Doomsday

So here we have it В– the long anticipated finale to Season Two of Doctor Who 2.1, the episode where half of us long to see Piper fragged and where the other half long to see her walk away with life; the episode where we get to see the ultimate battle between Cybermen and Daleks (if we ever wanted that); the episode where we hope to see David Tennant at his best and the episode where we wait to see what caliber of drama Russell T Davies can bring us.

Result: *long sigh* I donВ’t know.

Let me get some biases out of the way first by saying that I was never a fan of Rose Tyler. I found her smug, irritating, hypocritical, and, ultimately, much to the failure of DaviesВ’ original promise, little more than cannon-fodder. In 2005, we were promised a new relationship of teamwork, a new challenging dynamic from a companion, and something utterly modern. We didnВ’t really ever get that. Rose saved the day a couple of times, but mostly just ended up being sucked up by television aliens, getting chased by zombies, and sitting around watching the Doctor babble about things she never understood. Worse, the decision for a romantic leaning really just gave Tennant and Piper an opportunity to act asinine now and again when the script said В“now frolic like teenagers in denialВ”. I wanted to see her die; I wanted to see her go down in a blaze of gloryВ… and when Davies promised us this at the end of Fear Her, I knew immediately that IВ’d never get it. Here comes the end of PiperВ’s tenure as companion and it was little more than Star Trek conventionality. She ends up in a parallel universe, nothing is sacrificed, and the big gaping potential to open up that door again stays possible. How cheap. It cheapens the relationship between she and the Doctor and it cheapens the risk-taking of the production staff. Smells a bit overdone to me.

Now that that is out of the way, letВ’s get to the episode.

It wasnВ’t terrible, but for a season finale, it was pretty mediocre. The potential for these two villains meeting was always a tempting idea and dangerous one because on one hand, Daleks and Cybermen together become twice the threat (both responsible in one way or another for taking an incarnation). However, it also opens the door for some terrible fanwank opportunities and some very lazy scripting. Unfortunately, Davies took Door C and not only gave us painful scripting, but embarrassed the recurring villain from the season. The Daleks meeting the Cybermen quite simply sucked sour frogВ’s assВ… it didnВ’t have to, but it did. They met, they didnВ’t like each other, and then the Daleks just slaughtered Cybermen until the Doctor saved the day. Davies wrote it so that the Cybermen looked like the Junior Physically-Challenged Gun Squad against the entire Stalin Regime. There were more Cybermen in this episode than there are spyrochaetes in Syphilis victims and they couldnВ’t deal with four Daleks. After failing to kill a single one with a weapon, why not just march in, pick one up, and suplex it until it gets disoriented? Why not grab it by its armor and rip out the ugly blob that lives within it? Nope. Better stand there and get slaughtered. They lost all respect as a true Class A villain because Davies thinks Daleks are immortal. Instead we got witty banter about pest control and whoВ’s better at dying. I could imagine all kinds of fans grinning as if watching what would happen if ET met Predator in a fight to the death, actually believing that something great was occurring. Where is the suspense in that? Why cheapen one or the other? The worst part is that is what the episode became about: two aggressive aliens ignoring the protagonists while every recurring character makes an appearance. We got В‘em all: Jackie, Mickey, Pete, Jake, Daleks, Cybermen, Time Lord technology, more Daleks. I was waiting for the Face of Boe to show up with Captain Jack, Jo Grant, The Master, Adric, Paul McGann, and a pack full of Bandrils. Davies just seemed to lose control over himself and created an episode where the intelligent subtlety so often used lost out to mindless action.

Saying that, it was pretty good mindless action with lots of running, lots of near misses, some clichГ© reunions, followed by more running and frenetic pacing. Every one of those recurring characters could have been at risk, any one of them a potential target. Rose was certainly one candidate and that kept us on the edge of our seatВ… which was all the more deflating when it seems that every major character (barring the Doctor once every few seasons) is pretty much immune to the horror going on around him or her. I wonВ’t fault this decision because Davies has said that the show should inspire optimism, but I think the border can be pushed too far when no one is really at risk. It just loses its impact when you know everyone is safe.

In that same sense of things being safe, the fact that the Daleks just keep growing in numbers haunts my dreams sometimes. It was made so vital that the Doctor destroyed his people to finally deal with the Daleks and there just seems to be more and more of them. First one, then the Emperor with an army, then four more, then millions! Just like Jason Voorhees, these beings of evil just keep finding a way back, almost as if the producers just donВ’t have the heart to let them rest for a season or two.

The Doctor finds a way to save the day, turns the magic key, sucks up millions of foes, and finally loses Rose to the alternate universe. ItВ’s all very quaint, albeit not very original. So thatВ’s why we had an alternate universeВ… it was a cheap plot device; so thatВ’s why Jackie Tyler of the alternate universe diedВ… it was a convenient way of reuniting our version with a Pete. I donВ’t know. Smells a little lazy to me.

The acting was top-notch at least. Piper brought intensity to her final moments that were impossible not to respect; TennantВ’s blood-curdling scream as Rose helplessly flies towards the Void and inability to requite his love fully brought out a cold severity in the character that really foregrounds the tragedy in his past and future, one that we have gotten glimpses of in between the giggling and frolicking that pervaded us so often. We got to see a teary-eyed Doctor in the final moments and whether some like it or not, it is an added dimension to the Doctor promised in the resurrection of the series. In that respect, the actors keep an otherwise garbled clichГ© of a mess somewhat stable.

Still, the fact remains that if we didnВ’t have the final ten minutes to say goodbyes, what we got was a pretty shabby attempt at forcing two villains together in a way that turns out to be a bit of a fiasco and a lot of unneeded fanwankery that sort of compromises the very careful first season with a season of lulls and a finale that doesnВ’t deliver much more than one-liners and running.

And then Tate comes in to the picture. I guess the good Doctor canВ’t stay sad for too longВ… which undermines the entire final ten minutes by not allowing the viewer the respect to just sit and wonder for a few months how Rose and the Doctor are fairing without each other for the first time since the new series began. The emotional potential of the teary-eyed farewell goes out the window because itВ’s more important to let us know that we have a runaway bride on our hands. I donВ’t knowВ… this just seemed like a bad decision to me.

Davies should sit down, have a pint, take a deep breath, and try to get his bearings for a third season that is bound to be the most decisive season so far in regards to whether Doctor Who is here to stay or just another fleeting series that grows tired far sooner than it need to.