Late Arrivals at the Doctor Who finale...

[f4f3]

Journey’s End

 

I finally managed to see the Doctor Who series finale last night. A very impressive piece of work.

 

Starting from the beginning, the title nagged at my memory. At first I thought it was a reference to Arthur C Clarke’s “Childhood’s End”, a novel which centres on the ability of humans to evolve to a higher state, which would have been a nice allusion to the affect the Doctor seems to have on those around him.

 

More pertinently, though, the episode shares its title with a play by R.C. Sheriff, a play set in the British trenches of World War One, dealing with the effect of war on ordinary people turned into soldiers.

 

This Journey’s End is also a war story. That theme is played on several times in the episode, from the military nature of UNIT, through the various destructive plans hatched by the Doctor’s “children”, the repetitive saluting, to the genocide committed by a Doctor “born in war” (I, like Unblinkered, was a little unsure of the suitability of German-speaking Daleks chanting “Exterminate” quite so close to Nuremburg, by the way). 

 

As a piece of plotting involving almost the entire cast of the last three series, I thought it came off fairly well, but it was far from flawless. Martha’s journey to Germany, and indeed the whole “Key” sub-plot didn’t add much to the proceedings – she could have as easily delivered her warning to the Daleks, and been transported to the Crucible, from New York. Gwen and Ianto’s appearance was token, but then, what would we have done with another two soldiers on the Crucible or in the Tardis?

 

Jack was well handled (which I’m sure he enjoyed) and managed to be brave, clever and surprisingly restrained in the hugging department.

 

Sara-Jane was consistent, Jackie less annoying than usual, Mickey a nice-to-see, but not much more.

 

Rose left me cold. Maybe because I’d accepted her exile, and having her come back cheapened the emotional impact it had first time round. And the fact that Billie Piper played her like a botoxed alien didn’t help.

 

The duplicate doctor? A nice moment, good initial impact, but too silly for words. There was no way he could make it past the end of the episode, so it was hard to get too worked up about him. Dumping him on Earth 2 was logical, but there are an awful lot of Doctor Analogues littering the galaxy now – The Doctor, The Doctor Lite, Mrs Doctor, The Doctor’s Daughter and Donna with her latent Doctor Brain. Still, I’ve been asking for a Three Doctors arc for a while now, and it was good to have it, even if only for 20 minutes or so.

 

Donna herself – well, it was the “Flowers for Algernon” ending, crossed with “And then she woke up and it had all been a dream”. Dramatically it worked, in terms of a single episode, or even a single series, but it does leave yet another loose end dangling.

 

I think this stands as an excellent wrap-up for RTD’s stint on the show, and gives us a good illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of a serial character who’s been around for 40 years now. There’s a deep and rich Who Universe, a sub-creation full of four decades of marvellous toys – loathsome villains, stout companions, heavens and hells, whistles and bells. Davies took out more of those toys, and treated them better, than anyone who’s been at the helm for a long while. But at the end of each series, all of the toys get put back in the box, and everything is as it was. The Doctor is still in the Tardis, still on his own, still ready for another adventure. The necessary tragedy of the eternal hero is that he hasn’t reached, he’s no nearer, to his own journey’s end.

Comments

[kittenexploring.livejournal.com]

The Doctor is back in his Tardis, alone, but there's a lot of hooks out there to continue from without introducing new challenges. The latent Doctor-Donna who is bound to come back and save the universe then either die or heal herself and bugger off. The one who will still die, presumably in some way connected to the Daleks, could be Donna, Doctor 2 or Caan but any companion would do. Mickey has his teleporter that shreds reality each time it's used. There's the spinoff porn series starting with Jack and Sarah Jane. Davros wasn't seen to die. The Master and D's Daughter are around, somewhere (but apparently not regarded as important by Caan).
The toys and their arcs are all packed away but they're still ready to be used. RTD the second will tell new stories but if they choose to use them the old toys are there, waiting.

The series just started airing here. I watched the first episode straight after the downloaded final episode. It reminded me that the Doctor warns Donna that the life of his last companion was ruined, her family tortured, her world put in danger and forever changed. Donna goes anyway, of course. The Doctor-Donna arc has been building for a while. The last element of support for the tragedy is Doctor2 realising that Donna really believes she's not special - shortly before she forgets all the compelling evidence to the contrary. I'll be rewatching the series with many 'poor Donna's expressed.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I did love the Donna arc as an exercise in taking an "everywoman" and showing their potential for doing great things. Donna and the Doctor were both right - as an individual, she wasn't special: she wasn't immortal, she couldn't read minds or fly, she wasn't spectacularly bright. But she was special in the way that all of humanity can be, capable of great things. I'd argue that the "normal" people who sacrifice themselves throughout the series are heroes, and, by extension, we all can be.
Isn't that nice?

[kittenexploring.livejournal.com]

I, on the other hand, took it as most people are sheep but a few shine. Given the chance they can shine even brighter. The normal people sacrificing themselves may be heroes, which is nice, but still not necessarily one of the shining ones. Donna was special but also deeply insecure. And annoying.

The lesson to be taken is that if you don't stop beating yourself up over your insecurities you'll have half your memories taken away and be surrounded by people who think something is wrong with you but keep pretending you imagined it.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Of course, it could be that we're all sheep, just waiting for a kick-ass shepherd who will lay down his life for us. Waaaiiiit a minute...

[kittenexploring.livejournal.com]

The smart people find better solutions than suicide. Such as faking it. The really smart ones aren't caught a few days later and have to pretend to have come back to life.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I take it you haven't seen what happens to Jack in Torchwood Season Two? "A few days" is for amateurs...

[kittenexploring.livejournal.com]

The sanity challenging aspects would be, well, challenging, but imagine the boredom! Although, he does seem to be out of it for a little while each time he dies so maybe he wasn't aware of the time passing.

Assuming there's both a god and a messiah - and only one of each - along with life on multiple planets, the messiah would eventually be less amateurish. It could even get a bit embarrassing when early and late messiah cultures meet. "He never did that for us!" and so on.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Boredom be damned, look how well his greatcoat weathers the millenia, now that's impressive.

You've put your finger on the real reason why we'll never meet aliens, you know.

[kittenexploring.livejournal.com]

The greatcoat also weathers Dalek weaponry and garbage disposal, among other things. I think it's protected the same way he is. In which case, if it had any stains at the time they they're not getting cleaned out. Not for a long, long time. (Unless they're deemed excess to the inherent coatness of the coat.)

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

It must be something like Superman's costume, protected by a "Jack-field" which radiates from his body. Oh God, Jack, being Jack, will probably learn to do tricks with it...