Rate And Discuss 4.13: Journey's End

[duncan]

Is it me or did this episode lay the foundations to Mickey and Martha replacing Tosh and Owen in Torchwood?

[duncan]

I rated this as a 9/10 by the way.

[Perry Vale]

Knock it down to 3/10 if Nathan or Perry Vale spurt all over it.

That was a load of old b******s.

[Wayne]

well, the doctor who website does offer a translation to all the german bits.

Doctor Who>Episodes>13: Journey's End>Features>Fact File,

then scroll down until you find it (it's near the bottom).

Strange. The word 'Exterminieren' doesn't tranlate into english on 3 on-nline translators, & it's not found in 4 on-line German dictionaries. Very odd!

[Larry]

What a let down. After building things up so excitingly, RTD fails to deliver in the worst way imaginable. I'm not surprised as he did the same with Army of Ghosts/Doomsday but I am disappointed. The resolution of the cliffhanger from Stolen Earth was so abysmally weak and then the Doctor-Donna hybrid again was a great idea as a concept but was delivered with complete ineptitude.
I didn't like the Reality Bomb idea much either, and the resolution to the whole thing was utter bollocks. The only parts I enjoyed in this episode was the interplay between the Doctor's companions, though they themselves weren't particularly served well once they ended up in the vault.

I'm really, really disappointed with this one.

pretty much how I feel to - my first thoughts at the end were one of dissapointment and a feeling of anti climax after such an excelent first episode. I think the answer to the regeneration being averted was ok but I'm still not sure I like the whole 2nd Doctor growing from the hand.

the destruction of the Dalek fleet was as Alex says was not only to quick but almost a repeat of the way Rose did it in series 1 but this time with Donna this time being given "special powers" . After all the "your some thing different/special" stuff about Donna it turns out that there was nothing really special at atall.

Torchwood's Gwen and Ianto, were shamefully under used and Jackie and Mickey were in truth surples to requirments and not needed although Mickey/s appearence seems a convenient way of getting him into Torchwood series 3. I also felt the scenes in the TARDIS with all the companions operating it and then huggung each other were a little bit cringing.

Julian Bleach, was again excelent as Davros, and it is certainly left the door open for Davros to return at a later point as you never saw him or Dalek caan die.

over all just a 7/10 ...

[Alex]

Very true of course. Although i wouldn't say it's about the new series as a whole, because over the 4 seasons i've been more into it than not into it.
I just think that there's been more & more repetition of overall themes as time has gone on. To me it really has started to feel predictable & samey, especially over this season, & especially in the finales. I can't quite get rid of the feeling that's grown over the last 12/18 months that RTD has just been trying too hard to be Joss Whedon*, but making a really clumsy job of it.
Maybe Moffatt with bring a fresh approach.

* I'm ready for the Milky blasting.

Yeah, I agree with you on the repetion thing, especially this year as a whole. I feel that RTD's tried to be like Joss Whedon from the beginning though (what with all the family related soapiness amongst the fantasy setting), but whereas Buffy remained (for a fair old while at least) refreshingly innovative and self-aware, this year has suffered from a bit of a "Yeah, I've seen this all before" feeling, at least for me anyway.

I don't want to sound too dismissive though because there have been a fair few highlights - The Stolen Earth and Forest of the Dead especially - and I enjoyed it as a whole, but a lot of the time I did feel that it wasn't quite as good as it could have been / had been previously. So, erm, yeah, I'm basically agreeing with you there

I really do feel that the Moffat era will be one of Who's finest ever though, and hopefully we'll look back on RTD's days as a good start which lead to a truly classic time in the show's history.

[Larry]

Is it me or did this episode lay the foundations to Mickey and Martha replacing Tosh and Owen in Torchwood?

nope it wasn't just you but ll Martha, was pretty obvious from the moment she first appeared in Torchwood,

[Kaybee Bailey]

9 out of 10. Because last week was a ten and this didn't give me the same feeling. I really need to rewatch it because my head was swimming at the time (suffice it to say I watched it with the whole family after we'd had to break into grandad's house), but I tend to vote on how the episode leaves me feeling, and this one just doesn't have the edge that last week did.

I loved the jokes, (especially the german daleks!), I loved how they actually managed to accommodate all the companions without it looking too shoehorned, and I loved how everything I disliked about Donna in the first place, the gobby side, the randomly turning up in the TARDIS etc actually came together to make a clear story. I'm not too sure on the other Doctor, and whether Rose being there took something away from the emotional impact of Donna's story. Presumably the other Doctor's presence in the parallel world now kind of fills a gap and that world will now be closed off forever. Except when the cybermen return maybe.

Anyway, like I said I will rewatch, but I'm leaning towards agreeing that the first half opened up so much that this weeks episode was never going to be able to deliver completely.

[Larry]

9

I loved the jokes, (especially the german daleks!), y.

not wanting to get all political or historical - but I did feel German speeking Daleks, and arriving at Nuremberg with it's historical connections to the Nazi's may of been a touch insensetive on RTD's part.

[Wayne]

Yeah, I agree with you on the repetion thing, especially this year as a whole. I feel that RTD's tried to be like Joss Whedon from the beginning though (what with all the family related soapiness amongst the fantasy setting), but whereas Buffy remained (for a fair old while at least) refreshingly innovative and self-aware, this year has suffered from a bit of a "Yeah, I've seen this all before" feeling, at least for me anyway.

Actually it's not so much the family stuff that i was really getting at, because for the most part i've enjoyed the family characters. But i think the internal self awareness has been really clumsy, & just felt shoehorned in, whereas with Buffy it just seemed to grow organically, & felt natural.
Same with the emotional content, there have been plenty of examples where it's been used well: 'Father's Day', 'Parting of the Ways', 'Rise of the Cybermen', even 'Love & Monsters', for those who can get past the gags. But my view is that it works a lot better overall when used a bit more sparingly. IMO, the end 'Doomsday' was one of the first examples of it being far too long, & overdone. And for me, there's been a bit too much of it over the last season or so, & in general has rendered the emotional content less effective. Less is more.
Also, i suppose it's more the fantastical side. You know how much i enjoyed Buffy, but it was clearly a fantasy show from the beginning what with vampires, witchcraft, & super powers & the like, so you accept it on those terms. I suppose find it hard to view Dr Who in the same way. I think it's relied on too much of those elements, especially for the finales. Press a button or wave the metaphorical magic wand & get rid of all the daleks. Great for 'Parting of the Ways' because it was so new for Dr Who, & i do think it was written really well, but Paul Clement said it best re the finales; Bigger doesn't neccesarily mean better. Especially when the ingredients are essentially the same.

[Kaybee Bailey]

not wanting to get all political or historical - but I did feel German speeking Daleks, and arriving at Nuremberg with it's historical connections to the Nazi's may of been a touch insensetive on RTD's part.

Fair point, and I'm sure that there will be those who see it that way. I felt that the moment made sense dramatically, and the german dalek voice harked back to those in the 60s, 'we are the masters of Earth' etc, when the daleks really did have strong Nazi connotations. In fact they've always had that element, with the labour camp in Dalek Invasion of Earth and pretty much all of Genesis. So I thought seeing them in the place that the Nazi regime both grew strong and was finally brought to some kind of justice had a lot of positive symbolism as well. But there will always be those who see it both ways.

[Alex]

Okay, I've been reading various stuff online and thinking about the episodes, and the following things are troubling me about this episode:

For what purpose did the Daleks take so many people from Earth? And presuming that they died on the main ship, is our planet now massively under-populated?

If Rose knew about 'the darkness' and the stars going out, having experienced it on the parallell Earth, why was it back to normal by the end of episode?

Why did Davros have in his vault (/dungeon) a machine which could destroy the entire Dalek race?

If upon releasing Davros from the time war Dalek Caan saw the truth about Davros, why didn't he just kill him there and then, and so everyone wouldn't have had to have gone through further death and destruction?

[Jason Thompson]

Not sure what to make of that one. It had its moments, but on the whole I felt a bit let down by it. The regeneration was OK, and at least fed into the plot of the episode rather than being a cop-out cliffhanger resolution. The TARDIS full of companions towing Earth home may have seemed a little indulgent, but hey, it's a 45th anniversary celebration (no, they haven't said as much, but come on, of course it is!). Davros was great, as he was last week. The whole episode looked fantastic. Jack getting himself killed as a ploy to escape was good, though it seemd a decent scene could have been made between Jack and Rose now Jack knows why he's immortal. The twist of Dalek Caan being the traitor was great, in that I did not see it coming.

But for me all the 'emotional' scenes missed their mark entirely. The stuff back at Bad Wold Bay was ridiculous, and from her remarks on Confidential even Billie didn't know what was supposed to be happening. Rose is gutted that the Doctor leaves, and goes on about the second one not being him, then snogs the other one just because he whispers he loves her in her ear. What? The whole 'soul of the Doctor' business about taking humans and fashioning them into weapons went on too long, and required a couple of pointless McGuffins for Sarah and Martha to use.

And speaking of McGuffins, the whole lot was wrapped up in them. The Oster-Haagen key (we'll overlook the 25 nuclear devices cracking open a planet, since the plot didn't really hinge on that, but see here for what little mark a lot more than 25 nuclear bombs made on the planet: http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=37.08...3&r=270&src=yh
); the diamond exploding thingy; the machine that wiped out every Dalek everywhere at the press of a button. That last one is just the kind of thing that, sadly, I was expecting, since RTD seems to specialise in making things happen on so grand a scale there is no way to fix it without some plot device. OK, no reset, but still. I kind of wish the backfired reality bomb plot had actually worked. Couldn't they have just had every Dalek on the crucible caught up when it exploded?

And Donna. Ah yes. Can't we have a happy ending some time soon? Please? Just one? Always we have to go back to the Doctor being alone, a sad lonely figure. Yes, we've had it for four years. We get it! Move on! And again we have a character dying in a non-literal sense after massively foreshadowing it. The same happened with Rose, and now with Donna. And what a horrible fate for her and her family. She's been lobotomised and they have to keep it all secret from her. At least Jamie and Zoe got to remember their first meeting. Top marks to Bernard Cribbins again, though. The guy's brilliant.

So, good and bad, nowhere near great, and certainly not a patch on Parting Of The Ways or Doomsday.

[WhiteCrow]

After a week of suspense, the resolution was a bit of a disapointment. However it made watching this finale THE EVENT of the year, for Who fans old and new.

The episode gets full marks from me. However yes indeed it has flaws and holes aplenty. But I believe when everything runs and clicks well in a piece of drama, it kind of papers over the weak bits, and you end up falling in love with it anyway.

And poor Donna - given a fate worse than death in a way. Something almost Greek tragic in her ending. She's gone on a journey with the Doctor since the Runaway Bride, finding her compassion, her way, her potential. To at the end have that all removed from her, and indeed should she ever tap into that again she'll die is a terrible thing.

Oh and Bernard Cribbins was on form. At my old Sci-Fi club, we used to term poor acting "not the mind probe" as graduates of the Bernard Cribbins school of acting - no more it seems, and he's really given his all.

[Si Hunt]

Dissapointed this end. We watched it after spending a whole week trying to avoid spoilers (and, not being able to see it earlier, keeping clear of TV's and text messages until we could) but it's telling that now, I can't see what anyone could have said to spoil it. Nothing exciting happened that could have been leaked!

The strengths - as a vehicle with so many characters, it worked surprisingly well; they all had something to do, and good interaction with each other and some funny moments. As a vehicle to resolve last week, it wrapped everything up nicely and didn't cop out on anything.

But that was the problem - all it did was wrap up last week and wipe Donna's memory. I was hoping for a little more from the season finale after last weeks excitement. It just sort of wound down nicely. We've been trained to know that at the end of the season, when everything has been wrapped up, there's suddenly a big curveball to lead into Xmas. But this time... the Doctor just sat down quietly and it ended! Even the trailer didn't reveal anything we didn't know already from the press.

Tellingly, all the text message that I'd been avoiding reading all evening so as not to spoil it, said was: "that made me a bit angry."

I think in all truth, for a season finale, that text message should have been telling me something a bit more exciting.

Si.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Bit crap really.

Cliffhanger resolution - utter cop out, and didn't even appear to make sense. Deflating the atmosphere before the episode even started.

Davros saying his ".. oh and the end of the universe" quip. Totally out of character and just the voice of the author soming through again. Why does EVERY character have to make jokey little quips all the time? Too much Buffy probably.

When the story appeared to end 20 minutes before the episode was due to end I was really hoping it was a red herring and that they weren't going to have a big protracted load of goodbyes AGAIN. But they did. Great.

Awful music again from Mr Gold.

But Davros was really good for the most part, lots of nice ideas. Too many cop outs though. I don't know... 4/10 or something. I'd agree it's the best season finale yet, but I didn't like any of the others anyway.


...okay it'll be 3/10 then because I'm not voting for "SQUEE!"

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I think the answer to the regeneration being averted was ok but I'm still not sure I like the whole 2nd Doctor growing from the hand.

I must have missed the bit where it made any sense. So if the Doctor happens to have his own severed hand lying around he can 'cancel' a regeneration by somehow channelling the regeneration energy into the hand? Even though the whole idea of "regeneration" is to repair his body when it's damaged, by actually throwing that 'energy' away he manages to repair his body anyway AND do it in a much neater and less traumatic way than ever before? Why doesn't every Timelord just carry a severed hand around with them then? And how can it then grow a whole new half-human Doctor clone just when a human happens to touch it. And also manage to hold all his memories AND give them to the human as well?

Seriously... why does RTD have such a reputation for being a great writer? That whole thing is not only utter illogical sh*t, but it also totally destroys all the tension he decided to build up over a week in about 5 seconds with a load of wishy washy gabbled nonsense. Jesus. Next to that "space pressure" and "galaxy accident" start to look like clever and meaningful concepts.

[Milky Tears]

RTD is a talentless hack and most of the UK media industry is clearly deluded. He should be shot for crimes against writing. OBE, my arse!!

I'd go with the view of about sixty mouthy gimps on the Doctor Who forums every time...




EVEN MAD LARRY!!

[Jamie McCrimmon]

1/10. If the Doctor sent the regeneration energy into his hand, how come his own body was repaired anyway? Wouldn't the Daleks have been bored in a Universe with nobody else to invade? Pulling the Earth across the Universe only generates a slight breeze? It was a very weak story, style over substance, more interested in slapping itself on the back than anything else. The previous weeks regeneration cliffhanger seemed like a deliberate, cynical attempt to wind the fans up, and the conclusion was a huge let down. Disappointing, hopefully the next series will improve.

[Larry]

1. The previous weeks regeneration cliffhanger seemed like a deliberate, cynical attempt to wind the fans up, and the conclusion was a huge let down. Disappointing, hopefully the next series will improve.

can't really argue with that one - even Mickey and Jackie, turning up to save Sarah Jane was a bit of a all to convenient cop out and lazy writing on the part of RTD.

[WhiteCrow]

can't really argue with that one - even Mickey and Jackie, turning up to save Sarah Jane was a bit of a all to convenient cop out and lazy writing on the part of RTD.

Yeah - but that's the nature of cliffhangers though isn't it? The resolution is often all too easy. The one which annoyed me the most was Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, where the power cell magically killed all Cybermen.

Thankfully we don't have too many of them in the current format.

[Larry]

I wonder if this was what was ment by giving Moffat "a clean slate" that all the companions story lines would all be nicely tied up and a line drawn under them so Moffat can bring in his new ones. I've seen a few people mention before yesterday if we don't get a propper regeneration it might just devalue the impact of when Tennent dose eventualy go and I can't help agreeing with that.

[Larry]

Don't know about any body else but I've just realised the business with the Doctor's severed hand growing into a new Doctor is exactly the same as The Hand of Fear, with Eldred growing a new body from his hand after revieving massive amounts of energy.

[Rob McCow]

Thoroughly enjoyable and great fun. Brilliant. A wonderful send off to a fantastic era of Doctor Who!

All the characters got their moment to shine, although I would have liked a bit more of Jackie and Mickey. But everyone got a great send-off.

What I love is that it all feels like part of one story. This felt like the culmination of an enormous plan. I think that Russell is a genius because he makes all these connections that are hard or impossible to second guess. I didn't see anyone guessing the resolution to the cliffhanger even though all the clues were there. Then it builds on the cliffhanger and makes it relevant to the story. It's all so brilliantly planned.

[The Secretive Bus]

I didn't see anyone guessing the resolution to the cliffhanger even though all the clues were there.

What clues were they then?