Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Hail the Doctor, the Great Exterminator!

Rose: you should have learnt to fly the TARDIS. Yeah, I’m sure it’s unimaginably complex but there is a fast return switch on there somewhere and just think, if Rose had managed to pilot her way back, (or forwards, if you get what I mean,) then perhaps we wouldn’t have got that massive cop-out conclusion.

Don’t get me wrong though, I love Parting of the Ways. It makes no sense in the end but who cares? After 45 minutes of brilliant acting from the man who brought the Doctor to life for a new generation who could give a toss that the Bad Wolf message is redundant. I’d quote an old comment by Neil here, "How can that word suddenly trigger the realisation that the TARDIS can "travel in time" GASP! - or tell her that it has a fast-return switch. "Me here, Doctor there"”.

It typifies the series; Rose leaves the narrow world of chips and pizza and is inspired to save the world. Jack really comes into his own with the rousing speech, making the reports John Barrowman won’t feature in the next series all the worse.

It makes no sense in the end but who cares? After 45 minutes of brilliant acting from the man who brought the Doctor to life for a new generation who could give a toss that the Bad Wolf message is redundant.

Christopher Ecclestone has never been better as the Doctor, from start to finish it’s spot on and every emotion comes across clearly. Depending on which part of Rose you pay attention to,(the pictures of him through different ages or his self-examination in a mirror) this Doctor has spent his whole time with Rose and I am totally sold on the kiss. The entire series almost builds up to it and although watching it with the parents was a tad excruciating, (“the Doctor never did that in my day,”) and then derogatory comments from friends, (“he’s got such massive ears!” and “well, she’s fancied him from the start”) it was entirely appropriate. After the innuendo- overload of the past few weeks you’d have thought one kiss, (OK, maybe four) wouldn’t alarm anyone.

The Ninth Doctor’s final farewell to Rose is another example of the way the entire series is presented, Rose representing the new fans who might not know about this regeneration lark and are as confused by his talk of “changing” as Rose clearly is.

A brilliant episode and a fantastic close to Christopher Ecclestone's reign. I would pick out my favourite bits but they’re exactly the same as everybody else’s; hologram, lip-reading Daleks etc. All I can add is that if the next series is as good as this one there could be no doubt as to the programme’s future. My own enjoyment has been greatly increased by this site: it’s been a pleasure reading your reactions and I’m looking forward to the new Doctor and a new year of reviews.

"You are the heathen"

Okay, first of all - CLICK ME. And now, with that out of the way...

I was a little scared when I sat down to watch Bad Wolf. The previous episode had been one of the series' low points (for me at least) and I hate both Reality TV and Quiz Shows, so the forcast didn't look so hot. Thankfully 45 minutes later I was rivited and couldn't wait for the conclusion. So what was good about it? Hell, what WASN'T? There was Christopher Eccleston at his best (IE: When being dead serious), Rose dying... and then getting better, Captain Jack being... well, JACK, and Russell T Davies makes up for the dissapointing Boom Town.

The scripting is superb - full marks all round. It was only on this rewatch that I noticed that "I'm coming to get you" was re-used at the end of the episode. I miss things like this a lot. Anyway. Lynda was indeed sweet but she wouldn't have made it as a companion. I knew Rose would be in series 2 so her 'death' wasn't all that shocking but the Doctor's reaction... beautiful. There's so much to like here. And then there's the Daleks... Some wonderful intros, any one of which would have been enough. But when the big reveal came about... edge of the seat stuff, I can tell you.

And then came Parting of the Ways, which is what I call both episodes. (The same way I call the Slitheen 2-parter 'Aliens in London' and the WW2 one 'The Empty Child') What can I say? Pure perfection in an episode. If the new series is even half this good, I'll be wondering why it isn't twice as good. For me, this episode has three stand out moments:

- That moment when we lip-read Daleks
- The really touching hologram message
- "Maybe it's time."

I can't really say much more then that. One of, if not the best episode of the 27th series. Looking forward to the 28th.

This must be the place I waited years to leave

No preamble tonight. You know why you’re here; I know why I’m here: sixteen years, countless dashed hopes and false dawns, all coming down to forty-five minutes of television that makes all the love and the pain worthwhile.

So, without further ado…

Twenty-five things to love about ‘The Parting of the Ways’

1. The TARDIS materialising around Rose and the Dalek. Surely the most breathtaking, inspired rescue in the show’s history.

2. ‘Doesn’t it just burn when you face me’: the series' two biggest icons face off one last time; and never has it been more personal. A war-haunted Doctor versus religious fundamentalist Daleks with the whole of creation at stake: about as resonant a parable for modern times that a new Who could have given us.

3. The Doctor bowing his head against the TARDIS doors as Daleks bay for his blood outside.

4. Rose’s (several) filthy looks to Lynda-with-a-y.

5. ‘Rose, you are worth fighting for’. And the fact that had Jack not kissed the Doctor as well then somehow it wouldn’t have felt right.

6. Speaking of kisses, how about the one no-one ever mentions. The Doctor - realising that the Delta Wave will destroy everything, not just Daleks - caps his cock’n’bull cover story about crossing his own time stream by kissing Rose on the forehead goodbye.

7. And of course the sad, wistful look he gives his oldest friend as it dematerialises one last time.

8. The hologram. Do I really need to explain this one?

9. Oh, go on then. The dying words that this particular Who fan hopes to one day give: ‘Have a good life. Do that for me - have a fantastic life’.

10. And still on the hologram, anyone else read that line about ‘Let this old box gather dust’ as RTD’s lament to the old show; seemingly neglected and forgotten until he came along? Okay, just me then…

11. Chips and Pizza: Rose’s impassioned defence of the Doctor’s way of life and what separates him from the rest of us.

12. Daleks - thousands of them - flying through space: the pages of TV Comic at last come alive.

14. The words ‘Bad Wolf’ surrounding Rose in the playground.

15. Two people - knowing they’re about to die - talk about going for a drink together.

16. The Ninth Doctor: a hero who’s heroic for making other people want to become heroes.

17. Lynda’s death by vacuum-silenced Daleks.

18. ‘Last Man Standing’: Jack’s defiant death and the coolest last line ever.

19. ‘Coward, any day’: closure at last for this Doctor as he’s unable to pull the kill-switch a second time.

20. ‘Maybe it’s time’: had there been no second series commissioned, maybe here would have been as good a place to end it all as any.

21. The TARDIS-drunk Rose deflecting Dalek rays.

22. How the regeneration renders the season - and the Ninth Doctor’s era - perfectly complete.

23. Tennant’s teeth and indie-boy shtick.

24. ‘Doctor Who will return in ‘The Christmas Invasion’. James Bond eat-your-heart-out.

25. Six months later and five days to go.

And lastly I’d like to say what a pleasure it’s been sharing these last three months with you all again. And thanks, as always, to Neil for letting us share the Trip of a Lifetime…

See you on Boxing Day.

(‘The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about ‘The Parting of the Ways’: the tow-truck hired for this episode was paid for by the hour, not the day (titbit courtesy of Andrew Pixley)).

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

"Small beautiful events". Too right you are, Sean. And what a perfect excuse to employ some bullet points in lieu of any coherent thoughts:

• The TARDIS collides with a couple of dalek missiles and we're only 90 seconds into the episode!
• The TARDIS materialises around Rose and her dalek captor - a punch the air moment if ever I saw one
• The Doctor's front drops as he leans mournfully against the doors to the TARDIS as hundreds of daleks scream for his blood outside - chilling stuff
• Rose realising that she can never go back to her normal life even if they do serve coleslaw at that new pizza place
• Mickey finally getting the bloody message
• The realisation that we can all lip-read daleks
• Jack's last-man standing routine - and he gets the best "last line" ever
• The daleks do daleky things - like mowing down rooms full of innocent civilians, complaining about their eye-stalks and waiting until the last possible moment until they shoot anyone (which I like to read as spiteful rather than stupid). And to quote Damon - there's "fausands of em"
• the Doctor has to confront what is ostensibly a rubber monster with one eye in a tank - it's still Doctor Who!
• two (count 'em) heart-wrenching goodbyes
• the best closing and opening lines from any of the Doctors. Period.

Just one of those moments cropping up in a single season would have been enough, let alone a single episode. Were we spoilt rotten, or what?

So yes, there are some wonderful, iconic moments to savour. It's just a shame about the plot.

We're supposed to be in the year 200,100. Now Jack is from the 51st century - where they appear to time travel for a living and they wear fancy digital guns - and that sounds pretty futuristic to me. But then we have to believe that this is set in the 2000th century! Where they still watch Big Brother and use machine guns! I mean, f**k-a-bout!

I don't think I'll ever get my head around that. Does it also mean that when the daleks fell through time after the Time War they fell forward? That would actually make a modicum of sense, but the whole thing is one big head-f**k when you start to think about it. So I don't. I'll have to leave it to someone like Lance Parkin to sort out.

Speaking of head-f***ks (my head - it's killing me!) I  loved the promise behind the whole Bad Wolf concept. Even though it's ultimately a crushing disappointment (is anyone entirely happy with it?) I still enjoyed the initial premise. I even guessed it was Rose and the TARDIS on several occasions so various elements must have made sense at some point...

But the explanation that we finally get is just silly. How do the words Bad Wolf help Rose? Do they remind her that the TARDIS can travel in time? Doh! If she'd somehow figured out that she sent the message to herself from the future, ergo she must get back somehow, then I could just about buy it, but she doesn't.

And she scatters the words through time and space so badly too. She isn't anywhere near the Moxx of Balhoon when he says it, we never see her reaction to the TARDIS graffiti, she can't hear the call-sign in Dalek, she was kinda distracted by her Dad dying to notice an invitation to a rave, and the bomb fuselage was written in a completely different language! For a super omnipotent being she wasn't much cop, was she?

She would have been better off depositing leaflets for tow-truck hire firms through time and space.

Bad Wolf? Bad Russell!

Adam as the King of the Daleks in league with the Face of Boe and Van Statten's brain in a tank would have been more entertaining than the blatant Buffy the Vampire Slayer riffing we got instead. But what do I know?

I'm a fairly hard-core Doctor Who aficionado and I couldn't tell you what happened in the last five minutes, even after repeated viewings. What hope do the general public have?

But I don't really care. I still loved every last damn minute of this show. Even the kisses. Hell, even the bit when little Miss Nuremberg gave that cheesy wink I was willing to shrug it off, because while this wasn't the best episode of Doctor Who ever, it was certainly the most epic.

Some people have complained that the regeneration is tacked on but I don't see it like that. The whole episode feels doom-laden to me, and it's not just because we know what's going to happen (thanks Radio Times). There's that desperate image of Doctor leaning against the TARDIS door in defeat, the fact that he sends Rose away because he is in fatal danger, the fact that he prepares to give himself over to the Daleks - it all leads to the final sacrifice. He knows he's going to die as soon as he kisses her. I almost believe this really was planned from the start. It certainly wasn't just five minutes tagged onto the end.

The regeneration itself is perfect, and quite different from what I expected. The Doctor saves the life of his companion (no accidental head bangs here!), and he even manages to say goodbye properly for a change. He's even standing up! And that last line, that last grin, that last moment of acceptance. It was off the hook, mate.

And no amnesia! Thank god for that!

There's going to be a whacking great hole in my life when Saturday comes. Who's up for watching Rose at 7pm? ;-)

I was going to summarise my feelings on the season as a whole at this point but I think I'll save that for my final post instead.

The Imparting of the Hayes

Daleks.

Thousands of ‘em.

Don’t shoot ‘til you see the whites of their eyes, lads!

Charlie Catchpole, TV reviewer for the Daily Express, claimed to have been reminded of the film Zulu when watching the stand-off against the invading pepperpots in this episode, and you can see his point. I’ve always been a sucker for any kind of fiction involving brave, desperate stands of the few against the many, and The Parting of the Ways is a wonderful example of such against-the-odds, backs-to-the-wall heroics. It was the story the character of Captain Jack Harkness was pretty much invented for, and he’s again wonderfully played by John Barrowman here. Poor old Jack certainly gets put through the mill – exterminated, resurrected and then left behind, it’s nonetheless comforting to know that the charismatic Captain will be back sometime in the next series.

As for the Daleks themselves… Oh yes! Would you guess there were only three of them? I certainly couldn’t see the joins, and we’ve definitely come a long way from the days of blown-up cardboard cut-outs standing in for invading Dalek armies. When I wrote a review of Dalek for this website, I commented on how I preferred to see the metal meanies as the hard-arsed bastards of the universe exterminating everything in sight, and as if realising that we’d want a bit of that after the emotions of the earlier one-Dalek episode, Davies delivers here in spades. Thousands of ships, hundreds of invading Daleks, a massacre of innocent humans, and the killing-off of supporting characters who, although it was always fairly obvious they were going to end up as Dalek-fodder, we were cleverly made to care about anyway. I felt particularly sorry for poor old Lynda ‘with a y’ – as soon as the Doctor promised her last week that he’d get her out of there alive, you knew she was destined for extermination. And what an extermination – surely one of the best-executed (excuse the pun) death scenes in the entire series, as the Daleks float menacingly up outside window in the silence of space, the lights flashing out ‘Exterminate!’ as they blast the glass and send poor, sweet little Lynda out into the airless vacuum of space. (Explosive decompression not shown, probably just as well…)

Being churlish, you can point out that TARDIS-powered Bad Wolf Rose was being a bit of a bitch not to resurrect Lynda – and indeed, everybody else – at the same time as bringing Jack back from the dead, although Rose’s jealous glances in Lynda’s direction made it quite clear what she thought about the other woman’s attitude towards the Doctor. Meow!

That whole resolution to the Bad Wolf mystery managed to be pulled off without leaving a sense of anti-climax or underwhelming, which was a big relief, although it was a little confusing in places – was the Bad Wolf Rose, or the TARDIS speaking through Rose? Or was it supposed to be deliberately ambiguous? Probably the latter. Whichever it was, Piper played the possessed Rose wonderfully, the extra elocution added to her speech for this scene marking her out as different just as much as the fancy CGI around her did!

It was the neat trick of the Doctor’s to have sent Rose back home, out of the way of the massacre – you really got a sense of Rose’s raw anguish and frustration at being sent back by her friend, and her grief at not being able to help him. Mickey and Jackie ought to have seemed shoe-horned into the episode, given that their scenes were such a contrast to everything else going on, but they actually worked rather well, and it was nice to get a sense of conclusion to their relationships to the Doctor and Rose, for this season at least.

Joe Ahearne continues the high standard of direction he’s set out in the rest of his episodes, ably supported as ever by the wonderful design and production departments of BBC Wales and everyone else working on the series. The only visual element I felt slightly disappointed in was the Dalek Emperor – the design just didn’t seem particularly distinct or iconic to me, although the close-ups of the actual mutant Dalek creature inside itself when it was speaking were effective. The concept of the Dalek God and the other Daleks getting some kind of religion was interesting, although perhaps it was an element too much for Davies’s script to fully support as there wasn’t much time to explore it, and it might have been better left as the focus of an episode all to itself. Perhaps in the future – after all, although they won’t be in the second season (probably – I hope not anyway, best leave them for a bit so their appearances always remain special), it’s impossible to believe we won’t be seeing them return every two or three years for as long as the new series continues to be a success.

Now, the kiss. Or to be more accurate, the kisses – for the Doctor gets friendly with both of his companions in this episode, something which has proven to be red rags to bulls with Doctor Who fandom in the past. I had no problems whatsoever with the Jack kiss – it was a funny, almost touching little moment as the Captain said goodbye to his friends, and it was amusing to see the Doctor taken rather by surprise. The Rose kiss I was much less keen on – I thought it was overly sentimental and mawkish and the episode could have done without it, but when most of the rest of the episode is so good it can just about be forgiven. In any case, it’s not the sort of detail I’m going to be losing any sleep over.

It can be taken, I suppose, as a kiss goodbye, as of course one of the main features of the episode is that it brings the curtain down on the all-too-brief era of Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. This is a great shame – even if it was planned this way from the outset, as Davies and Gardner have claimed, it’s still a pity because Eccleston really is wonderful in the part, both in this episode in particular and throughout the rest of the season. He’ll be remembered fondly by both fans and the general audience alike, although his one season stint means it is sadly unlikely that he’ll become as deeply buried in the popular consciousness as some of his predecessors.

Nonetheless, that’s the situation, and it was always going to be intriguing to see how the death of the Ninth Doctor would be dealt with. Unlike Logopolis or The Caves of Androzani, The Parting of the Ways – in spite of its title – never really feels like a doom-laden story where everything is building up to the regeneration at the end. Yes, there’s a great deal of death and destruction as well as of course the impending threat of Dalek invasion, but it never surrounds the Doctor as much as it seems to do in those other stories.

That said, however, the regeneration doesn’t feel at all tacked-on or periphery – it may not have been the focus of the entire episode, but when it comes to it the sequence really packs a punch. Perhaps because of the special bond that’s developed between the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, there really is an atmosphere of tragedy to this change – which seems more like a death than perhaps any other regeneration since the first. The Doctor’s sad reflection that he in his ninth form will never see Rose again really brings home the idea that even though each Doctor has the same memories and the same basic ethos driving him, he’s never quite the same person as he was before. How Rose – and indeed the production team behind the scenes – deals with this change and its impact on both the audience and the dynamic of the Doctor-companion relationship will be fascinating factors to follow over the next year or so.

In the few seconds we get of him at the end of the episode it is of course impossible and unfair to make any judgements at all about David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. The one factor which perhaps can be commented on in passing is the perhaps surprising choice of accent – the same English pronunciation Tennant employed for his starring role as the eponymous hero of Russell T Davies’ Casanova, rather than his own native Scottish tones as many – including this reviewer – had expected. The reasons for this will become clear with time, and however he speaks one thing is clear – Tennant is a fine actor, and I very much look forward to seeing what he does in the role he has perhaps been destined for for some time.

Roll on The Christmas Invasion, and the continuation of the fine new era of Doctor Who that the past thirteen weeks have introduced us to.

The Emperor's New Clothes...

...and he's got a new bucket of cerebrospinal fluid for his brain parts too. He's also got the regulation bling make-over and is looking every bit as important. He's also embarking on a Jamie's School Dinners exercise and filleting humans and creating Tellurian Twizzlers. But the Daleks are half-human. Sort of. Is someone trying to usurp Matthew Jacob's crown for dumb-assed lines?

Satellite 5's license was suspended cos they stopped broadcasting wall to wall reality game shows. Should ITV manage to achieve the same result then there would be a national outpouring of gratitude.

Capt'n Jack's tongue finally sees some action. The "gay" kiss isn't the first for Doctor Who, Tachyon TV broke that exclusive news some months ago, but it's nicely done. I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that will ensure following that scene. I guess that the people who'll have a problem with the Doc kissing a girl will be exploding, at periodic intervals over the next week, at the sight of him getting a snog from a man.

Doctor offers to take Rose to Marbella to escape all this death and destruction. And with talk of a visit to the planet Barcelona what's the betting that the Doctor's ship takes on a garish orange livery for the next series and has the phrase easyTARDIS emblazoned down all four sides. And with the current fashion for sexual innuendo that phrase could have a double meaning. A dimensionally transcendental knocking shop, anyone? Emergency Program 1. A holographic Doctor. Where have we seen that before? It's all a little George Lucas. I was half expecting a cheesy swipe transition to take us into the next scene.

And whilst the world of the future burns, the chickens turn. Shock whilst you learn that the pizza place on Mintner Road sells pizzas. And the fact that the cafe they're sitting in has gone up market and has started selling coleslaw. But it tastes clinical. Perhaps that's the repeating theme for next year's series, aliens who are attempting to infiltrate the galaxy through the provision of tainted 'slaw. Either that or it's got something to do with chickens. That's the second time we've had poultry mentioned, to my recollection.

When the Daleks are spewing from the Emperor's ship I swear that there's the flash and the click of a speed camera as one Dalek flies past. Perhaps Daleks are behind the technology used by police forces up and down the land. Unless it's the other way around and Davros was in fact a lowly desk Sergeant who was frequently overlooked for promotion and took his revenge in planning the creation of a deadly race of mutants who could seize control over the entire Universe and give him what he always wanted, to become a Detective Inspector who doesn't play by the rules and is seen as a bit of a maverick. Teamed up with a wet behind the ears side-kick he solves crime after crime in the sleepy little crime-ridden hamlet of......

I think I can get my head around the Bad Wolf repeated meme explanation. It's kind of a game of Countdown throughout space and time, with Carol Voderman playing the important part of the TARDIS (with the rest of the TARDIS being played by versatile character actor and the only voice you ever hear on Radio 4 Martin Jarvis). So all the messages were leading Rose to rip apart the TARDIS console with a 24 Hour coach works rescue vehicle.

I thought that things were building nicely up to another classic Genesis of the Daleks moment, "Hail the Doctor, the Great Exterminator", and I suppose it does in its way. Back then the Doctor chickened out (poultry again) only to regret it and try to return to finish the job. But here the Doctor freely admits to preferring to be a coward.

Now, let me see, is there something I've forgotten...? Oh yes, there was a regeneration tacked onto the end.

I think it was fairly criminal how the regeneration was all but thrown away. I thought that the entire series was building up to this but all we get is a little trembling hand, a look of worry from the Doctor and in a flash, some other bloke. How much better it might have been if there was no explanation about what was happening, if Rose didn't witness it and she came too in the TARDIS with some strange bloke standing there in the Doctor's clothes. Yes it might have been a little too Time and the Rani but it would have allowed the audience to wonder what the hell had just happened along with Rose.

Above all it was the ending that made me go back and view the episode again before I could make my mind up about it. I was left fairly non-plused by it all first time round. But having seen it again I think I can just about live with what happened in the last few minutes in the TARDIS. Everything before that was first class.

Well, that's that. Closing statements to follow when I've got a moment...

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

‘For some people, small, beautiful events is what life is all about’

Like the Fifth Doctor, us Who fans have a limitless capacity to take comfort in the little things in life. A line, a scene, even a look has been enough to lift the most mundane of stories into the echelons of greatness; and even the worst into a state of near respectability. And let’s face it, there’s been plenty of occasions in our respective fan lives when we’ve all been hard pressed to sort the wheat from the chaff. Being a Doctor Who fan comes with a high price: the thought of ridicule from the non-believers; the suggestion that the devotion to a ‘children’s show’ may not be the most noble pursuit for someone entering their fourth decade; and of course the endless jibes about corridors, stairs and hiding behind the bloody sofa.

So, one may ask, why do we bother? If the price of such devotion is social exclusion, why do we cling on to this little show that first grabbed us by the imaginations all those years ago, and refused to let go?

Why? Because sometimes - not often, but sometimes - it transcends all those notions of childishness and embarrassment, to become something truly magical. And just as the love of a good woman inspired the Jack Nicholson character in As Good As It Gets, the titular character’s example ‘makes you want to be a better man‘. Because the Doctor doesn’t just inspire his companions and everyone else he comes into contact with to find ‘a better way of living your life’; he does it to the viewer as well. He’s been doing it to me ever since I first sat on my mother’s lap all those years ago. And three decades on, he’s still doing it now.

There’s a lot wrong with this finale episode, not least the fact that - given the hype both on-screen and off - there was an awful lot of expectation riding on its coat-tails. We were promised an epic Dalek space battle, the like of which we’ve never seen outside of our collective imaginations. There was the whole resolution to the season-long arc of the Time War, not to mention the revelation of ‘Bad Wolf’. And of course, thanks to the careless knee-jerk reaction of a BBC press officer last March, there was the knowledge that this was the Ninth Doctor’s last stand. And the prospect of a tiny glimpse at his replacement. So given there was all this to achieve - not to mention tell a cohesive, entertaining story to boot - in the scant time of forty-five minutes, the question to be asked first is: did it do it?

And the answer is yes, but only just. As I say, there’s a lot wrong with ‘The Parting of the Ways’: to begin with, there’s a disappointing reliance on technobabble (something which this series has gamely avoided on the whole) in order to push the plot along. Both the delta wave and Rose’s TARDIS-aided final resolution smack of the kind of ‘deus-ex-machina’ storytelling that Russell T Davies professes to detest. While the whole subplot of Rose’s enforced return to her domestic life of drudgery seems, at first glance, to be filler material of the lowest order. But if you’re still with me, here’s where that ‘small, beautiful events’ quote comes running to the rescue, because ‘The Parting of the Ways’ is absolutely chock-full of them. I warned fellow posters on Saturday that I had a gut feeling this was gonna be a triple-hanky event for the hardcore. I was wrong. Three hankies wouldn’t even have covered the first half-hour.

But let’s leave that for later, shall we. First off, how about that breath-taking TARD|S materialisation around Rose and the Dalek (as inspired rescues go, that’s about a 10). Or how, for once, Eccleston’s levity in the face of his deadliest enemy acts as a perfect counterpoint to the graveyard seriousness of this finale’s overall tone. The Doctor’s always whistled-in-the-dark as a means to unsettling his nemeses; the fact he’s now doing the equivalent of a one-man-band solo simply underlines how far the bar has been raised for this incarnation. Remember the ‘Trip of a Lifetime’ tag that ran with those exhilarating trailers from early March? It was only recently that I realised that they weren’t addressed to us, but to the Doctor himself. Because if, like me, you subscribe to the theory that Eccleston was indeed only ever meant for the one series, then ‘Trip of a Lifetime’ makes absolute perfect sense. This Doctor’s been running out of time since the day we first met him; a man forever chained to the weight of his past. And if Peter Davison’s vulnerable reinterpretation of the role twenty-five years ago rewrote the rule book following Baker T’s near super-heroics, then Eccleston has taken that and added to it a thousand-fold. Making the Ninth Doctor the most tortured, victimised and downright believable incarnation of the lot.

You know the saying, ‘Talent borrows, Genius steals’. Well, on the evidence of how much ‘The Parting of the Ways’ pays homage to a certain Joss Whedon’s own little show about a butt-kicking vampire slayer, then Russell T Davies must be a genius bordering on the autistic. We’ve know his love for Buffy ever since his first mooted plans for our beloved show, but it’s only now we know how much; as this particular finale is all but covered in the inspirational fingerprints of Whedon’s show. From the global-Armageddon nature of the plot, to how even in the midst of death secondary characters find time to talk about going for a drink, to that startling shot of a TARDIS-drunk Rose raised to the level of Godhood, ‘The Parting of the Ways’ is a Buffy-style season finale par-excellence.

Time now to stop for a moment and consider what just doesn’t work. We’ve already mentioned the technobabble and the convoluted filler material of Rose’s return home. Actually, perhaps I’m being disingenuous here. That whole café scene alone acts as a perfect counterpoint to the mayhem occurring 200,100 years in the future. As the Doctor and a bunch of uselessly brave individuals are giving their lives for what they believe in, Mickey and Jackie are munching chips, and filling Rose in on the latest pizza place that has opened on the precinct. I’ve not exactly been unforthcoming in saying what totally superfluous, irritating and time-wasting characters Rose’s sometime boyfriend and strumpet mother have been to me. But here, the fact they are so mundane and pointless makes absolute sense, for this is Rose finally, irrevocably cutting her ties with her previous life. And that fact that, useless as they are, Mickey and Jackie still make a crucial contribution to saving mankind says as much to me about the uniqueness of Doctor Who as anything else…

Okay, then there’s ‘Bad Wolf’. Sorry, it just doesn’t cut the mustard with me. Credit to Davies et al for not going down the expected route (the Master, Davros, bloody Adam, for God’s sake) but it’s just too rushed and convenient to hold up. And smacks of the production team choosing the least likely option simply as a means of keeping everyone off the trail. At the end of the day, such a predictably limp conclusion to this thread won’t spoil things for me, as given that only the hardcore seemed to take any notice of the references - at least up until ‘Boom Town’, anyway - then the sheer emotional power of these forty-five minutes are hardly going to be spoiled as a result.

Triple-hanky time? Not quite yet. Let’s have a few words about our regulars, shall we. First up, John Barrowman. God, I’ve loved Captain Jack (and no - though I’m sure it’s to his disappointment - not in that way). Cool, sexy and just yet another character who finds his life improved by meeting the Doctor. Barrowman is outstanding throughout the finale - right from his Che Guevara-style rabble-rousing of a makeshift army, to the brave, defiant look on his face (accompanied by one, final quip) as he’s exterminated. And as for the kiss, well besides how perfectly apt it was - being neither sexual nor gratuitous - I can’t help but smirk at the thought of all those Daily Mail readers choking over their cups of tea, before penning their ‘outraged of Tunbridge Wells’ letters to the BBC. As bigot-baiting moments go, it’s just about perfect. And my only message to those offended would be to suggest they take their heads out of the same place Captain Jack hides his laser gun, and start living in the 21^st Century.

Eccleston? Well, we run the full gamut between buffoonery and brilliance here. And I genuinely believe we’ve witnessed the most bold, brave reinvention of the lead character yet. There’s something very Stephen Baxter to the Ninth Doctor, as the Doctor has a quiet air of resignation throughout that echoes The Second Coming’s reluctant Messiah (both his ‘Maybe it’s time’ reaction to the prospect of extermination and the closed eyes are very Baxterian moments). But arguably Eccleston’s finest moment here - perhaps even of the entire series - is the sad, wistful look he gives the TARDIS when he knows he’ll never see her again. It’s a real lump-in-the throat moment that barely even registers given the even more emotive moments to follow.

And last - and anything but least - is Billie Piper. Now, I’m going to say something that may outrage many. But Billie Piper is - without doubt - the best companion Doctor Who has ever had. And this is no offence to the Lis Sladens and Katy Mannings and Sophie Aldreds of the Whoniverse. Because they made silk purses out of the relative sow’s ears of poor scripts and character development. So should they remain untouchable? No, because Billie Piper’s performance throughout this year - coupled with the most character-led, emotive scripts the show’s ever had - has allowed her to show just how good Sarah-Jane, Jo Grant and Ace could have been. This does not besmirch their efforts, it just highlights how putting a real, flesh-and-blood character on screen is a two-way process. Something which the combination of Piper’s now undoubted talents and the writing team’s skill has, at last for this show, irrefutably done.

But what raises ‘The Parting of the Ways’ above its - occasionally disappointing - disparate parts is how, despite the epic story it professes to tell, this is at heart a very Doctor Who story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It’s not about the sight of sweeping Dalek fleets or Daleks flying through space (as impressive as these sights are) but about a handful of brave, resourceful people making a stand for what they believe in. And it’s a story in which good people die, simply because that’s how bad life can get at times. While the arresting visuals of Joe Ahearne’s direction continue to take your breath away - God-Rose deflecting the Daleks’ rays and disintegrating their number one-by-one, or Lynda’s death at the hands of vacuum-silenced Daleks - at heart it’s those small, beautiful events that stand out most. Which brings us to…

Okay, I admit it. I blubbed. I may even have wailed first time, had the company not been so nonchalant to proceedings. And we’re not just talking the regeneration here. I welled up when the Doctor’s pre-recorded message urged Rose to ‘have a fantastic life’; I positively cried when Rose revealed to her mum how she’d met her dead Dad (underlining, as if it be needed, just what a positive effect the Doctor is on all our lives - characters and viewers alike). And I simply lost it when Eccleston gasped his last, in what was remarkably the most uplifting death scene I think I’ve ever seen. And again, how very Stephen Baxter of the Ninth Doctor to just accept his fate, putting others before himself and finishing with his head thrown back. The fact that what followed was arguably the best introductory dialogue for a Doctor yet was merely the icing on the cake.

So, thank you Russell T Davies for proving that my child-like faith wasn’t unfounded. These past thirteen weeks have hardly been perfect, but the good far outweighs the bad; much as they did in this episode, and arguably much as they do at the heart of Doctor Who as a whole. And it’s reassuring to know - forty-two years gone and God knows how many years still to come - that the small, beautiful events of Doctor Who are as prevalent now as they ever were.

Bless him.

"The fans are going to hate this ..."

I've said this a few times during the series and and I said it again tonight.  It's an odd thing to say since it suggests I'm not a fan, but I really am.  I have two shelving units filled with videos, dvds, cds and books graphically demonstrating this.  But what I think it means is the hardcores.  The ones who consider themselves the self appointed rulers of what's right and wrong in the series.  Those who decried the brilliantly romantic moment at the end of the TV movie, the loss of the half hour episodic format, the casting of Billie Piper.  What Russell T Davies has done throughout this series is largely and cleverly ignored what they think.  To play to them would be to return to the series we were stuck with during the mid-Eighties when continuity was slowly throttling good story telling.  Tonight's episode exemplified the Davies approach.  Produced something which plays to the fans but also creates new fans.  Tosses out the continuity without disregarding it. 

But he also did something else.  He gave it heart.  I was always afraid that if you threw money at the premise it wouldn't work, that it wouldn't be the same.  Thank god I was so wrong, and so right.  The Parting of the Ways looked like a feature film, told an big epic global, galactic story but at its heart was a story of people, loyalty, morality and lord help us, religion.  It didn't dump the essential elements while it was throwing thousands of Daleks at the screen.  Davies did everything you'd want in the final episode (and in fact followed a clear model set down by new genre pioneer Joss Whedon).  Produce it like it's your last, throw everything at it, but importantly underpin and underline the architypes of the series and underline everything you've been trying to accomplish.  Rose saves the world in the end, because that's what she's been doing all series, and yet The Doctor is still the saviour of the universe because he inspires it of her, just as he inspired everyone from Gwyneth to Cathica.  Through selflessness in words and actions.  The Doctor of old had the arrogance that no one but he could win the day - this Doctor believed that everyone had that capacity.  It was just a case of given them enough room to breath and showing them the way.

"Oh my god, they've killed off Jack ..."

Like the rest of the series this just kept hitting me at a gut level.  Scene after scene mattered, contributing to the arc of the series, the plot of the episode, the story of the character.  We found out what the Bad Wolf was (a time paradox and red herring rolled into one) and we saw The Doctor finally put his personal demons to rest.  We got to see one of the best man on Dalek battles in the show's history in which we saw why they were the deadliest of foes.  Taking the ideas of the Dalek episode -- the giving of an ounce of humanity to the pepperpot -- and then twisting it and darkening it.  Not just loathing the universe but also loathing themselves.  The design of Emperor Dalek was a great choice too, as this God created its race in its own image.    We saw also that in fact it's not just The Doctor who had regenerated, Rose had too -- complete with that mess of amnesia afterwards -- she's seen too much to go back to her old life now.

But for all the writing (and this may have been Davies' best script of the series) I don't think the acting has ever been this good.  In the Confidential documentary afterwards, Eccleston said that he couldn't internalise the character, that we were effectively seeing on screen was his reaction to the words and how they should be played -- it showed and it was exactly what the part called for, which sort of demonstrates what a great actor he is.  Despite his epic lifespan, The Doctor has always been about how others see him and that's exactly how he appeared tonight.  Is Rose Tyler the best companion we've had?  It depends on your definition.  But I tell you -- I don't know who else was up for the role but I can't imagine anyone else playing her.  Billie Piper has simply been a dream throughout the series, funny and sad and tragic.  And knowing.  It's also to John Barrowman's credit that he's not felt like an interloper, although Captain Jack's been a good character -- it'll be interesting to see in Season Two if he feels discruntled about being left behinds and drifts off into his old ways.

I've written before about how it's difficult with some television to see the gaps between the director, the cameraman and the editor.  It's a collaborative medium.  Would this episode look and feel much different if James Hawes instead of Joe Ahearne had been the director?  I don't think I'm clever enough to tell.  What I will say is this.  Of all the episodes this was the one which felt most consistently paced, visceral looking and deeply emotional.  Characters felt less like a bunch of words than say Aliens of London and more like people.  And again we saw the same values here as we'd seen throughout the series -- straight down the like drama and comedy without decended into camp.  It believed in what it was doing and so we believed in it too.

"But ... he's regenerating.  No.  Noooo .... What!  What!  Hang on -- who's he going to be?  Are we going to get to see it or is that the cliffhanger?  We are going to see who it is ... fuck me, it's David Tennant ... Casanova's in the Tardis ..."

One of these days I'm going to build a time machine.  Granted I took the arts stream at school so I did Fine Art GCSE when I could have been doing Physics, but hopefully I've got a good sixty years left on the planet so that should be just enough time to go back to school, do Physics and Chemistry and Biology as well, head off through A-Levels, get myself a degree in Quantum Physics, a PHd, a place in a great research institute, a team of mechanics and a billionare I can convince to finance a development project to build the first time machine.  At the age of fifty (because I'm this for the long game) I'm going to strap myself into that extraordinary machine, flip the switch and head back in time back to this year.  I'm going to get a job in the press office of the BBC and make sure I'm on duty one night in early April, so that when I see that a tabloid is going to print a story saying that Christoper Eccleston is going to quit Doctor Who, the last thing we do is confirm the bloody story.  That way, this younger version of me can be shouting the words above at the screen as the latest series comes to a close instead of wondering what the experience would have been like.

"I'm still buzzing..."

The fact that it's hours since the episode aired and I'm still buzzing shows the achievement of the piece.  I'm a cynical sausage really, but this is something else.  This is about piling all your hopes and dreams into something and for once it actually works.  You don't have to be making allowances and rationalisations because something just isn't as good as you were expecting.  Refreshingly I can actually say that this is a show I'm proud to be a fan of and have all this history with.  That I haven't been wasting my time as I saw it grow to fulfil its ultimate potential.  And it's not over yet -- we'll still be watching this into 2007.  I've said once before and I think I'll say it again.

"He's back. He's bloody back. Bless him ..."

The Ratings Wolf

The overnight ratings are out for last night's battle of the doctors ...

Doctor Who  6.2 million (35.91% share)
Doctor Dolittle  3.5 million (21.2% share)

The ITV ratings are surprisingly high, but unbelievably, I think there is still some resistence to our favourite series.  Equally unbelievably my parents finally got around to watching last night because we had some visitors and they wanted to watch it.  Mum pronounced it 'Not bad...' but then, I suspect,  regretted saying anything at all as I started jabbering on about Time Wars and Bad Wolf.