Rate And Discuss 4.18: The End Of Time, Part Two

[FlyingBeastie]

And the (ninth) Doctor replied "And I thought I told you to SHUT THE HELL UP!"

and proceeded to strangle her and call her an evil spirit- oh wait...

[Andrew Curnow]

I think he just said he couldn't, there wasn't any complicated "there's this thing called a timelock" explanation.

[Martin Curnow]

I thought the last 10 minutes or so was a load of pure timewasting nostalgia whic added nothing to the story...and I loved every second of it!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Of course the reason the Doctor was the only survivor of the Time War all comes down to being half-human I recon ...

[Anthony Williams]

Of course the reason the Doctor was the only survivor of the Time War all comes down to being half-human I recon ...

THAT IS BLASPHEMY!

Ant x

[FlyingBeastie]

Of course the reason the Doctor was the only survivor of the Time War all comes down to being half-human I recon ...

True. And I quite like that added plot-point to the Doctor.

Yes, yes I said it- I LOVED the T.V. Movie and like the half-human story. It explains quite a bit, actually when you think about

[Logo Polish]

Apparently RTD was going to put a line into this one where the Doctor tells Wilf "I was half human for a couple of days in 1999", as if it had been a brief illness.

[cullsoft]

When we were discussing this yesterday at the Bracknell Who Group it sprung to mind that I never posted my thoughts here, despite doing so on another forum (a non-Who one but has a few Who watchers). So I'm copying and pasting what I thought (with a couple of typo edits), along with a friend's thoughts that I replied to.

I thought it was awesometacular. Part 1 seemed a bit stronger to me, story wise. I was also disappointed that all the "Masters" were reverted so easily. Also, they really seemed to drag out Tennant's death, a bit more than I thought necessary.

Funnily enough, I thought part 2's half of the story was the stronger half; the problem I had with part 1 was the hugely serious build-up, and then the ridiculous silliness of The Master's plan at the end... felt appropriate as a fun Christmas Day romp, but didn't feel right as the big finale to Tennant and Davies' run.

Although by "part 2's half" I mean up until The Doctor saves the day and rescues Bernard (I'm sorry, I keep forgetting he's called Wilf and I can't help but think "It's Doctor Who and Bernard Cribbins!")... if there's one thing I hope Russell T. Davies takes with him now he's finished running the series, it's these overly elongated conclusions to seasons that go on for up to half an hour, have to drag in as many previous characters as possible and generally feel like a big emo-trip. I'll admit that had The End Of Time's been the only one it would have felt very appropriate and heartfelt, but as it's been done at the end of nearly all of Tennant's seasons it felt irritatingly tortological and left me wanting to skip to the end.

Not to mention that in a way it shouldn't really have happened... I don't think Jon Pertwee had nearly as much radiation poisoning as Tennant did when his Doctor died, and what little time he spent between absorbing it and regenerating seemed to me to be spent pretty much staggering to keep on his feet. I don't think any of The Doctors had such long drawn "deaths", let alone in such apparently good health when they've technically received the mortal blow (closest that springs to mind is Hartnell, who was "dying an old man's death" for most of "The Tenth Planet", but he spent most of the story pretty much bedridden and barely functioning as such a death would do - he wasn't ranting around for four weks before finally keeling over!). If we hadn't been told again and again and again throughout the last season or had it bigged up in the media so much, we'd have spent that last half hour going "hang on, what about all that radiation? Don't tell me he used magic Time Lord super powers to shake himself back to normal AGAIN!"...

The main story, though, was a good save from the first part... I'm hesitant to say it was a great save, as it didn't feel like the best story ever from the start, but given what I thought of the first part it certainly picked itself up and gave it a good shot. I was never a fan of John Simm's portrayal of The Master at the end of season 3, but this time I think he got it right, and the sadistic lunacy felt much more understandable and believable (as opposed to before where it just felt "silly and nutty for the sake of being silly and nutty"). Bernard Cribbins and David Tennant worked well together, and it was nice to see them working as a proper Doctor-Companion combo... the scene where Bernard's trying to get David to take the gun and kill the Master but couldn't, as much as he knew it would fix everything, was heartfeltly touching, and probably one of my favourite scenes in the whole new series.

As for Matt Smith... it's too early to make solid judgements upon him, but then that's nothing new for a new Doctor's first appearance... it's certainly more than Peter Davison (all you saw of him after Tom Baker's regeneration was that he could smile and sit up!), and whilst it's not as brilliantly simple as Tennant's "New teeth!", Smith's little scene suggest he could get the right level of dramatic joy and obscure eccentricity that's needed for the role... only time will tell!

[matthewsch]

Also, did I imagine it, or did RTD have a cameo as one of the people in the streets when Gallifrey was returning?

Weeell, my father said "Hey, wasn't that the writer guy?" and we paused it, I had a look at the guy in question, and I said, "Nah, RTD's a bit fatter and a bit more gay-looking than that." Unless, we were talking about different people...

[Si Hunt]

Maybe he was acting butch and sucking his stomach in?

Si.

PS Welcome to the forum Matthew!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I keep meaning to rewatch this ... but it did look more like someone trying to look like RTD than the genuine article.

Kind of reminds me of the signing we went to where they had a Tennant Doctor and Martha Jones look-a-likes. Which was a bit wierd, as Martha wasn't even a woman. Crying game or crying shame?

[Larry]

I watched it again yesterday and have say it dose get better with each viewing.