The Parting of the Ways

I have just finished watching the finale of the new Doctor Who season and as a result this review will also contain a review of the season as a whole.

"Parting of the Ways" is the concluding chapter of a Dalek two parter, the first part was quite good and ended with the Doctor facing a Dalek invasion force of almost half a million Daleks!! Well unfortunately I personally thought this second part sucked!

I was expecting a rip roaring finale with the Doctor going against insurmountable odds and overcoming them with his innate genius and unpredictability but what we get is another Deus ex Machina ending that even me in all my glorified geek status could not make much sense of!

The explanation for how the Daleks survived is also in my opinion very weak and many of the theories given by online fans would have been much better! Simply it seems the emperors ship survived, thats it. What I want to know is that did they the writers know how they have undermined the great episode "Dalek" with that weak explanation? tsk tsk.

The great Dalek invasion scene was nothing more than the inhabitats of the space station getting wiped out in less than dramatic fashion by the Daleks and the only bit that gave me any cheer was the scene of the Ann Droid frying a few Daleks and calling them the weakest link! Even then I had to assume that her beam is no longer a transportation device but had been modified by Captain Jack! Yes I am even helping out the writer by mentally filling in some gaping holes!

Basically the whole solution to the problem was the same as in the episode Boom Town, Rose opens the heart of the Tardis looks into it and gets power beyond all reckoning, kind of like the Dark Phonenix for those who get the reference.

She just points and destroys all the Daleks and revives a dead Captain Jack. Which by the way it seemed as if only Jack was revived and nobody else among the dead defenders of the station or anybody on planet Earth!!

This episode really flunked in my opinion and was a massive let down.

In the end we get a regeneration sequence and the new Doctor appears, I wish him well and hope he stays for more than a season to allow him to grow into the role.

Overall this new first season was better than I thought it would be. It had three great gems that I absolutely loved and many decent episodes. There were a few really bad episodes but hey it's the first season. Hopefully they will get better as they go along.

As for Christopher Eccleston he was not a bad Doctor and had some great moments but has not come anywhere close to my favourite Doctor Tom Baker.

So see you all at Christmas for our next Doctor who fix.