Pop Vultures

Doctor Who, S04 E13: Journey’s End

This week: now we know where Russell T Davies gets his ideas - bad fanfic! Anna is disappointed by the Doctor Who finalé.

We pick up where we left off, back in the Tardis, which the Doctor regenerating. Oh, the excitement! Best cliff-hanger ever.

Which makes what happens next even more of an anti-climactic cop-out. The Doctor points his glowing hand at the old hand-in-a-jar, and the glowy regenerative energy connects with it and flows back to him. The glowiness stops, and he’s still good old David Tennant. “Now then,” he says, panting a bit. “Where were we?”

Now, I did not want David Tennant to leave. I love him as the Doctor, and not just because I fancy him (although I do). But that was lazy, cheap writing and plotting. If you have a big cliff hanger – and that was a REALLY big cliff hanger – resolving it in the first three seconds and carrying on as if nothing has happened makes it very hard for your viewers to trust you.

Back on earth, Sarah Jane is still about to be exterminated when suddenly there’s a flash and a crash and someone blows the Daleks’ heads off. Two someones, actually - it’s Jackie Tyler and Micky! That was a nice surprise. Sarah Jane gets out of the car, dazed, and says, “Micky?” “Us Smiths have to stick together,” says Micky, all badass. “Jackie Tyler, Rose’s mum,” says Jackie. “Now where the hell is my daughter?” Um, how is SJ meant to know? Also, how did they just happen to find her and her car? Oh, who cares - Mr Davies obviously doesn’t.

Back at Torchwood, Gwen is still roaring and firing bullets, but suddenly the bullets freeze in mid-air. Gwen touches one and discovers they’re stuck in some sort of force field of wobbliness.

Back on the Tardis, the Doctor gazes lovingly at his hand and tells the others that he used the regeneration energy to heal himself rather than regenerate. “Then I didn’t need to change. I didn’t want to - why would I? Look at me!” Fair enough. He reminds Rose about his lost hand and she realises that it’s really him. They hug, at last. Awww. That was genuinely sweet. I am trying to pretend that I don’t know about the preposterous stupidness that happens later. Donna and Jack watch on benignly. “You can hug me if you want,” says Donna, all faux-nonchalance. “No really, you can hug me.” Heh.

Back at Torchwood, it turns out that there’s some sort of time lock, sealing our heroes in, which of course means they can’t get out and are stuck there looking through the force field at the Dalek. They look at the Dalek. It looks at them. Impasse.

The Daleks decide to “initiate temporal prison” and circle the Tardis. Inside, all the power dies. Outside, Sarah Jane, Jackie and Micky watch as the Daleks beam up the Tardis to “the crucible.” SJ says they need to get to the Doctor and asks if they can use the other two’s temporal jump devices to teleport there. Micky says no, because they need half an hour to power up between uses (well, they do “rip a hole in the fabric of space,” as he points out). SJ says there’s only one way to get to the Dalek HQ - give themselves up to the Daleks. She tells the others to leave their weapons because if the Daleks see weapons they’ll shoot the bearers dead. She walks out and surrenders to the Daleks; Jackie follows (”if they’ve got the Doctor, they’ve got Rose”) and, having kissed his gun goodbye (good lord) Micky follows.

Martha tells her mother she has to go and puts on her Indigo harness. Francine asks where, and she says “to do my job.” Francine tries to ask for more details but Martha just tearfully says “I love you” and vanishes.

Martha’s in Deutschland, and the Daleks are speaking German! “EX-TERMIN-IEREN!” they cry. They also, auf Deutsch, tell some unfortunate unseen humans to stop or they’ll be exterminated. That is seriously awesome, and hilarious, even when I remember that “exterminieren” isn’t actually a real German word. They should really be saying “vernichten” or something. Anyway, Martha scrambles over a field, avoiding the Daleks.

Back on the Tardis, The Doctor asks Rose what the future is like, on the parallel universe. Rose, whose voice is still weird, says the future is “the darkness.” The stars started dying. She says that “we” (presumably parallel!Torchwood) have been building a “dimension cannon…so I could come back. Shut up,” she adds as the Doctor grins goofily at her. Despite the weirdness of her voice, Billie delivers these lines really well. She says that all the dimensions between the worlds are starting to collapse and that all time lines seem to converge on Donna. “Why me? I’m just a temp from Chiswick!” says Donna. Before she can say more, they arrive at the Dalek Crucible.

The Daleks demand that the Doctor “step forth or die.” The Doctor knows that he has to, or they’ll get in. They all have to go, but Donna is distracted by her own heartbeat. “Surrender, doctor, and face your Dalek masters!” cries the (still kind of hilarious) Supreme Dalek. Inside, everyone’s getting a bit nervously hysterical, which is quite convincing. “It’s been good, though, hasn’t it?” says the Doctor. “All of us? Everything we did? You were brilliant,” he says to Donna, and she kind of smiles and bows her head a bit in acknowledgement, and it’s genuinely moving. “And you were brilliant,” he says to a smiling Jack, “and you,” to Rose, and their eyes meet, “were brilliant.” Then they head out to face the enemy, to the sound of pumping music. “Daleks reign supreme!” says the SD. I think I love him. But Donna hasn’t yet left the Tardis. Her heartbeat is louder and she can’t stop looking at the Tardis console (or possibly the hand beneath it). Suddenly the Tardis door slams shut and she can’t get out. The Doctor demands that “she’s my friend, let her out!” but the SD wipes his hands of the whole thing and says that this is “Timelord trickery!” and that, as a weapon, the Tardis must be destroyed. It is dropped through a handy trapdoor, on its way to the lava-filled crucible core, where it will be torn apart. The Doctor is distraught, while inside the Tardis, a terrified Donna is surrounded by flames. The sadistic Daleks have a handy camera pointed at the core so the Doctor can see the Tardis fall into it. “Observe! The last child of Gallifrey is powerless!” The desperate Doctor offers to die in her place, if they’ll just get her out, but to no avail.

Back in the Tardis, Donna’s heartbeat is thumping again. She looks at the hand and reaches out to touch it. Suddenly, it starts to glow and the energy flows through her. She starts to glow too. Could she be…regenerating herself? Could she be a Time Lord? I was so excited when I watched this for the first time. Alas, this moment was the last time in this episode I felt genuinely thrilled. It was all a huge fucking anticlimax from here on. The jar bursts.

Upstairs, the Daleks gloat some more. They’re very smug for creatures supposedly devoid of emotion.

On the Tardis, Donna has stopped glowing, but the now de-jarred hand hasn’t. In fact, it’s growing…a whole new Doctor.

“It’s you!” cries Donna.
“Oh yes!” says Doctor 2.
“And you’re naked!” says Donna, conspicuously averting her gaze.
“Oh yes,” says Doctor 2, looking only slightly chagrined.

Rose takes the Doctor’s hand as they await the imminent destruction of the Tardis on screen. But back on the Tardis, Doctor 2 has, I dunno, plugged himself into the Tardis and turned it on again or something, and they teleport to safety. Well, relative safety. He’s still in the nude, by the way. Just in case you were wondering.

“The Tardis has been destroyed!” says the SD, who then demands to know what the Doctor is feeling. “Anger? Sorrow? Despair?” “Yeah,” says the Doctor. The SD cracks wise about how if emotions are so important, then surely they’ve just enhanced the Doctor. He’s such a wag. So Jack shoots him and gets exterminated for his pains, although of course he won’t stay dead for long. Rose doesn’t know this, though, so she’s all sad. The Doctor and Rose are taken to “the vault”.

Back on the Tardis, the Doctor has changed into that old blue suit. He’s jabbering happily about it, although Donna is still in shock. “Is that what you Time Lords do? Chop a bit off, grow another one? You’re like worms!” Doctor 2 says no, there’s never been anything like him before, and overacts quite annoyingly (sorry, David Tennant) about how the bioenergy created “me…out of you. Could be worse.” “Oi, watch it, spaceman!” snarks Donna. “Oi, watch it, earth girl!” says Doctor 2, in exactly the same tone. They stare at each other in shock. “I sound like you!” says Doctor 2. “All sort of…rough!” There’s more Oi!ing and it’s all a bit tedious. Then Doc2 realises he only has one heart - like he’s human. “Aw, that’s disgusting!” he says. Cue a few more “oi!”s. “I’m part Time Lord, part human,” says Doctor2. “Well, isn’t that wizard?” He delivers that last line with impressive and, okay, very amusing sarcasm. Donna mentions hearing the heartbeat, a phenomenon which rose all my hopes, and Doctor 2 dashes them once and for all by saying it was him, echoing back through time and space. Well, that’s convincing. Not a cop-out at all. But why Donna? As she says again, she’s not anything special. “But you are,” says Doctor 2. A look of realisation dawns on his features. “You really don’t believe that, do you?’ Now he can see into her mind. All her attitude comes from the fact that she thinks she’s not worth anything. “Shouting at the world because no one’s listening.” Donna looks upset. Doctor 2 says that somehow, fate brought them together - from the first time she appeared in the Tardis. “But the pattern’s not complete.”

Martha finds a castle. A crazy old lady appears and, in slightly clunky German, and the harsh tone in which all German speakers are apparently contractually obliged to speak in British films and TV, says “no one is here. Whatever you want, go away! Leave me in peace.” I knew my degree in German would come in handy some day. Martha introduces herself in German, and conveniently for the viewers the old crone moves to English and, still sounding like an on-screen Nazi, says that she recognises Martha’s accent and that she was in London “a long time ago.” She used to take food to the soldiers stationed at the castle, but when the “Alptraum” (nightmare) came from the sky, they all went away. Martha insists on entering the castle, which is ridiculously run down for somewhere that was supposedly occupied until that afternoon. She pulls aside a curtain which is the only thing hiding the key pad and hand, um, scanner thing that bars the way to the UNIT secrets. It’s almost as high security as Torchwood! The old crone reminisces about her glory days many years ago in glamorous London, and how she heard people talking about the Osterhagen key. She pulls a gun and says she knows what the key does, and she can’t let Martha use it. Reverting back to German, she says that Martha is the nightmare, not “the others” and that she (the crone) should kill her, ideally straight away. Martha tells her to do it, but she can’t, so Martha enters the secret bunker. There was an awful lot of unsubtitled Deutsch in that scene.

The Crucible. Jack’s supposed corpse is put into an incineration bin. He rolls out the other side. Are you surprised?

Deutschland. Martha turns on a complicated machine and finds herself in communication with two other Osterhagen stations.

SJ and Co are in a gang of prisoners, being taken for testing. “One step closer to the Doctor!” says the optimistic SJ.

Davros contains Rose and the Doctor in invisible holding cells, aka spotlights. He wants to talk, but the Doctor has no time for “the whole nostalgia tour.” Are you sure about that? He sasses Davros, telling him that if he’s in the vault, that must be some sort of dungeon. He’s not in charge of the Daleks anymore. He’s “their pet.” Davros gets all aggressive and tells him that Rose is “mine, to do as I please”. He’s keeping her alive so she can fulfill the prophecies of Dalek Caan - even the SD is following the latter’s “wisdom.” Another handy spotlight illuminates Caan, burbling away about endless flames like he’s going to start singing ‘Love Games’ with Old Greg (I kind of wish he would). Davros said that Caan “saw time” while the latter goes on for the umpteenth time about the Doctor’s precious “children of time.” The Doctor asks if Caan locked Donna in the Tardis, and his rage pleases Davros, who goes on creepily about “the rage of a Time Lord who butchered millions.” The Doctor tries to ignore him but looks troubled as Caan says “the Doctor’s soul will be revealed.” But before that, “the testing begins,” says Davros, “of the reality bomb.” The what?

The holding cell. The actress who used to play Gita in EastEnders, one of the ridiculously tiny number of Asian characters to ever appear in that soap, falls and overacts. Jackie helps her to her feet as SJ uses her handy sonic lipstick to open a convenient door. She and Micky get out but the door closes before Jackie (or anyone else, as nobody seems to notice their escape) can join them. Now a Dalek blocks the way. The reality bomb countdown begins, and downstairs Davros laughs in triumph. The planets start to align themselves - the Doctor gives us some jargonbabble and bellows “no, Davros, you can’t!” Up on the Tardis, Doctor 2 is watching as well and says pretty much the same thing, although he seems a bit less bothered by it all. It dawns on Micky that their teleporters have recharged and he signals desperately to Jackie to use hers. “I’m so sorry,” she tells Gita, and escapes just as everyone else is blasted into atoms.

Both Donna and Rose ask their respective Doctors what just happened. Davros has to show off so he explains that everything’s held together by electrical energy and this turns it off. Or something. There’s a lot of made-up technobabble in this episode. So yeah, he’s going to use the planets as a transmitter to blast the ray across the whole universe and everything will become dust. “And the dust will become atoms, and the atoms will become…nothing.” It’ll then break through the rift in the Medusa Cascade and destroy all the universes. Davros gets all excited and bellows that this will be “my ultimate victory - the destruction of reality itself!” Um, I hate to ask, Davros, but what exactly are you going to do then? Won’t you be a bit….bored? The Daleks all gather in the crucible, which will protect them from the rays of the reality bomb. Back on earth, Sylvia is thrilled that the Daleks are leaving, but Wilf isn’t so confident that all will be well.

SJ, Jackie and Micky are joined by Captain Jack, who rolls out of an air vent and greets Micky with a sassy joke. Micky calls him “Captain Cheesecake,” rather amusingly, and they embrace in an affectionate but manly fashion. “And that’s Beefcake!” Jack adds. SJ and Jack greet each other and SJ produces yet another MacGuffin, a warp star given to her by a “soothsayer” for use during the “end of days.” “It’s an explosion waiting to happen!” says Captain Jack.

Martha talks to the other UNIT agents, one in China and one in Liberia. They only need three agents to set it off. But Martha says they’re not to set it off yet, because she answers to a higher authority than UNIT, and there’s something else he’d do first.

On the Tardis, the Doctor puts together some preposterous weapon that will attack the Daleks through Davros, whose genetic code they possess. There’s more technobabble.

Martha makes contact with the Dalek crucible, but Davros is happy to see her because this means the prophecy will be fulfilled. Martha says she’ll use the key unless the Daleks leave earth alone. There are 15 nuclear warheads under the earth, and if the suffering of the human race ever becomes utterly unendurable, the Osterhagen Key will set them off and destroy the earth. The Doctor is appalled, but Martha continues. The Daleks may not care about human life, but they need the earth as one of the 27 powering planets. “Daleks,” says Martha, “will you risk it?” “Oh, she’s good,” says Rose. Aw. She introduces herself to Martha, who looks stricken. “Oh my God,” she says. “He found you!” Rose looks a bit smug. Because yes, if we need to be reminded again, the Doctor and Rose have a Magical Bond that has to be the heart of the entire show. God, I’m so sick of that whole idea. Sadly, there is worse to come in that line.

Another message comes through: “Captain Jack Harkness, calling all Dalek boys and girls!” I love John Barrowman when he’s like this. Just keep him away from the angst! Anyway, he says HE’LL blow everything up too, with the warp star. Davros recognises SJ, which is quite cool, as she was there when he made his first appearance. He sounds almost flirtatious, but she’s having none of it. “It’s been quite a while,” she snarls. “Sarah Jane Smith - remember?” He does, and starts going on about the good old days, but as she says, “I’ve learned how to fight since then.” Rose, and most viewers, I suspect, are pleased by all this defiance, but the Doctor looks distressed. “The Doctor’s soul is revealed!” burbles Caan. Davros points out that the man who “abhors violence” “takes ordinary people and fashions them into weapons - behold your children of time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks. You made this.” Ouch. The Doctor says he tried to help, but Davros tells him to think about everyone who died in his name, and we see lots of them in handy flashback, right through the last few series. “The Doctor, the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not - out of shame,” says Davros. “This is my final triumph!”

The crafty Daleks beam up all the gang from their various locations, rendering their sassy defiance pointless. Everyone is captured, and Davros gloats some more about the stupid prophecy before telling the SD to detonate the reality bomb AGAIN. Yawn. the Doctor begs Davros to stop but he laughs evilly and gurgles that “nothing can stop the detonation! Nothing!” He laughs insanely. Oh Davros, you’re just tempting fate now.

But what’s that sound? It’s the Tardis. Everyone stares in amazement. Doctor 2 emerges and runs out in softly lit slow motion with the gun towards Davros (”Don’t!” cries the Doctor) before getting blasted by Davros’s laser fingers. He’s put in a holding cell as Donna runs out and grabs the weapon, but she doesn’t know how to use it and is blasted by Davros. She falls in a corner and the weapon is destroyed. Doctor 2 explains his unconvincing existence and Davros gloats YET AGAIN. There’s another countdown. But suddenly, it stops and an alarm goes off.

Donna emerges from behind a previously unmentioned but apparently incredibly powerful device and gives us some sassy technobabble. She delivers it well, though. “Donna, you can’t even change a plug!” says the bewildered Doctor. “Wanna bet, Time Boy?” says Donna. Catherine Tate, I have to say, is great in this scene. Davros can’t blast her somehow and demands her extermination, but she starts typing away at the device and disables the Daleks, giving us a bit more technobabble. It turns out she’s part time lord, part human - it was a two-way transfer when she created Doctor 2, and it lay dormant until kickstarted by Davros’s blast. “Oh yes!” she says. “Half Doctor, half Donna!” The Doctor remembers the Ood singing about the Doctor Donna, and now she exists — and, she’s freed everyone from their holding cells. “Don’t just stand there, you skinny boys in suits,” she says. “Get to work!” Heh. The Daleks advance, but Donna sends them spinning around, crying “help me!” Everyone laughs. I know this will probably help kids not be afraid of the Daleks, but it’s just kind of annoying, especially when everyone starts pushing the Daleks around. Anyway, the Doctors wonder why they didn’t think of doing whatever techy thing Donna’s doing, and she says it’s because they’re just Time Lords (well, one of them is, the other should be the same as you, surely?), lacking the special human gut instinct. “I can think of things you’ll never dream of!” Aww, she’s so happy. “The universe has been waiting for me!” She types in complex commands. “Did I ever tell you, best temp in Chiswick? 100 words a minute!” The planets go home.

Donna explains all to the others. She got the best bit of the Doctor - his brain. She’s a unique creatuire, which is why the time lines were converging on her. “So there’s three of you? Three Doctors?” says Rose. “I can’t tell you what I’m thinking right now,” groans Jack. Yowza. Davros asks what the hell Dalek Caan was up to, and it turns out that he “helped” the time lines so that Donna and the Doctor would meet (although he says “this would always have happened”). He’s the secret hero! It turns out he’s not so evil after all - he realised what the Daleks had done, and decided he had to change things, so he picked Donna. But which came first? Her specialness or Dalek Caan’s scheme? Why her? Could it actually have been anyone? Was it just random? Why do I keep expecting any sort of coherence from Russell T Davies?

SD comes down to see what the hell’s going on and gets blown up by Jack, but not before damaging the thingummybob that’s sending the planets home - and of course Earth is the only one that hasn’t gone yet. The Doctor and some of the others go into the Tardis to see about using it, and Caan tells Doctor 2 that the last bit of the prophecy must also come true - the end of the Dalek race. “You must do it!” he tells Doctor 2, who agrees - even without the reality bomb, the Daleks can kill everyone. Donna is nervous and tells him to wait for the Doctor. “I am the Doctor!” he growls. Rowwr. He flicks a switch, and all the Daleks start exploding (including the one in Torchwood). “What have you done?” says the original gangsta Doctor. “Fulfilling the prophecy,” says Doctor 2. Since when did the Doctor start believing in prophecies? What with this and the airlocks the other week, it’s starting to feel like Battlestar Galatica around here.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” says the angry Doctor, as he gets everyone on to the Tardis. He offers to help Davros, who basically tells him to piss off, and ends up surrounded by flames. “Never forget, Doctor, you did this!” he bellows. “I name you, forever, Destroyer of Worlds!” That bit is genuinely quite chilling. And there’s something pathetic about Davros in his little Dalek shell. “One will still die!” Mighty Booshes Caan. The Doctor gets back in the Tardis. I notice he didn’t even offer to save poor old Caan, despite the fact that he was the one who helped him to victory. Maybe it’s because Caan is a bit annoying.

All aboard the Tardis! It shakes, everyone’s thrown about, and Doctor 2 looks at SJ in what can only be described as a lascivious fashion. They still have to save earth, so the Doctor contacts Torchwood. There’s a cool moment when both he and Rose realise Gwen looks very familiar and he asks her if her family have always lived in Cardiff - a reference to the Victorian maid Eve Myles played back in the first series. Heh. Anyway, the Doctor tells Ianto and Gwen to open up the rift to create a tow rope of energy. He also gets onto Luke and Mr Smith, who will loop the energy around the earth, but he needs time to access the Tardis base code. But Sarah Jane has an idea - she calls up none other than K-9! The Doctor is delighted to see him, as am I, and he does the job. Then, the Doctor directs everyone to take a different control, and we realise that a Tardis is always meant to be crewed by six people. Poor lonely Doctor. This is a sweet bit. Anyway, they take the earth back home to the sound of cheesy music and everyone on earth cheering on what feels like an earthquake. It is kind of nice when they arrive and everyone hugs each other in a daze of joy - and it’s cool to see the ecstatic Wilf and Sylvia dancing with delight in the sunlight.

back on earth, Sarah Jane and the Doctor bid each other farewell. Sarah Jane tells the Doctor, “you act like such a lonely man, but look at you - you’ve got the biggest family on earth!” Aw. They hug, and she runs off to see Luke - “he’s only 14! It’s a long story - but thank you.” The Doctor smiles after her very fondly. I do love the fact that they always just call Luke her son. I hate when the media, or TV programmes, refer to people’s adopted children as their, well, “adopted children,” as if they weren’t their proper parents.

Inside, Micky bids Jackie farewell, telling her he’ll miss her most of all. It looks like he’s not going back.

Next out is Martha and Captain Jack. They both salute the Doctor, who tells Martha to get rid of that key and save the world one more time. “Consider it done, ” she says, and heads off, hand in hand with Jack. He tells her he’s not so sure about UNIT these days…maybe there’s something else she could do. Like the next series of Torchwood, I suspect. Cool.

Micky tells the Doctor he’s not going back. His granny died peacefully in the parallel world, and there’s nothing there for him now - “certainly not Rose.” He says he can start a brand new life, and he and the Doctor bid each other farewell with a strangely endearing fist bump. Aw. He runs after Martha and Jack. “Thought I’d got rid of you!” says Jack. I think we’ve got a whole new Torchwood team. Tosh and Owen who?

Hey, it’s Bad Wolf Bay! Jackie bitches about the Norwegian location. Understandable enough, I suppose. It’ll take them quite a while to get home. She tells Doctor 2 that she had a baby, and named him Doctor. Doctor 2 looks touched by this, and says “aw, really?” “No, you plumb,” says Jackie. “He’s Tony.” Heh. Rose doesn’t want to stay here, but Donna says the walls of reality are closing again because the reality bomb has been destroyed. She gives us more technobabble and says she gets all that now, which is more than some of the viewers do. Rose says she can’t stay, she spent so long trying to find the Doctor. But he says that they saved the universe at a cost - Doctor 2. He commited genocide and he can’t be allowed roam around unsupervised. “You made me!” says Doctor 2, and the Doctor agrees, but he was forged in battle, “of blood, and anger, and revenge - remind you of someone? That’s me, when we first met, and you made me better.” “But he’s not you!” wails Rose. “Don’t you see what he’s trying to give you?” says Donna. “Go on, tell her!” Doctor 2 reveals that although he thinks like the Doctor and shares his memories, he’s half human - he’ll age and die normally. “I’ve got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want.” She feels his heart as the Tardis makes its worp worp sound that apparently is like an alarm, because the Doctor and Donna have to go before the walls between the worlds close forever. Rose is still upset and asks both Doctors what they were going to say to her when they last met at Bad Wolf Bay, “on the worst day of my life,” before the communication was cut. “Does it need saying?” says the Doctor. But Doctor 2 whispers in her ear. She snogs him. All the crazed shippers go mental. I roll my eyes, because this entire scenario is like bad fannish wish fullfillment rather than convincing drama. They’re so busy snogging (no tongues, though) that she doesn’t see the Doctor sadly leaving in the Tardis and only just sees the Tardis fading away. She runs towards it and is joined by Doctor 2, who takes her hand. They look at each other, and that’s the last we see of Rose, whose reappearance turned out to be pretty pointless and just happened, apparently, to enshrine Rose as the number one super companion soulmate. Blah.

The Doctor looks sad as Donna babbles happily about all the places and people she wants to visit. But then she starts getting more agitated and manic and stumbling over her words - a human brain can’t deal with a Time Lord’s fizzy thoughts. Donna now knows this, but she says “I want to stay.” “Look at me,” says the Doctor gently, and she does. “I was going to be with you,” she says. “Forever, travelling in the Tardis. The Doctor Donna. I can’t go back!” Her voice breaks. This is really heartbreaking. Catherine Tate is great in this scene too. “Don’t make me go back.” The Doctor comes closer. “Donna Noble, I am so sorry,” he says. “But we had the best of times. Goodbye.” He touches Donna’s brow as she cries, “No! No! No!” We see some of their adventures in flashback. What’s with all the flashbacks this episode? Anyway, I think what the Doctor is doing is really cruel. She knew what would happen if he didn’t do it, and she told him not to, and he ignored her. She collapses in his arms.

There’s a knock at the Noble/Mott door. Wilf rushes to answer it and finds the Doctor carrying Donna. “Help me,” says the Doctor. “Donna?” says Wilf in a tiny voice. Sniff.

They lay Donna on her bed, and the Doctor looks at her gravely. Downstairs, he tells Sylvia and Wilf what happened. He had to wipe her mind of every trace of the Doctor and all their adventures. “All those wonderful things she did,” says Wilf sadly. The Doctor tells them that this version of Donna is dead, and can never be told because she’ll “burn up”. They can never mention any of it for the rest ofher life. Sylvia points out that everyone will be talking about the earth being moved and taken over by Daleks, but the Doctor says it’ll just be another Donna Noble story, about how she didn’t notice what was going on. “She was better when she was with you!” says Wilf. Aw, man. Because he’s right, she was. This is just pointlessly cruel, because it doesn’t even make sense - how are they going to explain to Donna why she doesn’t remember what happened on her wedding day? Bloody hell. The Doctor says that there are people alive because of her, and that people all over the universe will remember Donna, and that somewhere they are singing songs (the Ood!) about how “for one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole universe.” “She still is,” says Sylvia, firmly but slightly defensively. “Well, maybe you should tell her that once in a while,” says the stern Doctor. Sylvia looks cross but slightly ashamed. Then Donna breezes in, shouting about how stupid it is that she fell asleep in her clothes. She’s silly and annoying again. This is awful. She barely glances at the Doctor, who introduces himself as John Smith, and goes off to ring a friend. “I think you should leave,” says a ferocious Sylvia, and he does. But on his way out he sees Donna in the kitchen, blathering on happily to her friend about how she didn’t notice anything to do with planets (how come that didn’t make her head explode? Surely that counts as a reminder? Oh, why do I bother…). The Doctor tries to say goodbye but she gives him the brush off and continues laughing on the phone about some friend’s crappy boyfriend. This is both depressing and dramatically unsatisfying. Boo, boo, boo.

Wilf goes out after the Doctor. He is still not a secret Time Lord, as I had hoped, but I love him anyway. He asks the Doctor, “Who have you got? All those friends of yours…” “…they’ve got someone else,” finishes the Doctor. “But that’s fine. I’m fine.” Wilf tells the Doctor that every night, when the stars come out, he will look up for the Doctor, for Donna. He says goodbye, and salutes. I am feeling tearful. Give Wilf his own series! The Doctor heads back to the Tardis through the rain, and sits forlornly at the controls. There are credits. I look at my husband and say “that…was like fucking fanfic.” I feel deflated and annoyed and slightly depressed. And that’s it until Christmas, when we’ll get Victorian cybermen, or something. Blah.