Rate and Discuss: Bad Wolf/ The Parting of the Ways

[SiHart]

Bad wolf! Big Brother! The Anne-Droid! Daleks- thousands of them and the end of the Christopher Eccleston era.

What are your thoughts on this end of season epic?

[Dino]

It never loses the novelty of great big story arc finish for me.
I never really watched the shows they were spoofing like Big Brother and the Fatty and Skinny Show (Thank you Private Eye) so even though you'd think that was lost on me, it worked pretty well.
"Bear With Me" sounds like a great show though!
I can even remember how sweaty with excitement the cliffhanger made me.
First time that year. Christopher went out on a massive high.
10.

[Andrew Curnow]

Do you remember the excitement after Bad Wolf aired, and that superb 'punch the air' cliffhanger? It still has that feeling of something very special to it - in fact, watching the two-part finale now, a few years down the line, it really is/was an amazing thing. The 'Bad Wolf' thing really snowballed in the media, in a way you couldn't manufacture. Just a really fine finale to both the show's return, and to Eccleston.

Lots of good bits, probably too many to list - but just one, maybe rather personal moment, was when Rose appears to be killed midway through episode 12. At the time, Claudia & I really felt that RTD might have actually done it, she might really be did. Somehow the show had that air of 'could do anything' about it, which was just awesome.

[MacNimon]

This is the end-of-season finale that they have tried (and failed) to better every year. It had everything, didn't it? An army of invading daleks on a scale we've never seen before (or since) combined with some great character moments. I love this story, and it's more effective after seeing the mid-season Dalek episode. This is the highlight of the season for me, which is saying something considering the quality of several earlier episodes.

Like Andrew says, at the time it was quite feasable that RTD could have killed off Rose, and the only thing making it seem unlikely (and thus spoiling the suspense) was the off-screen revelation that Eccleston was leaving. If they had managed to keep thata secret, this could possibly have been the best, most surprising, story ever.

Possibly my favourite new series story of them all, and most certainly the best new series Dalek story.

[Paul Clement]

This is the end-of-season finale that they have tried (and failed) to better every year.

And that was my main gripe with the RTD era. He didn't seem to realise that bigger did not necessarily mean better.

[SiHart]

Well quite. Watching these episodes again the other week, I think they're hard to beat. They're satirical, funny, moving and really exciting! I can remember reaching the cliffhanger of Bad Wolf, on the edge of my seat, with a real feeling of "No! You can't stop there!" as the army of Daleks was revealed for the first time and the Doctor stood up to them defiantly. Absolutely brilliant!

Then in complete contrast you get the Doctor sending Rose home and the unexpected return of Jackie and Mickey, the revelation that Rose met Pete and some astonishingly good acting from Camille that gives this episode real emotional bite.

And the regeneration. A lovely, touching goodbye- so much better than David Tennant's exit from the show for being upbeat and not mawkish. Well played by both Chris and Billie, making it a truly wonderful scene. Just it should have been.

[Andrew Curnow]

I really like the little exchange between Rose and the Doctor, where they're wiring up the thingummybob - just before he tricks her into going home. There's something so real & even casual about the way it's played by Chris & Billie, where he says something like "We could just go" and then he says "It never even occurred to you did it", with Billie replying "I'm just too good." It's not flashy, but it's just a nice little moment - two people just talking.

Also, of course, the bit just after where he tricks her into the TARDIS - and then emerges, and his face falls. Because I remember at the time being totally tricked as a viewer too!

[Larry]

And the regeneration. A lovely, touching goodbye- .

and what a difference it was from the falling of his bycicle regeneration I think we were all expecting the usual falling to the floor lying there having flashbacks so when Chris exploded in a ball of shooting fire I reckon there were a few jaws hitting the carpet.

the dark humour parody of todays reality tv was looking back at it a brilliant idea by RTD and As already mentioned the "Rose i'm coming to get you" cliff hanger was a real punch the air moment and for me one of the best cliff hangers in both new and classic series.

[Perry Vale]

"Nul Points"...Not really, another 10/10 here.

Great start, great middle, and great end. Eccleston is just brilliant from the second he collapses in to the BB room, with so many excellent moments ("Let's do it"). Loved the controller, and her conversation with the Doctor (and her gruesome end), that moment you hear the recognisable sound of a Dalek ship interior, and of course, Lynda with a 'y'.

"They survived through me!" sends a chill down my spine every time.

[Jason Thompson]

This is the one two-parter in the whole of the new series that really made my view swing from one end to the other as I watched it. Part 1 contained a lot that was, for me, truly dire. Doctor Who has never been shy of drawing on popular culture and often very proudly displays the roots of its stories, but in Bad Wolf we got such blatant and pointless examples that I was squirming through the whole lot waiting for something decent to happen. The idea that in 198,000 years from now we'd be watching TV with carbon copies of 21st century TV shows on it is absurd, and RTD just seems to be throwing random large numbers at his future stories without any idea of what that timescale might actually imply. Putting the main characters into games is a fine idea. Making them such obvious parodies of existing TV game shows just felt crass to me when I was watching. The nadir was a naked Jack pulling a gun out of his arse.

But then Rose got shot by the Anne Droid, and the whole story shifted up a gear. The whole scene was just perfect, with the complete contrast between the Doctor silently dropping to his knees and running his fingers through the pile of dust he believes is all that is left of Rose and a devastated Jack yelling and waving his gun around, and the silent, staring Doctor right up until the 'let's do it!' moment. And then the most perfect of Doctor-y moments as he storms onto floor 500 with a big gun demanding answers, then when someone begs him not to shoot he says 'oh please, like I was ever going to shoot' and throws him the gun! Brilliant. Then there's the euphoria when Jack demonstrates that the disintegrator is a transmat beam and Rose is still alive, the lovely Lynda with a Y, and the sheer jaw-dropping brilliance of that cliffhanger.

The Parting of the Ways doesn't let up either, as the Doctor sends Rose home, Jackie and Mickey finally come round and realise they have to help her get back, and the Daleks calmly massacre everyone on the station before heading upwards again. There's the silent 'exterminate' from the Dalek outside the station that kills Lynda, and the Dalek Emperor taunting the Doctor. Considering how much I hated the framing of the first part with 'real' TV shows, the bit when the Anne-Droid zapped three Daleks made me smile.

The pacing is good. The Daleks attack Earth bt this is mentioned in passing, RTD correctly realising that we don't care about the planet really as we haven't ever been on Earth in 200,100, just in orbit of it, and the station occupants are what we care about. The ending is a bit of a cop-out (and sadly would set the pattern for most of RTD's season finales), with a literal deus ex machina, but what the hell, it's been a breathless ride to get there. The regeneration felt very tacked on at the time, however. But then David Tennant smiles and we can't wait until Christmas.

[Si Hunt]

You could explain it by perhaps saying that in 198,000 years time our specific century had been "brought back" retro style; i.e it was purposefully evoking that period, the way that we make "egyptian" style theme parks. In that sense, what was the most convincing was the actual characters in this time themselves - Lynda with a Y, lovely though she was, looks dated even today. Unless the clothes, and even the personalities, of the game participants were also styled on our century.

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

You could, possibly, at a stretch, and that's probably what RTD was suggesting. However, it's the sheer length of the timescale involved that makes me twitchy. Modern humans have only existed for about 20,000 years, if I remember correctly, and in that time we have developed a lot. In ten times that timespan I would expect us to have moved well beyond TV shows and hoodies.

[Si Hunt]

It's interesting, though, to consider that if we don't manage to destroy ourselves, will our development just sort of level out? Or will we just keep changing? How much more CAN we change? You could see that in 100 years we'll all be working in computer simulated rooms and everything will be implanted (or something!) what what then? Is it not possible that human beings will reach a point where they just go on existing? Or will we evolve into gas clouds or something.

Si.

[J.R. Southall]

It's televisual shorthand, basically. You could create brand new shows for the characters to inhabit, but that would also involve telling the viewers at home how they work. Or you could simply dump the TARDIS travellers into three game shows that the public already know well enough that you can get on with telling the rest of the story. It's a simple invitation to suspend your disbelief and get on with being entertained. I didn't have a problem with it at all (after all, Doctor Who has a long history of utilising this kind of shortcut to ease the casual viewer into the drama; RTD's Who never more so) - but I'm not saying you're 'wrong' to do so.

[Jason Thompson]

It's televisual shorthand, basically.

There's televisual shorthand and then there's smacking the viewer in the face with a wet fish. The formats of those shows are well-enough known that something vaguely similar would serve the narrative purpose just as well. Getting the same music, the same celerbity hosts, the same studio sets effectively just carried it that little bit too far past credible for me.

[Rob McCow]

It was spoofed just as well (if not more amusingly) in the BF Audio, The One Doctor.

There was very little official preview material for Bad Wolf. We were expecting huge things. The spoof-game-show business was a complete curveball! What's wonderful about it though are the hints of something much darker underneath. The 'Controller' woman is a fairly horrific concept, as is the idea of the whole population of the Earth being enthralled by Game Shows That Kill. The 'switch' moment where the Anne Droid suddenly becomes a real threat is handled brilliantly.

What's clever is that the story doesn't send up the game-show format. Instead, it borrows the inherent tension and drama in The Weakest Link and Big Brother, then amplifies the threat to the contestants.

I love the design of the robots in this story. Their not-quite-Playmobil faces are neatly pitched as a slightly unsettling child's toy.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Load of crap

[Rob McCow]

Simply sublime.

[SiHart]

It was 6 years ago today that David Tennant made his first appearance you know.

[Andrew Curnow]

Just thought I'd add to this thread, some 3 years on - just watched Bad Wolf again for the first time since... well, since at least before this thread started. I still like it a lot, from the daftness of the Doctor in the diary room through to the superb "No" ending. Outstanding!