The Stolen Earth/Journey's End

Um. Well. Yeah.

I admit, my view of these was colored by the fact that a) I already knew we were losing Donna and found that unforgivable1 and b) I'd been spoiled: I knew how we were losing Donna, and found that nearly unforgivable.

That and my initial reaction to the trailer didn't set the stage for a very happy viewing. I mean, Daleks, again? Just how many times can the Ultimate Threat appear and turn out to be not so very Ultimate after all? And how many times must he or someone else make the Ultimate Sacrifice to get rid of these pests (anyone else reminded of cockroaches here?)?

Speaking of Ultimate...

The writers, or at least RTD, need to take another look or two at the words "ultimate" and "maximum." The president declared "Maximum Red Alert" in The Stolen Earth (or maybe it was only "ultimate," I get confused) and Daleks declared their intention to use "ultimate extermination" on a man and his family. Red alert is already "maximum," and exterminated is as "ultimate" as it gets. I might let it slide if this were the only time it had happened, but the past few seasons have been strewn with stray superlatives--last year, for example, the Cybermen2 announced that they were going to subject the Doctor and his friends to "Ultimate Deletion," various windows and doors got "maximum deadlocked," whatever that means and there are plenty more of those running through the series.

Which gets me to the story which is, after all, what this is all supposed to be about.

It was entertaining, but not one of the best.

I've already mentioned the problem with the Daleks.

Daleks can be great villains, and I know that they were the truly terrifying monsters of the past--I have seen a few of those episodes. And, they have been used effectively in the New Who: the "last" Dalek in Dalek was one such instance--we learned a lot more about the Doctor and what makes him tick, for one thing, and a few things about Rose as well. And it made a great end to the chapter we'd never seen but had only heard about.

Except, of course, it wasn't the end. I have to admit, The Daleks in Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways were pretty impressive. There was some shock value there, for one thing, and the multitude of Daleks chanting did seem a terrifying threat. Once. Then they showed up again in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday and began to seem excessive, though the interchanges with the Cybermen2 helped to salvage the situation. But then--oh, look! There they are again in Daleks in Manhatten, where at least the Doctor didn't "lose" anyone (back to that in a moment), and, oh wow, they're back in full, chanting glory for this season's finale.

See why I couldn't muster much enthusiasm? Having Jack and Sarah sit down and wait to die did not improve matters. I really couldn't believe it of either of them; they've both spent their lives saving the earth from Dire Peril, what's a Dalek or two more? So, making them huddle in corners and bewail their fate seemed more like a desperate attempt to make the viewer think that Daleks again was a fabulously scary idea.

And, um, oh look! Rose is back. You know, the woman who could never, ever, ever come back or universes would collapse? The one who had not one but two moving goodbye scenes? That one. What's more, it turns out she'd been building a device to get herself back almost from the moment she said goodbye, never mind what the Doctor told her about the universe-destroying properties of said machines; she even had help on it. Are the alt-universe people suicidal? Or do the suspect the Doctor of exaggeration? Fortunately for everyone, the universes appear to have started collapsing on their own, so her work turned out to be useful rather than lethal.

Aaand, then, when it's all over, the Real Doctor sends her back to the Other Universe--which is not her original home, so there was no semi-magical affinity to make it necessary--so she can look after the Clone Doctor there. And Clone Doctor needs looking after because he just committed genocide. How's that for a babysitting job?

Mind, I'm not sure what Real Doctor was going to do with all those Daleks; they don't really make good house pets and anyway, by now he should know that genocide is only temporary (see "cockroach"), having tried that route himself already.

Clone Doctor himself was... not the best idea RTD ever came up with. As a "pull a miracle" it beats goddess-Rose, but... as an idea, he's not all that great. And having the Doctor and Donna offer him to Rose as a consolation(?) for losing Real Doc made the whole situation seem tacky & cheap. Had Rose figured it out on her own, it would still have been a bad idea, but it wouldn't have seemed quite so tawdry.

And Donna.

I have been dreading losing Donna for ages, and I was right. I'm going to miss her. I haven't decided yet whether, in the long run, I prefer a mind-wipe (she lost more than memory there) to death, but in any case, she's gone.3

Short-term, I have to say that memory-wiping seems like a cop out. Always has, in whatever story it appears in4. Don't like what happened? No problem, just erase a few minutes of memory and no one will have to deal with it at all. And the people with the lost memories? They seem to get along just fine, though it is very hard to believe they don't have dreams or flashbacks or other difficulties. Donna, for example, is going to have quite a gap in her employment record and no way of explaining it to herself or anyone else. Unless, of course, the Doctor has thought about that and altered the records accordingly, which is not entirely impossible.

But... Donna's gone, and no matter what the Doctor did or did not do for her employment record, memory wipes remain a cop out.

And I am really, really, really (how's that for superlatives?) tired of the Lonely God. Honestly, angst-driven, set-apart-from-it-all heroes are a dime a dozen. Heroes who turn back to admire the werewolf chasing them--those are something special. In fact, I can only think of one, and he wasn't the Lonely God. He was "just" the Doctor. So I hope that whatever Steven Moffat does, he doesn't continue with that silliness.

So, after all that--what did I like?

Harriet Jones, of course, was magnificent, and, while I hate to see her die, it was a great death. Having the Daleks recognize her was a funny/sad moment, and I admire her for sticking to her Christmas Day decision, and for deciding that, even if she wasn't Prime Minister, she was going to stay on the job as defender of Earth (which needs all the defenders it can get).

The planets in the sky. It was a lovely image.

Dalek Caan. If the Daleks have to reappear, it's a good idea to have a mad bubbly prophetic one sitting there giggling to himself, even if I don't believe for a minute that he somehow engineered Donna and the Doctor's meeting.

I loved the gathering of companions, particularly the bit where they were all laughing and driving the TARDIS together.

I loved seing Jackie again. I've missed her. Neither Martha nor Donna had anyone comparable working to keep the Doctor in line.

Donna's grandad. He's been a favorite of mine from the first, and his farewell to the Doctor was perfectly done and well timed.

The Doctor running to meet Rose and the shock of his death. Yes, her return was a generally bad idea, and yes, we all knew he wasn't really dead, but it was a nearly-perfect moment despite that.

Micky-the-Idiot. His growth as a character is one example of the things the show does right. It's only the good shows that can take the trouble to develop secondary characters and make them matter.

Donna was splendid, as always: "I'm a human being. Not the stuff of legends, but every bit as important as a Time Lord, thank you." And DoctorDonna was a marvel, very believable as Donna with the knowledge of a Time Lord thrown in. No, that couldn't have lasted, but why not just have it fade?

Caring enough about the show to rant. I don't bother with shows I don't like; I just turn the TV off.

That there will be another season after the Gap Year (though the Year itself worries me. With Donna gone, are we doomed to a series of Astrids?).

1. I still find it unforgivable. Who cares about real life issues such as contracts and contrary actors? I want Donna back.
2 Who are also set to come back again.
3 Though I did just rewatch The Unicorn and the Wasp where there was that nice bit about Agatha never really forgetting what happened. And, yes, I hated that mind wipe, too. It was hardly necessary. However--it does clear the way for Donna to at least regain some of the personality growth she lost with the Doctor's so helpful help. And maybe, possibly, she'll show up on Torchwood's doorstep one of these days, fighting mad and ready to rejoin the Doctor. In any case, I do hope the Doctor deputized someone to look in on her once and a while--besides her family I mean. It would actually be safe to give Jack the job. She seems to be the one individual in the entire universe he doesn't want to flirt with.
4 I can't love Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series as much as I ought, and it is mostly because of the memory cop-out. Will is always erasing people's memories; it means he doesn't have to deal with the consequences of his family or friends finding out about him, and neither does Cooper; the end also features a wholesale memory-erasure.