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- Recap - Doctor Who, Journey's End
Recap - Doctor Who, Journey's End
- By Linnea Dodson
- Published 08/3/2008
- Doctor Who
-
Rating:
Linnea Dodson
Nea has been a fan of Doctor Who since before the era of VCRs and personal computers. Now she's thrilled that there's an all-new show and all-new ways for fandom to keep up to date and spread.
View all articles by Linnea Dodson
The TARDIS lands somewhere in a park, church bells chiming in celebration. Sarah Jane and the Doctor are first out and Sarah Jane - having known him the longest and arguably knowing him the best, lands a home truth on him. "You act like such a lonely man, but look at you! You've got the biggest family on Earth." She offers him a huge hug, but then scampers off to be with Luke.
Inside the TARDIS, Mickey is saying his goodbyes to a confused Jackie. Outside, the Doctor is sonicing Jack's wrist computer, snapping "I told you, no teleport." (Oh, Doctor? Why? And what makes you the judge?) He also orders Martha to "save the world one more time" by destroying her piece of the Osterhagen key. Both Jack and Martha salute the Doctor (surprisingly, he returns it) before they walk off hand in hand, Jack trying to recruit her for Torchwood. Mickey runs after them; with his gran peacefully dead and Rose wrapped up in the Doctor, he's decided to return to this world.
For reasons only the Doctor knows, he drops Rose and Jackie off at Bad Wolf Bay. "Fat lot of good this is! Bloody Norway!" Jackie snaps. She does tell human!Doctor that she had her baby - a boy - and lets him think it was named after him before she tells him it's named Tony.
And this is where everything starts going pearshaped.
Rose, having gotten back to the Doctor, makes it clear that she has no intention of leaving him again. The Doctor tells her she has to, and gives her a mission - to heal human!Doctor, who is too "dangerous" to be left on his own. Yes, the Doctor who killed his own planet to get the Daleks, who was willing to shoot through Rose to kill the last survivor, who has committed genocide several times in New Who, somehow is still upset that the human!Doctor actually accomplished the extermination of the Daleks.
Maybe he's jealous.
Or maybe he's making up a story that Rose will find attractive; that's a popular theory. Because what the Doctor wants is for Rose to live out her life with human!Doctor and to "fix" him the same way she fixed the Doctor when he was Nine and reeling from survivor's guilt.
"But he's not you," Rose points out.
"He needs you. That's very me," the Doctor says.
"I've only got one life, Rose Tyler," human!Doctor says. "I could spend it with you."
The TARDIS makes a warning noise, and the Doctor says he has to go with Donna; the walls between the worlds are sealing up again. He turns his back on Rose and begins to walk away; she chases after him and demands that both Doctors tell her what the unfinished sentence was that he told her "on this beach on the worst day of my life." The Doctor starts it, but refuses to finish it. Human!Doctor whispers in her ear, and after a pause, Rose launches at him in a kiss.
The Doctor swallows once and turns away, walking back to the TARDIS and Donna. When Rose hears the TARDIS dematerialize, she breaks the clinch and runs after. Human!Doctor takes her hand as the Doctor leaves her behind without a goodbye. Rose looks at him. Neither one is smiling.
Some fans are happy that Rose has a Doctor-like. Some are appalled that she is stuck with Doctor-lite.
Stephen Moffat drew ire at San Diego Comic Con by saying it was the solution to "getting rid of a slightly clingy exgirlfriend," but he wasn't the only one who thinks that human!Doctor is as much Rose's jailer as her ward, staying behind to make sure that she stays behind and stops ripping apart her family and the walls of reality.
It's an ending that simultaneously supports and sinks a 'ship.
Next on the chopping block are the Donna fans. Inside the TARDIS, a gleeful Donna is flying the ship and rattling on a mile a minute when she starts repeating words. The metacrisis is breaking down; her brain can't handle the Time Lord bits. Donna knows what's happening, but she's trying to avoid it. "I want to stay. I was gonna be with you forever."
She's going to be with him for about another minute. As she begs "No, don't make me go back, I can't go back, no, Doctor, please, no, no!" the Doctor wipes her mind of all memories concerning him.
Some fans see this as straight-out assault. Some feel she would be better off dead. Many point out half a dozen canonical alternatives, starting with the Chamelion arch. And some feel that the Doctor was also trying to avoid this moment until it came, and then did what he felt he had to in order to save Donna's life. I'm among the last set, but there are so many alternatives that could have been taken!
In the end, though, it comes down to the Doctor, once more alone, once more filled with grief. Davies has done wonders for this show - reviving it and riding it to the top of the ratings, for one thing - but I still wonder if he would call it Doctor Woe.
Wilf is appalled as the Doctor explains to him that Donna can't remember anything, that "that version of Donna is dead."
Then he has to handwave it immediately when Sylvia points out that the whole world is talking about what happened. For some reason, the Doctor doesn't think this will unlock anything. (Riiiiiiiight.) Nor does seeing the Doctor (who introduces himself as John Smith) when Donna wakes up and barrels into the room.
Sylvia more or less throws the Doctor out, but not before he gets in a dig that she should show Donna more appreciation. As he leaves, Donna is on the phone, laughing off the idiocy that the world could have moved, and nattering about trivia. Fans make much of her ring flashing light as she moves, wondering if that could be a clue to her memories. Certainly they can't have been completely wiped, or there wouldn't be anything for the Doctor to be afraid to be remembered.
In essence, Donna has been fobwatched, without benefit of fobwatch. It does leave a chance of her return. And in the meantime, so many fix-it fics have poured out of fandom that I've seen the term "fanfixion" for the first time.
The Doctor walks out into the rain. Wilf asks who he's got, but the Doctor says he's fine. That special sort of Time Lord "fine" that means "I'm going to paint my bedroom black and listen to Evanescence while I weep." While David Tennant looks wet, depressed, and pathetic, Wilf promises to look up every night and think of the Doctor because Donna can't.
The Murray Gold score should have been replaced with "Alone Again, Naturally" as a dripping Doctor walks into the TARDIS and wends his emo, lonely way away. But cheer up kiddies! The man who brought you this is going to write your Christmas treat!
Inside the TARDIS, Mickey is saying his goodbyes to a confused Jackie. Outside, the Doctor is sonicing Jack's wrist computer, snapping "I told you, no teleport." (Oh, Doctor? Why? And what makes you the judge?) He also orders Martha to "save the world one more time" by destroying her piece of the Osterhagen key. Both Jack and Martha salute the Doctor (surprisingly, he returns it) before they walk off hand in hand, Jack trying to recruit her for Torchwood. Mickey runs after them; with his gran peacefully dead and Rose wrapped up in the Doctor, he's decided to return to this world.
For reasons only the Doctor knows, he drops Rose and Jackie off at Bad Wolf Bay. "Fat lot of good this is! Bloody Norway!" Jackie snaps. She does tell human!Doctor that she had her baby - a boy - and lets him think it was named after him before she tells him it's named Tony.
And this is where everything starts going pearshaped.
Rose, having gotten back to the Doctor, makes it clear that she has no intention of leaving him again. The Doctor tells her she has to, and gives her a mission - to heal human!Doctor, who is too "dangerous" to be left on his own. Yes, the Doctor who killed his own planet to get the Daleks, who was willing to shoot through Rose to kill the last survivor, who has committed genocide several times in New Who, somehow is still upset that the human!Doctor actually accomplished the extermination of the Daleks.
Maybe he's jealous.
Or maybe he's making up a story that Rose will find attractive; that's a popular theory. Because what the Doctor wants is for Rose to live out her life with human!Doctor and to "fix" him the same way she fixed the Doctor when he was Nine and reeling from survivor's guilt.
"But he's not you," Rose points out.
"He needs you. That's very me," the Doctor says.
"I've only got one life, Rose Tyler," human!Doctor says. "I could spend it with you."
The TARDIS makes a warning noise, and the Doctor says he has to go with Donna; the walls between the worlds are sealing up again. He turns his back on Rose and begins to walk away; she chases after him and demands that both Doctors tell her what the unfinished sentence was that he told her "on this beach on the worst day of my life." The Doctor starts it, but refuses to finish it. Human!Doctor whispers in her ear, and after a pause, Rose launches at him in a kiss.
The Doctor swallows once and turns away, walking back to the TARDIS and Donna. When Rose hears the TARDIS dematerialize, she breaks the clinch and runs after. Human!Doctor takes her hand as the Doctor leaves her behind without a goodbye. Rose looks at him. Neither one is smiling.
Some fans are happy that Rose has a Doctor-like. Some are appalled that she is stuck with Doctor-lite.
It's an ending that simultaneously supports and sinks a 'ship.
Next on the chopping block are the Donna fans. Inside the TARDIS, a gleeful Donna is flying the ship and rattling on a mile a minute when she starts repeating words. The metacrisis is breaking down; her brain can't handle the Time Lord bits. Donna knows what's happening, but she's trying to avoid it. "I want to stay. I was gonna be with you forever."
She's going to be with him for about another minute. As she begs "No, don't make me go back, I can't go back, no, Doctor, please, no, no!" the Doctor wipes her mind of all memories concerning him.
Some fans see this as straight-out assault. Some feel she would be better off dead. Many point out half a dozen canonical alternatives, starting with the Chamelion arch. And some feel that the Doctor was also trying to avoid this moment until it came, and then did what he felt he had to in order to save Donna's life. I'm among the last set, but there are so many alternatives that could have been taken!
In the end, though, it comes down to the Doctor, once more alone, once more filled with grief. Davies has done wonders for this show - reviving it and riding it to the top of the ratings, for one thing - but I still wonder if he would call it Doctor Woe.
Wilf is appalled as the Doctor explains to him that Donna can't remember anything, that "that version of Donna is dead."
Then he has to handwave it immediately when Sylvia points out that the whole world is talking about what happened. For some reason, the Doctor doesn't think this will unlock anything. (Riiiiiiiight.) Nor does seeing the Doctor (who introduces himself as John Smith) when Donna wakes up and barrels into the room.
Sylvia more or less throws the Doctor out, but not before he gets in a dig that she should show Donna more appreciation. As he leaves, Donna is on the phone, laughing off the idiocy that the world could have moved, and nattering about trivia. Fans make much of her ring flashing light as she moves, wondering if that could be a clue to her memories. Certainly they can't have been completely wiped, or there wouldn't be anything for the Doctor to be afraid to be remembered.
In essence, Donna has been fobwatched, without benefit of fobwatch. It does leave a chance of her return. And in the meantime, so many fix-it fics have poured out of fandom that I've seen the term "fanfixion" for the first time.
The Doctor walks out into the rain. Wilf asks who he's got, but the Doctor says he's fine. That special sort of Time Lord "fine" that means "I'm going to paint my bedroom black and listen to Evanescence while I weep." While David Tennant looks wet, depressed, and pathetic, Wilf promises to look up every night and think of the Doctor because Donna can't.
The Murray Gold score should have been replaced with "Alone Again, Naturally" as a dripping Doctor walks into the TARDIS and wends his emo, lonely way away. But cheer up kiddies! The man who brought you this is going to write your Christmas treat!
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This article is part 2 of a 2 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:
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Recap - Doctor Who, Journey's End
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Comment #1 (Posted by lisa)
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Nice recap. I don't think Rose was responsible for the universe's walls starting to break, though. What she actually said was that the dimension canon wasn't working, then the stars started going out, and it started working. I think we're supposed to assume that the Dalek's work on the reality bomb is what broke down the walls and made it possible for Rose to return, not the other way around. So, the comment about the other Doctor being her jailer to make sure she doesn't destroy the universe was a bit harsh, I think. That said, I'm not involved in the fandom, so I was kind of shocked to hear that people see the Doctor's actions at Bad Wolf Bay as anything other than giving the woman he loves what he thinks will make her happy. If you watch the Confidential, it's clear that's what RTD intended, whatever various fan groups speculate. (and Moffat really said that? I hope he was kidding)