March 26: "Journey's End"

26 March 2005 was the debut of "Rose"... so the BBC Wales version of Doctor Who is ten years old today!  It's therefore somewhat fitting that today we've reached "Journey's End" and the final major appearance of Rose Tyler (though not of Billie Piper).

So.  How do you wrap up your two-parter (and series 4) when your first part was mainly running in place?  Well, the way "Journey's End" chooses to do it is to add an extra 20 minutes to its running time -- so this is rather like an old five-parter then.  Except that the majority of that hypothetical Part Five is saying goodbyes and dealing with the after-effects of what we see here.

Davros confronts the Doctor. ("Journey's End") ©BBC

Still, what we get here is surprisingly compelling -- surprising because, in a way, "Journey's End" is just as motionless as "The Stolen Earth" was.  After the Doctor ends up not dying by redirecting the regeneration energy to his severed hand¹⁹⁹, he's locked up for the majority of the episode, taunted by Davros in the bottom of the Daleks' Crucible ship, and one by one his companions get locked up too.  But what makes it so watchable isn't just Graeme Harper's direction; it's also designed to be a character study of the Doctor and what he does to others.  "The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun," Davros taunts him.  "But this is the truth, Doctor.  You take ordinary people, and you fashion them into weapons.  Behold your Children of Time, transformed into murderers.  I made the Daleks, Doctor.  You made this."  It's an interesting argument that never actually gets refuted or qualified in some way -- indeed, the Daleks are ultimately stopped because the meta-crisis Doctor (the one who spawned from the Doctor's hand) ends up killing them all to stop them from terrorizing the universe, which doesn't look very good if you take Davros's point of view (as he points out: "Never forget, Doctor, you did this," he cries as the Crucible explodes around him.  "I name you forever!  You are the Destroyer of Worlds!").  This is, in fact, the reason why Davros is in this story.  Because, let's face it, there's nothing inherently inventive about the Reality Bomb (which oddly looks an awful lot like the insanely deadly weapon from Star Trek Nemesis -- right down to the green glow), nothing that really says "Davros" about it.  No, Davros is there to challenge the Doctor, to provide the Daleks' viewpoint and declare that the Doctor is no better.  (And also to get in a couple good rants, worthy of Michael Wisher and Terry Molloy.)

The Doctor and his friends fly the TARDIS together. ("Journey's
End") ©BBC

And that's one of the most impressive things about "Journey's End": the way it cons you into thinking you're watching a big action-packed story, but when you stop and think about it you realize it was a character study.  Of course, we do get action at the end, as everyone drags Earth back to where it supposed to be²⁰⁰, and while it is an exciting moment (even if it's also incredibly daft), the episode chooses to focus on the goodbyes for longer.  In many, many ways, this really feels like the end of an era -- so much so, in fact, that's frankly strange we've still got a year with five episodes left.  But the whole gang is back together (even K-9!) to give this Doctor one last triumphant send-off.

This is not to say that it's perfect, though; there are in fact two glaring problems with "Journey's End" that both manifest at the end.  The biggest one is the return of Rose Tyler.  There were really only two options available for bringing Rose back: have her stay or kill her off.  But Billie Piper's not returning and Davies wasn't about to kill off the darling of (particular teenaged girl) fandom, so they settle for a deeply unsatisfying middle ground.  It makes our Doctor look like a bit of a git, as he essentially says, "Yes, I know you traveled through multiple dimensions to get back to me, but I'm taking you back and then heading back home -- but here's someone who looks just like me that you can have instead.  Only he's a bit genocidal, so you'll have to watch him."  (And once again, I'd just like to point out just how well the story of the Valeyard's origin matches up with what we see in this story, when coupled with the knowledge that the tenth Doctor we see from "Journey's End" to The End of Time is the twelfth incarnation of this Time Lord.)  It's trying to have it both ways, and it really doesn't work, no matter how much Murray Gold's music tries to convince us otherwise.  Still, at least Rose finally gets a proper kiss from someone who looks like the Doctor, at least.

The other problem is in a similar vein, and that's the fate of Donna.  At the time this also felt like Davies trying to have it both ways -- killing off Donna but not really.  Now I'm not so sure.  It's still an incredibly cruel act, taking all the character growth we'd seen and chucking it away in favor of "The Runaway Bride" version of Donna (in fact, it's probably crueler than just killing her off would have been), but I do wonder if Davies really was trying to tug on the heartstrings, rather than just avoiding killing off main characters (as it seemed at the time).  I still think killing Donna would have been the better ending, and the way things play out is incredibly vicious for the audience (and for the characters: "But she was better with you," Wilf laments), but it's no longer quite as cowardly an act as it seemed at the time.

Still, those problems only really make themselves known at the end, and everything up to that point is surprisingly good.  We're not deus ex machina-free, of course (in fact, this one seems to have more than ever before -- meta-crisis Doctor, the DoctorDonna, the TARDIS dragging Earth across space...), but they're delivered with such gusto that it's hard to get truly upset with this.  It's not perfect, but it is a tour de force, and ultimately that's what they set out to deliver -- so you can hardly blame them for succeeding.

And that, of course, wraps up series 4.  This is a series that has aged rather well; as time has passed its virtues have become more apparent.  One of the biggest virtues is Catherine Tate, who provides a fun, realistic companion in Donna Noble -- someone who's changed for the better by what she sees, and who's interested in seeing the universe, not in making out with her travelling companion.  It's a refreshing change -- not that I'm knocking Rose or Martha here, but it's nice to have a purer motivation for travelling in the TARDIS.  We also get a strong performance from David Tennant; in fact, it's interesting to watch him as he moves from series 2 to series 4, as he visibly gets better and better in the role (and it's not like he was bad to begin with).  All this and a reasonably strong run of stories (yes, there are some rough patches, but there are also some standout tales -- plus we get more variety in styles and locations, which is also a bonus) means that series 4 is as much of a success as the previous three were.

(After "Journey's End" I watched "Music of the Spheres", which aired three weeks later as part of the  Doctor Who at the Proms special.  It's an entertaining bit of fluff, and it was probably really fun to be there at the Proms in person and seeing the interactive moments, but it's hardly required viewing.  It's on the disc of "The Next Doctor" if you're curious though.)







¹⁹⁹ In a move that led to lots of online discussions at the time as to whether or not the Doctor had used up one of his twelve regenerations by doing this -- of course, now we know (thanks to "The Time of the Doctor") that the answer was "yes".
²⁰⁰ My brother mentioned, in regard to the previous entry, that the Doctor might have also been thinking of The Ultimate Foe, where the Time Lords moved Earth a couple light years using a magnetron (presumably not like the one in your microwave).  Here the Doctors and Donna use the Dalek magnetron to move the planet back, which suggests that RTD was also thinking of The Ultimate Foe.