I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s this thing going on in America at the moment called a Presidential Election. It’s kind of a big deal, apparently. And in recognition of that fact, the BBC has busted out its big guns and sent two of its finest small-screen stars across the pond, to report back to the mother country about all the fuss going on in that uppity former colony of ours.

I am, of course, ecstatic about this, because one of these stars is Stephen Fry, otherwise known as the only man I would leave my fiancé for, if only he would ask. In Stephen Fry in America, Fry has spent several months travelling across the United States, in a London taxi of all things, and is stopping off in every state of the union in order to report on interesting and unusual things. So far these things have included lobster fishing off the coast of Maine, a meeting with the mafia gang who inspired The Godfather in New York, and a visit to a body farm in Tennessee (and if you don’t know what that is, I suggest you Google with caution).

I am so delighted that my beloved Stephen Fry is back on our screens, being his usual erudite and foppishly-charming self, that I hesitate to voice any complaint at all. But I must admit, this series is not as perfect as it could be, only because too much is crammed into every show. Yes, Fry does go to every state in the Union, but so rapidly that some are simply driven across and remarked upon in passing.

If only we could have a show for every state. I would happily watch Stephen Fry trying to fill an hour of television with interesting facts about Nebraska or Delaware. Let’s face it, if anybody could do it, it’s him. But, this is only a minor quibble, and mostly I find Stephen Fry in America utterly wonderful and delightful, and so will you.

Slightly higher up the didactic ladder, The American Future: A History is Simon Schama’s survey of the history of the United States as a cautionary tale. Or, in other words, everything that is happening now has happened before, and we could all learn a thing or two from it if we would only pay attention. The first episode looked at America’s wartime history, going all the way back to the conflicting perspectives of Jefferson and Hamilton to illustrate the ideological conflicts about the Iraq war that are now at the forefront of the presidential campaigns. It’s stirring and controversial stuff.

In the next episode, apparently, Schama is examining the history of religious pluralism in the United States. It’s all a lot less frivolous than Stephen Fry creating a new flavour of ice cream at the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Vermont, but it’s fascinating viewing nevertheless.

You can find further Stateside hi-jinks with my beloved Fry on BBC1, Sunday nights at 9pm. And if you also want to learn about the minutiae of American history and what it all means for today, you can catch Simon Schama on BBC2, Friday nights at 9pm. I have no doubt both these shows will also be coming to BBC America in no time at all.

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Shall we start with the highbrow? James May (swoooon….) is a fairly recent addition to the long list of middle-aged male TV presenters on whom I have a bit of a crush. He is so foppish and articulate! And, although he will never equal Stephen Fry in my estimation, he obviously has something going for him, because I sat through a whole show about robots and artificial intelligence just because he was presenting it.

James May’s Big Ideas is a new show which has our eponymous presenter looking for the Jetsons-esque 21st century lifestyle he always envisioned when he was a child – jet packs, flying cars, food capsules and teleportation devices. And robots, of course. The episode I watched followed him in his search for the perfect robot, one that would do his bidding, wash the dishes, and beat up the school bully. If it could also shoot lasers out of its chest, so much the better.

Alas, such a robot does not yet exist, but I did get to spend an entertaining hour watching May attempt to drive a wheelchair with the power of his mind, play baseball with a robot which had less hand-eye coordination than I do (and that’s saying something), and lecture us about the inner-workings of the human eye, with diagrams (at which I swooned all over again).

And then there’s the low-brow low point of my televisual week. Hole in the Wall is one of those shows that makes you seriously consider writing to the BBC to demand to know what it is they think they’re doing with your TV licence money. And the answer, apparently, is that they’re spending it on persuading C-list celebrities to don unflattering silver body suits and fit themselves through oddly-shaped holes in a foam wall, or end up pushed into a swimming pool.

Yep. That’s the whole show. And if it all sounds eerily familiar it’s because Marcia mentioned the show’s concept back when it was first thought-up. In Japan, home of humiliating game shows, of course. Versions of the show have since popped up all over the world, including in the US.

Why do I watch this? I hate myself for watching this. And yet, it is endlessly compelling. I mean, they’re adults, in silver body suits and shamingly-superfluous crash helmets, getting dunked on national television. What’s not to like? Although my tolerance for Dale Winton’s inanely enthusiastic ‘Bring on the Wall!’ battle cry is wearing exceptionally thin. But still, I know that next Saturday night I’ll be tuning in again for another thirty minutes of has-beens contorting themselves for my viewing pleasure.

Have you lost all respect for me now? Or are you too busy feverishly searching the TV listings to find out exactly when you can see this car-crash television for yourself? It’s OK, you can tell me.

Hole in the Wall airs Saturdays on BBC1 at 5.00 pm. And if you need to feed your brain afterwards, you can catch James May’s Big Ideas on BBC2, Sunday night at 9.00pm.

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When I first heard that Charley Boorman, of the famous Long Way Down and Long Way Round travel shows, was doing a new series by himself, I was extremely dubious. The Long Way shows, starring Ewan McGregor and chum getting up to lots of good blokey fun while travelling around the world on motorbikes, have been hugely popular. But Boorman is, after all, the ‘and chum’ of the dynamic. And let’s be honest, most of us were only tuning in to the previous shows to see if Ewan McGregor was going to do his diary cam segment shirtless (which he frequently, and gratifyingly, did).

Still, I decided to give Charley’s new show, By Any Means, a chance. The premise is simple, and unusual. Charley plans to travel from his childhood home in Wicklow, Ireland, to Sydney, Australia, by any means possible. Any means, that is, except commercial flights.

The first half of the first episode focuses on the huge amount of planning such a trip involves, with lots of pushpins in wall-maps and footage of people flicking through guide books in a serious manner. Throughout all this Charley himself seems gratifyingly nonchalant, and is quite taken aback when his producer tells him that travelling through Pakistan and Afghanistan isn’t going to be possible, because, turns out, they’re kind of bomby.

Eventually, a workable route from Ireland to Sydney is decided upon, and there follows the obligatory montage of Charley learning how to bind a rib fracture with two bits of string, how to drive a steam train, how to sail a dinghy, how to ride a horse…. He learns a lot of stuff, basically, and I begin to realise just how epic this journey was going to be. Clearly Charley does too, as he shows his trembling hands to the camera in the run up to the trip.

Then, they are off! Motorcycles from Wicklow to Dublin, a scallop trawler to the Isle of Mann, a passenger ferry to Liverpool, a train, a red London bus, a lifeboat and a Landrover to Dover, and then a dinghy to France. The first episode ends with Charley and his hapless producer Russ about to capsize into the English channel, so now I have to tune in next week just to make sure they make it to Calais unharmed.

I was dubious about this show, but I ended up really enjoying it. Freed from his roll as ‘famous movie star’s comedy sidekick,’ Boorman really comes into his own, with charm, humour, and gleeful enthusiasm aplenty. Of course the show could only be improved by the odd Ewan cameo (and he did pop up, briefly, to wish Charley good luck on his trip) but my concerns that Boorman couldn’t carry a show on his own were unfounded. Give By Any Means a whirl. I reckon you’ll have fun.

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Maestro, BBC2’s new celebrity conducting show, is reality TV gone highbrow. And yes, you did read that right. It’s a show in which celebrities (and I use that term relatively loosely) compete against each other to see who is the best at conducting the BBC symphony orchestra. In traditional style, they go up against a panel of expert judges, and every week one contestant is given the boot. The winner of this show will conduct the orchestra on that most British of occasions, the Last Night of the Proms, later this year.

I think it’s safe to say that no other television network in the world could pull this off. Only the BBC can get away with a show that involves David Soul (yes, David Soul, from Starsky and Hutch ) flapping his hands around ineffectually in front of an orchestra playing Adagio for Strings, or Sue Perkins conducting a full symphony orchestra through an extended version of The Simpsons theme tune.

And yet, despite the preposterous premise,  Maestro really works.  I found myself rooting for drum-and-bass star Goldie as he conducted the orchestra through a rousing rendition of the Cavalleria Rusticana, and cringing as cake-decorating sensation Jane Asher just wiggled her hips to Bernstein’s Mambo, forgetting all about her baton. But I actually learned a thing or two as well. I never knew how much difference a conductor can make to an orchestra, and how easily it can all go catastrophically wrong with an ill-timed flick of the wrist.

I have a new-found respect now, both for the professional conductors who make it look so effortless, and for these celebrity contestants, who despite never having done it before, get up every week in front of a professional orchestra, move their arms around, and make music happen. Bless them all for trying.

You can catch Maestro on BBC2 every Tuesday evening, or on the iPlayer any time you fancy it.

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“I’m going to be saying ‘I’m not telling you’ a lot,” warns Steven Moffat, the newly appointed showrunner of Doctor Who. He may be happy to participate in a “conversation” at the Edinburgh TV festival (he was unwilling to use the festival’s preferred term of “master class”), but that doesn’t mean he’s going to tell us anything about what’s coming up on the series.

What can we expect from the next companion? Not telling. Which villains will we see? Not telling. Will David Tennant be returning? Definitely not telling. After a very entertaining hour spent with Moffat, the crowd leaves smiling, but hardly well-informed. That’s the way Moffat likes it.

He initially tries to evade all question by insisting that answering them in detail “would mean there’s some cognitive content [in the session], and I’m trying to avoid that.” Pressed, he gets a bit more specific, explaining that he thinks spoilers damage the show. He refers to the end of the recent episode “The Stolen Earth,” when the Doctor appeared to regenerate, a powerful cliff-hanger that would have lost its impact if we knew Tennant was contracted for two more seasons. Turning to face the audience, he begs us, “Shut up! Don’t give it away!” He’s well aware that it’s a public show, filmed on the streets of Cardiff, and spoilers are available if someone looks hard enough for them. Those that tell such secrets, however, are compared to “the whining boor in the pub who gives away the punch line” the second before the joke teller does.

It’s clear that the audience, quite rightly, loves David Tennant in the role and wants to know how much longer we get to keep him. Moffat gives nothing away. He compares the Doctor to James Bond, another character with a rotating crew of actors. Whether we like it or not, we know there will be a new Doctor someday, and Tennant is no different. He just won’t tell us when someday is.

What will he tell us? The schedule, at least, isn’t a state secret. Although 2009 has been reported as a Doctor Who gap year, it’s anything but. In addition to the usual Christmas episode, there will be four more specials over the course of the year, and the series will resume its normal schedule in 2010. “So stop complaining!” he laughs.

He also confirms that the Daleks “will always return to Doctor Who,” despite some reports that he planned to do away with them. He has no idea how that particular rumor got started. “Even if you were a drunk Russian with a memory problem, you would never have heard those words come out of my mouth.” The Daleks are a part of Who history, and Moffat is as interested in what came before as in creating something new. It’s that mix of old and new that partly explains the show’s appeal. Everyone, regardless of age, has memories of their Doctor and their villains.

When asked whether the show’s tone will be slightly darker, based on Moffat’s own episodes (”Blink”, “The Empty Child”, “Silence in the Library”), he shrugs. “I like Doctor Who being scary,” he admits, but also disagrees with the idea that he’s the “dark” writer, citing Russell T. Davies work on “Midnight”, an episode in which “people are fundamentally vile,” and the relationship Davies created between the Doctor and the Master. He also mentions his own work on “The Girl in the Fireplace,” a relatively light-hearted episode. Besides, he points out, you can’t take the show too seriously. “If your main character lives in a telephone box that’s bigger on the inside, you’re going to have to put some jokes in.”

He’s already written the first episode and has a plan for the entire series but – you guessed it – he’s not telling us what that is.

He’ll speak a bit about what came before, but even then he equivocates. He refuses to name a favorite Doctor, insisting that it changes every day and, in the end, “there’s only one Doctor and he changes his face from time to time.” He’s a bit more forthcoming on the matter of favorite companion, naming Sarah Jane Smith and Rose. He’s particularly fond of the latter, because she “changed the shape of the show.” Still, he points out that the Doctor/Rose arc had to end, as there really wasn’t a future for a 900-year-old Time Lord and a 19-year-old human. “He’s going to turn into someone else, she’s going to turn into her mother.” A beat. “Actually, that’s most marriages.”

Between his Who duties, Moffat has a few projects lined up. He wrote the screenplay for Spielberg’s adaptation of Tintin, and was scheduled to write two more before Who came calling and he begged off, preferring to work with the Doctor. He also speaks briefly of a Press Gang reunion show, a project that would make the devoted fans of the British kids’ show ecstatic. “I’ve always thought it would be tremendous fun” to revisit that show, he says, even though he imagines the current version would feature a “middle-aged and saggy” cast. He speaks of getting very drunk at the Jekyll wrap party and pitching the reunion idea. He doesn’t much remember the pitch, but apparently it was successful. Whether or not it will ever go into production is another matter. Right now, his focus is all on Who, and even the prospect of a Who film doesn’t get much of a response. He admits that it would be fun, but refuses to do anything that would take away from the show.

He readily admits that “of course there’s pressure” that comes with the job, not just from the fans, but from himself as well. “At age 45, you’re offered the job you wanted when you were 7,” he points out. Like David Tennant, Moffat is a huge fan of the show and considered not taking the position for that very reason. “I hope I don’t break it.” Despite his misgivings, Moffat was unable to turn down what is “literally the best job in television. Except for David’s. He gets to pretend to be Doctor, while I have to do it at home alone at night.”

Related posts:

• Tim Kring talks about Heroes
• Fringe screened at the Edinburgh TV festival

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And yet, like all the best dreadful TV, Snog, Marry, Avoid is utterly compelling. I had to keep pausing the show (thank goodness for DVR) to keep track of all the gems these women spouted about their looks – ‘I would rather give up my home than my fake tan’, and ‘It’s not just hair – it’s got a meaning’ being my favourite quotes from the episode I saw.

In my opinion, the women looked better after POD’s treatment. Gemma (who prefers, for reasons best known to herself, to be called Levi) went from a ratty-haired Jodie Kidd wannabee to a classy brunette. And Tamsin (Princess Tamsin, sorry) went from an outfit that consisted entirely of a tutu and a piece of masking tape over her boob to a much more elegant and sophisticated wrap-dress. But it irked me that these transformations were achieved because a silly fake computer forced them into it. Let them wear what they want, POD, you patronising piece of circuitry!

Of course, I should not forget to point out the questionable wisdom of parading these poor women before random men so that judgement could be passed on them. What about the men, after all? Are they so perfect? I thought POD was going to redeem herself (for, of course, POD is voiced by a female – the harshest critics of women are always other women, after all) by singling out the improbably-named Eshan for her special treatment.

Eshan, a young goth man with a crown of hair spikes and eye makeup that made him look like he was weeping pure mascara, seemed like a prime candidate for POD’s scathing and enforced ‘make-under’. But no! POD just praised his unique style and sent him on his way, without even giving any ‘women on the street’ the opportunity to weigh in. I call foul!

Don’t watch Snog, Marry, Avoid. It’s awful telly, and you’ll hate yourself for it. I do.

But, if you simply can’t resist, it is up on the iplayer, and it’s shown regularly on BBC3.

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This two-part drama tells the story of Tom McConnell, a handsome young executive of Arrow Oil, who seems to have only just realised that global warming is this whole big thing and that perhaps he should do something about it. Taking the role of Tom’s good angel is Holly, played by Neve Campbell (better known as ‘that one from Party of Five‘), the head of Arrow’s renewable energy department. The devil on Tom’s other shoulder is Mack, played by Bradley Whitford (Josh!) in his trademark know-it-all, wise-cracking style. Mack is an oil lobbyist and shady fixer for Arrow, who is not above ordering the assassination of geologists who are out to prove the oil industry might have something to do with permafrost melting.

And so the drama unfolds. Arrow is the target of a law suit from a group of Inuits who blame the company for the disintegration of their lands; Oxford scientists sound off about impending doom to anybody who will listen; and Mack dismisses the whole global warming debate as ‘an inconvenient poop’ (hah, see what he did there?) and encourages Tom to blame the whole thing on sun spot activity. But then, an Inuit protester sets herself on fire in front of Tom, and he accidentally sleeps with Holly while (implausibly) attending the Inuit’s funeral, and the whole thing descends into farce.

What started out as a promising drama about a controversial, emotive and complex topic quickly becomes a convoluted and wholly unconvincing story involving government assassins, spies, international blackmail and marital infidelity. Even while giving us all this, the BBC still manages to fall back on its favourite trope – blaming it all on the Americans. The ‘get the USA to sign up to Kyoto or the world will end’ point was made repeatedly throughout, so everybody watching from their nice cosy British homes could relax and stop feeling so guilty about driving to work – it’s all the fault of the Yanks anyway, thank goodness.

I really wanted to like Burn Up. I love Bradley Whitford, for starters (I even watched Studio 60 all the way through to the bitter end), and the BBC is usually excellent at producing gritty and thought-provoking dramas about difficult and disturbing topics. I expected this show to be a triumph, but it was a shambles – a soap opera on a global scale which somehow managed to use an unnecessarily convoluted plot to lamentably simplify a very complex issue. Clearly I should stick to reality shows – there’s much less room for disappointment.

If you too love Bradley Whitford beyond all reason, or you’re not American and want to know why that means you don’t have to worry about global warming at all, then you should catch Burn Up on the BBC’s iPlayer. Or wait for it to be repeated on a television near you, as it no doubt very soon will be.

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The premise is this: bored Western woman, dragged down with a 9-5 existence and the demands of ‘having it all,’ gets shipped to Africa, where she has to spend a month living with an African tribe. Nope, not kidding.

This week’s episode followed thirty-six year old Yvonne Power from Blackpool, single mother of three, who went to live with the Himba tribe in Namibia. At first I was fully prepared for an hour of excruciating television, watching a clueless Westerner bitch about having to live without cuticle cream and humiliate herself in front of a tribe of bemused Namibians. And at first it certainly seemed like that was what I was going to get. I had to hide behind a cushion when Yvonne attempted tribal dancing, and this dialogue, which she exchanged with the Himba women when she first arrived, seemed to be a taste of things to come:

Yvonne: I’m so pleased to meet you! And I love your hair!
Himba woman: Is that what she’s come for? Our hair?

But Yvonne proved to be gamer than I gave her credit for. Certainly she coped better with being roped into ritually disemboweling a goat than I would have done. And she adapted quickly to the Himba tradition of ’smoking’ oneself in order to get rid of body odour, rather than washing with water. But Himba women are tough. They have their bottom teeth knocked out at the age of ten – a mark of beauty – and making a sound during childbirth is considered a sign of weakness. Needless to say, they had little sympathy for Yvonne when she started crying because she missed her children.

I was expecting to deride this programme as exploitative and tacky, but watching Yvonne oh-so-predictably ‘find herself’ during her stay with the Himba proved to be remarkably enjoyable and interesting. I sympathised with her at the conflict she felt watching a twelve-year-old girl being forced into marriage, but I also appreciated her for quitting her whining and pitching in to help when village resources were crippled during a drought.

I can’t decide whether I hope next week they get some irritating princessy type woman to shack up in a mud hut and cope without eye-liner for a month, or whether I hope the show continues in this vein – sensitively portraying the clash between two cultures, and the common ground that can still be reached. Both options have their appeal.

You can catch Tribal Wives on BBC2 on Wednesday nights, or at any time on the BBC iPlayer.

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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.

a

Doctor Who, S04 E12: The Stolen Earth

The week: everyone from the extended Whoniverse turns up in one of the best episodes of Doctor Who ever.

We open, it seems, directly after the dramatic finalé of last week’s episode – the Doctor and Donna open the door of the Tardis back on earth to see…everything is totally normal. They’re on an ordinary suburban street, where a milkman is doing his rounds. Actually, is that still normal? I haven’t seen a milkman on this side of the Irish sea for well over a decade. God, I miss milk in proper milk bottles. Anyway, the Doctor asks what day it is, in the manner of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, and the milkman, obviously thinking something along the lines of “Oh God, who is this crazy person who just came out of that weird wooden phone box?” says “Saturday”. “I like Saturdays,” says the Doctor, and they head back into the Tardis, where there’s a really obvious shot of the Doctor’s hand-in-a-jar, which for some mysterious reason just happens to be placed right under the control console. The Doctor says that if Rose could get through to Donna’s parallel universe, than something is breaking down. Donna tries to comfort the still troubled Doctor by suggesting it’s a good thing that he’ll get to see Rose again, and after a long pause he grins and says, “Yeah.”

Outside, the milkman sees all the bottles on his van have started vibrating. Oops.

Inside the Tardis, there’s a huge jolt. But the Doctor says that the Tardis hasn’t moved – it’s the earth that’s in motion. They run to the door and find themselves floating in deepest space. The earth has moved quite a long way away.

Cut to…Martha! She’s, like, UNIT’s chief medical officer or something. She’s in New York, and everyone is panicking and falling about the place. She starts to help the injured, when one of her colleague tells her to look at the sky. “Oh my God,” says Martha.

And now it’s Torchwood. Oh, Torchwood. You would be so much better if the powers that be just accepted that John Barrowman can’t act. In fact, the only decent actor is the bloke who plays Ianto, so I’m delighted to see him and Gwen (the only remaining members of the Torchwood team) with their glorious leader.

Another cut, to Sarah Jane. I only saw the first episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures because it aired over Christmas; the rest of the series aired in the Children’s BBC slot, aka during working hours, which is why I’ve never seen it, but I have heard that it’s genuinely pretty good. She’s with her alien son, Luke, and they use her supercomputer Mr Smith (”I wish you’d stop using that fanfare,” she says amusingly as Mr Smith blares a jaunty trumpet blast as part of his start up procedure) to try and find out what’s going on. Mr Smith tells them to look outside.

Wilf and Sylvia are outside their house. Wilf is clutching a cricket bat. “It’s them aliens again!” he cries. “What do you want, you green swine?” Heh. A terrified Sylvia tells him to look up at the sky.

Sarah Jane and Jack are both looking up at the sky in their various locations. “It’s impossible!” breathes SJ. “It’s impossible!” bad-acts Jack. Hey, it’s that milkman again. As he gazes skywards, there’s a big flash and Rose appears, holding a fucking huge gun. “Right, now we’re in trouble,” she says, locking the gun. “And it’s only just beginning.” It’s a shot straight out of Buffy. It will not be the first shot straight out of Buffy in this episode. I think Mr Davies should write Joss Whedon a cheque. We see the sky for the first time, and it’s full of huge planets which seem to be hovering directly over earth.

Credits! Complete with loads and loads of names. Everyone’s here! Okay, I got a bit fangirlish at this.

Back in the Tardis, Donna is understandably very upset about the lost earth. “If they’ve moved, they’ve lost the sun…they’re all dead. My family, my whole world.” The Doctor, meanwhile, is geeking out over the technology necessary to make a whole planet disappear. Priorities, Doctor. He says they need help: “I’m taking you to the Shadow Proclamation”. Cue ominous music.

That newsreader who used to be called Mal Loup is on telly telling us that no one can explain the 26 planets that have suddenly appeared. The channel switches to none other than Richard Dawkins saying it’s an imperical fact that earth has moved (hee) and then switches again to Paul O’Grady, cuddling a very funny, cute dog and making lame jokes about the planets that make at least one viewer laugh – Ianto. Captain Jack notices this unseemly laughter and snaps, “There’s a time and a place.” “It is funny, though, ” says Ianto sheepishly, with great comic timing. I love Ianto. Gwen is talking to poor old Rhys and telling him for the ten zillionth time that she’ll be home as soon as she can. Jack announces that an artificial shell is sealing in the earth – “someone wants the earth alive.” But WHO? They look at the screen, but Gwen sees something on the screen that isn’t a planet. It’s some sort of space station. Sarah Jane is looking at it too. Mr Smith has detected moving spaceships. Luke looks excited.

In UNIT, Martha is trying to get through to the Doctor, to no avail. Someone is blocking the signal — and whoever they are, they’re coming into orbit.

Rose strides down a street full of panicking, looting people going mental. She looks very badass with her huge gun. She sees some teenage boys looting an electronics shop and goes in. “Right, you two, you can put that stuff down and run for your lives!” Then she locks the gun, smiles and says, “D’you like my gun?” I can’t do justice to the awesomeness of Billie’s delivery here. She’s chirpy enough to be a bit scary but not chirpy enough to be camp and annoying. The kids run away and Billie checks out a computer screen, where she can receive some sort of satellite image of the space station.

Wilf and Sylvia are watching the news and trying to get in touch with Donna. Poor Wilf is all upset.

Martha rings Jack to ask if he’s been able to contact the Doctor. She tells him she’s in New York, working on UNIT’s “Project Indigo.” Jack, of course, knows all about this top secret plan thanks to Torchwood’s vast resources (ie a basement in Cardiff). Actually, he says, he met a soldier in a bar. Ianto gets all jealous (aw) until Jack adds that it was a “strictly professional” encounter. That could mean a lot of things.

In Sarah Jane’s gaff, Mr Smith says that the space station has a message from the earthbound ships for the human race, and Sarah Jane asks that he put it through. And of course it’s “EX-TERMIN-ATE! EX-TERMIN-ATE!” If I hadn’t known the Daleks were returning in this episode, that would have been an awesome moment. Sarah Jane looks absolutely and utterly horrified, as she recognises the Dalek warcry instantly. And unlike us viewers, it’s a long time since she heard it. She starts to cry as she takes Luke in her arms. Elizabeth Sladen is great in this scene.

In New York, Martha can’t believe what she’s hearing. Back at Torchwood, Jack bad-acts horror. “Nooo!” he cries. Gwen asks what the message means and who these invaders are. Jack wraps one arm around her and one around Ianto and kisses them both on the head. Aww. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry, but we’re dead.” he says. Well, they are, but you’re not, Mr Immortal. How quickly he forgets.

Rose hears the warcry in the shop and looks like she’s going to start crying. But she pulls herself together and heads off down the street as the Dalek warship appears in the sky above her, firing at random and smashing stuff up. Up on the ship, the Daleks are planning a “human harvest.” Yikes.

In UNIT, Martha’s commander announces that it’s an Ultimate Code Red (as opposed to a common or garden code red) and that they are at war. Back at Dalek Command, the Daleks prepare for their “ultimate destiny.” “Now the Daleks are the masters of earth!” cries their own commander. A huge hall of floating Daleks join in this chant.

The Tardis is arriving at the Shadow Proclamation, which is apparently “outer space police” and is situated on a sort of floaty ivory tiered city. The Tardis arrives and the Doctor is greeted by a Judoon. A preposterous conversation in Judoon-speak ensues, for apparently no other reason than the chance to see David Tennant shout things like “mo ho!” with a straight face. Our heroes are taken to the SP leader, a pale woman with reddish eyes and white hair. She announces that the Doctor “can’t possibly exist” but seems to accept that he does fairly quickly and tells him that earth isn’t the only vanished planet. The Doctor discovers all the other planets that have disappeared, including several that last featured in Old Skool Who many years ago, and they all appear in a sort of hologram. Go continuity! I love that the new version is obviously made by fans. Donna asks about Pyrovillia, home of the fire creatures from the Pompeii episode, and SP leader rudely asks, “Who is the female?” “Donna,” says Donna sassily. “I’m a human being. Not the stuff of legend, but every bit as important as Time Lords, thank you.” The Doctor looks proud of his protegeé. Aww. I really like their relationship.

The Judoon says that Pyrovillia’s disappearance happened far too long ago, but Donna remembers that the Adipose breeding planet vanished too, and the Doctor realises that the planets have all been taken out of time as well as space. The Doctor adds these extra planets to the map, and they all rearrange themselves in perfect harmony, fitting together “like parts of an engine”. But what for? He doesn’t know. He just remembers that someone tried to move the earth before, a long time ago. “But it can’t be…” Continuity again!

The Daleks are firing at governments world wide. The Valiant is down. The world is in chaos! Jack rings Martha and tells her to get out of there – military operations are being targeted. She won’t leave. Her commander, General Sanchez, says they’re activating Project Indigo, even though it’s not ready yet. Sanchez, Martha and an unnamed grunt escape down a corridor as the Daleks arrive at UNIT HQ and start killing everyone, as is their wont. Sanchez gives Martha a sort of jetpack thing and tells her to put it on. Jack, who for some reason is still on the phone, tells her Project Indigo isn’t safe and she shouldn’t use it. His acting is as you’d expect. Sanchez tells Martha she takes her orders from UNIT, not Torchwood, and that she is the only hope of finding the Doctor – if she can’t, she’s authorised to take something called the Osterhagen Key. He gives her what looks like a minidisc, and when she says she can’t take it, Sanchez says, “You know what to do – for the sake of the human race!” They salute each other and Sanchez goes off to bravely try and fight the Daleks with a small pistol. Jack bad-acts again and tells Martha not to use Indigo, but she pulls a cord on the harness thing – and disappears. “Don’t!” bellows Jack, and kicks a chair. He tells a scared Ianto and Gwen that Project Indigo is an experimental teleportation device salvaged from the Sontarans – but the coordinates aren’t fixed. Martha’s been shattered into atoms!

Dalek HQ. A creepy voice asks the Supreme Dalek if there is news “of him.” There is not: “We are beyond the reach of the time lord.” The creepy voiced one is in the shadows. The bottom of its form is a Dalek case, but it’s operating controls with an armoured claw. He tells the Supreme Dalek that if he had not created him without human emotions, he might mistake his tone for pride. And with that we know who the creepy one is – it’s Davros, creator of the Daleks. He’s back! He says that Dalek Caan is “uneasy.” The Supreme Dalek doesn’t care. “The abomination is insane!” he says. He’s kind of hilarious. Davros says that Dalek Caan speaks the truth. Dalek Caan was last seen escaping from 1930s Manhattan in the last series, and now he’s sitting on a throne thing looking all mutant and googly. He also has a ridiculous squeaky mad voice. He babbles something about “the three-fold man…the Doctor is coming.” Intriguing. Although, as my husband pointed out, he sounds (and kind of looks) “like something out of the Mighty Boosh.” This is true. It’s quite hard not to laugh at everything he says once you imagine it taking place in the world of the Boosh.

Back at the Shadow Proclamation, a dejected Donna is sitting on the stairs. There’s a thumping bass sound, kind of like the sound of drums, kind of like a heart beat…or could it be two heart beats? Another red-eyed lady comes up to her and tells her there was something on her back. What a useful observation, mysterious red-eyed sage! She tells Donna that she (Donna, not the creepy lady) is “something new” and says she’s sorry for Donna’s “loss that is to come” and shuffles off. This is why enigmatic people are really annoying.

The Doctor asks Donna if she can think of any signs that might have indicated that something weird was happening on earth, that this move was being planned. Every viewer shouts, “The bees! The bees disappearing!” long before Donna does. The Doctor initially scoffs, but then realises that the bees, many of which are actually aliens, were heading home before disaster struck, rather like animals supposedly being able to foretell earthquakes and storms and stuff. Somehow, using the location of the bees’ home planet and the signals they exuded, the Doctor can find earth. I’m not exactly sure how, but let’s go with it. Scary SP lady tells the Doctor he must stay with them and head the forces of goodness or whatever into war, but the Doctor is a lover not a fighter, and he and Donna leap into the Tardis and head off, practically giggling. The SP lady is really angry.

Sylvia and Wilf are out on a residential street. Wilf is armed with a paint gun, with which he says he can blind the one-eyed foes. Sylvia desperately tells him to come home, because “they” are leaving their street alone for the moment. Wilf refuses. They watch the Daleks round up local residents “for testing.” Oh dear. One man defies the invaders and urges his wife and kids into their house – which the Daleks promptly blow up. Jaysus, that’s a bit hardcore for a pre-watershed show. Sylvia and Wilf run away – and almost immediately meet a Dalek. Wilf fires with his paint gun and hits the Dalek right in the, um, eye – but the paint immediately melts off. “My vision is not impaired!” declares the Dalek, just before his head is blown off. Yes, who should be standing behind him but Rose, vast gun in hand. It’s a great shot, but that’s another few bucks you owe Whedon, Davies. Wilf looks at Rose’s weapon. “Want to swap?” he says. Hee. They all head back to the Nobles’ mysteriously untouched by Daleks’ house, where Wilf tells Rose about Donna’s travels with the Doctor and Sylvia refuses to believe any of it. “Open your eyes!” says Wilf. Rose is desolate – the Nobles were her last hope. If they can’t find Donna, she can’t find the Doctor. “Where is he?” she mutters in frustration.

He’s on the Tardis, of course, but the trail has gone dead. They’re at the Medusa Cascade, as mentioned throughout the series, and it’s very pretty. The Doctor was last there as a kid, “when he was 90.” It’s rift in time and space, and it’s, as the Doctor says “the end of the line”. Donna asks him what to do but he just leans against a wall looking despairing. “Don’t do this to me. You never give up!” Donna begs, in tears. But to no avail.

Back in Torchwood, the gang look equally miserable as they listen to the news that earth has surrendered to the Daleks, who are making announcements of their own. “The Daleks reign supreme. Humans will report for testing.” In the Noble/Mott household, however, another message is coming through on the computer screen. “Can anyone hear me? The subwave network is open,” says a familiar female voice. “I know that voice…” says Rose. Sarah Jane’s getting the message, too, but she thinks it’s just “some poor soul calling for help. There’s nothing we can do.” But Mr Smith is processing it, and they’re getting it in Torchwood too. Jack dismisses it until the woman says “Captain Jack Harkness, shame on you. Now stand to attention!” Jack does. “Who is that?” he asks, as the fuzzy figure on the screen becomes clear and holds up a passport. Hurrah! It’s “Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister.” I wish Penelope Wilton’s name hadn’t been in the credits, because if I hadn’t known she was in this episode, this would have been particularly cool. “I know who you are,” smiles Jack. Back at the Nobles’, Rose cries “Harriet, it’s me!” but the computer doesn’t have a webcam or microphone so Harriet can’t see or hear her. Harriet calls Sarah Jane and links everyone together onscreen. She, Jack and SJ all appear but the fourth quarter of everyone’s screen is still fuzzy because someone is having trouble getting through. We, like Rose herself, assume it’s Rose but – hurrah! – it’s Martha, still alive. Somehow the Indigo thing brought her to her family home, where she had a moving reunion with her terrified mother. “Who’s she?” says Rose crossly. Hee.

Apparently Martha’s laptop then just turned itself on. “That was me,” says Harriet proudly, introducing herself yet again. Martha knows who she is. “I thought it was about time we all met,” Harriet continues. She introduces SJ and Captain Jack – Jack has been following SJ’s work, but she’s been keeping away from Torchwood – “too many guns,” she says, gesturing at Luke. “Well, might I say, looking good, ma’am,” flirts Jack. John Barrowman is so much better at this sort of thing than the angsty stuff. SJ is flattered. “Not now, Captain,” says a weary Harriet. She introduces Martha, “former companion to the Doctor” (”Oi, so was I!” says a disgruntled Rose, still unheard by all) and says that subwave network is a sentient creation that searches out everyone who can help contact the Doctor (which is why Rose is connected to it without anyone knowing about it). It’s undetectable by the Daleks and was developed by Harriet herself. Martha shows the Osterhagen Key, but Harriet tells her never to use it and orders everyone to forget about it. Instead, they must combine forces: “the Doctor’s secret army.” They must use all their powers, including Mr Smith and the rift in Cardiff, to send a message to the Doctor. Luke says that all the phones on earth will call the Doctor. “Who’s the kid?” says Jack the cradle-robber. “That’s my son!” says an indignant SJ. Heh. Ianto comes forward and introduces himself before pointing out that if they start transmitting, the Daleks will be able to trace the signal. Harriet knows that it will be traced back to her, but she’s ready to make that sacrifice. She rocks. I don’t blame Jack for saluting her. Everyone starts transmitting the number. Back at the Nobles, everyone furiously dials on their mobiles. Aw.

Back on the Tardis, the phone starts ringing. The Doctor starts to follow the signal with the help of his stethoscope, but the Daleks have noticed it, and are ready to attack. Davros wheels himself out of the shadows a little bit and says that he warned the SD that “the children time are moving against us.” But don’t worry, Daleks, because “everything is falling into place.” Well, that’s all right, then.

Sending the signal is making everything in Torchwood, as well as Mr Smith, kind of explode. Back at the Nobles, Rose holds up her phone. “Find me Doctor,” she whispers fiercely, and closes her eyes. “Find me.” And he has! At least, he’s locked on to the signal, as have the Daleks. They’re coming for Harriet, but she’s using the network to mask the other transmissions. As the Daleks rumble outside, she tells Jack that “I’m transferring the network to Torchwood. Tell the Doctor he chose his companions well. It’s been an honour.” The Daleks break in and she stands up to face them. “Harriet Jones, former prime minister,” she says. “Yes,” says a Dalek, “we know who you are.” Heh. “You know nothing of any human, and that will be your downfall,” says Harriet. She’s exterminated. Oh, bollocks. Jack tries to look sad but his acting isn’t up to the job. Farewell, brave Harriet. Penelope Wilton was freaking awesome throughout this episode.

Back on the Tardis, the control panel is ablaze with the effort of following the signal, but at last it’s worked – they’ve found the planets. It turns out the entire cascade were hidden in a pocket of time. How cunning. And now the subwave network has connected him to the gang. “Where the hell have you been?” bellows Jack. “Doctor, it’s the Daleks!” “Ooh, he’s a bit nice, I thought he’d be older,” says Gwen, quite understandably. Everyone talks at once and the Doctor just beams. “Aw, Sarah Jane, who’s that boy? And that must be Torchwood!” This is great. I can’t help it, I really love crossovers. Wilf and Sylvia are delighted to see Donna is safe and sound. “Oh, you’re brilliant, you clever people,” says the beaming Doctor. “Who’s that?” says Donna, leering at Jack. “Captain Jack,” says the Doctor. “And don’t. Just…don’t.” Hee! Poor Rose watches all this and feels very left out. “Doctor, it’s me. I came back.” Awww. Back on the Tardis, Donna says it’s like “an outerspace Facebook”. Heh. “Everyone except Rose,” says the Doctor sadly.

Someone new is joining the network. It’s Davros! “Your voice is different, but its arrogance is unchanged.” The Doctor thought Davros had died in the Time War, despite the Doctor’s efforts to save his life, but it turned out that Dalek Caan, when he escaped from 1930s Manhattan in the last series, somehow managed to break the “Time Lock” that seals the Time Wars (which means no one can enter this event and change history) and rescue Davros at the last minute. Alas for Dalek Caan, the experience drove him mad, hence all the Booshesque babbling (”I flew into the fire! I danced and danced!”) Anyway, Davros went off and created a brand new Dalek race – out of his own body, as he proves by opening his shirt and revealing his shredded ribs. Urrrrgh. The Doctor is grim. “After all we’ve been through, after everything we’ve lost, I have only one thing to say to you.” Pause. “Byeeee!” And with a wild grin, he heads the Tardis towards earth. Davros is unmoved, but his crazy mutant pal is all excited. “Death is coming!” burbles Caan. “Everlasting death for the most faithful companion!” Oh dear. The Daleks order a unit to exterminate Torchwood. Gwen and Ianto intercept the message, but don’t tell Jack, who’s got his cool coat on and is dashingly preparing to teleport to the Doctor. He bids his pals farewell and insists he’s coming back. They tell him not to worry about them and say goodbye without letting him know of their own impending doom. Aww, they are very brave. Jack teleports away just before the Daleks break through Torchwood’s outer limits.

SJ heads off to find the Doctor, leaving Luke in the care of Mr Smith. “I love you, remember that,” she says, and gets into her car and drives away.

Rose contacts a mysterious “control” and demands to transported to the Doctor. She tells Wilf and Sylvia where she’s doing. “Wish me luck!” she says, all excited, and they do. Rose strikes a pose and vanishes.

The Tardis has touched down on a deserted street. The Doctor and Donna emerge, and once more the Doc asks Donna what Rose said to him. Donna only says, “Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Donna is so great. She looks genuinely happy for him as he turns around and sees Rose. I know Billie’s looked a bit off since she returned but her smile when she sees the Doctor is absolutely dazzling. She just looks incredibly happy. They run towards each other for about a million years until – oh noes – a Dalek rolls around the corner and fires at the Doctor. He’s not dead but is clearly badly injured. Jack teleports in and destroys the Dalek before it can hurt anyone else while a tearful Rose takes the Doctor in her arms. “I’ve got you. I’ve missed you,” says Rose. “Look, it’s me!” Awwwww. The Doctor gasps, “Long time no see,” to which Rose replies, “Yeah, been busy, you know?” The Doctor groans in pain, and a frantic Rose whispers, “Don’t die. Oh my God, don’t die…” Sniff. Jack and Donna get both the Doctor and Rose into the Tardis.

Meanwhile, back at Torchwood, Gwen picks up a machine gun and prepares to face the impending Dalek doom. Ianto tells her that guns won’t work on a Dalek but she says “Yeah? Well, I’m going out fighting – like Owen, like Tosh. How about you?” Ianto looks all determined and says, “Yes, ma’am”. They’re so brave! Seriously, this is really sad.

Rose cradles the injured Doctor. “What do we do?” says a frantic Donna. “Step back,” says Jack. “Go on Rose, he’s dying and you know what happens next.” Holy crap! Donna doesn’t know, but Rose remembers the end of the first series, and frantically says, “No, no! I came all this way!” “It’s starting,” says the Doctor, as his hands start glowing. I was literally watching this with my mouth hanging open.

Sarah Jane drives around a corner – to be met by a group of Daleks. She stops and screams “I surrender! I’m sorry!” But “Daleks don’t accept human apologies,” and she will be exterminated. SJ raises her arms in a feeble attempt to shield herself. Oh dear. Back at Torchwood, the first Dalek has broken through, shouting “Exterminate!” Gwen and Ianto start shooting. Gwen gives a truly awesome battle cry. She’s brilliant. I’ve never liked her in Torchwood as much as I like her in this episode.

Tardis. “Here we go,” says Jack, pulling Rose away as the Doctor stumbles to his feet. Jack seems strangely jaunty. “Good luck, Doctor,” says Jack. “What the FUCK?” says Anna, unable to believe what is happening. Rose explains what happens when a Time Lord dies: “His body repairs itself – it changes. But you can’t!” she cries. “I’m sorry,” says the Doctor. “It’s too late. I’m regenerating.” And he starts shining in a fashion last seen when Derek Jacobi turned into lovely evil John Simm. And…that’s it. We don’t even get a proper trailer for next week!

So, that was bloody brilliant, wasn’t it? If we’re actually going to be introduced to Doctor Number 11 on Saturday, this is the best kept secret in TV history. Speculation on the next Doctor has been rife for at least a year, but it’s been reported that David Tennant was at least doing the next two Christmas specials (there won’t be a new series until 2010). So was that all a smokescreen? Is it really going to be wee Jimmy Nesbitt next week (please no)? But why did we see that bloody hand so prominently displayed? Is there going to be a clone Doctor? Will time be reversed to save the Torchwood Two and Sarah Jane? And did Donna really have two heartbeats? All I know is that I have a hopeful theory of my own which means I am PRAYING that Wilf will suddenly take out a pocket watch next week and we’ll discover Donna’s true secret heritage. Fingers crossed.

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