Rose Tyler. Nineteen year old adventurer, part-time goddess. Saviour and friend of the Doctor. In her first year with the Doctor, she helped him find his way back from his lowest ebb. This year, she’s grown up under the care of the new boy; going from a scared kid trying to shout down the Sycorax to a confident woman staring down the Daleks.¹ Once, she travelled with the Doctor to see the universe — now she travels to keep him company. And in the last episode of Doctor Who‘s even more unlikely second season, he is taken from her.

But not before some absolutely amazing stuff. There’s been a few snooty reactions from some corners concerning the idea of having Daleks and Cybermen in the same story. ‘Fanwank’, they call it. But then, some people hated the idea of the Cybermen having a catchphrase. This, I suspect, is because they hate children or something. Stories were spreading from Britain of kids playing ‘Daleks v. Cybermen’ in the playground.² This fills me with a similar warm feeling to the one I got when ‘Doomsday’ cut away from a romantic, happy scene of Pete and Jackie Tyler reunited to robotic cries of “EXTERMINATE!” and “DELETE!” I’ve lost count of how many things this show has done brilliantly that I wouldn’t have believed could work. I now add “Daleks and Cybermen trash-talking each other” to the list.

It was said that the ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ two-parter was Doctor Who as action movie. ‘Doomsday’, on the other hand, is Doctor Who as good action movie. And in amongst the action, the whole family’s back: Jackie, Pete and Mickey — the sterling supporting cast from the last two seasons. None of them are wasted, and the aforementioned reunion gives Jackie one last good shot at stealing the show with the best joke.

There are aspects in which ‘Doomsday’ disappoints, just a little. The Doctor has some brilliant localised moments — teasing the Daleks, hugging a wall at the end, getting his perfect Han Solo moment — but one could have been forgiven for expecting a bit more meat for him. For a brief moment I thought things were going to get more complicated for him, when Pete started treating him a bit roughly… but the little human quickly rolled over and played companion. Even the Daleks were a little tame around him,³ though Tennant did well to separate his doctor from Eccleston’s defining moment in ‘Dalek’. Ultimately, the Doctor does save everyone, even after jinxing it and promising Jackie she and Rose would live. Everything goes swimmingly, his plan works, there was a perfectly good reason why he was using the 3D glasses.

Well, not everything goes swimmingly, I suppose. He does lose his bestest bestest friend.

It’s tough to see Rose go, but not quite as tough as it could have been. It’s a cliche, but it’s true for me — seeing people hold back tears is so much more moving than seeing people cry. After having a few moments like this over the second year, I would have so desperately preferred to have Rose fight back the tears on the beach, and smile a forced smile, and walk away bravely. That said, it’s a tremendously sad moment for the character, and I’m not anti-crying in life; everyone needs a good cry once in a while. It’s possibly more naturalistic — but it didn’t feel as dramatically right as it could’ve done.

The best stories, I reckon, are the ones where you don’t question, even for a moment, that what you’re being told happened the way it did. They grab you, they hold you, and they don’t let go until the end. ‘Doomsday’ doesn’t quite get there — extra endings tying up loose ends can’t really feel completely smooth. While it’s a lovely goodbye, and it caps off elements from ‘School Reunion’ very nicely, I can’t help wondering how awesome the episode could have been if the Doctor and Rose never got to see each other again. Right up until Rose hears the Doctor’s voice in her sleep, ‘Doomsday’ is almost unassailably awesome. When the time-crossed couple get a whole conversation together, it feels a bit like a cheat — though at the very least, they’re robbed of the Doctor’s final words. And to my supreme relief, the usual cheesy “time to cry now” music was replaced for the most part by a really cute remix of the Bad Wolf theme.

The obvious, and reasonably fair, comparison to make is with ‘The Parting of the Ways’. ‘Doomsday’ isn’t as poignant or subtle as that story — but it’s pacier, and more polished, and funnier. Here, at the end, my attitude to this story is similar to my attitude to the whole of the second season; technically superior in so many ways, with just a bit less heart than last year. But it’s a heinous crime to complain that art doesn’t do something it wasn’t even trying to do. ‘Doomsday’ is a farewell not just to Rose Tyler, but to Mickey Smith, Pete Tyler, and Jackie Tyler. They’re all brilliantly served by the story, for the most part, and I’ll miss them terribly.

But that’s what’s so enduring about Doctor Who. It just keeps moving on. We’ll never see Jackie and Pete’s future marital difficulties, or Mickey’s shocking substance abuse problem, or Rose’s posession by an interdimensional being.⁴ The Doctor just keeps on travelling, the eternal wanderer, the lonely god. And there’s always something new and exciting around the corner. Like, for example, a rather surprised looking woman in bridal wear.

1. Speaking of Daleks, there’s a cute Dalek font on the interweb one could use to view this review more appropriately. ↩
2. Incidentally — the age-old question is answered this week, and it’s how you’d expect; the Daleks wipe the floor with the Cybermen. I was somewhat disappointed that the Cybes didn’t even manage to get one Dalek, but in the context of the new series, depowering the Daleks would be like depowering the Time Lords. And we don’t want that. If they bring the Time Lords back, it’s the perfect opportunity for the beleaguered race to become more ‘Gods’ and less ‘stuffy politicians’. ↩
3. Here I go nerdy noo. The Cult of Skaro are apparently Daleks with imagination, designed to think the way the enemy thinks — are they the descendants of the humanised Daleks that the Doctor created in ‘The Evil of the Daleks’? After all, they’re the only other Daleks we’ve seen with names… I apologise to all those who haven’t a clue what I’m on about. ↩
4. Torchwood. Oops, I mean, touch wood. ↩

1,105

This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Monday, July 24th, 2006. It concerns such pressing issues as Doctor Who, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.