Doomsday

I hope I'm not the only fan who felt slightly disappointed by that episode! It seemed to me like the first half of the episode was a Doctor Who fan's dream and the second half was one of those times where I'm left longing for a return of the 60s-80s original. So I'll review the episode based on those two halves.

The best place to start would be the Daleks vs. the Cybermen, which I must say although totally underplayed was extremely enjoyable. In the week leading up to the episode I expected the result of the war to be a stalemate, with Davis making sure that no faction seemed more powerful than the other. But how wrong was I??? As the black dalek said correctly, all 5 million Cybermen could have been wiped out by the 4 daleks, and to my knowledge not one Dalek was killed during the episode (Okay in theory when they were when they entered the void but none were killed by human or Cybermen). I also found the black Dalek (or Dalek Sek - but I'll move onto that in a minute)'s remarks on the extermination of the cyber race being "pest control" and that they were only superior in that they were "far better at dying" highly amusing.

Again after finding out the Daleks would have names after watching Totally Doctor Who I was sceptical of the result as it would either result in two things - the dreaded "human factor" (perhaps not to that extent) Daleks of Evil of the Daleks or the type of Daleks you'd find lurking in the pages of the Dalek Chronicles (let's face it, anyone would read that strip wanted a red and gold Dalek called Zeg). Luckily it was the latter, the Cult of Skaro seems like a great idea to me, a group higher than the emperor. It sort of reminded me of the Supreme Council mentioned in Planet of the Daleks.I just hope that there will be further references to this elite group in future series'. Another interesting addition to this episode was the Genesis Ark, and although I was hoping for something more integral to Dalek history (The emperor for example, or even what remains of good ol' Davros), the idea of a TARDIS technology prison holding millions of Daleks ensured that they were the dominant species of the episode. Although what baffles me is why the Time Lords would want to just imprison that many Daleks instead of destroying what is apparently the biggest threat in the galaxy...

Unfortunaly that's where my praise of the episode ends. After further watching I realised that neither the Cybermen or the Daleks were actually essential to the plot, and in fact any two alien armies could have invaded Earth and the plot wouldn't have been any different. The fact it contained Daleks and Cybermen was just a lure (even though I find no attraction in the new Cybermen - they're too Genesis of the Daleks for me). Also the fact that the Genesis Ark contained millions of Daleks seemed like they were just reusing Parting of the Ways ideas. Then of course there were certain continuity issues. If everything that had travelled between dimensions was sucked into the void, what about the newly created "Torchwood staff" Cybermen? How did Yvonne manage to keep her voice and personality intact when Cybermen remove individuality? And when Pete returned to save Rose, surely the fact that he was soaked in the background radiation or whatever it was and that Rose hit him pretty hard would result in them both being sucked into the void?

Many will probably disagree with me on this as well, but the whole love issue doesn't work for me. What could have been an explosive 40 minute battle between Dalek and Cyberman was scrapped for a 20 minutes of Jackie and Pete discovering each other and an emotional goodbye between the Doctor and Rose. Was the Bad Wolf bay scene really necessary? And like many I had been led to believe she was going to die, and I felt slightly cheated by the fact she didn't (Russell T Davis is adamant that Doctor Who is about survival. You're missing facts again Russell, must we bring up Earthshock? Or go even further back and mention the Dalek Master Plan?). Ahwell never mind, I'm sure it's because they'll want to bring her back once Billie Piper fails elsewhere.

So in conclusion, a pretty average episode for what could have been one of the best in Who history. I much preferred Parting of the Ways, and the only good thing I see that came out of the episode is that for once they made the Daleks didn't all die (Dalek Sek escaped, and hopefully others). So roll on season 3, and hopefully the return of some Mondas cybermen to show these Parallel ones who are the real Silver daddies!