The Parting of the Ways

"Change, my dear - and it seems just a moment too soon..."

You want to know what 'fever pitch' means? Log onto a Dr Who forum in the week running up to June 18, 2005. In fact scratch that - go into any online chatroom. Hell, even the average pub. Then just mention the magic word 'regeneration', and watch all hell break loose.

This was the state of the nation before Parting of the Ways. The dreadful title didn't make a jot of difference. Thirteen weeks of the BBC's most successful and most talked about drama for a decade; three months of subliminal hints of things to come, and the most exciting cliffhanger/preview sequence ever seen in the series had led to an almost palpable thrill of anticipation. Thanks to a tabloid leak everyone knew Christopher Eccleston was leaving. Thanks to the previous two episodes everyone knew the Daleks were in it. It didn't take much brains to link the two, and the BBC's "Time's running out..." teaser trailer countdown just added to the feeling of inescapability. This was it. Destiny calls. Come in number nine, your time is up.

No episode could ever live up to that level of expectation, but by some miracle Parting does. Just. Even with record-breaking millions at its desposal, the story's budget strains at the seams. Daleks invade Earth! Well, no, actually the Daleks are invading a space station, but we're assured they're busy invading Earth just off-screen, which is a sweet little nod to the zero-money days. The plot creaks a little with the level of explanations required and sheer stuff that has to happen, with an unfortunate slackening of tension at the end, but barrels along with enough pace and death and exterminations that it's very hard to care. The deus ex machina ending won't be to everyone's taste, with the victory (such as it is) perhaps a little too easy, but logical or not it's undeniably cool, which is something you can't say for the Revenge of the Sith. Even the Daleks unaccountably revert to their 70s habit of wobbling when they talk, with the unfortunate side-effect of making them look less like alien tanks and more like wood-and-fiberglass props - but hell, there are a quarter of a million of them, and that frankly makes up for a lot.

And then, of course, there's Bad Wolf. The phrase that had been unaccountably following Rose and the Doctor throughout time, from the mouths of Victorian parlour-maids to the names of Two-Thousandth Century TV channels, even cropping up in the spin-off novels released during the series. Mystery piled upon mystery. Who was Bad Wolf? What was interfering in their adventures? How did the Daleks survive the Time War? Speculation was rife, to the extent that Russell T had to issue a statement the week before to the effect that the mystery hadn't yet been solved, and that neither of the revelations in Bad Wolf were in fact the true answer. Sadly, it must be said that the mystery remains slightly mysterious even after you've heard the explanation, which is frustrating after such a long build-up, even if the revelation itself manages to be wonderfully satisfying. Whether it's due to over-trimmed explanatory dialogue, actual plot holes or just my own stupidity, I'm left with a sense of "No, hang on a minute..." about some aspects of the season arc. But in fairness, spotting plot-holes in season arcs is inexcusably geeky behaviour, and reaction from non-fans (or rather non-hard-core, non-long-term fans, as the whole British population seems to be a fan of the current series) has been universally, almost hyperbolically positive.

And this is odd, because really, objectively speaking, The Parting of the Ways is an only slight above-average episode. However, the sheer pressure of having to carry the weight of the series, and the expectation of the Ninth Doctor's departure, seems somehow to have compressed it into an absolute diamond. That absolute sense of the unstoppable, of the hand of fate looming ever closer, carries over from the audience into the story itself, lending a huge significance to every dramatic beat. Every death - and there are, it should come as no surprise, a lot of those, many of them superbly terrifying - feels like another step towards the inexorable. When the characters onscreen seem to know it too, and act accordingly, the sense of gathering menace is almost overpowering. The Daleks in their thousands are the perfect physical metaphor for this, the addition of a single, designated leader (the design of which is glorious, like a Dalek comic-strip come to life) allowing the rest to blur into endless, faceless, remorseless ranks, conveying an awesome sense of "This is it!". As the defences fail and the intruders close in, you can feel your inner child's reassuringly rhetorical "How will he get out of it this time?!" replaced by a tiny voice going "He won't."

Which brings us, of course, to Christopher Eccleston. Tragic, joyful, loving, brave, equisite: perfect. This isn't his finest performance in the role - becase that's The End of the World, isn't it? Or Dalek? - and nor is it the best script - because that, of course, is Father's Day... unless it's The Empty Child... Or The Unquiet Dead... But let the fans argue about that in the years to come (because that, we can be sure at least, is what fans do). It's irrelevant. It's his last story, his final bow, and he plays it to the hilt. It's a tribute to him that all the eccentricities, all the weird modern flavourings of his performance, now seem so central to the character that it hurts to see him go. This is - to the eyes of the casual viewer, the ones who don't worship at a shrine to Russell T Davies every night - the man who bought back Dr Who. Hell, to anyone under 16 he invented Dr Who. And he's as irrestible in the role now as he was in Rose. His determination, his passion, his bravery and sadness might be taken from Russell T's finely crafted script, but it's in his eyes where they really shine. In Parting, more than anything they seem to say 'this is my last one'. Just as it's been impossible not to laugh at his jokes, to cringe from his anger and to feel the fear in those eyes, so it's impossible, in this one, not to mourn his passing.

But this might be the Ninth Doctor's final episode, and he may, amid the festival of gurning, be giving the sort of performance that has made him a BAFTA certainty over the last thirteen weeks, and that will, I guarantee it, bring a lump to your throat... but this is Rose's show. Despite being sidelined for much of the episode in a subplot that occasionally (though quite deliberately) jars with the main action, she remains the lynchpin of the story, and the emotional core of all that happens. A lesser actress wouldn't just have killed the character, but the entire series. Billie Piper did exactly the opposite, and this is the best we've see her: by turns petulant and vulnerable, tearful and triumphant; in a space-station in the far future or a caff on a damp afternoon, she's simply magnificent. By the narrowest of margins, her finest hour.

It's no surprise, in hindsight, that with Billie and Chris on board, the TARDIS revitalised Saturday night television. In the cooling heat of the season finale, it's looking likely that by teaming her up with David Tennant the BBC may even be able to repeat the trick. As much as, perhaps more than the glory that is Season One, it's the fact that Season Two will happen that stands as Chrisopher Eccleston's greatest tribute. They say always leave them wanting more. And with Parting of the Ways, if that nationwide fever-pitch proved nothing else, he's done just that.

But then, as Russell T would no doubt say, all this critical analysis only gets you further up your own arse. This isn't Shakespeare, it's Doctor Who. Blam! Blam! Exterminate! Zzap! A million Daleks!

Now that's entertainment.