The Parting of the Ways

The vanquished Daleks behind them and the TARDIS speeding on, Christopher EcclestoneÂ’s Doctor regenerates into David TennantÂ’s, Rose Tyler looks on aghast, and we all count the weeks to The Christmas Invasion. So ends The Parting of the Ways, a parting with Captain Jack Harkness perhaps, but not yet for Rose and the DoctorÂ…

I have always found the best part of Doctor Who the regeneration scenes. Even if you were losing your favourite Doctor, the excitement of a new actor taking the role and how the changeover would be portrayed always made a satisfying end to a season. It also made the wait until the next one even more unendurable. This time round itÂ’s the same again, although it all seems so rushed and I didnÂ’t want Ecclestone to go. Not yet. Although I am with the critics who wince at EcclestoneÂ’s grinning and gurning, I have warmed to him as the series progressed, and think he excels in this episode and the previous Bad Wolf. There is less of the folded arms and wide grins and more of the type of acting IÂ’ve been expecting. IÂ’m thinking of his portrayal of the Doctor as the ultimately lonely traveller; he knows heÂ’s going to inevitably lose Rose at some point, in these episodes realised either through sending her home in the TARDIS, or by her apparent untimely death. Ecclestone conveys what heÂ’s thinking remarkably well in such moments, just by the look in his eyes. Unfortunately, however, he canÂ’t resist giving one last big, cheesy grin before he vanishes from our screens.

In many ways, this is the most satisfying episode of the entire run. It lacks the emotional depth of Father’s Day or perfect plotting and suspense of The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances adventure, but wins out on the excitement factor of the relentless Dalek presence, Joe Ahearne’s superb direction, a suitably menacing soundtrack and of course the brilliant Billie Piper. Rose here proves herself the perfect associate (as the Daleks’ so neatly put it) of the Doctor, leaving her past behind perhaps now for good to travel on into the future to save him. There is also the repetition of deaths and rebirths that echoes throughout Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways that prepare us for the regeneration (Rose thought dead but then discovered alive, Jack dead and then resurrected, Rose telling her mother how she witnessed the death of her father, the Dalek rebirth at the expense of the human race and so on). Finally, The Parting of the Ways works because it is, for children at least, suitably scary. I know ‘watching from behind the sofa’ is an old chestnut, but even before she’d peeked out from the sofa, the sound alone of the Emperor Dalek’s voice was enough to scare my six year old daughter out of the room.

Humour doesn’t threaten to swamp this episode as much as others penned by RTD. The TARDIS materialises and its crew emerge to face a chorus of ‘exterminate’ from a party of Daleks, only to remain safe behind a handy force field. ‘None points!’ quips the Doctor. Minutes later, when the Doctor is flippant with the Emperor Dalek’s newly found godlike status, we get a metallic chorus of ‘blasphemy!’ from the metallic hordes. Rose enduring some inane dialogue between Mickey and her mother about pizzas is amusing as well as contrasting with the world thousands of years in the future that she feels more connected to. Thankfully gone are attempts at satirising Reality TV, replaced by the unsavoury realisation that the Daleks are harvesting the Big Brother/Weakest Link winners and losers for their own ends. I also join the critics who dislike the Reality TV subject; it isn’t witty enough as a parody of these shows even if the timing is right (Big Brother running at the moment, The Weakest Link conveniently repeated before the Bad Wolf episode) and it isn’t convincing enough to work as good science fiction. This type of thing would work well maybe in the pages of 2000 AD, but not really in Doctor Who.

These gripes aside, RTD does finally get to prove himself as a worthy Doctor Who writer. Even if he does have to start three of his episodes with a space station in the far future overlooking Earth (the modern equivalent of the old overused ‘gravel pit in Surrey’ setting), he manages to find the right mix of straight sci-fi and traditional drama when he moves on to The Parting of the Ways. Although he can’t resist having Captain Jack kiss the Doctor full on the lips, he also has the Doctor plant a huge smacker on Rose, although this is more of a ‘kiss of life’ than anything untoward. His camp jokiness, aside, Captain Jack emerges in these episodes as a worthy addition to the cast after taking something of a backseat role in Boom Town. His presence is now necessary, as he takes the role of the heroic gunslinger to the Doctor’s ‘thinking’ role, and Jack becomes the ‘killer’ while the Doctor eventually confesses to being the ‘coward’.

There are other memorable moments too; the Doctor sending Rose home in the TARDIS (Ecclestone’s poignant pause before doing this is perfectly timed), Rose seeing the hologram of the Doctor and thinking this will be the last time she will ever see him, the ‘death’ of Captain Jack and the sight of the Daleks drifting into view outside the space station, coming to exterminate Lynda, and Ecclestone’s final scene, preparing Rose for what is to come. The regeneration scene I thought was handled just right, and as Ecclestone’s head moulded itself into Tennant’s I almost thought I saw the face of an Auton appear in between, bringing the series full circle.

Some things didnÂ’t work so well. The Doctor is disappointed when the Emperor Dalek professes no part in the Bad Wolf scheme and we then expect something really startling. The real explanation is a little messy; when Rose picked the letters from the BAD WOLF CORPORATION logo to scatter them into the past, I half expected them to rearrange themselves into another word, an obvious anagram and explanation IÂ’d missed. But Bad Wolf is Rose, empowered by the energy of the Tardis, a trick weÂ’d been half expecting since this power was revealed in Boom Town.

This rather too neatly solves everything. The Earth is saved and the Daleks are destroyed. Even dead Captain Jack is resurrected. For the purposes of the storyline, the Doctor’s regeneration is induced. Most surprising was the death of Big Brother survivor Lynda, groomed as a potential new assistant in Bad Wolf where The Doctor and Rose are separated for most of the episode. Lynda ‘with a Y’ asks to be taken away on the Doctor’s travels and he is initially keen on the idea. During their scenes together I almost forget about Rose and wonder how Lynda will interact with Tennant’s Doctor. When The Doctor and Rose are reunited, Lynda is forced into the background, even receiving a couple of jealous looks from Rose and her chances of a future with The Doctor slip away. I won’t write Lynda off entirely, however, as Captain Jack has already been brought back from the dead. Perhaps he needs as associate too…

But letÂ’s not quibble. I enjoyed it all, would watch it all again and again rather than face more repeats of Only Fools and Horses Christmas specials, and have now camped down for the long wait until Christmas, safe now in the knowledge that Billie Piper is staying on, at least for one more season, and that RTD and his team have pulled it off. LetÂ’s hope it doesnÂ’t go to their headsÂ…