Doctor Who 4x13 "Journey's End"
Jul. 6th, 2008 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenI've seen it now. As expected, there was a lot of spectacle, a lot of emotion, and not much sense. But at least it was better than Fairy!Doctor. There were points that hit me just there, and others that were dumb. As expected from RTD, really.
WAH! Donna! I cried. WAH!
Even though I knew it was most likely to be Donna who died, I was expecting it to happen in the crisis, not afterwards. Mind you, I actually did like the logic of her mind burning up from Time Lord thoughts; presumably the clone-Doctor didn't have that problem because he had a Time Lord brain and Donna didn't.
How long will it be until someone writes a story where Donna remembers? Five minutes? Almost anything can be fixed in fanfic. (I must make an icon of that) And this is much more fixable than Donna being dead dead.
(Edit: See? there be AU fic already)
Okay, from the top.
The Claytons Regeneration: ten points to all the people who theorized that the Hand would have something to do with how that was resolved. I expect that there will be huge debates as to whether Ten has actually used up a regeneration or not. Oh dear, now that I've capitalized the Hand, I'm thinking The Hand of The Doctor, like The Hand of Omega. Not the same though. But hey, he no longer has a hand-in-a-jar. Rose has got the Hand of the Doctor! "I give you my Hand in marriage." Sorry, but the idea makes me giggle.
Torchwood Time-Lock:
Cool!
Saving Sarah-Jane:
Mickey! And Jackie! Whoa, Jackie! Hooray for the Hufflepuffs! Heh, and how Mickey kissed his gun goodbye when he surrendered.
The Reality Bomb:
They're running out of names for doomsday weapons, aren't they? And the Armageddon Element was better, anyway. And the Daleks wouldn't have been the only life-forms left in the universe; there was the life on the 27 planets; not just humans, but surely the Adipose and the Paravalians were there too (though obviously they didn't do anything in the crisis). Though I guess the Daleks were intending to exterminate them later. Or use them as slaves.
The Oster-Hagen Key:
Okay, so that's what it was. I loved how the Daleks in those scenes were screaming in German, and how we had German dialogue between Martha and the woman. Maybe![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vilakins can tell me what they said. But it's a darned stupid invention, for two reasons: (a) no matter the protocols, it's far too risky in case an enemy got control of it and (b) suicide is always stupid.
Revealing the Doctor's soul:
It's fair enough, I suppose, to point out the hypocracy of allowing one's companions to do the violence on one's behalf; not just New Who companions, but Ace and Leela are good examples of that too. On the other hand, throwing in his face all the people who've died for him (ah, what a cavalcade of deaths that was) isn't the same, not unless you don't believe in free will, in the right of other people to help save the universe too. Yes, I have a right to be a martyr if I want to.
Why do both Daleks and Cybermen rave on about how much a liability emotions are? With the Cybermen it makes sense, but with Daleks it doesn't, quite, because Daleks are actually more emotional than Cybermen. But I wish I could figure out the definitive refutation of that old chestnut. The standard answers (the Power of Love, the Power of Friendship, the Power of Emotional Motivation and But It's What Makes Life Worth Living) really aren't good enough, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Human-TimeLord MetaCrisis:
What a lot of technobabble. It makes absolutely no sense. Really.
The TARDIS seems to get mended awfully quickly. Why didn't the Daleks notice that the TARDIS had dematerialized rather than been destroyed? Stupidity-for-the-sake-of-Plot, I expect.
But I did enjoy watching Super!Donna -- though I think I would have gotten annoyed at her if it had continued on for too long.
Caan the Prophet:
I liked how Dalek Caan was actually manipulating the Daleks all this time; betraying them. Though it seemed as if it was also manipulating things around Donna, which is rather too god-like to be believable. Oh well.
It's a bit of a cop-out to say that the Doctor's companions are "the children of time". And, no, they aren't his family, not really, despite what Sarah-Jane said.
I liked certain full-circle-ness that we had, though:
- Caan being the antithesis of the Emperor Dalek in Parting of the Ways
- Davros recognising Sarah-Jane; full circle from the beginning to the end.
The Destruction of the Daleks:
I'm a bit confused by this. I thought the original plan of Hand!Doctor was to get Davros's genetic print, and tune the Reality Bomb to destroy all the Daleks (as it apparently could be tuned, since in the test run it was tuned to just destroy the humans). However, after they'd made the Daleks helpless, they could have done that then, but instead they... increased power to the Dalekanium and overloaded them all? Oh, I suppose they couldn't because the gun-thing had been blasted. But it really doesn't make much sense. I mean "This is the Dalek Empire a the height of its power" super!mega!impossible-to-beat, and then they get all wiped out by flicking a few switches? Lame.
"I name you destroyer of worlds!" I hope the Doctor isn't stupid enough to take that to heart. Davros isn't the kind of person who ought to be listened to. Why does the Doctor keep on wanting to rescue the bastard?
Towing the Earth:
That was really stupid. I did like how the Doctor calling up people and they all said first "is so-and-so there?" And I guess from a thematic point of view, a long scene with uplifting music was part of the rejoicing we-won thing. But it was still stupid. Not to mention that K-9 really shouldn't have been able to appear; wasn't he supposed to be out on the edge of the solar system? I doubt a warp portal would have stretched all the way to the Medusa Cascade.
Departures - Mickey:
So his Gran's dead after all. But it seems to indicate that he had some good years with her, anyway. Oh well.
Departures - Rose:
I'm uncertain as to what I think of the Rose/Doctor solution. Yes, it ties everything up in a neat bow... but I guess I simply don't care what happens to Rose. Particularly since she was still being all whiny about being left behind. Stupid girl. I liked how the Hand!Doctor was able to whisper "I love you" (I assume that was it) while the Real!Doctor wouldn't. But I didn't like the Doctor saying that the Hand!Doctor was All Wrong because he committed genocide and that Rose had to look after him (with the implication that he was a dangerous loose canon that could explode any minute). That didn't make sense to me at all. Still, I suppose the Rose/Doctor shippers will be happy. Well, they ought to be happy. Darned ungrateful if they aren't.
Departures - Donna:
It doesn't make sense for the Doctor to have stuck around to be seen by Donna, since he'd be a reminder of everything. I guess they wanted to do that in order to demonstrate how thoroughly she'd forgotten everything.
(hugs Wilfred) Onya, gramps.
"You have all these friends, why are you alone?"
"They all have other people."
I'm glad they didn't go straight into the Christmas-Special tag as they did with earlier ones. Leaves a bit of a gap for fanfic writers. Unless, of course, they do some sort of Children-in-need mini-scene like they did between "Parting of the Ways" and "The Christmas Invasion".
Loose ends:
1) Still didn't explain how Rose knew so much. Partly explained it by saying that Rose's time was going at a faster rate than the Doctor's time, but there were certain things she shouldn't have known anyway. Oh, actually they had already implied that time went faster in the parallel universe, now that I think of it, because in Doomsday Mickey and Pete did imply that more time had passed there than here.
2) And Bad Wolf really had nothing to do with it, after all.
3) Mickey and Martha might work for Torchwood? That would be ace.
4) Would the missing planets have been returned to the times as well as the places they came from? Because if they had, then they would never have gone missing, and certain crises (such as Partners In Crime and The Fires of Pompeii) would never have occurred. I guess we can handwave that, and say that they went missing for a period of time, and were returned a bit later than when they left. Maybe.
5) What of the Shadow Proclamation? He left them in rather a hurry; maybe they're pissed off at him.
6) I expect Davros isn't really dead. Any more than the Master is really dead. Though I'd rather see the Master again than Davros again.
The trailer:
The Return of the Cybermen. (sigh) Though I must admit, I'm not as sick of the Cybermen as I'm sick of the Daleks.
Now going to see what everyone else thought.
WAH! Donna! I cried. WAH!
Even though I knew it was most likely to be Donna who died, I was expecting it to happen in the crisis, not afterwards. Mind you, I actually did like the logic of her mind burning up from Time Lord thoughts; presumably the clone-Doctor didn't have that problem because he had a Time Lord brain and Donna didn't.
How long will it be until someone writes a story where Donna remembers? Five minutes? Almost anything can be fixed in fanfic. (I must make an icon of that) And this is much more fixable than Donna being dead dead.
(Edit: See? there be AU fic already)
Okay, from the top.
The Claytons Regeneration: ten points to all the people who theorized that the Hand would have something to do with how that was resolved. I expect that there will be huge debates as to whether Ten has actually used up a regeneration or not. Oh dear, now that I've capitalized the Hand, I'm thinking The Hand of The Doctor, like The Hand of Omega. Not the same though. But hey, he no longer has a hand-in-a-jar. Rose has got the Hand of the Doctor! "I give you my Hand in marriage." Sorry, but the idea makes me giggle.
Torchwood Time-Lock:
Cool!
Saving Sarah-Jane:
Mickey! And Jackie! Whoa, Jackie! Hooray for the Hufflepuffs! Heh, and how Mickey kissed his gun goodbye when he surrendered.
The Reality Bomb:
They're running out of names for doomsday weapons, aren't they? And the Armageddon Element was better, anyway. And the Daleks wouldn't have been the only life-forms left in the universe; there was the life on the 27 planets; not just humans, but surely the Adipose and the Paravalians were there too (though obviously they didn't do anything in the crisis). Though I guess the Daleks were intending to exterminate them later. Or use them as slaves.
The Oster-Hagen Key:
Okay, so that's what it was. I loved how the Daleks in those scenes were screaming in German, and how we had German dialogue between Martha and the woman. Maybe
vilakins can tell me what they said. But it's a darned stupid invention, for two reasons: (a) no matter the protocols, it's far too risky in case an enemy got control of it and (b) suicide is always stupid.Revealing the Doctor's soul:
It's fair enough, I suppose, to point out the hypocracy of allowing one's companions to do the violence on one's behalf; not just New Who companions, but Ace and Leela are good examples of that too. On the other hand, throwing in his face all the people who've died for him (ah, what a cavalcade of deaths that was) isn't the same, not unless you don't believe in free will, in the right of other people to help save the universe too. Yes, I have a right to be a martyr if I want to.
Why do both Daleks and Cybermen rave on about how much a liability emotions are? With the Cybermen it makes sense, but with Daleks it doesn't, quite, because Daleks are actually more emotional than Cybermen. But I wish I could figure out the definitive refutation of that old chestnut. The standard answers (the Power of Love, the Power of Friendship, the Power of Emotional Motivation and But It's What Makes Life Worth Living) really aren't good enough, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Human-TimeLord MetaCrisis:
What a lot of technobabble. It makes absolutely no sense. Really.
The TARDIS seems to get mended awfully quickly. Why didn't the Daleks notice that the TARDIS had dematerialized rather than been destroyed? Stupidity-for-the-sake-of-Plot, I expect.
But I did enjoy watching Super!Donna -- though I think I would have gotten annoyed at her if it had continued on for too long.
Caan the Prophet:
I liked how Dalek Caan was actually manipulating the Daleks all this time; betraying them. Though it seemed as if it was also manipulating things around Donna, which is rather too god-like to be believable. Oh well.
It's a bit of a cop-out to say that the Doctor's companions are "the children of time". And, no, they aren't his family, not really, despite what Sarah-Jane said.
I liked certain full-circle-ness that we had, though:
- Caan being the antithesis of the Emperor Dalek in Parting of the Ways
- Davros recognising Sarah-Jane; full circle from the beginning to the end.
The Destruction of the Daleks:
I'm a bit confused by this. I thought the original plan of Hand!Doctor was to get Davros's genetic print, and tune the Reality Bomb to destroy all the Daleks (as it apparently could be tuned, since in the test run it was tuned to just destroy the humans). However, after they'd made the Daleks helpless, they could have done that then, but instead they... increased power to the Dalekanium and overloaded them all? Oh, I suppose they couldn't because the gun-thing had been blasted. But it really doesn't make much sense. I mean "This is the Dalek Empire a the height of its power" super!mega!impossible-to-beat, and then they get all wiped out by flicking a few switches? Lame.
"I name you destroyer of worlds!" I hope the Doctor isn't stupid enough to take that to heart. Davros isn't the kind of person who ought to be listened to. Why does the Doctor keep on wanting to rescue the bastard?
Towing the Earth:
That was really stupid. I did like how the Doctor calling up people and they all said first "is so-and-so there?" And I guess from a thematic point of view, a long scene with uplifting music was part of the rejoicing we-won thing. But it was still stupid. Not to mention that K-9 really shouldn't have been able to appear; wasn't he supposed to be out on the edge of the solar system? I doubt a warp portal would have stretched all the way to the Medusa Cascade.
Departures - Mickey:
So his Gran's dead after all. But it seems to indicate that he had some good years with her, anyway. Oh well.
Departures - Rose:
I'm uncertain as to what I think of the Rose/Doctor solution. Yes, it ties everything up in a neat bow... but I guess I simply don't care what happens to Rose. Particularly since she was still being all whiny about being left behind. Stupid girl. I liked how the Hand!Doctor was able to whisper "I love you" (I assume that was it) while the Real!Doctor wouldn't. But I didn't like the Doctor saying that the Hand!Doctor was All Wrong because he committed genocide and that Rose had to look after him (with the implication that he was a dangerous loose canon that could explode any minute). That didn't make sense to me at all. Still, I suppose the Rose/Doctor shippers will be happy. Well, they ought to be happy. Darned ungrateful if they aren't.
Departures - Donna:
It doesn't make sense for the Doctor to have stuck around to be seen by Donna, since he'd be a reminder of everything. I guess they wanted to do that in order to demonstrate how thoroughly she'd forgotten everything.
(hugs Wilfred) Onya, gramps.
"You have all these friends, why are you alone?"
"They all have other people."
I'm glad they didn't go straight into the Christmas-Special tag as they did with earlier ones. Leaves a bit of a gap for fanfic writers. Unless, of course, they do some sort of Children-in-need mini-scene like they did between "Parting of the Ways" and "The Christmas Invasion".
Loose ends:
1) Still didn't explain how Rose knew so much. Partly explained it by saying that Rose's time was going at a faster rate than the Doctor's time, but there were certain things she shouldn't have known anyway. Oh, actually they had already implied that time went faster in the parallel universe, now that I think of it, because in Doomsday Mickey and Pete did imply that more time had passed there than here.
2) And Bad Wolf really had nothing to do with it, after all.
3) Mickey and Martha might work for Torchwood? That would be ace.
4) Would the missing planets have been returned to the times as well as the places they came from? Because if they had, then they would never have gone missing, and certain crises (such as Partners In Crime and The Fires of Pompeii) would never have occurred. I guess we can handwave that, and say that they went missing for a period of time, and were returned a bit later than when they left. Maybe.
5) What of the Shadow Proclamation? He left them in rather a hurry; maybe they're pissed off at him.
6) I expect Davros isn't really dead. Any more than the Master is really dead. Though I'd rather see the Master again than Davros again.
The trailer:
The Return of the Cybermen. (sigh) Though I must admit, I'm not as sick of the Cybermen as I'm sick of the Daleks.
Now going to see what everyone else thought.
