But no, you cannot find spoilers anywhere.

Davies should be praised for bringing the show back and laying out a good first series. However, his writing has either been getting progressively worse or it's been getting stale. His dialogue and plot devices are cheesy even for Doctor Who, and that's saying something!

Moffat, on the other hand, has contributed a handful of the best episodes of the new series, including my personal favorite, "Blink".

I won't say Davies should have stepped aside earlier, but I certainly wish he had.

Do we know if Moffett or RTD will be producing the 2009 movies?

My guess: Tennant remains as the current Doctor, but we are going to see a future incarnation somehow and maybe even Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor all together. Dalek Caan said that "the threefold man" was coming. Wouldn't it be like RTD to bring back the actor who brought the Doctor back from hiatus, for this his final episode as showrunner?

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Of course remove spaces as needed.

Heck, they can even be from the Doctor's past. It's not like we know everything about his nearly a millennium of life. (E.g., perhaps there was a third major faction in the Time War.)

We finally got to see The Shadow Proclamation, this past episode. More could be done with that.

Also, am I the only one who thought The Shadow Proclamation was an actual.. y'know.. proclamation? A declaration akin to the prime directive or something. Okay, that's one too many Star Trek references for one talkback post. G'night!

as others have said, serious kudos to everyone at the beeb for getting us this far spoiler free .. Impressively enough, the episode is getting show live in Trafalgar square tonight, it's amazing how in four years Who has gone from a laughing stock, to something once again of a national institution, whatever you might say about RTD's bingo card, some serious kudos are due for that alone...

Who knows? Who cares? It'll be damn fine telly regardless and I'll be right here afterwards to see what you good people thought. Oh, the anticipation! It's like being twelve all over again!

Normally, you guys can't brew to save your lives but dear sweet Jesus, those Rogue and Sierra Nevada ales I drank last night more than made up for crap like Coors and Bud.

God bless America!

Hell, if they had REALLY gotten everyone on board -- I mean EVERYONE of cast and crew to keep their mouths shut to preserve any and all secrets -- and if they REALLY wanted to fuck with people's heads, I just think it would be hilarious if Tennant regenerated and turned into Robert Carlyl...only a year later you find out something was fucked up in the process, and thus he has to turn back into Tennant again. People talking about there being "two Tennants", so one can go off with Rose back to her parallel dimension -- that's an interesting idea as well. Not to mention the BBC would love to have some sort of backdoor open for Tennant to always reappear, even if it is a clone of himself or whatever. Frankly, I had said it in previous talkbacks and I'll say it again: I think Tennant is spectacular in the role, he is the heart and soul of what makes this modern incarnation work, and if I was running the BBC, I'd be offering the man one helluva check to keep him happy. Seriously, what's the deal with that? Is it THAT different over there? Don't British stars hold out or drive their prices up as much as American stars do here?

Catherine Tate's "I couldn't believe I was standing next to..." line makes total sense, because McGann is famous, not just for Who.

It's so wrong, it makes you look like an idiot.

I'll be back in 6 hours or so with my thoughts. It'll likely be difficult to write a review tonight without spoilers in it. Does anyone still want us to bother doing this, or are you accepting that there's bound to be spoilers ahoy later?

You know, if the daleks can steal a planet, or 27, and they can now break the lock on the time war.. if they put those two things together maybe they could bust out skaro and gallifrey... too much? probably.

Surely it was obvious that when she was talking about young and old, she still meant Tennant. No?

I thought that was bleedin obvious but apparently not.

I'll be angry if RTD fucks up the script somehow.

That would include using a MASSIVE reset button, like last years Master finale. That would, indeed, annoy me.

But for the first time in a long time, I actually believe RTD will pull this off, and it will be a great episode.

It's a tribute to the man that he could make a cynical bastard like me optimistic about tonights episode.

You know, I do believe he could...

And in my humble opinion, any country that can produce something as utterly gorgeous as 'Rogue Chocolate Stout' deserves to be the leader of the free world...

Anyway, nearly 'Who' time kiddies! Ten minutes to go! See you back here for the TB later!

Exactly the same as the RTD Master debacle. Started very promising and descended into pure farce by the end. He didn't even have the Balls to kill Donna.

I don't expect hard science fiction from Doctor Who and certainly not from RTD but this was just throwing everything at the screen and hoping something sticks.

Fantasy panto masquerading as science fiction.

I'll admit though by RTD standards it wasn't his worst Ep. (hardly great praise though) Some things were still interesting despite the Pantomime feel that hung over almost everything and whatever crimes against writing RTD may have committed he STILL got Who back on the screens and he always deserves much praise for that least. But watching this final Ep I can truthfully say thank god Moffat is taking over.

Anyway, roll on 2010 and please Mister Moffat, no more Billie Piper EVER - those teeth are just far too frightening!

Oh Lordy.....
David Tennant regenerates into David Threlfall.....
Verve and fun.....
Menace.....
Blo w the crap out us.....
Brilliant bonkers.....
The sexiest thing I've seen on telly.....
You'll be amazed!!!

This was OK but a let down after the set up and the previous episodes.

IMO the Threefold Man thing was a good idea but handled badly. Donna touches the hand (Which she didn't actually touch, cos it was in a glass container) and she gets the Doctor's mind (which needs to be activated by being shot later on?!) and he becomes Human? WTF?

Good parts summarised: Bernard Cribbins performance. The Osterhagen Key turning out to be something more than a rubbish reset button. Davros's confontation. Daleks talking in German. The mexican standoff with everyone ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. The Threefold man idea. K-9!

The rubbish parts: The Threefold man in practice. The fact that The Doctor hated his human self for killing all the Daleks and conveniently ignored the fact that Rose already did the same thing in the first series. Towing the Earth and everyone on it wobbling about a bit. Davros breaking the mexican standoff by just teleporting everyone (including Martha in an underground base) to the ship. The last second escape of the Tardis.

Oh and what is it with the transdimensional teleporter that you activate just by pressing a button, and it either takes you across the unverse, or just through the door on the right if you are in mortal peril. Needs 30 mins to recharge too. Nifty! No nasty rifts in time and space either.

Unless anyone is really suggesting that Donna somehow transforms into Alex Kingston, has her memory of her life as Donna completely erased, learns about the legend of Donna without her brain exploding, gets taken into the future once more, meets a future incarnation of The Doctor and marries him, without him realising who she is.

I know RTD stretches things, but come on - its more likely to be Wilfred than Donna.

Ah but now it can be explained. River could now meet the Doctor who is living with Rose, and who is going to age at normal human speed.

If RTD was making this shit up as he goes along then he's being lucky with it.

As she knew who he was it was probably easier to say she met an older version rather than an older version with a completely different face/voice/height/persona/dres s sense!

Even though it is a stretch, this could mean there are other time lord hybrids out there somewhere that could pop out of the woodwork at any moment.

"ROD..NEY..YOU..PLON ...KER.."

I'm sorry RTD, but after such a promising penultimate episode last week, it was very disappointing to have to completely ¨go¨ with plot devices like the donna/doctor/hand/regeneration blah fiasco, with a complete absence of any clever plot machinery at all, just babble. And as for the ¨Tardis towing the Earth back home¨, well, if the Universe was one gigantic cosmic shark...... you just jumped it.

Most of the buzz last week and again this week was about the Doctor regenerating and how long does it take to solve it???? He could havea at least given it a few more seconds.

Which is a shame because there were quite a few great moments in that episode much better plotted than every other RTD series finale. Why he has to leave just as he discovers how to write is beyond me.

And as for that ending 2 series ago we were told that Rose was trapped in an alternate universe never to return so Donna's mind wipe never seems to permanent. "Donna must never learn anything about me." But her walking into a room where I am is FINE!!!! Must agree Bernard Cribbins for the next companion

Oh and What's with the guy who said I don't want my name recorded for this? You're blowing up the entire planet who is going to be there to remember??????

when it gets dark.

and the stars come out.

I'll look up.

on your behalf.

I'll look up at the sky.

and think of you."

and also, I'm SO glad it ended the way it did: doctor, alone in tardis. no "what, what, WHAT?!?", no titanic bursting trough.

just the doctor, alone with his sadness.

I mentioned in the last Doctor Who talkback that I became a Doctor Who fan with the relaunch in 2005, and had only previously watched a few Tom Baker and Peter Davison episodes. Thanks to suggestions by lynxpro, INWOsuxRED, and Ray Gamma (and maybe others), I've started watching the Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes.

I started with "Genesis of the Daleks", "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", and "The Pirate Planet". These were all great (I really liked "Talons"), but I was exposed to three different companions (one being Sarah Jane) and "The Pirate Planet" is apparently part of a larger "Key to Time" arc, so I've gone back and started with the first Tom Baker episode. I've now watched "Robot", "The Ark in Space", "The Sontaran Experiment", "Genesis of the Daleks", "Revenge of the Cybermen", and "Terror of the Zygons" (plus "Talons" and "The Pirate Planet"). I'm liking it a lot! There is an incredible amount of imagination put into these stories, and a lot of cool concepts are referenced and explored. I'm no longer even bothered by the special effects, so I guess that I've eaten the Jelly Baby.

I would go on, but I have about ten minutes until I can watch the new series finale! I must prepare...

Having said that, I started to get into the ep again after Davros had his first mentalist speech. When he starting shouting I honestly got chills. For me he was just consistently excellent and easily the best villian in new Who. I hope the way it ended, with the Doctor being cursed and us not actually seeing him die, leaves it open for his return. But what grander scheme could he come up with than trying to erase reality itself?? Once again though, loved loved loved Davros (also loved the Palpatineisms as someone else mentioned).

Things did then get better after the terrible start - loved the German daleks, the Osterhagen key reveal was nowhere near as lame as I feared. The resolution of Donna's storyline I actually liked. The idea was fulfilled that she becomes the most important woman in the universe, forever remembered whilst she herself will always be damned to forget. Nice idea I liked this. And from an avowed Tater I gotta give props to Catherine here because she has proven to be brilliant. That part where she was pleading with the Doc not to be sent back to her pathetic existance, with no memory of the great things she's done and no hope for the future, that was great. She has really raised the bar for future companions to follow. Loved Bernard Cribbins too and the downbeat ending, with the Doctor left on his own once more - perhaps we will see a solo Doctor for these specials?

Not excited particularly to see the return of the Cybermen, but I do hope that we don't see Rose back - leave her alone now along with everyone else from the last 4 series and lets have some NEW characters both good and evil. SO ultimately, I liked this more than last year, and this and other RTD eps certainly have shown signs of improvement - but what this ep really showed is that actually bringing in the Moff is exactly what the show needs. An intelligent writer who will draw together and nicely wrap up plotlines in new and exciting ways. Furthermore - really glad that Tennant is staying as he is awesome! Also, Moff please note - the Doc's daughter and Sally Sparrow are both good characters and also very fit. If you were to bring them back I wouldn't object.

What surprised me most in that episode was how long the Doctor spent asking her "who are you?" He should have easily figured out that this was someone who had met future versions of himself, but he hadn't met her yet. As a time traveller, this should happen to him all the time.

Anyway, River refers to never having seen him so young. I got the impression she was talking centuries. Tennant will almost definitely leave within the next few years. If he does meet River Song in that time, that comment will make no sense whatsoever. "I've never seen you look 3 years younger than previously" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Even if some people get the impression that River Song has met Tennant's Doctor before, nowhere in the episode is it explicitly stated that she has. She never says, for example, "I recognise your face because we have met before and you are the Doctor".

http://tinyurl.com/69hoph

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Yeah New WHO is REALLY beginning to wear out the old villains with a christmas cybermen Ep.

RTD simply can't do climaxes. He can set things up and he knows what will be a cliffhanger, but when it comes to actually delivering on all the setup and creating believable and lasting resolutions, he doesn't have a clue.

He doesn't even pretend to care about the mechanics of an Episode as long as he can get characer A to point X along with character B he would be just as happy to use a magic wand and the laughable technobabble is basically that. A Doctor Who magic wand RTD waves to create various ludicrous setpieces, instantaneous villain defeats and over the top happy endings.

Davros saved this Ep from being quite as hilariously sh*t as the Master Eps but it came perilously close on occasion unfortunately.

Ah well... RTD had his run, had his fun and but it's DEFINITELY time for something new.

Moffat, I'm fairly sure, will at least try to create memorable new villains not just trade on the old ones AND he might even bring Sally Sparrow back as a companion. Well, we can but hope.

I am.

And I am posting too much in this talkback.

So anyway, the obvious question is: Who is the next companion?

And in the middle of it, maybe The Doctor will lean in close and say, "What the hell did you do to your teeth?"

Speaking of Donna Noble, I WON'T be surprised if her big honkin' ring turns out to be something akin to the Doctor's and the Master's fob watches. By this I mean a sort of vessel that is storing Donna's memories, and not so much a way for her to return to Human / Time Lord hybrid status. It may simply be because the thing is so damb big, but it seems that the ring was too prominent in too many scenes (and was also on the hand that Donna shoved into the Regeneration energy). Also, don't forget that her stuttering husband from the Library is still out there, somewhere...

Yeah well, what about what DAVROS just tried to do? He nearly wiped out all of creation... and a few million Daleks killed by Doctor 2.0 is supposed to be *worse* than that?

Minor quibbles aside, I liked this episode a lot. It was the perfect ending for Davies's tenure as the show's helmsman. Davros's monologue where he talks about how the Doctor can't look back, and then the scene where the TARDIS is pulling the Earth back home... just plum epic stuff.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but at a point in this episode, weren't there 4 versions of the Doctor in the universe at the same time?

Complete Doctor, Half Doctor, Donna Doctor and Jenny Doctor, who is essentially a female clone of the Doctor.

Regarding the episode overall, it was ok, I'm a little disappointed in Davros...I mean he didn't really do much. Yes his speeches were great and the Daleks keeping him as a pet does fit with Davros' history. But I would have liked to have seem him in full command, rather than being inferior in rank to Supreme Dalek.

I really think he can do character stuff, but anything related to SciFi, reason or logic, and he's like a fish out of water.

As for the really big surprise in that episode, for me it was Dalek Caan having set up his own species for an epic fall. The Cult of Skaro were different to other Daleks and the way Dalek Sek changed yet again showed evolution into a different species from the original Daleks again but the fact that a Dalek could come to conclude that its own species in the grand scheme of things was a mistake and must be destroyed - in fact collabarating to make it happen, well that was a very big thing indeed.

As for whoever said the Time Lords are still around in some fashion and making things happen, I totally agree. We've repeatedly seen the occasional Dalek here and there having survived, why not a few Time Lords. If anything, knowing the Time Lords, they probably always had plans to cover the eventuality that they might be destroyed (like in the Time War) and always had some sort of escape hatch for at least some of them.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had a hand in making all of this happen, either pulling the strings of Dalek Caan or working in collaboration with him.

Finally, credit in keeping so much of the episode mysterious before it aired. Looking back at the various pieces of information that did get out, most of the accurate key points did get out in the end beforehand but there was sufficient doubt out there about any of it that we just weren't completely sure right up to screening time.

Basically we learn that the Time War was time locked. And nobody could enter it without some form of protection. Makes me wonder if that's what the Doctor did, locked the war in time, or outside of time.

Not only that, but in the finale, we saw a time lock in Torchwood. So pretty much everything slowed to a crawl within the time locked area, including bullets.

Which makes me wonder, if it is, in principle, the same thing, then does that mean that the Time War is still going on? But it's locked in a "bubble" and hence moving so slowly that it will never threaten the universe outside that bubble.

If that is indeed the case, and Caan was able to enter the bubble, which not only made him crazy, but also let him see all of time, then could the Doctor not do the same? And if so, why doesn't he?

Well as I said above, if he breaks the bubble, the Time War comes back into normal Time and Space and the threat to the entire universe that the Doctor stopped, appears again.

So in essence, Gallifrey and Skaro aren't gone, they are simply locked outside of time, moving at a rate so slow as to not effect the universe outside the time lock. If that's the case, the Doctor could break the time lock and find a different way to end the Time War, resulting in the return of the Time Lords.

as is, at least i got half right (so far), she ended up a time lord, and i suspect that she might have the ability to regenerate despite not being able to remember anything This episode was a ridiculous pantomine as has been said before, but hell for some reason, i still loved it. i cheered when k9 came back , i cheered when mickey showed up, i cheered for a lot of seemingly illogical things, but hell, it was fun.

Bernard Cribbins is my favourite not quite companion i think we've ever had, and i hope they find some way to get him back into the mix.

Also, they should ask Grant Morrison to write a script. They should have given torchwood to him, he could have made it into something rivalling the invisibles, which i always got the feeling it wanted to be...

Let's have Ice Warriors, Sea-Devils, another Krynoid and Zygons (well remembered Deak!).

River Song and Sally Sparrow for Season 5...with Bill Nighy as the main man. You know you want it!

As for the doctor "aging", he did went through some character growth; he was reminded that he'll always be alone no matter how many people he meets that will even give their lives to help him. If River met him before and after, it makes sense that she'd notice a difference.

However they could have David Tennant on as the normally aging human copy. Fantastic!

In the meantime, I guess we have the opportunity for a multiple Doctor special, either now with David Tennant as the current incumbent (A McGann/Eccleston/Tennant adventure would be great) or later and including Tennant et al.

The Good:

1. Davros eclipsed the Master in badassery. And in calling out the Doctor for what he really is. Top props to Julian Bleach for an outstanding performance. Davros labeling the Doctor "Destroyer of Worlds" is the perfect irony considering what he and the Daleks were planning.

2. Donna, of course. I'm one of the few who actually liked the brash and brassy Ms. Noble right off the bat. She wasn't the naive Rose or the inexplicably smitten Martha. She was an old-style companion, more like Sarah Jane in the final analysis. The Tardis scene between her and "Hand Doctor" was brilliant! And as others have suggested, her forgetting the Doctor forever may not last. The Doctor didn't clue in Torchwood or Sarah Jane. Aren't they bound to cross paths with Donna accidentally or intentionally? Even Wilf might spill the beans evetually. But props no matter what to Catherine Tate. I've never seen her show, so I don't know if she's earned the animosity many Who fans displayed for her. She was indeed the Doctor's most loyal companion.

3. The Tardis towing the Earth back home. Corny? Yeah. Implausible? Even for Who, pretty far up there. Enjoyable? Immensely!

The Geeky:

4. Davros recognizing Sarah Jane! I could only wish that when the Daleks were de-clawed that she would've gone up to him and given him at least a slap across his leathery face. But who knows? She may yet get the chance. Mwahaha!

5. Dalek Caan's betrayal. Perhaps Dalek Sek's words did make it through to ther other Cult of Skaro members. And even though he royally screwed Davros and this iteration of the Dalek race, one wonders if he had another agenda running behind the prophecies and blather. Could he have pulled another temporal shift and escaped the Crucible?

6. The Doctor and his Companions flying the Tardis together. Now that's just fanboy wankery at its finest!

The Bad:

7. Farewall to Rose...and hopefully for good this time. She manages to get her own Doctor to shag and she reacts with all the joy of a bowl of porridge. And honestly, what did she actually DO in the episode other than cross over from the other dimension for cosmic crisis booty call? I know lots of folks love her, but here's hoping her dimension remains permanetly sealed this time!

8. The mighty, unstoppable Daleks are utterly wiped out...yet again. How many times can we see the Daleks "finally, totally destoyed" when we know that they really haven't been? That had gotten old by the second series' finale. It's cheap and it doesn't work. No more "end of the Dalks" please unless you really mean it!

The Funny: 9. Daleks speaking German!!!!! So utterly perfect, so completely unexpected.

10. Jack being Jack. "You don't want to know what I'm thinking right now."

3-1/2 stars out of 4. A great ending to the best series of the show so far.

The whole excuse of manufacturing an extra Doctor to shack up with Billie -- BLEUURRRGH. Give me a break. Poor old Martha has had her character gutted as well. More of that shit on Torchwood, one assumes.

and rose, like her mum, is a material girl.

...a Zygon.

I've only recently started watching old Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes and don't have a good working knowledge of the older stories, so I don't know if the Zygons have reappeared since "Terror of the Zygons". They would have a vested interest in protecting the Earth from the Daleks if they still wanted to conquer the planet. Maybe the Zygons has kidnapped Harriet Jones at some point in the past and sent out a duplicate to assist against the most recent Dalek Invasion.

The Doctor II was a Timelord, who had some of Donna's human traits (most notably one heart instead of two), but he WAS NOT HUMAN. He was still a Timelord, and thus having a little extra Donna content in his brain was NO BIG DEAL.

PLEASE GUYS, stop saying this is a plot hole. It's not.

The only major question I have with this episode is WHY do they keep focusing on Donna's ring? The did close-ups on it a few times... But never got into WHY.

Rose gets "The Doctor," the universe is saved, "The Doctor" finally makes the RIGHT decision and annihilates the Daleks — yet The Doctor still manages to keep his hands clean of it, Torchwood gets new replacements for Tosh and Owen (and Captain Jack gets two new cabin-boys) and Donna finally gets the opportunity for a brief few minutes to show that she really DOES know everything!

I imagine the episode COULD have been better (how did Jack open up the incinerator from the inside after being locked in, and why weren't his clothes even scorched???), but it certainly could've been a lot WORSE.

Overall, a good ending to an often sketchy run by RTD. Now we'll see if Mr. Moffet is able to extend his high-quality writing and imagination over the course of a season (or 2 or 3)... not an easy job.

Donna's ring eh? hmmm.. it seems the last shot on the phone was just saying LOOK AT ME I AM A BIG RING, HAVE YOU NOTICED??? *REALLY CONVOLUTED SPEC TIME* So say Donna's ring (which she still has) is the equivalent of the masters watch, it restores her to a time lord, would it also somehow serve to change the CLONE Doctor at the same time and give him , i don't know two hearts and a full regeneration cycle?

For example, if it was so easy for the Doctor to deliver Rose back to her exile in the ¨alternative dimension¨ at the end of the episode, then why didn't he just fucking go there two years ago when she was first sent there? I'll tell you why: It's because it's a GAPING PLOT HOLE.

I hope to Christ that the ruddy story of the Tylers is now OVER and we never see BIllie in the show again. She did well in her first run, but in this was reduced to largely standing around ande, to be honest, bringing her back only cheapened the genuinely great emotional moment of her farewell in Doomsday (and why was her bloody mum involved? No reason at all). Leave well enough alone.

Also not a fan of the alterna-Doctor, evidently just created to shack up with Rose and give her a reason to stay out of the show.

*BEAMS PROUDLY*

Given how fast the episode moved last night, i think a lot of people can be easily forgiven for missing the often 1 or 2 line explanations given for things... The episode worked better for me on second viewing.

also I'm not from over there, but I do understand that this is pretty big thing in UK. and that it is aimed at kids.

so, my question would be, is killing a companion even an option? I guess all the "BOO!" and "something is waiting for you in the dark" in the world is OK, because it scares kids without leaving some emotional trauma.

DW is, the way I see it at least, a major franchise. so, could RTD (or moffat, once he takes over) create a companion character, build him/her up over the course of a season or two, and then kill the companion.

not leave in parallel dimension, not have memory erased, but kill.

would bbc allow show runner to do something like that, or would they be too afraid of losing their young viewers?

http://tinyurl.com/5otazc

You must be one of those 'bright' people that you talk of.

Whereas when someone like Terry Nation created the Daleks there wasn't anyone back then saying "They aren't as good as the..... ah wait, we haven't got anything to compare them to yet."

And as far wrapping up storylines - I'd say that Rose, Jackie et al had their storylines wrapped up pretty definitively at the end of series 2. This wasn't worth bringing them back for and undoing the pathos of that ending. If Noel Clarke wants to be in Torchwood that's his lookout, but Who didn't need them back.

Don't get me wrong, I think it was well-intentioned; RTD cannot resist those big "ooh -wow!" ideas (a bit like having Tennant appear to regenerate because it would be "the biggest cliffhanger ever"; he was right, it was, but it has ultimately pre-emptively cheapened DT's actual regeneration, whenever that comes).

John Simm is a very good actor. We've seen Life on Mars. Unfortunately, he was given some terrible dialogue and scenes to work with. The Master has always been meglomaniacal but never so over the top juvenile in behaviour in the series as he was in the last two episodes of Season 3 (of the new run). Maybe John Simm's Master caught a bit of what was afflicting Eric Roberts in the TV Movie, whose Master also had bizarre behaviour that Eric Roberts was forced to do by that script.

The Bad: using regeneration to heal only (makes you wonder if his body thought it was done-for enough to regenerate, his wounds should have been life threatening) and that left a bad taste in the mouth right from the start; The scene in Germany; All Daleks controlled from a keyboard; Having Sarah Jane and Rose in the story at all when they had perfectly good endings to their characters already - sometimes things are "best left unsaid" is the right way to go; Earth being towed; All the "good guys" jumping and hugging around the TARDIS console like the Wiggles.

The What-The: regeneration is optional if you keep spare body parts; cloned half-breed Timelord/Humans just by touching; a literal spark from Davros to "awaken" the Timelord in Donna; that even an angry Doctor would stoop to genocide; stuff I'm sure I left out (like if all of reality is Daleks, where can they go for a holiday and who will serve them?).

oh, and did Dalek Caan decide the Daleks were going the wrong way about things before or after he got Davros out of the Time War? Because if it were after then why'd he get him out?

Though mind you, history has been kinder to Colin Baker than events at the time. If he'd just been given some better scripts and a proper costume, it could have been different.

Loved the Osterhagen Key too - great idea, very GLOBAL FREQUENCY (you can imagine Miranda Zero having to deal with stopping the Osterhagen Group and their insane Key idea!) , and so much else - the Crucible, Davros, the moments where ALL the new Companions were piloting the TARDIS etc - were real magic. Proper new Who demands this kind of spectacle, and it DELIVERED. And that ending... I'd have never wished that on Donna. She went from reviled yawping fishwife to beloved companion in thirteen episodes, and then RTD turns her back into a bellowing fishwife at the end with no knowledge (and only any non-Doctor related nudges from her dear old Gramps)of the potential she has as a human being. Back to the hairdressers and HEAT magazine and Big Brother and X Factor and every other inane peice of drivel this century can throw at us to keep us dumb. THAT was the biggest tragedy of all: Wilf can try to edge the newly-amnesiac Donna towards that potential, but one word of what she's experienced could kill her dead. BRILLIANT writing, RTD, and too fucking late in the day. Just brilliant though. Although, should Moffat want to bring Donna back for an episode, it could be got round quite easily...

The bad and the Russell? Unfortunately tend to go hand-in-hand. He's done his usual trick of setting up some potentially juicy lines of dialogue - "the threefold man", "most beloved companion will die", and all the Dalek prophecies - and just fucking ignoring them all! So WHERE was the threefold man then? And no, the two Doctors and Doctor/Donna don't count - technically Doctor/Donna is half-woman/bellowing fishwife, and the two Doctors are the same man but with one half-human! Cop-out Russell! Same with the companion who would die - I don't remember any major deaths bar Flydale North, and DEFINITELY wouldn't count Donna's memory wipe as a "death" - that's also a major cop-out if that's what RTD intended. The problem with a RTD finale - and it's no different here - is that, on a superficial and non-critical/subjective level, on the spectacular 8-year-old-watching-it level, it's a great show. But think about it, even just for a moment, and it all falls apart. Like the Osterhagen Key - that's a fucking big plot point to just pull out of a bag - like, how would the Doctor NOT know about it? How do you pull off a project that big and keep it utterly secret? One line in PARTNERS IN CRIME to set it up would have been great - Donna: "Ooh, what's going on with these underground bases in Germany? Some mad scientist called Osterhagen? Friend of yoursm, Doctor?" - and then the pay off. But the way Russell writes it, it's like "Ooh, the Daleks have us at their mercy, Davros has us cornered, and ooh - HERE'S THAT DALEK ATOME DE-STABILISING VIRUS HIDDEN IN A COMPARTMENT IN MY SHOE AND YOU NEVER KNEW IT WAS THERE!". THAT kind of lazy, half-arsed plotting that keeps stuff like JOURNEY'S END from being truly great Who. It's fun, it's exciting, it's a rollercoaster ride, but new Who should be so much more - COULD BE so much more, and BLINK and HUMAN NATURE showed us how much more it could be - than just pretty lights and SFX and Tennant gurning and shouting. Give us the Tennant playing the scene where as John Smith, he knew he had to die to become the Doctor, to stop the Family of Blood; give us the Tennant who didn't know River Song; give us the quietly menacing Tennant who warned the Krillitane, "I'm so old. I used to have so much mercy. You get one warning - that was it" - not this yawping, gurning fool we so often get. JOURNEY'S END could have ranked as one of the all-time best episodes EVER - as it is, it's just a really good kids' episode, but not the classic that can be rewatched and pored over for years to come that I'd hoped. Still a shame to see RTD get away from the preachy stuff in the early years, to get really, REALLY good in the last few episodes of this season - and then bow out! Four seasons of stuff this good could have been much better than the soapbox shite he saddled us with initially. But better late than never, Russell - and good luck on the next show. Now bring on the Grand Moff Moffat!

Loved the Osterhagen Key too - great idea, very GLOBAL FREQUENCY (you can imagine Miranda Zero having to deal with stopping the Osterhagen Group and their insane Key idea!) , and so much else - the Crucible, Davros, the moments where ALL the new Companions were piloting the TARDIS etc - were real magic. Proper new Who demands this kind of spectacle, and it DELIVERED. And that ending... I'd have never wished that on Donna. She went from reviled yawping fishwife to beloved companion in thirteen episodes, and then RTD turns her back into a bellowing fishwife at the end with no knowledge (and only any non-Doctor related nudges from her dear old Gramps)of the potential she has as a human being. Back to the hairdressers and HEAT magazine and Big Brother and X Factor and every other inane peice of drivel this century can throw at us to keep us dumb. THAT was the biggest tragedy of all: Wilf can try to edge the newly-amnesiac Donna towards that potential, but one word of what she's experienced could kill her dead. BRILLIANT writing, RTD, and too fucking late in the day. Just brilliant though. Although, should Moffat want to bring Donna back for an episode, it could be got round quite easily...

The bad and the Russell? Unfortunately tend to go hand-in-hand. He's done his usual trick of setting up some potentially juicy lines of dialogue - "the threefold man", "most beloved companion will die", and all the Dalek prophecies - and just fucking ignoring them all! So WHERE was the threefold man then? And no, the two Doctors and Doctor/Donna don't count - technically Doctor/Donna is half-woman/bellowing fishwife, and the two Doctors are the same man but with one half-human! Cop-out Russell! Same with the companion who would die - I don't remember any major deaths bar Flydale North, and DEFINITELY wouldn't count Donna's memory wipe as a "death" - that's also a major cop-out if that's what RTD intended. The problem with a RTD finale - and it's no different here - is that, on a superficial and non-critical/subjective level, on the spectacular 8-year-old-watching-it level, it's a great show. But think about it, even just for a moment, and it all falls apart. Like the Osterhagen Key - that's a fucking big plot point to just pull out of a bag - like, how would the Doctor NOT know about it? How do you pull off a project that big and keep it utterly secret? One line in PARTNERS IN CRIME to set it up would have been great - Donna: "Ooh, what's going on with these underground bases in Germany? Some mad scientist called Osterhagen? Friend of yoursm, Doctor?" - and then the pay off. But the way Russell writes it, it's like "Ooh, the Daleks have us at their mercy, Davros has us cornered, and ooh - HERE'S THAT DALEK ATOME DE-STABILISING VIRUS HIDDEN IN A COMPARTMENT IN MY SHOE AND YOU NEVER KNEW IT WAS THERE!". THAT kind of lazy, half-arsed plotting that keeps stuff like JOURNEY'S END from being truly great Who. It's fun, it's exciting, it's a rollercoaster ride, but new Who should be so much more - COULD BE so much more, and BLINK and HUMAN NATURE showed us how much more it could be - than just pretty lights and SFX and Tennant gurning and shouting. Give us the Tennant playing the scene where as John Smith, he knew he had to die to become the Doctor, to stop the Family of Blood; give us the Tennant who didn't know River Song; give us the quietly menacing Tennant who warned the Krillitane, "I'm so old. I used to have so much mercy. You get one warning - that was it" - not this yawping, gurning fool we so often get. JOURNEY'S END could have ranked as one of the all-time best episodes EVER - as it is, it's just a really good kids' episode, but not the classic that can be rewatched and pored over for years to come that I'd hoped. Still a shame to see RTD get away from the preachy stuff in the early years, to get really, REALLY good in the last few episodes of this season - and then bow out! Four seasons of stuff this good could have been much better than the soapbox shite he saddled us with initially. But better late than never, Russell - and good luck on the next show. Now bring on the Grand Moff Moffat!

Loved the Osterhagen Key too - great idea, very GLOBAL FREQUENCY (you can imagine Miranda Zero having to deal with stopping the Osterhagen Group and their insane Key idea!) , and so much else - the Crucible, Davros, the moments where ALL the new Companions were piloting the TARDIS etc - were real magic. Proper new Who demands this kind of spectacle, and it DELIVERED. And that ending... I'd have never wished that on Donna. She went from reviled yawping fishwife to beloved companion in thirteen episodes, and then RTD turns her back into a bellowing fishwife at the end with no knowledge (and only any non-Doctor related nudges from her dear old Gramps)of the potential she has as a human being. Back to the hairdressers and HEAT magazine and Big Brother and X Factor and every other inane peice of drivel this century can throw at us to keep us dumb. THAT was the biggest tragedy of all: Wilf can try to edge the newly-amnesiac Donna towards that potential, but one word of what she's experienced could kill her dead. BRILLIANT writing, RTD, and too fucking late in the day. Just brilliant though. Although, should Moffat want to bring Donna back for an episode, it could be got round quite easily...

The bad and the Russell? Unfortunately tend to go hand-in-hand. He's done his usual trick of setting up some potentially juicy lines of dialogue - "the threefold man", "most beloved companion will die", and all the Dalek prophecies - and just fucking ignoring them all! So WHERE was the threefold man then? And no, the two Doctors and Doctor/Donna don't count - technically Doctor/Donna is half-woman/bellowing fishwife, and the two Doctors are the same man but with one half-human! Cop-out Russell! Same with the companion who would die - I don't remember any major deaths bar Flydale North, and DEFINITELY wouldn't count Donna's memory wipe as a "death" - that's also a major cop-out if that's what RTD intended. The problem with a RTD finale - and it's no different here - is that, on a superficial and non-critical/subjective level, on the spectacular 8-year-old-watching-it level, it's a great show. But think about it, even just for a moment, and it all falls apart. Like the Osterhagen Key - that's a fucking big plot point to just pull out of a bag - like, how would the Doctor NOT know about it? How do you pull off a project that big and keep it utterly secret? One line in PARTNERS IN CRIME to set it up would have been great - Donna: "Ooh, what's going on with these underground bases in Germany? Some mad scientist called Osterhagen? Friend of yoursm, Doctor?" - and then the pay off. But the way Russell writes it, it's like "Ooh, the Daleks have us at their mercy, Davros has us cornered, and ooh - HERE'S THAT DALEK ATOME DE-STABILISING VIRUS HIDDEN IN A COMPARTMENT IN MY SHOE AND YOU NEVER KNEW IT WAS THERE!". THAT kind of lazy, half-arsed plotting that keeps stuff like JOURNEY'S END from being truly great Who. It's fun, it's exciting, it's a rollercoaster ride, but new Who should be so much more - COULD BE so much more, and BLINK and HUMAN NATURE showed us how much more it could be - than just pretty lights and SFX and Tennant gurning and shouting. Give us the Tennant playing the scene where as John Smith, he knew he had to die to become the Doctor, to stop the Family of Blood; give us the Tennant who didn't know River Song; give us the quietly menacing Tennant who warned the Krillitane, "I'm so old. I used to have so much mercy. You get one warning - that was it" - not this yawping, gurning fool we so often get. JOURNEY'S END could have ranked as one of the all-time best episodes EVER - as it is, it's just a really good kids' episode, but not the classic that can be rewatched and pored over for years to come that I'd hoped. Still a shame to see RTD get away from the preachy stuff in the early years, to get really, REALLY good in the last few episodes of this season - and then bow out! Four seasons of stuff this good could have been much better than the soapbox shite he saddled us with initially. But better late than never, Russell - and good luck on the next show. Now bring on the Grand Moff Moffat!

Scary stuff.

I reckon if I was 13 I totally would have thought having TWO Doctors was amazing. And probably thought CT impersonating the Dr was the funniest thing ever. Not to mention everyones favourite - Mickey.

Maybe we are the reason RTD is 'leaving' this year, never to write another episode of Who. Most of these forums posts are essentially RTD hate-mail.

2. Catherine Tate was much better as a companion than we expected her to be and Donna deserved a better fate than to devolve back to her "Runaway Bride" state.

3. Russell T. Davies managed to successfully introduce DOCTOR WHO to a new generation of fans, but it's time to ditch the campier elements and make darker, spookier stories the norm instead of the occasional exception.

2)Series 4 was not great.

3)Thank fuck RTD's going. Although we are grateful for bringing it back

It would have been crap without an awesome performance from Davros and Dalek Caan.

Too many Deus Ex Machina, and a series of lame cop outs do not make a happy Jarv.

2) If they bring back Davros then Julian Bleach should play him again.

3) If they bring back the Sontarans then Christopher Ryan should play one again.

Julian Bleach was amazing as Davros. Vocally he was spot on. Superb make-up job, too.

I cried when they all flew the Tardis, I loved the German Daleks and I would watch a DoctorDonna spin off in a flash.

2)That thing on Tate's face will return as the baddie in one of the Specials

3)The torchwood inclusion in the finale was completely pointless.

2)It was light years better than last year's finale

3)lists of 3 are fun.

Must

Try

Harder.

The whole Rose and Doctor 2 thing was sickening. To be honest, I felt like the Dcotor, we as an audience and the show as a whole had moved on and gotten over her character. They gave her a superb final scene in 'Doomsday' and bringing them all back (on the same bloody beach no less, just to rub in that it was a pale imitation) only cheapened it.

So for a guy whose last recollection of a Dr Who is a Ronald McDonald looking guy running from giant green worms and 11 foot ants on a space station, whats my move? Do I just stay away because I've been away too long? Do I just jump in now - or do I need to hit the flea markets and thrift shops for some of the old 70s/80s episodes (with Ronald McDonald) and to my best to catch up?

If the version of Donna with the Doctor's mind mingled with hers was called "The Doctor Donna" then wouldn't it follow that the Doctor that came out of that union should be called "The Donna Doctor"? I mean, he himself said he's only "part human" and that part is DONNA, as exhibited in his behavior. Rose has hooked up with an androgynous, part-Donna version of the Doctor. The Donna Doctor. (and yes, guys, he said he's a Timelord that is "part human", which is something they can do in a regeneration (ala the 8th Doctor), with or without Donna touching them during regeneration. "Part human" is still mostly Timelord.)

The "one will die" prediction may still come true. You're all acting like everything Caan said HAD to be played out in this episode-- What if we see Martha or Mickey die on Torchwood, or perhaps Donna will die LATER when she remembers the Doctor and her head explodes? Maybe Rose will try to cross over again and die. Maybe Rose will get pregnant and die in childbirth, bearing a 1/4 Timelord child? Maybe Sarah Jane will choke on an olive? Maybe Caan was referring to Jack (as the Face of Boe) dying in the Doctor's presence ? We can't say that Donna's "mindwipe" was it, because we haven't seen what's to come... Only Caan knows!!! ;)

I actually liked Colin Baker's Doctor. I first started watching steadily just prior to the end of the 5th Doctor's time (although I had seen as far back as Pertwee before), and I loved the way they brought in the 6th-- he was poisoned, and during his regeneration he said, "It's different this time..." before regenerating into the pompous, dark, mean-spirited, bellicose, rude, arrogant Doctor. Colin was supposed to wear a costume that was ALL BLACK, but that was changed (and later regretted) by the powers-that-be. He was to be the darker side of the Doctor. His first words to Peri were an insult! I loved it, because the idea of the Doctor's regenerations being different personalities made it seem more like death. More real. More permanent. More serious. It was also a good source of comic relief, watching The Doctor shout at Peri all the time and insulting her human heritage. You KNEW that dark side had to be in there, somewhere. A person can't live 900 years and not pick up some negative traits.

History has proven that Colin Baker's Doctor was one of the more complex, varied characterizations. If only they had allowed him to wear that black costume. . .

Of course, Adric's death was shocking, but hey-- He did at least help kill the dinosaurs. Other companions went out without as much shock value.

Poor Kameleon. Destroyed because it was easily used by the Master.

Poor K9. Blowed up real good.

Poor Jack. Becomes millions of years old and dies as a giant face laying amid the ruins of his head-tank, attended by a cat-nurse and the Doctor.

Poor Romana. Died off-screen in the Time-War (logically so, anyway, if the Doctor is truly the Last Timelord).

Poor Ace. Probably also died in the Time-War if the projected character arc in which she is enrolled in the Academy on Gallifrey actually happened. And what of the ones who were just abandoned, or dropped off at home to grow old and die? What about the ones who ran off with other space explorers and aliens? Mel, running off with Sabalom Glitz of all people! I would think he probably sold her into slavery somewhere after a few weeks of her company! And Peri, stuck as a consort to a loud warrior-king on an alien world!

It seems to me that the Doctor's current companions do well, considering their predecessors' fates! Rose has hooked-up with The DonnaDoctor and will probably live happily ever after. Donna's no worse for wear, and won't even have to feel like she's missing something. Mickey, Jack, and Martha are all BETTER for having known the Doctor, and will continue to have adventures in Torchwood. Sarah Jane has a son, a robot dog, a mega-computer, a sonic screwdriver, and a good life.

. . .But that doesn't mean death isn't lurking around the corner for one of them.

I will give you this though. The growth on her face thing was a childish joke. Mea Culpa.

Do you honestly think that mess was better than, say, Doomsday?- or Blink? or Human Nature, and so on. It wasn't the worst. In fact it wasn't anywhere near the worst. But it was not the best episode ever.

I don't even know where to begin telling you what is wrong with that sentence.

Funny. Why don't you try less hard at being uptight, and maybe you won't be offended at absolutely everything, and won't think every remark is an attempt to persecute you.

Prior Doctors had been playing the same basic characterization since Troughton's era, with minor differences. He was always the lovable spaceman who saw all sorts of good things about humans. Despite being smarter than everyone, he was still somewhat humble. He was generally nonviolent. His bloodlust was nonexistent.

Then along comes the Sixth. He expresses the things he DOESN'T like about humans- Frequently. He is arrogant about his intellect. He is a bit more bloodthirsty than other regenerations and stands there, smug-as-you-please, while he lets enemies die. The Doctor only has snide comments for the Borad before he dies. He spends his entire Trial spitting rude comments at the Valeyard. He's not sorry, doesn't regret his enemies' deaths, and in some cases was the instrument of their demise.

This is not your father's Doctor.

So YES, he's varied. He's not like the others at all. YES, he's complex. He's not just a regeneration, but a DAMAGED regeneration, and he plays it to the hilt.

Did he have some crappy scripts? Oh to be sure! Did he have an awful costume? You bet! Did he get some bad lines and an unfair shake from the BBC? You betcha. But he was a change, at least. He was something more than the happy spaceman. He was a troubled, angry, old soul who lashed out at others.

There were bits of Troughton in there. Bits of Tom Baker. Bits of Pertwee. It was like the real Doctor was "in there somewhere" but he was being dominated by this poisonous personality in the forefront.

He was always meant to be a dark chapter in the Doctor's lifespan. Even though he mellowed a LITTLE as he progressed, in the end the Sixth Doctor died as a fairly negative being, and the Seventh even showed some of that darkness. As did the Ninth. And the Tenth.

The dark undercurrents you hear about now wouldn't be there if the Sixth hadn't opened the doorway to understanding that The Doctor is not all Sweetness and Light. He's a complex being, and he has a dark side. Up until Colin Baker's portrayal, we never really saw an inkling of that darkness.

If that's not complexity, and variation from the previous incarnations, then I guess I took the wrong theatre classes in college.

The Sixth Doctor wasn't "dark" in the sense that, say, McCoy's was. The Sixth Doctor was just a dick. Making snide (and crap) jokes when talking to the Valeyard != characterization. He wasn't bloodthirsty; he was just obnoxious. You see complexity but I see oversimplification: "Oooh, we want to make him *different* and *alien* so let's make him an asshole."

The "darkness" in Eccleston's Doctor was more of what you're looking for, I expect: it was less superficial and more complex.

I don't remember McGoohan yelling at everyone, or bombastically shouting every time he entered a room, or calling a close friend fat, or...look, I can see that maybe McGoohan's Prisonter was what they were trying for, but in typical JNT/Saward fashion, they missed. Badly.

Yes, McCoy's was "darker" in the mysterious sense, but Colin's was darker in the "whose side is he on?" sense. He came off like an arrogant alien jerk, and yet he saved the day. Why did he save the day if he's such a jerk? Answer: To prove he was better than everyone else, including his previous regenerations. His ego knew no bounds.

The fact that he performed this unlikable character so well that you seem to utterly hate him is a testament to Colin Baker's ability. He did play the Sixth Doctor later as a nicer, kinder, more traditional Doctor and won the "best Doctor" award for radio programmes. How is it the same guy who was so hatable at one point could become the most beloved Doctor on the radio? Acting talent. Colin Baker can play the asshole Sixth Doctor, or he can play the lovable Sixth Doctor who acts like the Fifth Doctor.

Honestly, I never got why everybody was so in love with Tom Baker's Doctor. He was so weird and nonsensical. He was erratic. He was frustratingly distracted. In later years he seemed utterly bored with the character.

My favorites are the Tenth and the Seventh. I always liked McCoy's take on the Doctor, and lament the fact that he was given so short a run, and cancelled before the strands of his story could pay off-- They were building up to something, and then just stopped.

And of course, David is just awesome. I'll miss him when he goes, because he's the most fun I've had with the Doctor in a very long time.

The Ninth Doctor was OK, but he was quite the brooding figure. Not as fun.

The difference, of course, is that the Ninth Doctor was written with a more sympathetic undertone because of the Time War, which justified some of his more arrogant moments. Thankfully, Colin Baker went on to record the Big Finish audio adventures, which have gone a long way to redeeming his Doctor as a character and made him more appealing.

And, yes, Colin Baker was like McGoohan's Prisoner in that both were supremely arrogant and not entirely likable. That's all I'm saying.

Note that I am not dissing Colin Baker. He was terrific in the Stranger videos, he was very good in Zero Imperative, etc. I am dissing JNT and Saward for botching the whole thing. As shellfishh mentions above, the Ninth Doctor is an example of a more arrogant, abrasive Doctor that nonetheless isn't a penis.

I also don't like the Seventh Doctor, but that was MUCH more about the actor, since it's clear that Sylvester McCoy can't deliver a single line without going massively over the top. (Watch him in Zero Imperative compared to Colin -- Colin acts rings around him.) I wasn't a huge fan of the Doctor as a manipulator that could wipe out the Daleks, Cybermen, etc. the way he did, and I wasn't a fan of the so-called Cartmel Masterplan, but I can respect them for at least trying to break new ground with a bit more sophistication than making the main hero an asshole.

But I think it wasn't just the costume...I think the whole approach from the scriptwriters, etc., was all wrong.

And does anybody know what emeraldboy is on about now?

Hahahaha. I have to agree with ByTor on this one. It most probably was the entire fault of the writers and production team, but the Sixth Doctor comes off as a steaming great cock, regardless of who is to blame.

Some questions though:

Is the Doctor's daughter Jenny half human? They did have to combine the Doctor's DNA with SOMETHING. Or was she a clone? I was really hoping she would show up as well in the end.

When the Doctor regenerates, does everyone still know who he is? Do old photos of him change? I remember in an Eccleson episode some guy had all his newspaper clippings from the past. If the Tennant Doctor has a "flashback" episode will he see himself as a former Doctor?

Wouldn't parallel universes have parallel Doctors????

In a recent episode the Doctor flashed back to a scene where he was holding a bow walking through the forest and he made it sound like a long time ago but he was still in Tennant form (and alone). Maybe that's a "future" adventure? Time travel sure gets complicated.

If you look on the BBC Doctor Who site they actually have a story up for this flashback, in prose form. Donna is the companion in it, so it can't have been too far in the past (assuming it's part of continuity, which such stories often aren't).

I agrtee criticism of him can sometimes be harsh, but personally I have loved a great deal of his episodes; the recent Midnight was absolutely superb (as was Gridlock, Smith & Jones, etc). If I was going to pick nits I would say that his conlduing chapters, in two-parters, never quite deliver the pay off you want (Doomsday being the notable exception and Last Of The Time Lords and Journey's End the epitomes). The urge to cram in everything and the kitchen sink is what sunk this week's episode.

I agree though, she'll likely be back. Sadly. Thought that was one of the weaker episodes of the series.

The whole nation was wondering about the regeneration, and within 10 seconds we were not worried anymore, that was done shittly.

although I am happy DT remains as the Doc thats goes without saying

Liked the Donna arc, that was good, and hre being a TL in part was quite fun, but did not get need to have anopther Doctor as well, surely Dona beibng half and half would ahve been enough AND... if Donna cannot handle all the knowledge of a timelord because she is half human, whats gonna happen to the guy with Rose, he was the same, the plot point was just there to give Rose someone to go home with, not good story telling. They should have killed Rose off.

Oh and why the Doc so pissed at human self for wiping out Daleks, in previous episodes he has done same himself, think of how Ecclestones Doc would ahev recated to that, he would ahve been whooping, and he was not too bothered when Rose wiped them all out in series 1? This is my point, bad writing.

All of those characters basically doing nothing, SJ, Cpn Jack, Martha, Jackie, Mickey, Ianto, Gwen etc all do fucking nothing except stand there fucking up, totally pointless to ahve them there, all they needed was Rose, Donna and the Doctor for this story to be exactly the same.

Saying all this, I did like Davros and Dalek Caan.

I enjoyed the Donna Arc and her performance, and I thought here endingw as ok, showing what she was like before, but I would still ahve preferred that her brain melted and she dies in the Doctors arms, making him once again alone.

Ok idea for an ending, all it needed was a decent script writer to give it the once over and tell RTD where he could improve things a bit and make the plot ends tie up a little neater.

Why do they always have to completely destroy the Daleks every time...Now Moffat has to invent a way to bring them back again, and is thats Davros completetly dead again, whata way to kill off an iconic bad guy...why?

It felt more fo a fuck you Moffat, lets see how you pull this one back, oh and you cant use any of my supporting characters again either.

Why not have Davros and some of the Daleks escape in time at the end, so they can appear again at some other point, without a , "I went back to the point you left and rescued Davros so he could create more Daleks" again..

Why wont someone kill Torchwood, I hoped Gwen and Iainto would get it sore in this episode and Jack would be thrown into the z neutron thingy majig, so he could properly die. Oh well, I take it RTD will continue to run this series. that should kill it off.

In short I enjoyed it, but I always think his finales could be so much better, if he had more skill as a writer, too many dodgy plot points and convenient occurences...What was all the mumbo jumbo Donna was coming out with, that was pure Star Trek " Lets make something so complex the viewer has no idea what it is and use this to stop the bad guys", because you cant be bothered to actually think of something dramatic to do.

Good bye RTD, and good riddance, I hope MOffat does a better job of having series long arcs.

I will miss Donna though

However, things got off to a bad start with that truly wretched costume. Also, as said above, he did suffer from some truly wretched writing. To cap it off, he was blamed as being the cause of the plummeting viewing figures and fired. Understandably, he refused to film a regeneration sequence (that's McCoy in his costume). Especially regarding the quality of the writing that was to come, Peter Davison timed his exit perfectly. Can't ask for much more than Caves of Androzani to exit the series on.

However, Colin Baker has gone on to be the most popular of the audio Doctors (or at least very popular so I hear) and his particular take on the Doctor was definitely something different and one I appreciate much more than I did at the time.

To see something that the 6th Doctor should have been more like, check out some videos Colin Baker did with Nicola Bryant (who played Peri on the show) called "The Stranger". They were on youtube last time I looked. For starters, the costume isn't ridiculously distracting.

You should endeavor to learn more about a topic before using it in an analogy. Aside from the fact that networks generally don't have "main terminal hubs," even if they did, pushing a few switches wouldn't cause the entire network to self-destruct. Now consider that the Daleks were designed by a genius...who builds a race of superior beings that are networked (yet still need to communicate with each other vocally) and have so little defense that a simple command causes them to feed back and blow up? It's just not plausible.

If you enjoyed the episode anyway, well, that's fine -- but IMO RTD did what he's done with every season finale: write himself into a corner and then technobabble/reset button/deus ex machina his way out of it.

It was a shameless cop-out, and the worst finale of the new series so far.

Were there rows over Martha Jones? Not heard this before. Seriously, what would RTD need to "go to war" over her for?

I personally preffered last season's climax to this one (even though it totally dropped the ball after a great opening part, Utopia) purely because of the Tennant/Simm "Just regenerate. Regenerate!" scene. The season 4 finale was just fan-wank and the whole Doctor/Rose angle made me want to barf.

That said, I think 3 and 4 both have huge problems in their conclusions and both suffer from being all set-up and poor resolution.

If you think about it, this series did the same with Davros. The Doctor spent the episode trapped under a spotlight whilst everyone else ran around trying to solve the problem.

I agree that of the four, Season 2 had the best ending. It had issues -- specifically, the resolution was kind of silly. I mean, the force is strong enough to suck in Cybermen and Daleks *from around the globe* yet the Doctor and Rose can just hang on to a couple of handles and be OK?

But the emotional aspect was handled so well that it was easier to overlook. What RTD does very well is character and relationships, and the Doctor/Rose thing was handled beautifully. (In fact, that's another strike on the S4 finale: it really undercut the S2 finale.)

Unfortunately, even with the strength of the Doctor/Master ending, it wasn't enough IMO to save the S3 finale...and of course, S4 has no such emotional blockbuster. (The Doctor/Donna split was pretty good, and the Bernard Cribbins farewell to the Doctor was even better, but it wasn't enough to undo the fanwank.)

It not only was the worst finale, but also one of the worst episodes. And I'm one of the few that liked The Sound of Drums

And criticising RTD doesn't mean we know how to do it better, nor is it a requirement that we do.

There are a number of RTD episodes that I personally quite like, but IMO he seems to get stuck on these 2-part finales and can't work his way out without some kind of cheap cop-out.

I do. I like my stories to make sense and to hang together consistently.

Bah. At least after this season-that-isn't in 2009, he's gone for good. Bring on the Grand Moff Steve.

I don't *look* for them, but if they're there, I can't exactly ignore them. Look, if all you care is that it's the Doctor and the TARDIS and maybe some Daleks from time to time, fine. I expect it to make sense. Doctor Who written like crap isn't enjoyable for me. If it is for you, then I'm very happy for you. (Note that I am not saying all of the new series is crap, or even all of RTD's episodes are crap, or even any of them are crap per se; I'm just making a point.)

"(Come on, guys, aren't you wondering, just a little bit, how they ended up in 19th century England?) (Let me guess, is the answer, no?)"

What a ridiculous thing to say. Why wouldn't we care? In fact, I'd argue that YOU don't care -- after all, you're fine with gaping plot holes. All RTD has to do is have the Doctor say something like, "Somehow the Cybermen have developed time travel technology" and you're fine, right?

Even stuff like HEROES and TERMINATOR: SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES treats its audience as if they have SOME intelligence. And that caveat about "it's only a kids show"? Come ON! So was THUNDERBIRDS, STAR FLEET, MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD, ULYSSES 31, DRAMARAMA, TOMORROW PEOPLE, and they were ALL more intelligently written than new Who - hell, even MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE had more adherence to its own mythology and internal logic than new Who! It too often reads - and views - as if written by someone who has NEVER watched a previous episode of Who!

Axcel1, of course you have the right to your own opinion, and it's nice to know SOMEONE is enjoying it. But those of us who moan are holding that series up to a higher standard: we demand more from the show, as stuff like DALEK and FATHER'S DAY and HUMAN NATURE / FAMILY OF BLOOD and BLINK have shown: this material can be family oriented, scary, exciting AND intelligent, all at the same time! Is is too much to ask that it stays like that for maybe 70-80% of the time, instead of the pitiful 15% awesome, 70% meh and 15% fucking AWFUL that it does now? The SARAH JANE ADVENTURES are better written, produced and made, for crying out loud! And don't get me going on TORCHWOOD. Just... don't.

Oh, and to ANYONE who thinks the moaners moan because they haven't got to make/write Who themselves: utter bollocks. We just recognise that the quality episodes like BLINK, that make the very most of the format of Who, should be the norm, NOT the exception. And the accusation that we're all embittered, failed non-writers sitting in our parents' basements blaming the world for our failures... as childish, stereotyped and pathetic as the accusation that disliking RTD's writing makes you a homophobe. And it's as fucking old. Put simply, let's spin it around: why are so many Who supporters willing to be treated as fucking thick? RTD's new Who writes for its audiences as if they are the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet - AND THEY ENJOY IT! WHY AREN'T YOU OFFENDED BY RUSSELL AND THE BEEB TREATING YOU LIKE THE THICKEST BASTARDS ON EARTH?!?!?! HE'S INSULTING YOU!!!

An unwillingness to allow dodgy writing does not equal a hatred of the programme. As if we're not interested in the Cybermen at Christmas! Would we even be on this talkback if we didn't?

Rose was taken there by transmat originally, yes, but she returns of her own free will via the tardis. And it's at THIS point, she sends the message back. She knows where to go because she will tell herself and it's backwards causality and a paradox,something in the future changing the present,

The new who has established on a few occasions that this kind of thing can happen. The doctor only knows to make the easter eggs in blink because he made the easter eggs in blink and Sally sparrow tells him about them. A causal loop. The tardis itself travels to places where things will happen, but only if the tardis travels there.. this has been established too. A lot of your other points suit my preferences for what i would like from DR Who in the future, but i have very few problems with how it has been, I have been having too much fun with it.

Anyway slightly off topic nere's my top 5 episodes so far 1. Girl in the fireplace
2. blink
3. The empty child / the doctor dances
4. Human nature / family of blood
5. doomsday

Least favourite episodes
1. Last of the Timelords
2. Love and Monsters
3. gridlocked
4. 42
5. Voyage of the dammned

Anyone care to add their opinion

What an emotional doozy this ep is, like a nut kick, I hope someway in the future Donna returns.

And while I *think* McGann might have made a good Doctor -- we really can't tell from the single telefilm -- the story for the telefilm was just ass. Putting aside the silliness of the Eye of Harmony being inside the TARDIS, the idea that only a human could open it? So...let me get this straight. A craft built by the Time Lords of Gallifrey is designed so that a glance from a pure human opens the dangerous thingy which shouldn't be opened anyway? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Plus, the decision to do the regeneration was not a good one. As a fan I was certainly pleased to see Sylvester get a chance for a send-off, but in a telefilm designed to attract new viewers, it's just stupid. RTD said as much during one of the early Confidentials: in a new series designed to grab new viewers, you can't kill off the main character in the beginning. It's just dopey. Plus you end up with the new main character more or less out of it for much of the rest of the story. I doubt we really saw much of what McGann's Doctor would've been there, and shame on Segal for not figuring such basic things out.

And I don't blame Eric Roberts at all...he played the part he was given. I actually liked his Master early on, but towards the end he was just...awful. Now if you want to see what an Eric Roberts Master *could've* been like, go dig up a copy of a movie called By The Sword. Also stars F. Murray Abraham. I had been hoping that the character Roberts played there (called, of all things, "The Maestro") would've been an inspiration for Segal's team, but alas.

But what killed the 96 telefilm was an incoherent plot that makes the worst of RTD's finales look like Shakespeare's Hamlet by comparison.

ok,

yeah ,me too. It's one thing i think RTD has done brilliantly, make you(and about 10 million more people in the uk) invest in the characters to the point where you actually care about them and their fates, His plot logic might be a bit off at times, but he does nail what Whedon would call moments, even if he gets the movements wonky...

Spielberg's interest was well before the Fox telefilm. And there were several iterations before the telefilm, some good, some bad. And how could Spielberg have come up with the elevating Daleks if they had already appeared in Remembrance of the Daleks?

You got a lot of other things wrong too, but I'm tired of correcting you.

And I don't know what you saw on a bus in Dublin, but I very much doubt it had anything to do with anything.

Anyway, so long as it doesn't suck as badly as VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED, I'll be entertained. I'll probably be drunk and overful by then anyway, so I'll enjoy it. It's Christmas, dammit!

Smashing - I will concede that JOURNEY'S END had emotional payoffs by the bucketload. Towing the Earth back - ridiculous as it was - was quite rousing, as was the group of companions and friends flying the TARDIS, which was lovely to see. The Rose resolution was a bit pat for me - here, have a magic clone of the Doctor and piss off back to Parallel-land! - especially after bringing her back and ruining that wonderful dramatic end scene in DOOMSDAY. The bit that really got me was Donna pleading with the Doctor not to take her memories away - and it's a kick in the balls to see the old Donna, all bellowing-fishwife celeb-worshipping Heat-reading dumbass, not having a clue who the Doctor was. And Wilf saying goodbye and how he'll think of the Doctor, and the Doctor thanking him, and going on, alone and stoic as always...

The emotional payoffs in JOURNEY'S END were magnificent. It's just a shame the narrative logic and plotting around it made less sense than your average episode of IN THE NIGHT GARDEN...

1. Human Nature/The Family of Blood

("We wanted to live forever... so The Doctor made sure that we did.")

2. Blink

("Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey")

3. The Girl In The Fireplace

("There comes a time, Timelord, when every lonely little boy must learn how to dance")

4. Utopia

("I... am... THE MASTER.")

5. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

("Are you my mummy?")(p>

Honourable mentions: School Reunion, The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, Dalek, Fires of Pompeii, The Sontaran Strategem/Poison Sky, Midnight, Father's Day and, of course, Time Crash.

WORST:

1. Love & Monsters (YAAAAWWN)

2. Boomtown (yawn)

3. The Doctor's Daughter (botched)

4. Daleks In Manhattan/Evolution Of The Daleks (cocks on the head)

5. Fear Her (I live in London and am already sick of the Olympics!) Dishonourable mentions: 42, The Long Game, Bad Wolf (reality TV aspect)

So: BAD WOLF = NONSENSE. As confirmed by Tennant and Russell the T.

Glad to see the back of him - or, at least, I will after the horrors to come from season 5...

I can understand why Rose would say those words in a message for the Doctor. What is somewhat confusing is why the banners would suddenly start showing the word just after Donna said it. I can go with the TARDIS TRANSLATION CIRCUITS telling the Doctor through warping his view of reality theory, but i should really not have to listen to fans making (i hate the word FANWANK) it up and the implication of using bad wolf as the sign is that Rose still has some part of whatever power she had in the parting of the ways...

BIG TWISTS should be explained in the context of the script... (great moment though)

i hope for better with Moffat, and think we'll get much more of that.

Of course, this is all massive fanbase supposition, and I entirely agree: it should have been explained in the script (along with how the words appeared then reappeared on the Tardis).

It was a great cliffhanger and a superb "moment", but clearly RTD put it in becuase it was cool, not because he had any justification for it in the story.

I remember watching a tv show Saturday morning or something and they announced that Steven Spielberg was in Development of Doctor who series / film and they showed a clip of a "Dalek monster" it was a flying Dalek that was made from many section and opened up to reveal the dalek creature inside. I think the design was reused for a Doctor Who comic where they weere called daleks from another dimension.

Having read that back it does sound like I dreamt all that up but I'm sure it all happened.

(1) Spielberg personally had little to no involvement in Who

(2) Spielberg's COMPANY, Amblin, was indeed trying to launch a new Who

(3) Some concept drawings, etc. were done early on of Daleks, including morphing "spider" Daleks, and it's possible some brief test footage was created

(4) This effort is what ultimately turned into the Fox telefilm; Phil Segal was the guy behind it all, and Amblin bowed out at one point during the various iterations and it just became a Segal/Universal/BBCW thing.

I suppose it's possible that the show you saw did claim that Spielberg was developing it, but that's just bad journalism. And again, this was all BEFORE the Fox telefilm.

Producer Julie Gardner has revealed details of the 2009 specials. There are going to be 4 one-hour episodes. One of which will be shown this year (at Xmas). The next will be shown at Easter 2009. The third hasn't been scheduled yet. And the fourth will be the Xmas day ep of 2009.

Russell T Davies is writing two of these, and is co-writing the other two. There's no news yet on who the other co-writer is.

(But I bet his name rhymes with Meeven Stoffat)

Two points:

(1) I'm too scared of that Night Garden shit to dare watch it while out of my mind. That MakkaPakka thing haunts my dreams - a Lovecraftian nightmare...

(2) Paradoxically, your (rather graphic!) description does actually make you sound much less of a wuss when you consider it. I actually feel LESS of a man after reading your post, and so am now more confused than ever! :S

Nah, you're forgiven on the crying over Who thing. I wept buckets at FATHER'S DAY, and definitely had the lump in the throat when Wilf said goodbye at the end... * manly sniffle*

To be honest I look forward to Moffat forging his own path and leaving a lot of these characters behind (ESPECIALLY the fucking Tylers. YAWN).