January 10: "The Parting of the Ways"

The opening moments of this episode are really impressive, with the TARDIS charging toward the Dalek mothership to rescue Rose.  (And it's still spinning as it travels, I'm pleased to say.)  There are so many Daleks streaming out of their saucers that the end result is worthy of a feature film, never mind a television show.

But while there are some impressive visuals in this (not just that shot, but the one of the Emperor in all his glory surrounded by Daleks, or Jack destroying the Dalek in the TARDIS), the best moments in "The Parting of the Ways" are the character interactions.  The Doctor's confrontation with the Emperor, where he's being unnaturally cheerful, is impressive (and the times when that mask slips are also really good) -- and the moment where he reenters the TARDIS, leaning against the door with his head bowed, listening to the Daleks outside, is astonishing.  Captain Jack also shines in his efforts to rally his troops in what he knows will be a futile gesture, an effort to buy the Doctor more time, showing off his leadership qualities, and his farewell kisses to both Rose and the Doctor -- each delivered in exactly the same way -- are quite lovely.  "Wish I'd never met you, Doctor," he says.  "I was much better off as a coward."  He also gets a great death scene: "Exterminate!" a Dalek grates.  "I kind of figured that," Jack replies defiantly, arms open wide as the Daleks kill them.  The Daleks themselves are an impressive force; their fanatical worship of the Emperor (whose story of how he survived is close enough to that of the Dalek's in, er, "Dalek" for them to plausibly be the same individual -- again, it would explain all the early 21st-century reality shows we see here) is scary enough, but their decision to invade the Gamestation (another great shot, by the way) and head to the lower levels for no other reason than to exterminate everyone is genuinely chilling.  "Dalek" reintroduced the Daleks; "The Parting of the Ways" reestablishes them as a galaxy-conquering force.

Rose-as-the-Bad-Wolf can stop Dalek blasts. ("The Parting of the
Ways") ©BBC

And then there's Rose, who's willing to go to the end with the Doctor but is tricked into heading back to her own time, so that the Doctor can fulfill his promise to Jackie to keep Rose safe.  She's frustrated and angry, and she tries really hard to explain how she feels to Jackie and Mickey: "The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. ... That you don't just give up.  You don't just let things happen.  You make a stand.  You say no.  You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away..."  That speech sums up the ethos of the show right there.  It's the realization that the "Bad Wolf"s have been following her, not the Doctor, that seems to ultimately convince her to break open the TARDIS console so she can go back and provide our first convenient deus ex machina ending to a BBC Wales series.  (Although the way the sequence with the chain and the truck is shot suggests there's no way that should get the TARDIS console to open, and definitely not based on the way we see it open.)

Christopher Eccleston regenerates into David Tennant. ("The
Parting of the Ways") ©BBC

But while Rose might become the Bad Wolf, the heart of this story is ultimately the Doctor himself.  It's a tour de force performance from Christopher Eccleston as he frantically tries to save humanity from the Daleks, full of intensity and a huge breadth of emotions -- but the best moment isn't while he's wiring up the delta wave transmitter or confronting the Daleks: it's during his prerecorded message to Rose in the TARDIS, when he turns to look at her and gives that gentle, easy smile.  It's a beautiful moment in an episode filled with intensity.

But what's most interesting is that we can see the completion of the ninth Doctor's character arc here, from someone cold and aloof and faking cheerfulness to someone who's learned how to feel again and is ready to move on -- and his decision not to activate the delta wave and doom all of humanity (in what we now know, in light of subsequent revelations, is a very similar setup to what he (believes he) did on the last day of the Time War) shows how far he's come.  "What are you, coward or killer?" the Emperor asks.  "Coward.  Any day," the Doctor says, unwilling to make the same choice again and stronger for it.

And then Rose saves him and wipes out all the Daleks (and brings Captain Jack back to life too, even if the Doctor doesn't seem to know this -- or else why would he leave Jack behind?) but is dying from the Time Vortex flowing through her, which leads to the Doctor kissing Rose to pull the Vortex out of her.  It's what the series has been building to, but it's written in such a way as to give the audience the kiss many of them have been waiting the whole series for without upsetting the old fans (who were irate at McGann kissing Grace in the TV Movie).  But the Doctor ends up sacrificing himself to save her (becoming the second out of three Doctors to date to give his life for a friend), getting a fabulous departure in the process:

DOCTOR: I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex, and no one's meant to do that.  Every cell in my body's dying.
ROSE: Can't you do something?
DOCTOR: Yeah, I'm doing it now.  Time Lords have this little trick, it's sort of a way of cheating death.  Except it means I'm going to change, and I'm not going to see you again.  Not like this.  Not with this daft old face.  And before I go—
ROSE: Don't say that.
DOCTOR: Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic.  Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what?  So was I.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Parting of the Ways)

And with that we get our first regeneration standing up instead of lying down --supposedly because David Tennant hadn't been cast when Eccelston finished his scenes and it was easier to match standing shots rather than lying-down ones, but it's also a much more heroic-looking pose.

And so we say farewell to Christopher Eccleston, who leaves after just one series.  The reasons why he left are still unclear (Eccleston's still unwilling to more than hint at them, and no one else is saying anything), but nevertheless he was (and is still) proud of the year he did on the show.  He should be; not only did he help relaunch the show and make it a huge success, but he took the character of the Doctor and turned it into a genuine person rather than just a sort of archetype.  It's a fantastic performance from an amazingly talented actor, and the show was lucky to have him.

But what a way to go out, eh?  "Bad Wolf" / "The Parting of the Ways" is, like Eccleston's performance, a tour de force -- an unabashed "season finale" full of action and drama.  Everyone excels in this, turning a tale about reality television into one of the biggest threats the Doctor has ever faced on screen.  It's still BBC Wales' best season-ender to date.  In a word, fantastic.

Kudos, therefore, to Russell T Davies and everyone who worked on this series.  It was definitely a gamble to bring Doctor Who back, and in such a way as to capture as large an audience as possible, but they succeeded handily -- and with the strongest run of stories since, well, season 26 -- but season 18 before that.  And what's more, they did so in a way as to retain the spirit of the original show, not by rebooting it or changing it but by simply updating it for the modern viewers -- just like the programme has always done.  Definitively, emphatically, Doctor Who is back.

Now the question is, can they keep it up?