Doomsday aftermath

A review after I've actually been to bed - but I'm now up listening to the commentary, after an enjoyable evening in front of the television with gervase_fen, Dr Woods and Ceollass.

If I had a time-turner I would get to FifthAnna and Amanar's wedding party, and hope it went well.

EDIT: ( Possible spoiler for those who haven't seen episode yet behind cut )

Doomsday - the review

So - the Tyler era of Doctor Who is over, and is ended more cleanly and finally than the nearest point of comparison, the UNIT years of the early 1970s. Much of the detail had been anticipated - since 'The Age of Steel' it's been possible that a union between Jackie and the alternative Pete was on the cards, and the build-up to their meeting - alt-Pete insisting that the Jackie of whom the Doctor tells is a dead man's wife, and the tense cutting back every so often to Jackie avoiding the Cybermen on the stairs leading to her capture, the destruction of the Cybermen by Pete, and that "Oh, come here..." which promises a happy ending. Throughout this scene I was concerned that a Cyberman or Dalek would turn up to delete/exterminate Pete and/or Jackie, a sign that I had really come to believe in these characters. I think that it was gervase_fen who first said, among the viewing party, that the absence of the Daleks and Cybermen from this scene, when it's been clear that both are infesting Torchwood Tower, makes it perhaps the only misstep in the episode, and it's a point conceded by Russell Davies in the commentary.

I had every confidence that the appearance of Daleks and Cybermen in the same episode would be carried off with panache, and I was not disappointed. There was never any doubt that the Daleks would reject the proposed alliance with the Cybermen, who in this version come across as almost naive, programmed with the conceits of their creator and unable, unlike the Daleks, to think outside a box designed by Lumic. The comment about the Daleks' inelegant appearance seemed otherwise too human a conceit for a Cyberman.

(to be continued!)

Doomsday - the review, part two

The point of 'Doomsday' was to write out Rose. I've thought before that Davies recognises that a lot of the programme's appeal has rested in its startling images - unsurprising, I'd say, from someone whose first childhood memories of the programme are I think from when Innes Lloyd was producer - and RTD has confirmed that the starting point of the 'Army of Ghosts'/'Doomsday' two-parter was a mental image of a room with two big levers in it - one for the Doctor, and one for Rose.

As an admirer of Philip Pullman's work - and appropriate considering what Billie Piper is going on to do - I liked the homages throughout this episode to His Dark Materials. The Doctor's 3D glasses were his amber spyglass, revealing the 'dust' of voidstuff; and while the voidstuff didn't confirm self-awareness and independence like Pullman's dust, there is no doubt that the central human characters have all changed during the past two years. Wealth, power and loss have brought Pete responsibility tempered in the end with humility, necessary to accept Rose as 'his' daughter, as happens when he returns for her just before Rose is sucked into the void.

The detail of the Doctor's relationship with Rose has for the most part been ignored; we've instead largely seen them enjoying each other's company and being smug and avoiding the questions brought up by 'School Reunion'. In hindsight this looks like denial, Rose realising that her relationship with the Doctor is not unique (and she should have kept in mind the ease with which he bonded with Lynda-with-a-Y in 'Bad Wolf'/'The Parting of the Ways') leading to her resolving that she should be the exception; and the Doctor not wanting to let her down even though he knows, really, that the time would come when he would have to make the decision for both of them. David Tennant played the ambiguities of the Doctor's final scenes with Rose very well; there was a slight suggestion of resentment that Rose had found her way back to our universe to close the breach, which did not compromise his agony at their parting.

These few paragraphs have taken far too long to write; but I'll wrap up for now that I'm mystified both by the faults found in these episodes by many online fans and at the rejection of Catherine Tate; there's a distinction between her comic personae (of which I've seen very little) and the actress, and I'm looking forward to a Christmas special co-starring one of the BBC's rising female leads as the temporary companion.