Alden Bates' Weblog
Feigning normality since 1973
Doctor Who Series 4 (Part 5)
Filed in: Doctor Who.
Blah blah, continued from Doctor Who Series 4 (Part 4), spoilers, etc.
The Stolen Earth/Journey's End (Obligatory no-plot finale with deus ex machina climax)
Apparently Rusty watched Journey's End 15 times before it was screened. Also he thinks Amy Winehouse would be good as the Doctor.
Like most of RTD's season finales, this one has very little plot. In fact, you can sum it up as "The Daleks steal a bunch of planets to build their giant disintegrator gun, the Doctor tracks them down and, after a mishap involving loose regeneration energy, Donna saves the day by pushing a crapload of buttons. Rose might as well not have been in it, for her sole contribution was to prevent Donna's family from being exterminated.
After all the button pushing, Sarah, Jack, Martha and Mickey are all returned to Earth, and Rose, Jackie and a spare Doctor are stuck back on Pete's World. It's not really explained why they need to be stuck back there, instead of, say, picking up Pete and bringing them all back to Earth, but the Doctor's a Time Lord, so we'll assume he knows what he's doing. Also, he mind-wipes Donna and returns her to her family. And it's taken longer for me to outline the last ten minutes than it did to outline the rest of the two episodes.
Despite predictions a companion would die, no one did (remember the build up that Rose was going to die in series 2, and then she didn't? Hmm). Even the resolution to the cliffhanger turned out to be a cop-out, with Gwen and Ianto being saved by a dead teammate's previously-unmentioned deus ex machina device.
On the bright side, this is the last series finale Russell T Davies will write. [5/10]
There are a few good things about this story though: Daleks speaking German, Liz Sladen, best Davros ever, DoctorDonna, David Tennant hilariously talking in Judoonese, and probably some other things I've forgotten.
Battle of the Seasons! The series finales by lameness of deus ex machina:
- Last of the Time Lords (The love of humanity makes SUPERDOCTOR!)
- Parting of the Ways (Literally a deus ex machina as Rose becomes a god)
- Journey's End (This button blows up the Daleks, this button sends the planets back, and this button releases the cute fluffy bunnies)
- Doomsday (This lever controls a giant vaccuum!)
And now it's time for... The Battle of the Seasons Results!
- Series 3: 31 points
- Series 2: 23 points
- Series 4: 21 points
- Series 1: 18 points
So the winner(?) by 8 points is Series 3! Which means that series 3 is the most stereotypically Russell T Davies series, I guess...
Previously: Doctor Who Series 4 (Part 1), Doctor Who Series 4 (Part 2), Doctor Who Series 4 (Part 3), Doctor Who Series 4 (Part 4)
Posted July 9, 2008 12:14 AM
Comments
I think Mr Davies was joking and the press took him seriously. As they do. :)
Posted by: Alden 
| July 9, 2008 6:39 PM
The scene in the forest with the German Daleks was atmospheric as hell - easily one of the best single moments in all four seasons. Of course, it reinforces the non-too-subtle Nazi allegory as re: the pepperpots in a rather over-obvious way, but it works for me. I thought I'd become aphasic for a moment there, when the Daleks starting ranting 'gibberish', then..."Ohhhh, it's German. I can speak that language reasonably well, and even I was flummoxed." Major shame.
Both JE and the previous ep are overloaded with characters, very few of which have anything to do. The plot is wafer-thin, and the frantic pace of this two-parter doesn't quite cover that up.
Davros and the Daleks are excellent, the former especially; but they both get sidelined halfway through JE because almost ten minutes of the story then has to be devoted to farewelling everybody. Once that's done, even a 63 minute episode has no runtime left, and things just get hastily sewn up. The scene in Bad Wolf Bay near the end of JE is cringeworthy, reeking of the worst of US TV's preconceived notions about how characters who are close MUST eventually become lovers. X Files, Bones etc. Embarrassing.
As for the next Doctor - James Nesbitt, no contest. The other names I've heard bandied round all sound terrible - if Alan Davies gets the job in 2010, I'm resigning as a fan.
Posted by: Jeff Stone | July 10, 2008 5:26 PM
seriously do you think amy winehouse would be a great doctor?
Posted by: Myke | July 9, 2008 6:35 PM