‘Journey’s End’ Review and Therapy Session
Suffice it to say that if you want to remain at all unspoiled about anything Doctor Who, ever, don’t go near this. Please come back in 2-4 weeks if you’re waiting for Sci-Fi. I don’t know how you do it.
Also, a bit of strong language and defiling of the Lord’s name. Forgive me.
Okay, after about 15 minutes I am no longer sobbing.
And it’s not that it wasn’t a great show. It really was. Had more holes than a cheese grater, and I will be the only one in fandom who probably was not thrilled about Rose getting her very own human Doctor. Jesus Christ, the Doctor gets an exact reproduction of himself, except for that pesky part-human part and he just sends him off to make little Time Lord babies with Rose? Is it that he has a problem seeing himself age or something?
And would he let a man who clearly had the heart of the dark side of the Doctor governing his actions be off on his own, with only Rose keeping him in check? Rose, who has devoted her life to him? What if he goes completely Master-like and brings Rose around to help him carry out some sort of plot? This really cannot turn out well.
It was like Rose’s gift-wrapped package of the perfect man to make her life whole. And while we’re at it, could we get a little more explanation of how Rose went so hard and different two weeks ago? Pete didn’t die, her new brother didn’t die and it appears no one in her parallel world suffered worse than the folks who were fried by Daleks and crucible. FYI, what happened to the planets that were not pulled out by the TARDIS? The Doctor didn’t just kill the Daleks, but them too. And I have a feeling he’ll pay for that down the road. After all, the Shadow Proclamation aren’t his biggest fans now.
But really, it was a lovely and fitting goodbye to the whole gang as envisioned by RTD, because there’s clearly going to be changes. I don’t think the Doctor will be visiting Earth for awhile. What Davros said struck a chord in him, and his goodbyes to the Children of Time seemed very final. And he can’t take a chance AT ALL that he runs into Donna and triggers memories. Although if what the Doctor said about humans not being able to have the consciousness of a Time Lord is true, wouldn’t that be a little bit of a problem with the second Doctor, too? So I think he’s not telling the complete truth there — I think that, like Rose, he’s sacrificing his love for her to keep her safe. Every Time Lord he’s ever known has died, after all. And if they can’t get Catherine Tate back, we might see her regenerate into something else. He couldn’t sucked it all out of her.
Donna. I don’t even know where to start. I guess I can start with one thing. I was spot on on what happened. I don’t know how I nailed it so on the head, because I knew she was going to be a Time Lord before I even saw anything on the forums. And pretty much everything I wanted Donna to do and be was fulfilled before RTD sucked her out and spat her back into reality.
I think that’s what made me bawl, because they go to all this trouble to make her the most special one of all, and have the Doctor say the most beautiful things to her, and then they pretty much said, “Okay, can’t let you be too awesome for long” and send her back home to be what her ex-fiance called her — “The thickest woman on Earth.” (BTW, rewatched that yesterday and I swear RTD is either half-woman or has met someone specific to be that inspired with what Lance told Donna when he revealed himself.) She gains all this knowledge and wisdom and power and the ability to fly through other worlds, and she could have probably done it without all of the Doctor brains, because she’s the one who’s put every clue together all season. She was a genuinely brilliant person who never believed in herself. And as the Doctor said, the most special one of all. And in the process, the Doctor loses someone else, and the person who on literal and other levels was his true equal.
So no, I don’t think the Doctor is going to want to say goodbye to anyone else for a good long time, and he doesn’t want to create any more “children” who are willing to kill their own world for him. His next Companion will be alien, and it will be very interesting to see where they go with the Cybermen.
What else? Beautiful music. The music that was playing as all the “children” and Time Lords were gathered around the TARDIS controls was absolutely gorgeous. The last two eps have been particularly impressive music-wise. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if they’re going to bring Neil Gaiman in to write an ep (and wouldn’t that be the most awesome one ever?) they should bring Mark Snow in to do music on an ep. For those who aren’t X-Philes, he’s the guy who created the X-Files theme. And the X-Files movie score (even if you hated the film you have to admit the music during Scully’s bee-sting was brilliant.) I’d like to hear what he could do. I’m sure the purists would hate it, though.
- I wish Martha had gotten a little bit more, even though she kicked ass with what she had. I did like to see Rose giving her props, though. I had big worries about the two of them. And her reaction to actually meeting Rose was an outstanding moment. And I really wish I’dve gotten to see Jack go back to Ianto and Gwen. I reaaaaally wanted to see Jack and Ianto. Fanfic, please? And is D*C here yet?
- Elisabeth Sladen said she thinks this will be her last appearance on DW, and I’d say that she would be smart to go out the way she did. It couldn’t have really turned out better for her than it has. And obviously Luke is going to end up with Torchwood or something at some point. Hey, someday she’ll end up dying (in a nice and fitting way, please) and the Doctor could come back and travel with her son to take care of him. Weirder things have happened.
- Barrowman does the best one-liners ever. His quip about what was going through his head about the three Doctors together was hilarious. (Fanfic?) And I really, really wish he had spent more time with Donna. Since obviously Donna’s in TW’s timeline, and since the Doctor obviously never tells anyone anything they need to know, what would happen if he ran into Donna randomly, starts rattling off things to her and HE’s the one who unlocks her memory? Feel free to send me royalty checks for that one, Beeb.
- Okay, someone needs to fill me in on whether Harriett Jones turned out to be a bad guy or not. I think she did, but that was not completely filled in. Okay, I misheard what Davros said, apparently. If Caan hadn’t been throwing out that “One more will die” line about 20 times afterwards, I would almost think that she was “the most faithful Companion”.
- I think it was pretty awesome when Sylvia told the Doctor that Donna was special because she was her daughter and the Doctor told her to tell her that more often. I love it when the clue bus drops by. Actually, that seemed to happen a lot in this ep.
- That whole line that DT gave about how he didn’t want to regenerate into another form because he was really awesome the way he was reminded me of Robbie Williams on stage at Knebworth during “We Will Rock You”. Just the complete arrogance and “I’m the King of the World!” thing. It was funny, just as Rob was, but dayum. Like I said before, we haven’t seen nearly the last of DT. He’s getting way too much out of this role to just walk away.
- And that’s the end. Till December. It’s gonna be a long five months. And as cool as that bit trailer was at the end, I don’t think I’m going to become obsessed with Merlin.
