A very memorable episode - although not for the reasons I might have expected. To be honest, I feel that the conflict between the Cybermen and the Daleks was little more than a backdrop to Rose's departure. Although there were some elements of it that I enjoyed, there were more aspects to the 'showdown' that left me unsatisfied.

Firstly, the mismatch; John Lumic's Cybermen wouldn't be in the same league as the Daleks, for centuries. The nearest a Cyberman came to scoring a killer blow against a Dalek, was in their first encounter bitching contest. Aside from that, the poor old Cybermen had no better chance against the Daleks than the rest of us. Second, poor special effects! For the first time in the new series, a really unconvincing 'superimposed' look, as Dalek Sek (or whatever his name was) hovers above London with the Genesis Ark. I feel as if I'm stooping to a really low level of criticism for mentioning it, but have perhaps grown used to there being less effort involved in the suspension of disbelief, in recent years.

Third - the 'Genesis Ark.' Anyway, where did this Dalek 'Jesuit Order' come from? And the Genesis Ark? Why on Earth (or anywhere else, for that matter) would the Time Lords imprison millions of Daleks in anything? How long was their sentence? Could they get time off for good behaviour? How did they shepherd all those Daleks in there in the first place? ('Move along, please... Oh, and we'd prefer it if you didn't fire that thing in here...'). If it was a prison ship, where was it going? And then to lose the thing to the first four Daleks to happen along...

Fourth; 'You shall not pass!' Very 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. I know it was a case of Emergency Upgrading (they'd obviously realised that five million wasn't going to be enough) - but it must have been a real slap dash job to leave old loyalties, old vocal cords and old tear ducts in place. Or was that an oil leak? As I say - sloppy workmanship.

Fifth - Missed opportunities; 1) I haven't missed Davros at all, cropping up like a pantomime villain in every classic series Dalek story after 'Genesis'; but if you want those Daleks to keep coming... Perhaps after his emergency time shift, Dalek Sek might go questing for him... 2) Why wasn't Mondas explained in the Parallel Earth vein? All this 'twin planet that drifted off on a journey to the edge of space' was embarrassing even in the Sixties. The early Cybermen could just have easily have come from a parallel universe... 3) Is there a parallel Doctor? As there was no Rose and consequently, no 'Parting of the Ways', is he still Christopher Eccleston? There might have been scope for an alternative ending, there...

Things I did enjoy;

First: Mismatched as they are, the Daleks and the Cybermen are still great; the 'upgrading process' depicted in the new series is truly horrifying - much more so than the 'first an arm; then a leg; then a bit of brainwashing; then...' approach seen in 'Attack of the Cybermen' and 'Tomb of the Cybermen.' The idea of real, former people in there is nightmarish. Well done, chaps. Daleks - love the look; love the trademark arrogance; I like my Daleks with a bit of personality; this was a bit of a cameo, compared to 'Dalek', though.

Secondly: Rose's fate. Enjoy is the wrong word. >From Jackie's point of view, the Doctor has wrought miracles, uniting her family in a way that never would have been possible, keeping his word to keep Rose safe and making her rich into the bargain. Since he regenerated, she even seems to have forgiven him for turning her down, in her dressing gown. Rose also has her family and her boyfriend back - but can she ever be happy? Ever since 'School Reunion' she's been fighting off the idea that, like Sarah Jane, she'd be abandoned one day, replaced by someone new. When she asks the Doctor's image 'Are you alone?', I sense more than just concern for the Doctor's welfare. And then, cruelly, his time expires just before he can say to her what no Doctor has ever said to a companion. A very moving moment. I find it hard to be optimistic for her future happiness with Mickey, despite his having worked so hard to deserve her love. Maybe she is in the Void, after all. I liked my idea of a parallel Ninth Doctor. I'm just soft, I suppose. Dramatically, we were given a much better ending. But it must have taken a callous scriptwriter indeed, to treat her so.

Ah well. On we go. May we hope for a more consistent series, next year?

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!

They say that it is better to travel than to arrive. They might be wrong in this case...

Doomsday concludes Russell T Davies' 'epic' season finale. It was described in the Doctor Who Confidential that followed as 'event television' and trying to 'create the sense that you're in a big action movie'. But why this attempt to turn a television programme into something that it's not? Why discard the intimacy, the personal scale that television affords in favour of vacuous Hollywood-style stunts and special effects? Is this really what modern TV audiences want?

There are millions of cybermen, and then, thanks to the Genesis Ark, there are millions of daleks as well. Plot, such as it is, takes a back seat for the clash of the titans. And it's epic. God, I'm getting tired of that word - I just hope Russell and co are too. Lots of tiny CGI splodges whizzing over London did little to raise my pulse rate. But, admittedly, lots of tiny CGI splodges whirling into Canary Wharf did provide a few (probably unwanted) giggles. As did the 'handbags at dawn' first confrontation between the two monsters. 'You tell me your name!' 'No, you tell me yours first!' 'You lot are unelegant!' (shouldn't that be inelegant?) 'We don't care!' 'Hmph! That much is obvious!' I think the Cyberleader threw a Bacardi Breezer over the Black Dalek shortly after that...

Fortunately, there's a blissful reunion for Jackie and Pete (if that's the right word for a meeting between two people who, strictly speaking, have never met). It's both touching and funny. 'You look old.' 'You don't.' What a gent... 'There was never anyone else' - I'm surprised Mickey and the Doctor didn't burst out laughing at that one. And 'I don't care about that... How rich?' Camille Coduri and Shaun Dingwell play the moment just right. They, and their characters, will be missed.

Then it's back to 'delete', 'exterminate', 'delete', 'exterminate'. Yawn. There's some silliness with Yvonne the Cyberman, her patriotism and voice somehow surviving the cybernisation process, pointlessly zapping some of her metal mates while shedding an oily tear. Um... Those daft levers are back; wearing 3-D spectacles lets you see 'void stuff'; and hanging onto some big magnetic clamp things stops you getting sucked into oblivion, though the force can drag cybermen off their feet from outside the Taj Mahal. Oh, and Pete can pick the exact moment to materialise and save Rose. Yup, Russell's patented plot holes and bonkers ideas are still much in evidence. Ho hum...

But then, magically, fantastically, he does it. Just as the story threatens to collapse into an overblown heap of mindless noise and CGI, Russell gives us two people on a beach, just talking. And it's perfect. Emotionally wrenching, as it had to be, and hopelessly romantic - 'I'm burning up a sun, just to say goodbye' - Rose's final scenes prove to be the highlight of the story, if not the season. David Tennant's ghostly appearance on the beach echoes Christopher Eccleston's hologram scene from last year's final episode, and is equally moving. For the girl who thought she would spend the rest of her life with the Doctor, when given just two minutes she can't think what to say. It feels so painful and it feels so true. Some have criticised the apparent erosion of Rose's 'strong' character, but I think they are missing the point. The Doctor took her out of her dead-end existence and showed her that there was a better way to live her life. And now she's never going to see him again. I think she's allowed to be upset! The two leads are faultless, making the scene emotional, but never mawkish, and Davies' dialogue sparkles. Haunting stuff.

So, the destination proves better than the trip to get there. Doomsday, by in its closing minutes remembering that small, beautiful events are what life is all about, ends the new Doctor Who's second season on a much-needed high note (well it does if you ignore a mood-destroying appearance by Catherine 'No, I'm not bloody bovvered' Tate). It's just a shame that it took so much lazy, overblown nonsense to get there.

And so we reach the end of series two. I have felt a mixture of emotions about the whole thing I have to admit.

Army Of Ghosts promised a huge amount and set us up for an epic battle between the two greatest and most fearsome alien races that the Doctor has ever encountered. I was expecting a very grand affair, knowing that so much budget had surely been reserved for this final episode, given that Love & Monsters and Fear Her had saved so much thanks to their limited scale. I thought world armies would be brought into the mix, whole cities would fall and the human race would seriously be threatened as the battle of the giants continued about them. Perhaps I was being overly optimistic. On a few occasions over the past fifteen months I have found myself expecting a little too much. A great deal of fanfare was bandied about when news that Doctor Who was returning to Saturday nights with a lavish no holds barred budget. I remember being hugely disappointed by the terrible photoshop-ing of Chris Eccleston's face onto the Kennedy photo in Rose, and the slightly cartoonish Nestene consciousness, but was placated by the reassuringly expensive shots of the Slitheen craft crashing into the Thames, via Big Ben. The Christmas Invasion certainly didn't disappoint, so why did this gargantuan confrontation between the Daleks and Cybermen feel a bit like a drunken bitch fight on a late night episode of Big Brother..?

Okay, we had some nice scenes. The gun battle in the Torchwood hangar was nicely noisy and colourful, as was the Cyber encounter with the army on the bridge, but the majority felt just a bit underwhelming. It seemed that the daleks were only threatening one streetful of people before they got sucked back into the void, and just why were the Cybermen STILL standing outside the Taj Mahal having appeared there several hours earlier? Were they just wondering where to go first? Maybe I'm being unfair but I just thought these two menaces were decidedly un-menacing. Perhaps given a little more time than 45 minutes there might have been opportunity to understand what sort of battle plan both sides had in mind, but long before we got a chance to hear what that might be the Doctor had quickly decided to ditch his companion of two years and send her to a parallel universe forever more, thus neatly despatching both enemies from all across the globe through a hole in the wall at the top of a towerblock in London (via one window)

I feel I'm being wholly critical about this episode and I shouldn't be. There was much to enjoy. The lighter moments with Jackie running up and down the staircase constantly on the run from Cyber conversion were pacy and exciting, with just the right amount of humour. Her reunion was Pete was also delightfully handled "how rich?"/"how very?"! It was also nice to see that Yvonne Hartman's wonderfully full character from Army Of Ghosts wasn't completely wasted as she defended the Torchwood office from the onslaught of more Cybermen, her belief in her cause so strong that she had partially resisted full conversion.

And so to the departure of our wonderful Rose Tyler. Much had been made of the news that Billie Piper would be leaving the TARDIS at the end of the series, and so much had been written suggesting that she would be killed off that I felt almost certain that this wouldn't be the case. I absolutely loved the final scene in the Torchwood Tower - such a brilliant age old dilemma of having to risk your life to save the lives of many and how fitting that such a brave and gutsy character as Rose should have had no hesitation in risking hers. As she did her duty and thus massively increased the force of the pull into the void I was reminded of that heart stopping opening scene in the film Cliffhanger as the female character gradually loses her grip on safety and falls to her death. So we were here with Rose being pulled into oblivion. I suddenly felt that maybe the papers had been right and we were going to have the first companion self sacrifice since poor old Adric. As the Doctor and we, the audience, realise she had lost her grip on that lever I felt genuinely shocked and saddened, and then such huge relief as Pete zapped himself across universes one more time to take back his (sort of) daughter. To know that she would at least be happily ensconced with her old family and Mickey was some consolation, albeit she would never set foot again in her own world and was, in those terms at least, dead.

The epilogue on the beach in Norway was a nice touch and, although it laid on the emotions in spades, I was glad that Rose and the Doctor were given a chance to say goodbye. To this day I still find myself suffering moments of sadness when I think of Peri suffering life as a warrior queen to King Ycarnos, just wishing the Doctor would come and finally take her home! Let's resolve that situation in a future series PLEASE!!

And finally a nod of appreciation to the closing moments in the TARDIS. How fantastic that not so much as a smidgeon of a leak of this information ever got out into the public domain (as far as I am aware at least). This was the most genuinely surprised I have been to see someone appearing in Doctor Who since the Brigadier turned up in Mawdryn Undead. Catherine Tate played her indignant lines just perfectly and I already cannot wait til Christmas Day to see how these two get on.

So all in all, Doomsday was far from the episode I had been expecting when the Daleks emerged from the void ship at the end of Army Of Ghosts, but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable 45 minutes of television and, as has been said in the press recently, proved once again that this is far and away the best home grown drama on television at the moment.

Well, what a finale. Daleks vs Cybermen, all out war, Torchwood and Rose's departure. So how good was it exactly? To be honest, I've read a lot of reviews poo-pooing Russell T Davies' scripts, but I think he's a bloody brilliant writer and I'd like to see his nay-sayers do any better. Of course, the main attractions were the war between Doctor Who's biggest baddies and Rose's impending (supposed) death. The all out war between the Daleks and Cybs was on a huge scale and well worth watching. Fanwank? Yes. Wishlist? Yes. But by God, as I've said before, we may never get to see another chance for this to happen so it HAD to happen now. The bitchy Black Dalek sparring with the Cyberleader was superb and a lovely touch to what otherwise could have been boring robots talking to each other. The Black Dalek had obviously been taking lessons from Cassandra. And I know what you're gonna say, but the Daleks have always been a touch camp, so just let it be, OK?

RTD, in the allotted time, managed to squeeze in a hell of a lot, and chief among them he did not commit the cardinal sin of forgetting to expose exactly why these two races are so monstrous. Firstly, the Cybermen yet again impressed me and touched me more than the Daleks. They are Us. When they converted Yvonne (who genuinely liked) and her as a cyberman later crying oil that really shook me. In Yvonne, we had a wonderful portrayal of a deeply flawed but very human woman who was more than aware of the fate she awaited (and more than aware after, which is so bloody gruesome. Just chilling). The Daleks, too, mass produced killing machine's emerging from the Genesis Arc prison TARDIS reminded me of a plague of killer wasps long before the bit where they were all sucked back into Canary Wharf in a giant swarm. Funny, I've never thought of a prison TARDIS before, but what a good idea!

And of course, there's the Tylers, which is where the only major flaw in the whole story comes about. Well, I say flaw, more of a hindsight suggestion - constructive criticism. I really think it would have been better introducing Pete and Jake in the first episode instead of shoehorning them into the second and just allow the whole script to b-r-e-a-t-h-e a little. That way, when the Daleks emerged at the end of Army of Ghosts, we would have been concerned for them too and still be wondering how they and Mickey had got through the void. But hey-ho.

The big thing we needed for this episode was a big pay-off. A pay-off to wrap up the whole Rose story spanning two years, complete with all the Tylers and hangers on. We got them all - the whole family, and it was wonderful to see Jackie and Pete fighting in the corridor then suddenly realising that they really are who they are (if you see what I mean) and they need each other. I am incredibly fond of happy endings, and RTD is right when he says Doctor Who is ultimately optomistic. The story of the Tylers and Mickey had to be rounded off in a neat way to allow the Doctor to move on and be that lonely old traveller again, the way he's always been. I think we got it, too. A bigger role for Jackie went down a storm, and deservedly so, as Camille Coduri has been an utter delight. It was brilliant to see her sparring with the great Shaun Dingwall again, who really should have been cast as Max Branning in EastEnders. We got a lovely bitter-sweet ending with all the Tylers together, shut away from the Doctor forever (?) and Rose is back in her shop with a complete family. Bitter sweet indeed. But somehow, it's probably saved her.

David Tennant has proved he really IS the Doctor. By turns, he wild and maniacal, deep and brooding, intense and funny and lovely. The only other person to achieve this in his portrayal of the Doctor was Lord Tom of Baker. I love David Tennant as the Doctor. He carries me away with him to the point I forget he's acting and he actually is the Time Lord. Now that really is acting. Well done, David.

And we had Catherine Tait at the end. Bizarre.

I am a huge fan of RTD's vision of Doctor Who and I am not ashamed to say so. Thank you to the production team for another year of the best programme in the world. And thanks to Joe Ford, my fellow reviewer, for such an entertaining read over the last three months. I've heard the Ice Warriors are the big baddies for Season Three... shame... I was kind of hoping it would be the Sontarans or Sea Devils...place your bets now! Til Christmas then!!

Now this was a perfectly enjoyable piece of television. It had emotional content, it had drama and it had action. It just didn't feel like the climax to anything, and I don't think it was anything to do with Catherine Tate (I don't see how that couldn't have been part of a 'Next Time...' trailer though).

The dialogue was good throughout, and while it felt strange to see the Daleks and the Cybermen essentially having a massive bitch fight at each other, no-one could deny that it was not very entertaining telly. The Daleks were portrayed as the ultimate evil in this episode to the fullest extent possible, but at the cost of the Cybermen being humiliated almost as badly as they were in Silver Nemesis. Okay it took special effects to kill them this time, but it was still ridiculously easy to do so. Also why did they just stand around in the family home looking dramatic? Where they baking them muffins? Cybermen would either take the family for conversion or kill them, not hang around like an annoying relative at Christmas. And for two of the Doctor's deadliest enemies, you really think one of them would've thought 'Hang on, I could just shoot him!' by now, especially in this episode. David Tennent is, of course, possibly the best Doctor when it comes to just talking at his enemies. Not to death, like McCoy, but just into confusing them into telling him enough information to continue the plot. For the two biggest enemies to be involved it does take a lot of suspension of belief that they don't even attempt to kill the Doctor.

Otherwise, a fun fast paced episode ensued, but it felt more like a middle of the series episode. Wotsername of Eastenders got converted, and we didn't especially care. Then just as there was some sort of setup with the Doctor being in one dimension and Rose being in another, which seemed very promising, it was straight into the emotional stuff. The Jackie and Pete scene went on a bit without really affecting me on an emotional level. I was glad when the aliens who were supposed to be invading the planet FINALLY catch up with the heroes. I could imagine the Cybes saying to each other on the stairs 'Are we good to go?' 'Nah, the cleavage lady is talking to the cockernee ragamuffin, we have to wait until the music gets drama- OH CRAP IT'S US! WALK LIKE YOU'RE CONSTIPATED! WALK LIKE YOU'RE CONSTIPATED!' The Jackie/Pete interplay got better as it was established that the characters had grown apart due to the differences in their respective realities. Nice bittersweet moments ocurred later in the episode.

Oh aye, and the Genesis Ark is a Time Lord artefact which the Doctor hasn't heard of (which I personally find hard to believe). It is also a Time Lord Prison for Daleks. How monumentally stupid are the Time Lords that they decide to IMPRISON millions of the most evil and dangerous beings in the Universe in a handy travel sized container? A race they are at war with? Did Romana bring them in line with the Geneva convention? How stupid would you have to be? On the plus side, a very nice idea by RTD to have named Daleks with slightly more character to them. Made these Daleks seem slightly more dangerous, apparent inability to shoot anything while they're in Exposition Mode notwithstanding.

Then the episode appears to be extremely rushed in order to fit everything in. The Doctor has a very simple plan which he executes flawlessly apart from Rose. She stays behind either: A - because she is brave and loyal, or B - because she is bloody minded and silly.

Technically she wouldn't have had to be a hero if she had obeyed the Doctor's instructions and stayed in the other universe, and if the Doctor wanted her to go through in the first place presumably he had a plan to get both levers down then she didn't have help in the first place. Meh, I suppose the Doctor was just wrong or something.

Then we arrived predictably at the heroic set piece complete with slo-mo 'Noooo!' moment and fortuitous if completely unlikely piece of redemption for Cyber-Pete as I shall be calling him (he went all cold and clinical, rather like a Cyberman no less. Gosh RTD is clever sometimes). Then we got the leaving scene. This was lovely. That's the third or fourth time this series we've got the Doctor hovering on the 'L' word (Sarah Jane, Mme de Pompadour and Rose twice), and it was nice to see him cry on screen as you imagined he may have been on the verge of doing all these years.

Then Catherine Tate appeared and the drama was undercut somewhat. Not Catherine Tate's fault of course, I just felt like they could've put that after the credits.

All in all less of a big climax that PotW, but overall a fun episode with a load of nice scenes to remember it by.