The Parting of the Ways

Well, I have to say I am a little disappointed. My wife, who has been watching as avidly as myself actually exclaimed "crap!" at the ending of this story.

Things start well, with an army of a million Daleks poised to invade earth. The Doctor learns that the Emperor Dalek has survived and, harvesting dead or unwanted humans (such as refugees, the homeless) has created a new Dalek race and. The Emperor Dalek now believes itself to be God, and seeks to turn the entire human race into Daleks much in the same way the Cybermen turn humans into their own kind.

The Doctor finds out that Satellite 5 can generate something called a Delta wave which should destroy all the Daleks, but while constructing the apparatus to achieve this he discovers that it will destroy all life on earth too. He faces a moral dilemma, save the earth and the Daleks might take over the entire universe...destroy life on earth and the Daleks and their threat should be gone forever. Having failed to destroy the Daleks before, can he do it now?

The problem, as with so many of this series stories, is that it is not the Doctor who saves the day. Rose, sent back home and instructed not to return, finds a way to do so and saves the day. She opens the Tardis console, looks into the time vortex and gains the power to see all the past, and all future possibilities. It also transpires that Rose is the "Bad Wolf", having herself placed the references through time and space to let herself know that she can get back to save the Doctor and future earth.

In an ending that some will see as a cop out, the Doctor predictably cannot destroy the earth and admits he is a coward. The newly enhanced Rose manages to turn all the Daleks and their ships to dust, but the Doctor realises this power will kill Rose as nobody is supposed to stare into the time vortex, not even a Time Lord. So in what looks like a passionate kiss, he sucks the vortex from Rose.

This causes every cell in the Doctor's body to begin to die and kicks off his regeneration into David Tennant.

I do feel this ending was disappointing. Once again the Doctor had to rely on his assistant(s) to save him, and while this is not a bad plot idea at all we've seen it too many times this year. I do take RTD's point that having built up several characters such as Mickey and Captain Jack, he wanted them all to have a part to play in the final episode. But Doctor Who was always about the Doctor finding a solution to a problem he stubled across. Until the final 10 minutes, this two part adventure was absolute classic Doctor Who full of suspense and mystery...then it suddenly ended. Oh, was that it?