and unpredictable. You get a very Joker-like scene near the beginning of the first episode where he gasses his entire cabinet and gives a thumbs up when they accuse him of being crazy. About all that was missing was for the ministers to have the smiles and then a bad joke by the Master and it would have been almost indistinguishable. It's interesting that for once the Master doesn't have a particularly convoluted plan and as a result, it actually works. He is aware of the Doctor but allows him in to see his triumph and to gloat over him.
We also see the effects of what a Master's win would look like in that Earth is only the first stage and he will now try to take over the universe once more. That is a little less interesting as it comes across as a bit more hackneyed with the plan to launch powerful missiles everywhere and then demand everyone's surrender. That's more of a harken back to the Ainley Master and his more zany schemes.
I'm also a bit annoyed about the Master's death. Not the fact that his wife shot him, that worked for me. But the scene before we had the Doctor call the Master's bluff in that his survival mattered more than defeating the Doctor, so he didn't create a black hole that destroys Earth. However, once shot, the Master refuses to regenerate just to triumph over the Doctor in death. That makes no sense. The threat of prison with the Doctor cannot be so bad as to overcome the Master's inherent desire to survive at all costs. It is a clichéd and terrible premise. It would have worked so much better if the Master had been taken prisoner. He could have easily been ignored to allow Donna free reign in Series Four and his escape from the Doctor's prison (whether the TARDIS or some other location) would have been far more interesting than the potions resurrection we got in The End of Time.
Speaking of the Doctor, he's a real non-entity in this story. He gives the backstory about Gallifrey and gives Martha and Jack their pseudo-cloaking devices, but aside from that, he doesn't do much. He is the god who restores everything at the end but it's Martha's story that spreads the word and almost nothing that he does. He even goes into full Jesus mode by forgiving the Master despite having killed millions of people. I guess it's akin to the Third Doctor laughing off the deaths in Terror of the Autons but stating that they'll be seeing the Master again, but that doesn't make it any less dumb.
Martha is okay in this but her focus on her family does make her sound rather whiney through a good portion of The Sound of Drums and I just don't care about any of them. Heck, the series has spent a better part of it's time making me dislike her mom so I don't know why I should care for her now, even if she is duped by the Master. Martha does improve some during her journey as she gains a measure of confidence and seems to do well to strike out on her own, but she's still not overly engaging from a personality standpoint. She's a bit too relaxed and confident in everything and it takes away some of the tension that the scenes are trying to build.
To top off Martha, we finally have the culmination of the unrequited love and it is boring. I don't care for Martha when she's in that mode in the first half of the series and the great gain of the second half is that she puts her feelings aside and just goes for the adventure. To bring it back and turn down the Doctor's offer of further travel because she needs to not pine after him dredges up that early unpleasantness. We actually get a double dose of it as Martha has a goodbye, walks out of the TARDIS and then goes back in to explain herself further. It's just painful to watch and just makes the Doctor look like a jerk for not even acknowledging her. Of course, he also had to pine over Rose in the first half of the series and that was also painful.
Jack was Jack and he was fine for the most part. He actually injected a bit of humor here and there, having gotten used to the dying and resurrecting bit. But Jack's leaving scene was also painfully written. I don't mind the fact that Jack might have been the Face of Boe as that would actually make for an interesting twist on a minor character. But the way it was written was painful. It wasn't even Exposition 101 it was set up so badly. It was a real shame that Jack's final scene of the arc was that badly written.
So let's get to the crux of the matter on the whole thing: the transfiguration of the Doctor into Christ. I will admit that I didn't care for the 1,000 year old "Dobby Doctor" as he's sometimes called, but I could get past it as a minor point. But no matter how much scientific babble you try to put on to it, the solution of the story comes from the people of the world effectively praying to the Doctor and the Doctor using that to resurrect himself. What's more, he has even more power as we see him lose the glow, the floating and the ability to Force push things away within a few minutes. I honestly can't see how anyone thought this was a good idea. Even the pseudo-science that the show uses would call this crap and it's the worst kind of get-out-of-jail free card I've seen. It undercuts the dire set up started in Utopia and amplified in The Sound of Drums. I think even if you found the Martha quest story interesting, this offering just knocks the story down to tolerable levels at best.
It is so unfortunate that this story ends on such a sour note. Utopia is an excellent lead in and The Sound of Drums is quite entertaining. It's not perfect as I find the Master a bit too over-the-top for my taste, but he is at least entertaining. There is also the fun of seeing him succeed for once at one of his plans. Even the first half of Last of the Time Lords isn't that bad. I'm not that big on Martha but her quest has some narrative value and the tension is appropriately spiked in various locations. But the last 15 minutes are just so bad. We have the Doctor becoming God, a total character flip that allows the Master to die but not actually destroy Earth and Martha's uncomfortable goodbye scene where she spills her heart out. I had been avoiding rewatching this one for a while and the second time around validated my avoidance of the story. Here's hoping that whatever the episode the John Simm Master pops up in next, he's given better material to work with than here.
Overall personal score: The Sound of Drums - 4 out of 5; Last of the Time Lords - 0.5 out of 5
Showing posts with label Jack Harkness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jack Harkness. Show all posts
Friday, May 19, 2017
Friday, February 10, 2017
The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth Doctor, you take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons.
As has been stated by many others besides me, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End were the real goodbye stories for Russell T. Davies. Yes he stuck around for another year but he tried to replicate these in a way with The End of Time and it didn't really work. These were much more of a natural end with the old sitcom style of bringing back cast that had left the show and having a big send off at the end. But even in that, it is not without it's flaws.
Plot Summary
Having been warned of trouble at the end of Turn Left, the Doctor and Donna arrive back on Earth but find everything seemingly normal. However, upon going back in the TARDIS, the Earth is instantaneously transported away and the TARDIS is left in space. Around the world, reactions are observed by Martha with UNIT in Manhattan, Jack Harkness and his fellow Torchwood team Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper in Cardiff, Sarah Jane with her son Luke and supercomputer, Mr. Smith, in London and Wilfred and Sylvia also in London. As people notice the change in sky, Rose teleports in, just outside Wilfred and Sylvia's home.
Unable to figure out what happened, the Doctor and Donna travel to the Shadow Proclamation where they learn of twenty four other planets disappearing. While going over the list, Donna recalls that the hatchery planet of the Adipose and the planet of the Pyroviles was also missing. The Doctor adds those to the list along with the lost moon of Poosh and they are projected outward and reform themselves into a perfect engine alignment.
Above Earth, the Daleks prepare an invasion force and move towards Earth, attacking the various armed installations and rounding up humans for transport back to the Dalek command ship, the Crucible. Martha' command post is Manhattan is overrun and the commanding general fits her with a experimental teleport based off Sontaran technology. He also gives her a command disk called the Osterhagen Key. She then teleports to her mother's place in London. With the defenses down, Earth surrenders.
The Doctor and Donna try to figure out how to trace the missing planets and Donna mentions the stories of the missing bees. This triggers an idea as a certain alien insect interbreeds with Earth bees and may have warned them. They scan for signals and trace the alien signature to just outside the Medusa Cascade. The Shadow Proclamation tries to requisition the Doctor but he and Donna leave in the TARDIS before they can take control. They reappear outside the Medusa Cascade but find nothing and the end of the signal trail.
Wilfred and Sylvia step out to fight the Daleks but are rescued by Rose, looking for the Doctor. They head back to their home where Rose detects a signal from Wilfred's computer. It doesn't have a webcamera so she can only receive and not transmit. She observes as Harriet Jones, former PM, sends a signal over the subwave network and contacts Torchwood, Sarah Jane and Martha. She networks with Mr. Smith and the Cardiff rift power source to boost the phone signal to call the Doctor, which succeeds but also alerts the Daleks to Harriet Jones' location. She transfers control to Captain Jack at Torchwood just before the Daleks break into her home and kill her.
The Doctor receives the signal and contacts with Jack, Martha and Sara Jane. Wilfred and Sylvia are relieved to see Donna just behind the Doctor. As they talk, the signal is overridden by The Crucible and the Doctor sees Davros, who was rescued from death in the Time War by Dalek Caan, after escaping the events of Evolution of the Daleks. The Doctor deactivates and lands on Earth in London. The Daleks also send an attack force to the new subwave control center at Torchwood.
After landing, the Doctor and Donna exit and spot Rose who left Wilfred and Sylvia's house. The Doctor runs towards her but is shot down by a passing Dalek. The Dalek is destroyed by Jack who teleports in to help. He and Rose drag the Doctor into the TARDIS where he begins to regenerate. However, after healing the wound, the Doctor transfers the regeneration energy into the severed hand cut off by the Sycorax and recovered from the Master following Last of the Time Lords. The Daleks meanwhile move and surround the TARDIS.
Sarah Jane leaves her house to go help the Doctor but runs into a Dalek patrol. They mean to kill her but are destroyed by Mickey and Jackie Tyler who teleport in from the parallel dimension. They approach the TARDIS and see it placed in a temporal lock which drains it's power. It is then taken up to The Crucible. Knowing it's the only way to get on to the ship, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie surrender to the Daleks and are put with a group of human prisoners for transport.
On The Crucible, the Daleks deactivate the defenses of the TARDIS and order the people out. The Doctor, Rose and Jack all come but Donna is distracted by a heartbeat and the TARDIS door shuts before she can follow. Suspecting treachery, the Supreme Dalek drops the TARDIS into the core of The Crucible where the TARDIS will be destroyed. As the TARDIS begins to burn, Donna touches the hand filled with regeneration energy. It explodes out of it's case and a clone of the Doctor materializes. The clone brings up the TARDIS' power and dematerializes, making it look like the TARDIS was destroyed.
Jack attacks the Supreme Dalek but is gunned down. The Doctor observes him quietly coming back to life but plays along, though Rose is unaware of Jack's ability and thinks him really dead. The Doctor and Rose are taken to Davros' lair while Jack's body is dumped in the incinerator. He escapes and crawls through the ducts while the Doctor and Rose are placed in isolation cells.
As the humans arrive on The Crucible, a woman falls over, distracting the Daleks. Sarah Jane and Mickey make a dash and hide behind a door but Jackie is left in the crowd. The Supreme Dalek orders a test and Davros informs the Doctor of the new weapon, the reality bomb, which destroys the electrical connection between atoms, reducing all matter in it's field to subatomic particles. As it prepares to fire on the crowd, the thirty minute recharge on Jackie's teleport ends and she is able to teleport to Mickey and Sarah Jane while the rest of the humans are disintegrated. Jack pops out of a duct and Sarah Jane gives him a warp star that had been presented to her in the past and Jack hooks it up, preparing to destroy the ship.
On Earth, Martha teleports to Germany where she enters and activates one of the Osterhagen key stations. She radios out to the other stations and two other stations respond: one in China and the other in Africa. They ready their stations, which will trigger twenty-five nuclear warheads buried in the crust, cracking it and destroying the Earth.
At nearly the same time, Martha and Jack radio The Crucible and threaten to activate their weapons if the Daleks do not release the Doctor and return their planets. The Daleks however lock on to the signaling locations and teleport Martha, Jack, Sarah Jane and Mickey to Davros' lair. All four are placed in isolation cells similar to the Doctor and Rose. The Supreme Dalek then orders the powering of the reality bomb to full power to destroy the universe while the Daleks fall back to the protection of The Crucible.
With the failure of other options, the clone Doctor builds a small weapon and rematerializes the TARDIS in Davros' lair. He bursts out but Davros stuns him with a burst of electricity. Donna runs out to grab the weapon and Davros electrocutes her as well. Unbeknownst to him though, the electrical burst energizes the regeneration energy she absorbed from the Doctor's hand, giving her and infusion of the Doctor's mind.
Donna, with the Doctor's mind, access the control panel and deactivates the reality bomb. She then neutralizes Davros' and the Dalek's weaponry. She frees the prisoners who push the Daleks out of the way and she, the Doctor and the clone Doctor return the planets to their proper locations. Davros manages to destroy part of the control panel before they can return the Earth but he is neutralized once again. The Supreme Dalek comes down to attack but it is destroyed by a shot from Mickey.
The Doctor runs back into the TARDIS and contacts Torchwood, who had been caught in a time bubble to protect them from the Dalek attack, and Luke and Mr. Smith. Together they plan to create a reinforced energy line between the Earth and the TARDIS, allowing the TARDIS to pull the Earth across space. To access the TARDIS mainframe, Sarah Jane activates K-9, who feeds the TARDIS information to Mr. Smith. As the Doctor does this, Donna and the clone Doctor realize that the Daleks will still come after them and are highly dangerous. The clone Doctor activates a feedback loop which destroys the Dalek fleet and sets The Crucible on fire.
The Doctor hurries everyone into the TARDIS and appeals to Davros to come with them. Davros curses him and refuses. Dalek Caan, who had arranged everything to ensure the destruction of his own race, shouts a warning that one of his companions still must die. The TARDIS leaves The Crucible as it explodes and pulls the Earth across space and places it back in it's proper orbit.
The Doctor lands on Earth and drops of Martha, Jack, and Sarah Jane. Mickey also comes with them as his grandmother has passed away in the parallel dimension and he feels he has no place there. The Doctor then lands the TARDIS in the parallel dimension in Bad Wolf Bay to return Rose and Jackie, informing them that access between the dimensions will be sealed once more. He also sends the clone Doctor, who, being half human, will age and not regenerate. Rose accepts him as a substitute for the Doctor and the three are left as the TARDIS takes off again.
On the TARDIS, Donna's mind begins to become overwhelmed as the Doctor's mind is too great for her human brain. Knowing that she will die if he doesn't, though she begs him not to, he purges her mind of her knowledge of him, leaving her as she was before being transported to the TARDIS at the beginning of The Runaway Bride. He returns her to Wilfred and Sylvia's and tells them that they must never reveal what happened to her.
Donna wakes and assumes that she missed things once again. She dismisses the Doctor with a bare glance and he leaves the house. Wilfred however sees him off, saluting him as he goes. The Doctor then dematerializes in the TARDIS, alone once more.
Analysis
It's a bit cliché to talk again about how RTD starts off a story like a house on fire but always peters out. But the cliché does apply to this story as it has in previous ones. However, I would note that I don't think the fall off here was as bad as some fans make it. It is still a good story and still fundamentally entertaining even if there are some sour notes in the second half.
I'll just go ahead and cut to the chase, the problem in Journey's End is the tone shift. The Stolen Earth and the first 30 minutes or so of Journey's End played like a solid sci-fi adventure story. There was a small cheese factor but the overall tone was mostly dark and serious with some real weight behind the various moments such as the Doctor getting shot by a stray Dalek, the Daleks destroying a house with a family inside it and the death of Harriet Jones.
That tone continued until the arrival of Doctor-Donna. While I love Donna, the flippancy that suddenly took over regarding the situation and her own cavalier attitude towards the situation was just so jarring. Millions of people had died and they are laughing and pushing the Daleks and Davros around like the props they actually are. I don't even mind the usual complaint people have about the shut down being a single button on a panel in Davros' lair. For me, it is all about the flippancy of the moment.
The silliness gets compounded with the TARDIS towing the Earth across space. That just seems a bridge too far and how do you reconcile that silly, cartoony tone with the idea of Daleks mowing people down or even what happens to Donna later? The story was dark and brooding, then it got silly, then pukingly saccharine, then dark and depressing again. It's just so inconsistent in what it thinks the audience should feel about it that it becomes aggravating.
So let's jump to the saccharine moment: leaving Rose on Bad Wolf bay a second time. I'm fairly open about not liking Rose very much but I appreciated the emotion of that scene in Doomsday. There was raw feeling and even if you didn't like Rose, you could appreciate the loss she was feeling with regard to the Doctor. Fast forward two years later and while Rose is dropped off again, she now gets the clone Doctor to grow old with while keeping her parents and little brother. Not only did this throw all the emotion of the first scene into the garbage, it wasn't done particularly well because it was noticeable dubbed with studio recordings (presumably due to the wind issues). It was just the show bending over backwards once more to give the spoiled brat that is Rose whatever she wants.
I say spoiled brat because while Rose was improved in most of her appearances in Series Four, the scene where she is listening to the discussion between Harriet Jones and the others, she can't help but talk about how she was important as well. Her resentment about the status of Martha as a companion of the Doctor who has gone on to better things shows that petulant side of Rose that I couldn't stand when she was a regular companion.
A third point where Rose bothered me was when the Doctor was preparing to regenerate. Of the three of them, Rose should have been the least bothered by his regeneration. She was close to the Ninth Doctor, who selected her in the first place. Her mourning over the potential loss of the Tenth Doctor spoke to her shallowness regarding the Tenth Doctor. She knew that the Doctor would still be the Doctor, but it was the physical appearance and nuances of the Tenth Doctor's personality that she really liked. She mourned over the potential death of the Tenth Doctor because it was that form and not the Doctor himself that she desired. Again, it was just a reinforcement of the shallowness of Rose.
As for the Doctor himself, I quite liked him in this. He got dark and brooding and I always appreciate him in those situations. I also liked that, unlike Rose, he balanced out praise for everyone. He lavishes praise twice on Donna for her contributions when the try to figure things out at the Shadow Proclamation. He praises Martha and all the other contributors in their fight against the Daleks, showing no favoritism and working together. I would have liked to see him offer a bit more of a contribution in the final equation but it all works fairly well in the end.
All of the rest of the companions do well. I remember watching this story for the first time and actually thinking about watching Torchwood because I enjoyed Ianto and Gwen in this story. Other information I heard about Torchwood dissuaded me but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it. I liked Jack a bit more than Martha but both were still good. Jackie and Mickey didn't do much except for rescue Sarah Jane at the beginning of Journey's End so they were a bit wasted but that's not the actor's fault. Donna also was pushed into the background a bit after leaving the Shadow Proclamation but with so many others pulling focus, that a bit understandable. I did enjoy the scene between her and the clone Doctor as he mimics her outrage and speech patterns. That was an amusing little scene.
The clone Doctor was fine. I don't really understand why people get bent out of shape about him. Obviously they had to avoid the proper regeneration of the Tenth Doctor and funneling the regeneration energy into a clone seemed perfectly fine. I also appreciated that he did what the regular Doctor could not and that was to destroy the Daleks properly. The Doctor is outraged at what the clone has done, but he raises a good point in that there are millions of Daleks, just as dangerous as before and now no Time Lords to oppose them. Genocide may be a sin in the eyes of the damaged Tenth Doctor, but how many lives would have been lost if the Daleks been permitted to continue? I side with the clone in this case. That he gets stuck with Rose is not his fault.
This story also saw the return of Davros and he had both excellent and silly moments. In a way, he was a microcosm of the whole story. Some of my favorite moments are Davros quietly taunting the Doctor, exposing him to his true nature. But then he goes and dials it up to eleven and goes way over-the-top. I compare it to not being able to fully decide whether to channel the Davros from Genesis of the Daleks or to give over to the ranting Davros of Revelation of the Daleks. I'm also not sure why he suddenly got Emperor Palpatine power in the form of projected lightening. That seemed a bit odd. Overall good, but not without flawed moments.
The overall story as I said worked well aside from the tone shifts. I felt bad for Donna but understood why they had to write her out the way she was. Whether you liked the Doctor Donna or not, Donna was fully prepared to keep travelling with the Doctor in either capacity. Only her outright death or other great tragedy would have stopped her. I suspect that her outright death was debated but that would have vindicated Sylvia and crushed Wilfred so I can understand keeping her alive. Those final moments between the Doctor and Wilf were very good and the clear impetus in making Wilf a proper companion in The End of Time. That everyone agrees that those moments between him and the Doctor were the best parts of The End of Time justifies that decision.
So overall, I'd say that the story is fun but the first part outpaces the second. As much as I dislike Rose and as much as I dislike the hokey tone the story takes for those few minutes, the majority of both parts work very well. I would also say that Journey's End does well in that it ends on a true and somber note and that does quite a bit to mitigate the overt silliness of the previous fifteen minutes.
This is the proper RTD farewell and he does a good job with that send off. Obviously there are better Tenth Doctor stories but it handles the epic scope fairly well and will give you a pretty good ride, even if there are a few bumps in the road here and there.
Overall personal score: The Stolen Earth - 4.5 out of 5; Journey's End - 3 out of 5
As has been stated by many others besides me, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End were the real goodbye stories for Russell T. Davies. Yes he stuck around for another year but he tried to replicate these in a way with The End of Time and it didn't really work. These were much more of a natural end with the old sitcom style of bringing back cast that had left the show and having a big send off at the end. But even in that, it is not without it's flaws.
Plot Summary
Having been warned of trouble at the end of Turn Left, the Doctor and Donna arrive back on Earth but find everything seemingly normal. However, upon going back in the TARDIS, the Earth is instantaneously transported away and the TARDIS is left in space. Around the world, reactions are observed by Martha with UNIT in Manhattan, Jack Harkness and his fellow Torchwood team Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper in Cardiff, Sarah Jane with her son Luke and supercomputer, Mr. Smith, in London and Wilfred and Sylvia also in London. As people notice the change in sky, Rose teleports in, just outside Wilfred and Sylvia's home.
Unable to figure out what happened, the Doctor and Donna travel to the Shadow Proclamation where they learn of twenty four other planets disappearing. While going over the list, Donna recalls that the hatchery planet of the Adipose and the planet of the Pyroviles was also missing. The Doctor adds those to the list along with the lost moon of Poosh and they are projected outward and reform themselves into a perfect engine alignment.
Above Earth, the Daleks prepare an invasion force and move towards Earth, attacking the various armed installations and rounding up humans for transport back to the Dalek command ship, the Crucible. Martha' command post is Manhattan is overrun and the commanding general fits her with a experimental teleport based off Sontaran technology. He also gives her a command disk called the Osterhagen Key. She then teleports to her mother's place in London. With the defenses down, Earth surrenders.
The Doctor and Donna try to figure out how to trace the missing planets and Donna mentions the stories of the missing bees. This triggers an idea as a certain alien insect interbreeds with Earth bees and may have warned them. They scan for signals and trace the alien signature to just outside the Medusa Cascade. The Shadow Proclamation tries to requisition the Doctor but he and Donna leave in the TARDIS before they can take control. They reappear outside the Medusa Cascade but find nothing and the end of the signal trail.
Wilfred and Sylvia step out to fight the Daleks but are rescued by Rose, looking for the Doctor. They head back to their home where Rose detects a signal from Wilfred's computer. It doesn't have a webcamera so she can only receive and not transmit. She observes as Harriet Jones, former PM, sends a signal over the subwave network and contacts Torchwood, Sarah Jane and Martha. She networks with Mr. Smith and the Cardiff rift power source to boost the phone signal to call the Doctor, which succeeds but also alerts the Daleks to Harriet Jones' location. She transfers control to Captain Jack at Torchwood just before the Daleks break into her home and kill her.
The Doctor receives the signal and contacts with Jack, Martha and Sara Jane. Wilfred and Sylvia are relieved to see Donna just behind the Doctor. As they talk, the signal is overridden by The Crucible and the Doctor sees Davros, who was rescued from death in the Time War by Dalek Caan, after escaping the events of Evolution of the Daleks. The Doctor deactivates and lands on Earth in London. The Daleks also send an attack force to the new subwave control center at Torchwood.
After landing, the Doctor and Donna exit and spot Rose who left Wilfred and Sylvia's house. The Doctor runs towards her but is shot down by a passing Dalek. The Dalek is destroyed by Jack who teleports in to help. He and Rose drag the Doctor into the TARDIS where he begins to regenerate. However, after healing the wound, the Doctor transfers the regeneration energy into the severed hand cut off by the Sycorax and recovered from the Master following Last of the Time Lords. The Daleks meanwhile move and surround the TARDIS.
Sarah Jane leaves her house to go help the Doctor but runs into a Dalek patrol. They mean to kill her but are destroyed by Mickey and Jackie Tyler who teleport in from the parallel dimension. They approach the TARDIS and see it placed in a temporal lock which drains it's power. It is then taken up to The Crucible. Knowing it's the only way to get on to the ship, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie surrender to the Daleks and are put with a group of human prisoners for transport.
On The Crucible, the Daleks deactivate the defenses of the TARDIS and order the people out. The Doctor, Rose and Jack all come but Donna is distracted by a heartbeat and the TARDIS door shuts before she can follow. Suspecting treachery, the Supreme Dalek drops the TARDIS into the core of The Crucible where the TARDIS will be destroyed. As the TARDIS begins to burn, Donna touches the hand filled with regeneration energy. It explodes out of it's case and a clone of the Doctor materializes. The clone brings up the TARDIS' power and dematerializes, making it look like the TARDIS was destroyed.
Jack attacks the Supreme Dalek but is gunned down. The Doctor observes him quietly coming back to life but plays along, though Rose is unaware of Jack's ability and thinks him really dead. The Doctor and Rose are taken to Davros' lair while Jack's body is dumped in the incinerator. He escapes and crawls through the ducts while the Doctor and Rose are placed in isolation cells.
As the humans arrive on The Crucible, a woman falls over, distracting the Daleks. Sarah Jane and Mickey make a dash and hide behind a door but Jackie is left in the crowd. The Supreme Dalek orders a test and Davros informs the Doctor of the new weapon, the reality bomb, which destroys the electrical connection between atoms, reducing all matter in it's field to subatomic particles. As it prepares to fire on the crowd, the thirty minute recharge on Jackie's teleport ends and she is able to teleport to Mickey and Sarah Jane while the rest of the humans are disintegrated. Jack pops out of a duct and Sarah Jane gives him a warp star that had been presented to her in the past and Jack hooks it up, preparing to destroy the ship.
On Earth, Martha teleports to Germany where she enters and activates one of the Osterhagen key stations. She radios out to the other stations and two other stations respond: one in China and the other in Africa. They ready their stations, which will trigger twenty-five nuclear warheads buried in the crust, cracking it and destroying the Earth.
At nearly the same time, Martha and Jack radio The Crucible and threaten to activate their weapons if the Daleks do not release the Doctor and return their planets. The Daleks however lock on to the signaling locations and teleport Martha, Jack, Sarah Jane and Mickey to Davros' lair. All four are placed in isolation cells similar to the Doctor and Rose. The Supreme Dalek then orders the powering of the reality bomb to full power to destroy the universe while the Daleks fall back to the protection of The Crucible.
With the failure of other options, the clone Doctor builds a small weapon and rematerializes the TARDIS in Davros' lair. He bursts out but Davros stuns him with a burst of electricity. Donna runs out to grab the weapon and Davros electrocutes her as well. Unbeknownst to him though, the electrical burst energizes the regeneration energy she absorbed from the Doctor's hand, giving her and infusion of the Doctor's mind.
Donna, with the Doctor's mind, access the control panel and deactivates the reality bomb. She then neutralizes Davros' and the Dalek's weaponry. She frees the prisoners who push the Daleks out of the way and she, the Doctor and the clone Doctor return the planets to their proper locations. Davros manages to destroy part of the control panel before they can return the Earth but he is neutralized once again. The Supreme Dalek comes down to attack but it is destroyed by a shot from Mickey.
The Doctor runs back into the TARDIS and contacts Torchwood, who had been caught in a time bubble to protect them from the Dalek attack, and Luke and Mr. Smith. Together they plan to create a reinforced energy line between the Earth and the TARDIS, allowing the TARDIS to pull the Earth across space. To access the TARDIS mainframe, Sarah Jane activates K-9, who feeds the TARDIS information to Mr. Smith. As the Doctor does this, Donna and the clone Doctor realize that the Daleks will still come after them and are highly dangerous. The clone Doctor activates a feedback loop which destroys the Dalek fleet and sets The Crucible on fire.
The Doctor hurries everyone into the TARDIS and appeals to Davros to come with them. Davros curses him and refuses. Dalek Caan, who had arranged everything to ensure the destruction of his own race, shouts a warning that one of his companions still must die. The TARDIS leaves The Crucible as it explodes and pulls the Earth across space and places it back in it's proper orbit.
The Doctor lands on Earth and drops of Martha, Jack, and Sarah Jane. Mickey also comes with them as his grandmother has passed away in the parallel dimension and he feels he has no place there. The Doctor then lands the TARDIS in the parallel dimension in Bad Wolf Bay to return Rose and Jackie, informing them that access between the dimensions will be sealed once more. He also sends the clone Doctor, who, being half human, will age and not regenerate. Rose accepts him as a substitute for the Doctor and the three are left as the TARDIS takes off again.
On the TARDIS, Donna's mind begins to become overwhelmed as the Doctor's mind is too great for her human brain. Knowing that she will die if he doesn't, though she begs him not to, he purges her mind of her knowledge of him, leaving her as she was before being transported to the TARDIS at the beginning of The Runaway Bride. He returns her to Wilfred and Sylvia's and tells them that they must never reveal what happened to her.
Donna wakes and assumes that she missed things once again. She dismisses the Doctor with a bare glance and he leaves the house. Wilfred however sees him off, saluting him as he goes. The Doctor then dematerializes in the TARDIS, alone once more.
Analysis
It's a bit cliché to talk again about how RTD starts off a story like a house on fire but always peters out. But the cliché does apply to this story as it has in previous ones. However, I would note that I don't think the fall off here was as bad as some fans make it. It is still a good story and still fundamentally entertaining even if there are some sour notes in the second half.
I'll just go ahead and cut to the chase, the problem in Journey's End is the tone shift. The Stolen Earth and the first 30 minutes or so of Journey's End played like a solid sci-fi adventure story. There was a small cheese factor but the overall tone was mostly dark and serious with some real weight behind the various moments such as the Doctor getting shot by a stray Dalek, the Daleks destroying a house with a family inside it and the death of Harriet Jones.
That tone continued until the arrival of Doctor-Donna. While I love Donna, the flippancy that suddenly took over regarding the situation and her own cavalier attitude towards the situation was just so jarring. Millions of people had died and they are laughing and pushing the Daleks and Davros around like the props they actually are. I don't even mind the usual complaint people have about the shut down being a single button on a panel in Davros' lair. For me, it is all about the flippancy of the moment.
The silliness gets compounded with the TARDIS towing the Earth across space. That just seems a bridge too far and how do you reconcile that silly, cartoony tone with the idea of Daleks mowing people down or even what happens to Donna later? The story was dark and brooding, then it got silly, then pukingly saccharine, then dark and depressing again. It's just so inconsistent in what it thinks the audience should feel about it that it becomes aggravating.
So let's jump to the saccharine moment: leaving Rose on Bad Wolf bay a second time. I'm fairly open about not liking Rose very much but I appreciated the emotion of that scene in Doomsday. There was raw feeling and even if you didn't like Rose, you could appreciate the loss she was feeling with regard to the Doctor. Fast forward two years later and while Rose is dropped off again, she now gets the clone Doctor to grow old with while keeping her parents and little brother. Not only did this throw all the emotion of the first scene into the garbage, it wasn't done particularly well because it was noticeable dubbed with studio recordings (presumably due to the wind issues). It was just the show bending over backwards once more to give the spoiled brat that is Rose whatever she wants.
I say spoiled brat because while Rose was improved in most of her appearances in Series Four, the scene where she is listening to the discussion between Harriet Jones and the others, she can't help but talk about how she was important as well. Her resentment about the status of Martha as a companion of the Doctor who has gone on to better things shows that petulant side of Rose that I couldn't stand when she was a regular companion.
A third point where Rose bothered me was when the Doctor was preparing to regenerate. Of the three of them, Rose should have been the least bothered by his regeneration. She was close to the Ninth Doctor, who selected her in the first place. Her mourning over the potential loss of the Tenth Doctor spoke to her shallowness regarding the Tenth Doctor. She knew that the Doctor would still be the Doctor, but it was the physical appearance and nuances of the Tenth Doctor's personality that she really liked. She mourned over the potential death of the Tenth Doctor because it was that form and not the Doctor himself that she desired. Again, it was just a reinforcement of the shallowness of Rose.
As for the Doctor himself, I quite liked him in this. He got dark and brooding and I always appreciate him in those situations. I also liked that, unlike Rose, he balanced out praise for everyone. He lavishes praise twice on Donna for her contributions when the try to figure things out at the Shadow Proclamation. He praises Martha and all the other contributors in their fight against the Daleks, showing no favoritism and working together. I would have liked to see him offer a bit more of a contribution in the final equation but it all works fairly well in the end.
All of the rest of the companions do well. I remember watching this story for the first time and actually thinking about watching Torchwood because I enjoyed Ianto and Gwen in this story. Other information I heard about Torchwood dissuaded me but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it. I liked Jack a bit more than Martha but both were still good. Jackie and Mickey didn't do much except for rescue Sarah Jane at the beginning of Journey's End so they were a bit wasted but that's not the actor's fault. Donna also was pushed into the background a bit after leaving the Shadow Proclamation but with so many others pulling focus, that a bit understandable. I did enjoy the scene between her and the clone Doctor as he mimics her outrage and speech patterns. That was an amusing little scene.
The clone Doctor was fine. I don't really understand why people get bent out of shape about him. Obviously they had to avoid the proper regeneration of the Tenth Doctor and funneling the regeneration energy into a clone seemed perfectly fine. I also appreciated that he did what the regular Doctor could not and that was to destroy the Daleks properly. The Doctor is outraged at what the clone has done, but he raises a good point in that there are millions of Daleks, just as dangerous as before and now no Time Lords to oppose them. Genocide may be a sin in the eyes of the damaged Tenth Doctor, but how many lives would have been lost if the Daleks been permitted to continue? I side with the clone in this case. That he gets stuck with Rose is not his fault.
This story also saw the return of Davros and he had both excellent and silly moments. In a way, he was a microcosm of the whole story. Some of my favorite moments are Davros quietly taunting the Doctor, exposing him to his true nature. But then he goes and dials it up to eleven and goes way over-the-top. I compare it to not being able to fully decide whether to channel the Davros from Genesis of the Daleks or to give over to the ranting Davros of Revelation of the Daleks. I'm also not sure why he suddenly got Emperor Palpatine power in the form of projected lightening. That seemed a bit odd. Overall good, but not without flawed moments.
The overall story as I said worked well aside from the tone shifts. I felt bad for Donna but understood why they had to write her out the way she was. Whether you liked the Doctor Donna or not, Donna was fully prepared to keep travelling with the Doctor in either capacity. Only her outright death or other great tragedy would have stopped her. I suspect that her outright death was debated but that would have vindicated Sylvia and crushed Wilfred so I can understand keeping her alive. Those final moments between the Doctor and Wilf were very good and the clear impetus in making Wilf a proper companion in The End of Time. That everyone agrees that those moments between him and the Doctor were the best parts of The End of Time justifies that decision.
So overall, I'd say that the story is fun but the first part outpaces the second. As much as I dislike Rose and as much as I dislike the hokey tone the story takes for those few minutes, the majority of both parts work very well. I would also say that Journey's End does well in that it ends on a true and somber note and that does quite a bit to mitigate the overt silliness of the previous fifteen minutes.
This is the proper RTD farewell and he does a good job with that send off. Obviously there are better Tenth Doctor stories but it handles the epic scope fairly well and will give you a pretty good ride, even if there are a few bumps in the road here and there.
Overall personal score: The Stolen Earth - 4.5 out of 5; Journey's End - 3 out of 5
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
If I am God, what does that make you Doctor?
The final adventure of the Ninth Doctor, the culmination of the "Bad Wolf" subplot and the full return of the Daleks. RTD has a reputation for putting together excellent set ups in the penultimate episode and then letting things go out with a whimper in the finale. Does that hold true in his first finale and the end of the Ninth Doctor?
Plot Summary
One hundred years after the events of The Long Game, the Doctor, Rose and Jack wake to find themselves on futuristic versions of 21st century game shows being broadcast from the Game Station (formally Satellite 5). The Doctor is in Big Brother, Rose The Weakest Link and Jack What Not to Wear. The Doctor and Rose are confused and rather nonchalant in each of their shows until they witness other contestants incinerated after failing a level.
The Doctor breaks a camera in the house, causing his immediate eviction. However, his life is spared as the program is overwritten. He leaves the house to the station proper with another contestant, Lynda. Meanwhile, Jack pulls out a gun when the two droids attempt to kill him and he destroys them. Fashioning himself a larger gun, he meets up with the Doctor on the lower floors. The Doctor discovers that when he destroyed the Jagrafess, he left the Earth without any information, causing the society to break down, leading to the dystopia that now exists.
Jack manages to locate Rose's signal and they burst into the game just as she has lost the final round of her game. She runs to the Doctor but the Anne Droid incinerates her. The Doctor, Jack and Lynda are arrested by station security and placed in a holding cell, but the trio overpowers the guards and heads up to the top floor. There they discover the station run by a few workers and a controller.
The station briefly shuts down as a solar flare passes by and the controller comes to herself. She reveals that she brought the Doctor there to thwart the powers controlling her. She is unable to reveal that as the flare passes and the station comes back on-line. Jack discovers the TARDIS in a storage room nearby and using it, he discovers that Rose was not killed. All failed contestants are merely transmatted to a location just outside the solar system.
They discover that the location houses a cloaked Dalek fleet. Aware of their discovery, the Daleks transmat the controller and kill her. They then threaten to kill Rose unless the Doctor surrenders. He refuses and instead vows to rescue Rose and destroy the Daleks.
The Doctor and Jack take the TARDIS across the solar system and materialize it around Rose and her Dalek guard. Jack destroys the Dalek with his gun while the Doctor heads out of the TARDIS. Protected by a force field, the Daleks are unable to gun him down. The Emperor Dalek reveals himself to the Doctor, having survived the Time War. He has rebuilt the Daleks using cellular material from slaughtered humans. The Doctor also discovers that the Emperor Dalek has developed a god complex, infusing all other Daleks with both a religious devotion to him and a self-hatred at their impure state.
The Doctor takes the TARDIS back to the station where he begins to build a Delta-wave weapon that will fry the Daleks. Jack and the others head down to the first floor to recruit any former contestants to fight and buy the Doctor more time. Only a few do with Jack ordering the rest to stay quiet on the first floor.
Checking his readings, the Doctor discovers that he doesn't have enough time to create a weapon that will only kill Daleks. Instead it will kill both Daleks and humans. He tricks Rose into going into the TARDIS and then sending her back to her family where she is found by Mickey and her mother.
The Daleks arrive at the station and land five floors below the control room. One group of Daleks proceed upwards where they kill the defenders and blast through the defenses Jack had set up. Another group heads down to the first floor and kills all those who refused to fight and stayed below. The Daleks then reconnect and head to the last of the defenses.
Despite attempts to console and convince her, Rose refuses to accept being sent away. She sees more Bad Wolf signs and recognizes them as a symbol for her to help the Doctor. She decides to pry open the TARDIS console and look into the heart of the TARDIS as that would allow her to communicate with it telepathically. Mickey tries but his car doesn't have enough power.
Jackie tries to dissuade her but Rose refuses also forcing Jackie to realize that it was Rose who bent over Pete when he died. Jackie, realizing that it is the right thing to do, borrows a tow truck from a friend. She and Mickey help Rose pry open the TARDIS panel. Rose looks into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbs time energy directly from the vortex. The TARDIS then disappears as Jackie and Mickey look on.
The Daleks overrun the last of the defenses, killing both Lynda and Jack in route to the control room. As the Daleks enter, the Doctor finishes the delta wave weapon. The Dalek Emperor goads the Doctor to use it but faced with repeating the genocide he committed against his own people to stop the Daleks, the Doctor refuses to discharge the weapon.
As the Daleks move in for the kill, the TARDIS reappears and Rose emerges, full of the time vortex. She admits that she planted the Bad Wolf sign throughout time as a signal to herself. She then atomizes all of the Daleks and even brings Jack back to life. The time energy is killing her though and the Doctor takes her and sucks it out of her through a kiss, releasing most of the energy back into the TARDIS. He then carries an unconscious Rose into the TARDIS and takes off as Jack enters the room to see them go.
Rose wakes with almost no memory of what happened. The Doctor only reminds her of it a little, admitting that he had to absorb most of the time energy, which is now killing him. He comforts her that things will continue but that he must change. He then regenerates into the Tenth Doctor and offers to take her to the planet Barcelona.
Analysis
Taken as a whole, this story is pretty good. However, it does suffer from the typical RTD problem of having a really good set up and then petering out at the end. Some fans blame the literal "god out of the machine" ending but that didn't bother me that much. There were several issues that affected the end but I think the primary problem was that Bad Wolf was clearly focused on the Doctor while The Parting of the Ways focused on the companions, specifically Rose.
Throughout both stories, the Doctor was excellent. He was his caviler self at the beginning and then got serious as the scale of the problem reared its head. He was serious and focused, to a point that you could see how dangerous he could be. But at the end, the damaged Doctor who couldn't cope with inflicting large scale violence emerged. Even in Bad Wolf that is apparent as he casually hands off his gun to the people he's supposed to be threatening. It is funny and also a significantly Doctor-ish moment.
In fact, there is almost nothing not to like in Bad Wolf. The characters are engaging, there is humor but also a strong sense of danger. We also get a wonderful fake out with Rose apparently being killed. This is doubly effective because Lynda has asked to come with the Doctor and he is very open to it. It has the exact feel of an old companion being removed and being replaced by a new companion. You buy it, even to the point where Rose is revealed to still be alive as it is easy to imagine the Doctor's rescue of her failing and Lynda still moving on to be the new companion.
The reveal of the Daleks is also excellent. The preview at end of Boomtown spoiled the review for most people. But if you had been ignorant of that, the reveal was very well done. As Rose wakes up and classic fans instantly key on to the Dalek control room sound as it is the only noise. Even as the Daleks enter their reveal is slow. Rose pins herself against a wall as we view through a Dalek eyestalk, just like Barbara did in The Daleks. As others enter, they are shown in reflection and other oblique ways. It is not until they focus on talking to the Doctor that the full scope of the Daleks is made clear. The build is slow and very well done, giving a proper sense of fear that the Daleks deserve.
That fear pervades through the entire invasion. In the whole battle, the Daleks wipe the defenses with relative ease. Only four Daleks are shown to be destroyed or damaged in the entire attack and with multiple Daleks filling the room each time, the overrun is quick and efficient.
Of all the deaths, I found Lynda's to be the best and the most sad. She is trapped in a room waiting for the Daleks to burn their way in when three Daleks rise in front of the window. There is no sound but you see the lights of the Dalek flash and it's like reading lips to know that he is yelling "Exterminate". The window shatters and you don't hear Lynda scream as she is exposed to space. For having such little time, you got to know the character and enjoyed her company. That you started getting into the mindset of thinking of her as a companion also makes her death seem that much more tragic. Jack at least fought up to the end and even had a moment of defiance before being gunned down. It was a death worthy of the character and felt less tragic even though you know Jack a lot more.
So why does it fall apart at the end? Rose. It's no secret that I don't care for Rose that much but I always felt that she meshed fairly well with the Ninth Doctor. Her rough edges matched well with his more caustic personality. But in both episodes, Rose shows almost no redeeming characteristics. She is over the top in her amusement on The Weakest Link until the reality of the situation dawns on her. She also is the only one who does nothing to help herself. Both Jack and the Doctor are able to get themselves out of their situations so she feels bit a useless in Bad Wolf.
It is The Parting of the Ways that exacerbates things though. The focus of the story leaves the Doctor once he sends Rose away, in what is an excellent bit of acting by the Doctor. Once she is back though, while I appreciate her passion to get back to the Doctor, her methods are annoying to me. She is openly insulting to Mickey, noting that her exposure to the Doctor has left her unable to live a normal life the way they do. It is the most condescending attitude for going back to rescue a person one could imagine. It becomes all about her, which is precisely why I don't like Rose.
Even her scene with Jackie should have been more touching. But instead it becomes this angry event, with Rose forcing Jackie to accept the reality as she and the Doctor changed it. I still fail to see how the acceptance that Rose was at her father's side when he died equates with helping to get back to the Doctor. Yes, helping is the right thing to do and Pete would have advocated for that, but almost nothing Rose has done has emphasized that point. It is still all about what she wants.
As far as the climax with her becoming god-like to destroy the Daleks and then the kiss, I don't have a problem with the idea, but the execution fell short. In this, I have to place most of the blame on Billie Piper. Her acting was not up to the challenge of what that scene required. When you see her do a flash of Bad Wolf as the Moment in The Day of the Doctor, you can see how much she has grown as an actress and the fear and power of that comes across much better. In this scene though, it just feels silly.
It doesn't help that Christopher Eccleston also falls short here. His reactions seem overplayed as well. Only the Dalek Emperor seems to be where he needs to be in terms of the reaction. I also thought the kiss was over the top but they were playing the romance angle (something I never saw) between the Ninth Doctor and Rose so that is expected, if also unwelcome.
I thought the regeneration scene was done fairly well, although I wish the Doctor hadn't been quite so jokey before it. I don't mean that I think he should have been tragic and mopey the way the Tenth Doctor was, but his almost maniacal grin right near the end seemed more creepy than anything else. It's almost a relief to get to the Tenth Doctor at the end.
In the end, it was a high that fell to an average. Not as bad as the drop off from other finales but no where near what could have been achieved. I think if Rose had shown even some humility and selflessness in her quest to rejoin the Doctor and if the director had been able to coax the actors to a bit more gravity in the Deus ex Machina scene, the second episode would have had a lot less fall off. I think this story is still quite enjoyable and a must when revisiting the Ninth Doctor, but it's less than what it could have been due to the way things wrapped up.
Overall personal score: Bad Wolf - 4.5 out of 5; The Parting of the Ways - 2.5 out of 5
The final adventure of the Ninth Doctor, the culmination of the "Bad Wolf" subplot and the full return of the Daleks. RTD has a reputation for putting together excellent set ups in the penultimate episode and then letting things go out with a whimper in the finale. Does that hold true in his first finale and the end of the Ninth Doctor?
Plot Summary
One hundred years after the events of The Long Game, the Doctor, Rose and Jack wake to find themselves on futuristic versions of 21st century game shows being broadcast from the Game Station (formally Satellite 5). The Doctor is in Big Brother, Rose The Weakest Link and Jack What Not to Wear. The Doctor and Rose are confused and rather nonchalant in each of their shows until they witness other contestants incinerated after failing a level.
The Doctor breaks a camera in the house, causing his immediate eviction. However, his life is spared as the program is overwritten. He leaves the house to the station proper with another contestant, Lynda. Meanwhile, Jack pulls out a gun when the two droids attempt to kill him and he destroys them. Fashioning himself a larger gun, he meets up with the Doctor on the lower floors. The Doctor discovers that when he destroyed the Jagrafess, he left the Earth without any information, causing the society to break down, leading to the dystopia that now exists.
Jack manages to locate Rose's signal and they burst into the game just as she has lost the final round of her game. She runs to the Doctor but the Anne Droid incinerates her. The Doctor, Jack and Lynda are arrested by station security and placed in a holding cell, but the trio overpowers the guards and heads up to the top floor. There they discover the station run by a few workers and a controller.
The station briefly shuts down as a solar flare passes by and the controller comes to herself. She reveals that she brought the Doctor there to thwart the powers controlling her. She is unable to reveal that as the flare passes and the station comes back on-line. Jack discovers the TARDIS in a storage room nearby and using it, he discovers that Rose was not killed. All failed contestants are merely transmatted to a location just outside the solar system.
They discover that the location houses a cloaked Dalek fleet. Aware of their discovery, the Daleks transmat the controller and kill her. They then threaten to kill Rose unless the Doctor surrenders. He refuses and instead vows to rescue Rose and destroy the Daleks.
The Doctor and Jack take the TARDIS across the solar system and materialize it around Rose and her Dalek guard. Jack destroys the Dalek with his gun while the Doctor heads out of the TARDIS. Protected by a force field, the Daleks are unable to gun him down. The Emperor Dalek reveals himself to the Doctor, having survived the Time War. He has rebuilt the Daleks using cellular material from slaughtered humans. The Doctor also discovers that the Emperor Dalek has developed a god complex, infusing all other Daleks with both a religious devotion to him and a self-hatred at their impure state.
The Doctor takes the TARDIS back to the station where he begins to build a Delta-wave weapon that will fry the Daleks. Jack and the others head down to the first floor to recruit any former contestants to fight and buy the Doctor more time. Only a few do with Jack ordering the rest to stay quiet on the first floor.
Checking his readings, the Doctor discovers that he doesn't have enough time to create a weapon that will only kill Daleks. Instead it will kill both Daleks and humans. He tricks Rose into going into the TARDIS and then sending her back to her family where she is found by Mickey and her mother.
The Daleks arrive at the station and land five floors below the control room. One group of Daleks proceed upwards where they kill the defenders and blast through the defenses Jack had set up. Another group heads down to the first floor and kills all those who refused to fight and stayed below. The Daleks then reconnect and head to the last of the defenses.
Despite attempts to console and convince her, Rose refuses to accept being sent away. She sees more Bad Wolf signs and recognizes them as a symbol for her to help the Doctor. She decides to pry open the TARDIS console and look into the heart of the TARDIS as that would allow her to communicate with it telepathically. Mickey tries but his car doesn't have enough power.
Jackie tries to dissuade her but Rose refuses also forcing Jackie to realize that it was Rose who bent over Pete when he died. Jackie, realizing that it is the right thing to do, borrows a tow truck from a friend. She and Mickey help Rose pry open the TARDIS panel. Rose looks into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbs time energy directly from the vortex. The TARDIS then disappears as Jackie and Mickey look on.
The Daleks overrun the last of the defenses, killing both Lynda and Jack in route to the control room. As the Daleks enter, the Doctor finishes the delta wave weapon. The Dalek Emperor goads the Doctor to use it but faced with repeating the genocide he committed against his own people to stop the Daleks, the Doctor refuses to discharge the weapon.
As the Daleks move in for the kill, the TARDIS reappears and Rose emerges, full of the time vortex. She admits that she planted the Bad Wolf sign throughout time as a signal to herself. She then atomizes all of the Daleks and even brings Jack back to life. The time energy is killing her though and the Doctor takes her and sucks it out of her through a kiss, releasing most of the energy back into the TARDIS. He then carries an unconscious Rose into the TARDIS and takes off as Jack enters the room to see them go.
Rose wakes with almost no memory of what happened. The Doctor only reminds her of it a little, admitting that he had to absorb most of the time energy, which is now killing him. He comforts her that things will continue but that he must change. He then regenerates into the Tenth Doctor and offers to take her to the planet Barcelona.
Analysis
Taken as a whole, this story is pretty good. However, it does suffer from the typical RTD problem of having a really good set up and then petering out at the end. Some fans blame the literal "god out of the machine" ending but that didn't bother me that much. There were several issues that affected the end but I think the primary problem was that Bad Wolf was clearly focused on the Doctor while The Parting of the Ways focused on the companions, specifically Rose.
Throughout both stories, the Doctor was excellent. He was his caviler self at the beginning and then got serious as the scale of the problem reared its head. He was serious and focused, to a point that you could see how dangerous he could be. But at the end, the damaged Doctor who couldn't cope with inflicting large scale violence emerged. Even in Bad Wolf that is apparent as he casually hands off his gun to the people he's supposed to be threatening. It is funny and also a significantly Doctor-ish moment.
In fact, there is almost nothing not to like in Bad Wolf. The characters are engaging, there is humor but also a strong sense of danger. We also get a wonderful fake out with Rose apparently being killed. This is doubly effective because Lynda has asked to come with the Doctor and he is very open to it. It has the exact feel of an old companion being removed and being replaced by a new companion. You buy it, even to the point where Rose is revealed to still be alive as it is easy to imagine the Doctor's rescue of her failing and Lynda still moving on to be the new companion.
The reveal of the Daleks is also excellent. The preview at end of Boomtown spoiled the review for most people. But if you had been ignorant of that, the reveal was very well done. As Rose wakes up and classic fans instantly key on to the Dalek control room sound as it is the only noise. Even as the Daleks enter their reveal is slow. Rose pins herself against a wall as we view through a Dalek eyestalk, just like Barbara did in The Daleks. As others enter, they are shown in reflection and other oblique ways. It is not until they focus on talking to the Doctor that the full scope of the Daleks is made clear. The build is slow and very well done, giving a proper sense of fear that the Daleks deserve.
That fear pervades through the entire invasion. In the whole battle, the Daleks wipe the defenses with relative ease. Only four Daleks are shown to be destroyed or damaged in the entire attack and with multiple Daleks filling the room each time, the overrun is quick and efficient.
Of all the deaths, I found Lynda's to be the best and the most sad. She is trapped in a room waiting for the Daleks to burn their way in when three Daleks rise in front of the window. There is no sound but you see the lights of the Dalek flash and it's like reading lips to know that he is yelling "Exterminate". The window shatters and you don't hear Lynda scream as she is exposed to space. For having such little time, you got to know the character and enjoyed her company. That you started getting into the mindset of thinking of her as a companion also makes her death seem that much more tragic. Jack at least fought up to the end and even had a moment of defiance before being gunned down. It was a death worthy of the character and felt less tragic even though you know Jack a lot more.
So why does it fall apart at the end? Rose. It's no secret that I don't care for Rose that much but I always felt that she meshed fairly well with the Ninth Doctor. Her rough edges matched well with his more caustic personality. But in both episodes, Rose shows almost no redeeming characteristics. She is over the top in her amusement on The Weakest Link until the reality of the situation dawns on her. She also is the only one who does nothing to help herself. Both Jack and the Doctor are able to get themselves out of their situations so she feels bit a useless in Bad Wolf.
It is The Parting of the Ways that exacerbates things though. The focus of the story leaves the Doctor once he sends Rose away, in what is an excellent bit of acting by the Doctor. Once she is back though, while I appreciate her passion to get back to the Doctor, her methods are annoying to me. She is openly insulting to Mickey, noting that her exposure to the Doctor has left her unable to live a normal life the way they do. It is the most condescending attitude for going back to rescue a person one could imagine. It becomes all about her, which is precisely why I don't like Rose.
Even her scene with Jackie should have been more touching. But instead it becomes this angry event, with Rose forcing Jackie to accept the reality as she and the Doctor changed it. I still fail to see how the acceptance that Rose was at her father's side when he died equates with helping to get back to the Doctor. Yes, helping is the right thing to do and Pete would have advocated for that, but almost nothing Rose has done has emphasized that point. It is still all about what she wants.
As far as the climax with her becoming god-like to destroy the Daleks and then the kiss, I don't have a problem with the idea, but the execution fell short. In this, I have to place most of the blame on Billie Piper. Her acting was not up to the challenge of what that scene required. When you see her do a flash of Bad Wolf as the Moment in The Day of the Doctor, you can see how much she has grown as an actress and the fear and power of that comes across much better. In this scene though, it just feels silly.
It doesn't help that Christopher Eccleston also falls short here. His reactions seem overplayed as well. Only the Dalek Emperor seems to be where he needs to be in terms of the reaction. I also thought the kiss was over the top but they were playing the romance angle (something I never saw) between the Ninth Doctor and Rose so that is expected, if also unwelcome.
I thought the regeneration scene was done fairly well, although I wish the Doctor hadn't been quite so jokey before it. I don't mean that I think he should have been tragic and mopey the way the Tenth Doctor was, but his almost maniacal grin right near the end seemed more creepy than anything else. It's almost a relief to get to the Tenth Doctor at the end.
In the end, it was a high that fell to an average. Not as bad as the drop off from other finales but no where near what could have been achieved. I think if Rose had shown even some humility and selflessness in her quest to rejoin the Doctor and if the director had been able to coax the actors to a bit more gravity in the Deus ex Machina scene, the second episode would have had a lot less fall off. I think this story is still quite enjoyable and a must when revisiting the Ninth Doctor, but it's less than what it could have been due to the way things wrapped up.
Overall personal score: Bad Wolf - 4.5 out of 5; The Parting of the Ways - 2.5 out of 5
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Utopia
The Master... reborn!
Utopia is an excellent episode that starts a little off but improves greatly as it progresses. I don't know if I would think of it as the be all and end all that some fans give it, but it's still very, very good.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Martha land in Cardiff to refuel on the energy rift. Just as they are about to take-off again, Captain Jack throws himself on the TARDIS. In an attempt to throw him off, the TARDIS launches forward 100 Trillion years to the end of the universe. They land on a small planet where the remnants of humanity are gathering in an attempt to find a way to escape the heat death of the universe. Chased by mutants called the Futurekind, the group escapes to the base and are met by the chief scientist called Professor Yana. The Doctor assists the Professor and gets the rocket power source to work. However while preparing for take-off, a Futurekind that had snuck into the base sabotages the power source.
The Doctor and Jack head down to the radiation soaked reaction chamber. Jack, as a result of Rose bringing him back to life in The Parting of the Ways, cannot die and is able to work in the room without being damaged by the radiation. Meanwhile, Professor Yana is affected by all the talk of time travel and pulls out a fob watch to articulate his feelings about time. Martha recognizes it as the same type of fob watch that the Doctor used to become human in Human Nature/The Family of Blood. Martha runs down to tell the Doctor and as the rocket takes off, Professor Yana, illuminated by Martha's interest, opens the watch.
With the essence of the Master restored, Professor Yana shuts down the defenses of the base allowing the Futurekind in. He locks out the Doctor and mortally wounds his assistant Chantho. Before she dies, Chantho shoots the Master. He locks himself in the Doctor's TARDIS and regenerates into a younger form. With the Futurekind attempting to break in through the door, the Master disappears with the TARDIS, abandoning the Doctor and his companions in the far future.
Analysis
The episode begins on a bit of a sour note as the Futurekind look like a cheap Mad Max rip off. The chase of the Doctor and his companions (and one other human) is nothing special and it doesn't draw you in very much. However, once they are in the base and Derek Jacobi is given full sway, the whole tone of the episode changes. The characters become deeper and more interesting and that drives the story far more than the very simple plot.
The two best moments are when Jack and the Doctor are talking while Jack operates in the radiation soaked room and while Professor Yana loses himself in his embedded memories, trying to recall who he really is. Despite the tension being high in trying to get the rocket to launch, the Doctor and Jack have an interesting discussion about what happened to Jack, why the Doctor abandoned him, and how he realized what happened to him as he waited one hundred fifty years for the Doctor to arrive. It's a quiet moment where the Doctor and Jack just talk with no subterfuge or garbage between them. It's just an honest heart to heart talk that draws you in as you enjoy both of these characters.
Professor Yana's scene is just about the power of Derek Jacobi as an actor. Events build throughout the episode as little bits of Time Lord lore and phrasing are dropped but when the concept of traveling through time and space in the TARDIS is revealed, you can see the internal struggle going through Professor Yana. The slow burn of this development, including the reveal of the fob watch are done well and allow Jacobi to express everything through his face and hands. When he does speak, it only emphasizes what he is already expressing visually. The culmination where Professor Yana becomes the Master again is interwoven beautifully with the actions of the Doctor both to finish the launching of the rocket and then fashbacks to the Face of Boe's prediction that the Doctor is not alone. It holds you tightly and keeps you fully engaged the whole time.
The episode does sag a little bit after such a good build up and the Master in both his Professor Yana and Harold Saxon forms go a bit over the top. It's not bad, but it's a stark contrast that it can be a bit jolting and overuse would become grating. But it works well enough in this instance.
Overall, this is a very good episode. If I were more picky I'd dock it for the opening, but I can't justify that given how good the episode is after they are in the base. This is an easy one to go back to and watch again with just as much enjoyment as the first time you saw it.
Overall personal score: 5 out of 5
Utopia is an excellent episode that starts a little off but improves greatly as it progresses. I don't know if I would think of it as the be all and end all that some fans give it, but it's still very, very good.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Martha land in Cardiff to refuel on the energy rift. Just as they are about to take-off again, Captain Jack throws himself on the TARDIS. In an attempt to throw him off, the TARDIS launches forward 100 Trillion years to the end of the universe. They land on a small planet where the remnants of humanity are gathering in an attempt to find a way to escape the heat death of the universe. Chased by mutants called the Futurekind, the group escapes to the base and are met by the chief scientist called Professor Yana. The Doctor assists the Professor and gets the rocket power source to work. However while preparing for take-off, a Futurekind that had snuck into the base sabotages the power source.
The Doctor and Jack head down to the radiation soaked reaction chamber. Jack, as a result of Rose bringing him back to life in The Parting of the Ways, cannot die and is able to work in the room without being damaged by the radiation. Meanwhile, Professor Yana is affected by all the talk of time travel and pulls out a fob watch to articulate his feelings about time. Martha recognizes it as the same type of fob watch that the Doctor used to become human in Human Nature/The Family of Blood. Martha runs down to tell the Doctor and as the rocket takes off, Professor Yana, illuminated by Martha's interest, opens the watch.
With the essence of the Master restored, Professor Yana shuts down the defenses of the base allowing the Futurekind in. He locks out the Doctor and mortally wounds his assistant Chantho. Before she dies, Chantho shoots the Master. He locks himself in the Doctor's TARDIS and regenerates into a younger form. With the Futurekind attempting to break in through the door, the Master disappears with the TARDIS, abandoning the Doctor and his companions in the far future.
Analysis
The episode begins on a bit of a sour note as the Futurekind look like a cheap Mad Max rip off. The chase of the Doctor and his companions (and one other human) is nothing special and it doesn't draw you in very much. However, once they are in the base and Derek Jacobi is given full sway, the whole tone of the episode changes. The characters become deeper and more interesting and that drives the story far more than the very simple plot.
The two best moments are when Jack and the Doctor are talking while Jack operates in the radiation soaked room and while Professor Yana loses himself in his embedded memories, trying to recall who he really is. Despite the tension being high in trying to get the rocket to launch, the Doctor and Jack have an interesting discussion about what happened to Jack, why the Doctor abandoned him, and how he realized what happened to him as he waited one hundred fifty years for the Doctor to arrive. It's a quiet moment where the Doctor and Jack just talk with no subterfuge or garbage between them. It's just an honest heart to heart talk that draws you in as you enjoy both of these characters.
Professor Yana's scene is just about the power of Derek Jacobi as an actor. Events build throughout the episode as little bits of Time Lord lore and phrasing are dropped but when the concept of traveling through time and space in the TARDIS is revealed, you can see the internal struggle going through Professor Yana. The slow burn of this development, including the reveal of the fob watch are done well and allow Jacobi to express everything through his face and hands. When he does speak, it only emphasizes what he is already expressing visually. The culmination where Professor Yana becomes the Master again is interwoven beautifully with the actions of the Doctor both to finish the launching of the rocket and then fashbacks to the Face of Boe's prediction that the Doctor is not alone. It holds you tightly and keeps you fully engaged the whole time.
The episode does sag a little bit after such a good build up and the Master in both his Professor Yana and Harold Saxon forms go a bit over the top. It's not bad, but it's a stark contrast that it can be a bit jolting and overuse would become grating. But it works well enough in this instance.
Overall, this is a very good episode. If I were more picky I'd dock it for the opening, but I can't justify that given how good the episode is after they are in the base. This is an easy one to go back to and watch again with just as much enjoyment as the first time you saw it.
Overall personal score: 5 out of 5
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