‘Bad Wolf’ and ‘The Parting Of The Ways’ have a lot to live up to. They have to conclude Series One and lead into Christopher Eccleston’s departure, they have to reintroduce the Daleks, they have to wrap up the Bad Wolf plot thread that has been running through the Series, and they have to also be damn enjoyable in their own right. On top of all this too, they have to sustain enjoyment over two separate Episodes, something that I feel has been a bit of a weak link throughout this Series.

Both ‘Aliens Of London’ and ‘World War Three’ had their really great moments, but I felt that they were also severely lacking, with the latter Episode seeming a bit too much like padding when the two Episodes are watched back-to-back.

‘The Empty Child’ was one of the best Episodes of ‘Doctor Who’ ever made, balancing really eerie and frightening with a light touch; ‘The Doctor Dances’ on the other hand began well but ended terribly, with the final fifteen minutes being totally deprived of all suspense- you want to feel the tension, but there is no tension there to be felt. It is no surprise then, given that these are my opinions on the other two-parters, that it was the two Episode format that I was most worried about prior to transmission.

Fortunately then, I think that Russell T Davies pulls it off perfectly here. Watched alone, both Episodes are hugely enjoyable, but watched together and you get a far more explosive effect. The emotions are heightened, the frights are more shocking and the story hangs together in a way that simply cannot be appreciated if watched with a week long gap between Episodes. From the very beginning when the Doctor appears in a Big Brother house to the very end when David Tennant beams a winning smile into the camera, everything has been carefully crafted to make for a sense of completion within both the story and the Series as an entity.

The actual story itself is a great idea, and again it is one that manages to make the Series feel even tighter. Returning to Satellite Five from ‘The Long Game’ provides a neat inter-continuity fro the Series and it also enables Davies to explore territory that he had dipped his feet in merely an Episode beforehand: what happens after the Doctor has saved the day? In ‘Boom Town’ we have the Doctor face the consequences of his actions head on, but here we take it one step further. There is no cop-out ending this time, we are flung straight into the centre of what the Doctor has accidentally created. No amount of Daleks later on can escape the fact that everything which occurs in the next ninety minutes occurs partly as a consequence of his meddling and ‘swanning off’ (to coin a phrase). What makes the Doctor the hero of the piece though is that this time he faces it without hesitation. He sees the problem he has helped create but realises that someone has manipulated it further. It’s his fault as well as theirs, and so he sees it as his duty to stop it before it’s too late. The revelation that it is the Daleks who have done this provides not only a satisfying moment for the return of an enemy, but also provides an emotional impact when you consider the Doctor’s back story. It was the Daleks who destroyed his home and his people. It was the Daleks who changed the Doctor forever, and now it is time for him to finish this chapter in his life forever. By facing them head on, this incarnation of the Doctor turns a corner in his ‘healing’ following the Time War, and by facing his fears he is able to remember exactly who he has always been.

The most satisfying moment of the entire Series, in my opinion, is where the Dalek Emperor asks the Doctor just what he is- killer, or coward? For one moment, you think that the Doctor will go over the edge and use a weapon to save the day… but he doesn’t do it. He chooses coward. He chooses his death over slaughter; he prefers to be killed than kill. One criticism that has surfaced again and again throughout the Series is that the Doctor here is rather unlike the Doctor seen elsewhere in the history of ‘Doctor Who’, but with this moment you realise that this has been the Doctor as we know and love him all along. There’s no bravado this time, no avoiding the situation or getting angry at it. He stands there, exposed, ready to die rather than kill others. He says he chooses coward, but he does not. He chooses heroism. He cannot commit genocide here as he knows it will make him no better than the Daleks themselves, and rather than leave Earth to its fate as many people have claimed he is doing, he is instead showing his optimism: it doesn’t require the Doctor to save the day, because he knows that humans will do it instead with or without his intervention, and with the sudden spectacular entrance of Rose, that is exactly what happens.

Rose Tyler as a character is able to sum up everything that Davies knows ‘Doctor Who’ to be about. She is able to show everyone that no matter who they are, they can better themselves and make a better life for everyone around them. Her speech to Mickey and her Mum in a Chip Shop in ‘The Parting Of The Ways’ just sums it all up. It also shows just why Adam, earlier on in the Series, was not companion material. So many people have again levelled criticism at the character, saying that the Doctor treated him poorly, but here we hear just why the Doctor is right to dismiss him. Rose does not travel with the Doctor for the Aliens and the different Planets and the History. She travels with him to learn how to get a backbone and live a better life. Adam on the other hand travelled to get a better position in life. He was not concerned with the ins and outs of becoming a different person, but instead wanted to have a more comfortable position in life. The only time Rose attempts to do what Adam does, it all goes disastrously wrong, but she sacrifices something to repair the mistake. Adam makes no such sacrifice and learns no such lesson.

The very ending with Rose saving the day is the very message that Davies tries to get across throughout the Series. Rose is not possessed with unique abilities or super powers or any advantage over anyone else in the Series. Bad Wolf or not, she is ordinary and just like everyone else. This is why it is so important for her to save the day. It shows just how much she has learnt from the Doctor; it shows just how much she is willing to sacrifice to make a better world; it shows us just how much of a team the Doctor and Rose are. Rose travels forwards back to the Doctor, knowing it could kill her, to save his life. The Doctor sees it happen and kills himself so that she may live, and how does he do it? With something as human as a simple kiss. No magic gimmicks, no large explosions, no alien abilities. I must admit that when he went to kiss her, my entire family including myself all groaned and even screamed “No, don’t do it!” until we realised just what he was doing. He was killing himself in the most human way possible, as the most human of humans had just saved the day. The kiss in ‘Doctor Who’ (The TV Movie) was so wrong because it represented nothing other than bestial instincts, the like of which had not been displayed by the Doctor so explicitly before, but here it works perfectly as it represents the very crux of the story: humanity saves the day.

Davies’ script is frankly amazing. The tension is constantly maintained and the viewer is always eager to see what happens next. His use of the Daleks is great as well, making them servants to the Dalek Emperor and ruthless killers. The Dalek Emperor, whilst not as visually impressive as the original one from ‘The Evil Of The Daleks’ in my humble opinion, is a great creation, updating the very representation of the Daleks to something easily recognisable unfortunately in today’s society. Visually, they are very impressive too. The fact that whole CGI fleets of them are seen gives a real sense of scale, but more so it makes the CGI less noticeable. Whereas in ‘Dalek’ it was all too easy to play the game of ‘spot the CGI’, here an advantage is had by having hundreds of CG Daleks, making the effect blend far more seamlessly into the overall story. Davies also makes them truly horrible. When people say they are afraid of the Daleks, it’s not because of what they look like but what they do. They kill nice and innocent people- Lynda for example- without a care in the world, they massacre a room of humans just because they can, and they taunt the Doctor for no reason other than to intimidate him. The moment when the Doctor is on the Dalek Ship, resting his head against the TARDIS doors as all you can hear are Dalek guns going off says it all: even the Doctor is frightened. Davies also provides some of the most eye-watering emotional moments in the Series here; the Doctor’s optimistic ‘answer phone’ message to Rose is a real tears-in-the-eyes moment, as are his final words before he regenerates- okay, so they may have been written to be remembered, but when they’re that good, I’m not going to complain.

He is also able to really show just what a better life Rose has with the Doctor by flinging her back to Earth. After everything has been so quick and frantic, you suddenly get meaningless conversations in a Chip Shop, dreary surroundings with dull colours purposely contrasting the colourful Satellite Five, and a lot of sitting around doing nothing. The moment when the big Yellow Truck arrives driven by Jackie Tyler represents not just a turning point in her character but also a sign that the Doctor has been here- things are loud, colourful and anything but dull again. You just know that everything will be okay.

This isn’t just Davies’ finest hour, this is everybody’s. Billie Piper has never been so good as she is here, and it is testimony to how much she has invested in the role of Rose that when she apparently dies in ‘Bad Wolf’, even though we knew she was going to be alright, my family still gasped. John Barrowman too is magnificent, making Captain Jack a hero and even more likeable than before. The very ending, when the Doctor leaves Jack behind, not realising that he is alive, is heart wrenching, and is superbly played by Barrowman, as is his farewells to the TARDIS crew earlier on, with his kissing both Rose and the Doctor managing to be touching rather than amusing.

Despite only appearing so she can die, the character of Lynda Moss is instantly loveable, and her death is absolutely devastating, and Jo Joyner is more than a little responsible for this, having made her such a wonderful character throughout. Sweet doesn’t sum her up- she is adorable. Not only is her death chilling, but it also provides an amazing moment in Dalek history: you can lip-read them! You see them float, you hear nothing, but you know what is coming up next. Farewell, Lynda.

As Mickey, Noel Clarke undoubtedly turns in his finest performance of the Series and it just goes to show how good an actor he is when given a great Director to work with. Camille Coduri has never been better as Jackie either, with her shouting at Rose in the TARDIS when she tells her all about how the Doctor took her back to see her Dad being a brilliant moment in terms of character and acting.

Joe Ahearne’s Directing is great throughout the Episodes too, and is perfectly complimented by Murray Gold’s musical score- his best of the Series. Together, they help create one of the most memorable, terrifying and tense ‘Doctor Who’ stories to ever grace the show.

Of course, it is almost unnecessary to say, but I’ll do it anyway, that Christopher Eccleston is the person to impress most throughout the two Episodes. From his look of total devastation when he thinks Rose has died, to his ‘answer phone’ message, to his final moments, to his declaration of cowardice, he is on top form and reminds every person watching just why he was the perfect choice for the Doctor. Fantastic says it all.

I couldn’t pass off the opportunity here to not mention someone who is in my opinion the unsung hero of Series One, the Director of Photography, Ernie Vincze BSC, who really makes every shot count and has brought this Series to life in a way that I never thought could, but always hoped would, happen.

Then of course there is the actual Regeneration. Yes, it’s sad to see Eccleston go, and yet it just a few moments David Tennant is able to win over the entire audience and convince us all that ‘Doctor Who’ is in safe hands. In fact, the actual Regeneration itself is a great idea for the Series, as it means that new Viewers are now aware of pretty much the most important parts of the ‘Doctor Who’ legacy, and it also fulfils the whole ‘trip of a lifetime’ criteria in a very literal way!

Never before has Regeneration looked so painful, nor has it been so clearly explained, which makes the whole process just that bit sadder. I never understood what it meant when people said it was sad to see ‘their Doctor’ go, but now I get it: I was simultaneously devastated and overjoyed. The Doctor is dead, long live the Doctor.

And so, that is that. No more Eccleston, no more Series One, and no more concerns over whether it would all go swimmingly well. It did, and thank goodness for that. It ends on a high. Series One’s highlight? Without a doubt. These two Episodes can do nothing wrong in my eyes, and I am sure that many other people agree with me.

And so it's over. Not just this current series - a whole era, the Christopher Eccleston era, is over. And boy, what a way to go!!

This final story had everything that makes good Dr Who, and had it in bucketloads. Fantastic effects, huge ambition, raw emotion, great acting, fabulous directing. In short, it was a microcosm of the 9th Doctor's era.

OK, let's get a few things over with. Yes, all you very clever reveiwers / critics that have picked at the "holes" in RTD's latest script. You're right - it's stretching things to imagine that Big Brother, Weakest Link etc will be around in thousands of years time. Very well spotted. But that's really not the point. We could have been shown some imaginary futuristic game shows - but that would have missed the irony, the sarcasm, it just wouldn't have worked so well, as showing us perverse versions of shows we already know. That's what satire is all about, and it requires a little thing called suspended disbelief. We know it's not real - we all turn over to Confidential afterwards and see how it's all done - but for 45 mins that doesn't matter. This whole premise could have gone horribly wrong - I shuddered when I first heard about this idea - but they took it, treated it absolutely straight (except for What Not to Wear - this was there for comedy value, and p - lease, I ask you, don't start picking holes in the logic behind this. It was a J-O-K-E and worked darn well!) The other shows were handled dead straight - pardon the pun - and as such were scary, suspenseful and unmissable TV.

Another point has been raised in these reviews - why didn't the Daleks just destroy the Doctor in the first place? Well, think about it. The Doctor discovered the Daleks presence partly because of the Controller - something the Daleks hadn't bargained on. The Emperor was loopy, and presumably had some mad scheme to humiliate the Doctor - the last of their great enemy the Time Lords - before killing him. But once the Doctor discovered them and revealed them to the rest of the humans, their strategy had to change, and they now needed him dead asap. So perhaps - yet again - RTD wasn't so guilty of "lazy" scriptwriting...

You get the point. There are loads of things which have been picked apart in this script, most of which can be rationalised, alot of which we just don't need to pore over. It would have been nice to know exactly how the Controller became the Controller. It would have been nice to know why Rose chose "Bad Wolf" as her message, instead of something a little more obvious.Etc etc. But it doesn't matter. RTD knows his business like few others out there and that's why he's managed to pull in a huge audience every saturday with something other than Celebrity Funeral Directors on Holiday. I'm sick to death of certain "reviewers" - you know who you are - slagging his scripts off and trying to be clever. In truth, most of my favourite scripts have been written by other writers, but this is purely because of the incredibly high standard of writing, and not because RTD's are bad.

OK. Rant over. But please, criticism is all well and good, but some of you guys just don't deserve this series.

Anyway - back to the show. So, Bad Wolf paved the way beautifully for the final episode. It was a shame the BBC totally ruined the surprise of the Dalek return - I'd known this was a rumour, but had actually got to the point where I wasn't expecting it, then all surprise was shattered with the previous week's preview. Stupid, idiotic mistake by the Beeb - one of the few feet they put wrong in their otherwise excellent publicity for this series.

Anyway, the Daleks' return sent shivers down my spine - and left me feeling like I did as a child, in being almost unable to wait for the final episode. The scenes inside the Dalek spaceship were absolutely gorgeous, and the space scenes of troops of daleks flying out - well, it just doesn't get better than that.

There was so much expectation on the final episode, it almost had to disappoint in some areas, and I must admit most of the "Bad Wolf" theories I'd heard proved to be far more exciting than the real one. I myself had plumped for either the Black Guardian's return, or Adam, enhanced by the knowledge he gleaned in the Long Game. (So what the hell was the point of taking Adam on board for one story...?!) The Emperor Dalek looked fantastic, but I just expected something else - it's always a problem to build something up as something absolutely mind blowing, had they not then I would have immediately realised that the voice in the trailer was the Emperor and not started with fanciful theories which then felt slightly disappointing not to be realised!

The whole Bad Wolf scenario too just didn't make that much sense - as I said previously, why leave herself such a cryptic clue?

But hey, did any of this matter? What we got was absolutely stonking Dr Who, with some of the best action sequences ever seen in the programme and some wonderful acting by the regulars. John Barrowman, so fantastic in the absolutely sublime Empty Child two - parter (surely the best episodes of the series), was just slightly annoying and smug in Boom Town, but here he was back to his best, and the touching scene where he said goodbye to the Doctor and Rose - and the infamous kiss - was as good as any scene in the rest of the season. There was another reason for this - I'll come to that in a second.

The peripheral characters were all ok, Lynda with a y was annoying and one of the worst performances of the series, which has to be said, has been as consistent as anything seen on TV. (The episode which convinced me of this was the aforementioned Empty Child, with the waif children - surely no one has managed to get such good performances out of a group of children other than Steven Spielberg who does it regularly - James Hawes, I salute you.) The inclusion of Anne Robinson was great, even if the name Ann Droid was a bit of a predictable pun and not the genius that RTD seemed to think! Her destruction of, and then by, the Daleks in the last episode made me laugh out loud. Again, sheer brilliant writing.

And despite huge space battles, incredible enemies and mass destruction - all realised quite magnificently by the best set of special effects people in the country - it all came down to Rose and the Doctor.

I mentioned the emotion of Jack's farewell to these two, and the reason it was so poignant was that this whole episode had a kind of dark foreboding to me which I haven't really felt since Logopolis. In that story, Tom Baker, my favourite Doctor and a man who had made the character his own over 7 years in a way that none of his predecessors had, finally bowed out, and the production team deliberately went for a very funereal atmosphere which grew through the whole story. That was 24 years ago. Since then, we lost Peter Davison - Caves of Androzani was a great story, a classic, but I really didn't care that much that Davison was going. Except that we had Colin Baker to replace him! He, of course, had no regeneration story and to be honest was no great loss (sorry Colin). Sylvester McCoy, well he had some great stories and some terrible ones, but by 1989 I almost didn't care that the show went, it all seemed a shallow mockery of what it had been with good old Tom.

And now, here I am, 40 years old, and after just 13 episodes, I felt that same blanket of dread again at the thought of Chris' imminent departure. Mr Eccleston I salute you. The era of the 9th Doctor, though painfully short, has been blissfully quality, owing in no small way to the lead actor. I had so many doubts before the show started - principally the costume, the fact that at first viewing he seemed to be more of a normal "bloke", all this has been blown away over the weeks as Eccleston's performances have soared. He had so many great scenes in these 2 episodes - when he felt Rose was dead, when he vowed to save her and destroy the Daleks, his scenes with the Emperor, his sadness when he sent Rose back. He has been simply awesome, and while nostalgia will probably always keep Tom as my fave Doctor, the 9th remains an almost perfect portrayal of our favourite hero.

And, of course, Billie Piper. It's an obvious thing to say that this series has been about her more than the Doctor, but I fear many just haven't got that. They've complained about the "soapiness" of Rose's home life, not realising that without this background we just wouldn't care about her as much as we do. Did we really care this much about Jo Grant or Sarah Jane Smith? Father's Day was the pinnacle of Rose's story, the singular most emotion-laden Dr Who story there has ever been. It was gratifying that Rose spoke to Jackie about this in this episode - I feared it would all be conveniently forgotten (and would have been in the original series). But no, as usual RTD has written these characters as real people, and therefore it was imperative they discussed this. Similarly with Mickey in Boom Town - Noel Clarke's best scenes by a long way (oh and my - written by that crap old bloke Russel T Davies...!)

And so, with soaring music - and I think Murray Gold, also much-maligned, has been pretty faultless in the last half of the series - the Dr and Rose kiss, a special kiss, a kiss that saves Rose's life, and ends the Doctor's. A shame that the regeneration had been given away too, I hadn't expected this. I'm still not entirely sure of this was just tacked on the end - it almost seems impossible now the way the season was structured, that it might not have ended with a regeneration. I suspect Chris was only ever going to do one season. And in a way, sad as this is, it's quite fitting way to end possibly the greatest TV series there has ever been - too OTT? - perhaps. But I can't think of another where just about every aspect has been perfect.

And ultimately, that's what worries me. I felt a genuine loss when the end credits came. David Tennant was fantastic as casanova, and I'm sure Billie Piper will be as good as ever. But I do feel an era has passed and that we'll always look back and say, Dr Who's good now, but what about the Eccleston era...? It's one of those times when you just know that things will never be the same again. Sometimes you don't realise it til a long time after, and that's when things are viewed with the rose-tinted lenses of nostaligia. But when you know straight away - and I do - you realise that you've just witnessed something quite, quite, special. Russel, Chris, Billie, Phil, writers, directors, effects wizards, actors, set designers, composers....you get the message...you were, in the words of our hero, "fantastic". Shove the detractors. Thank you for giving me a little part of my childhood back again. Roll on Christmas...

I wasn’t looking forward to these episodes for many reasons; one it would mean the end of the series, once again Saturday TV would return to celebrity wallpapering or Test the nation hamster edition or such like. Secondly it would be the end of Doctor #8 the ever gurning Christopher Eccleston whose rapidly grown on me like head lice on a schoolchild. And three a guest list that sounded just as ghastly as Ken Dodd and the annoying little welsh bloke from please sir in Delta and the Bannermen. .I mean Anne Robinson as a killer robot? The Doctor landing in big brother? Trinny and Susannah doing anything, none of these things should work this should sink the Doctor back into the dark days of the mid 80’s but some it did work ,some how it was funny, somehow you cared and by the end of episode 12 you were on the edge of your seat

The timing of this cleaver witty script was inspired airing two weeks into big brother six’s run it had the Doctor materialising in the bb house where its inhabitants were a bolshy black girl a cute self obsessed wannabe and a camp over the top man who was obsessed with winning it was like id switched to channel four by mistake, Rose had landed on the weakest link with the bloke from hustle and Jack was treading the fine line from being as annoying as Melanie Bush. Talking of which I cant work out if I like Captain Jack or not, true he adds a lot of fun to the show but for me he just brings back nightmares of Edd the duck and Andy peters, could they have managed to leave him dead at the end of episode 13. Ala Adric? Of course it turns out that they are all back on the game station (not the videogame store full of spotty youths sneering as I enquire if they still sell mega drive games but the space station from the long game ep. 7) and the Doctor gets to be heroic trying to save rose from the clutches of the evil Anne Robinson Rose is apparently killed and if it hadn’t been leaked to the press you would be shocked that she had in fact been sent to a space ship full of Daleks. As The end of this episode approaches you would be mistaken for thinking that the Doctor has lost everything the advancing Dalek empire was surly going to exterminate everything in its path they’d got rose and he was stuck with annoying Jack surly he must give up? Of course this being Doctor who he didn’t in stead he acted his socks of and gave a speech worthy of Hartnell he threatened the might of the Dalek empire with a line stolen from Davinadroid by the time he said rose im coming to get you, suddenly you were nine years old again suddenly you were on the edge of the seat this what this series was missing a bloody good cliff-hanger! The trouble with this and the following episode was basically the same problem that Eastenders and many of the soaps have, the press has printed just about every shock and twist the episode had to offer and whilst it was by no means predictable you just knew everything that was going to happen, imagine if they’d promoted the sixth sense with it’s the one with the bloke from moonlighting plays the dead bloke or the crying game as find out why that birds got an Adams apple and there would be uproar Doctor who should be the same. I understand that yes knowing the Daleks were going to be in it was a draw and yes it did wonders for the ratings but imagine the shock if you didn’t know? Al ready it’s been announced that the cybermen are to appear in series two lets hope that it wasn’t a twist to the story!

The second part of the story episode 13 the parting of the waves was a rollercoaster ride it began with the best rescue ever and also conveniently forgot about the not being able to fire guns in the TARDIS rule but we’ll forgive them that for now. The Doctor and co then go back to the gamestaion to prepare the people of earth for war. It is then that Rose meats Linda, the Drs Fellow Big brother contestant. Billie piper steels the show again with a wonderful bitchy glance.

The tone of this episode is a lot darker than the other and this is a very welcome Change. The whole episode has an air of mystery. I mean you know the Doctor can succeed you know the Daleks are going to be destroyed and if the surprise hadn’t been spoiled you know that the Doctor will live to fight another day but how will he achieve the impossible.

The parting of the ways evoked memories of caves of androzoni, you knew that Eccleston would become Tenant but how would he be killed? Would he be exterminated would he sacrifice his life for others? Sacrifice was the theme of the show Jack going to his doom to ward the Daleks off, Linda valiantly getting killed in the best extermination of the show, rose becoming bad wolf and the Doctor sacrificing himself saving her. Sure the Doctor was a hero but what the show was trying to tell us was that we have it in our selves to achieve an equal greatness. It was with this message that parallels with his previous series the second coming began yes we can have a superhero/deity /adventurer alien save the would but we have it in us to do it by our selves, utter tosh but he’s heart is in the right place. There was obviously a lot of money spent on the episode and it showed. The emperor Dalek was great although it would have been nice to see Davros again. The whole religious subtext was good and gave the Daleks a much needed depth .

Rose is tricked by the Doctor into going back home where we saw the welcome return of Jackie and Mickey. It was here that the story was at its most dramatic. Rose realised that she couldn’t go back to normality and helped draw a close to he life on earth. Billie gave a sterling performance here and she is doing a wonderful job but have you noticed what a weird mouth she has she has too many teeth I’m sorry I digress. Seeing bad wolf scrawled everywhere around her she finally solves the puzzle that has had haunted her since she entered the TARDIS. With the help of Mickey who yet again realises that she will never be with him again (just how many times is he going to realise this! Just go and get another girlfriend one without a time travelling boyfriend) Rose becomes bad wolf (my bet was on the time lords it’s a good job I never put money on it!)And single handily destroys the Daleks making sure that they never return again, or till the ratings start to flag. As a mater of interest The Anne Robinson droid shot four Daleks but in the previous episode her laser been was found to be a transporter beam so where did they go? Sadly rose/bad wolf bought the annoying jack back to life before getting all the life sucked out of her (a bit like being married to Chris evens I suppose.)By the Doctor before taking her unconscious like Davidson did with with peri and she woke up to see the Doctor become Casanova. It was these final scenes that spoilt the show really, I mean regeneration is big thing in any time lord’s life and you don’t want it rushed at breakneck pass. The whole regeneration thing was just so rushed and handled in a blasé matter of fact way. Oh by the way I’m becoming another actor full stop .Did Eccleston decide he wanted to leave at the last minute so they just grafted regeneration as an afterthought? David Tenant was only on the screen for a second but exhumed a charisma to match Eccleston the Tardis keys are in safe hands. All in all a couple of classy episodes. Roll on Christmas.

Can somebody please tell me why the hell it is that so-called professional scriptwriters seem physically incapable of writing coherent scripts? There are many things that can make a script good – pacing, action, insightful or entertaining dialogue, deeper questions and thoughts, originality, surprises – and many things that can make it bad – viz all the opposites of these things. But beyond all of this, there are a few things that a script must have in order to be called a finished script at all. It must, for example, be 45 minutes long in the case of Dr. Who. It must be technically realizeable given its budget. And it must be logically coherent. You can pen the most brilliantly entertaining story in the world, but if it doesn’t make sense, it’s not done.

Now Doctor Who is science fantasy, not science fiction, so there’s a lot of headroom in this regard. But even so, there still exists a standard. After running a whole season that mostly made sense – a first for Dr. Who - I was beginning to think that holes were a thing of the past, that somehow our new generation of writers had learned from the errors of the old, that they’d learned how to write. There was the baffling fact that the car somehow knew that it had to circle the church in Father’s Day – and yup, that sure ruined that episode in short order – but aside from that we were doing fairly well.

Then comes the season finale, and while it still managed to be one of the most fun of the twelve stories… Just to list a few brief examples to serve as food for my point here: How can the Daleks break into the TARDIS, no matter where it is? Why would they transmat the Doctor into reality TV (as opposed to, as Davies himself writes, a volcano)? Why, given the chance to disintegrate the Doctor rather than beam him aboard their vessel, do they let him run free, even going so far as to instruct blue chicky with wires in her to let him move unimpeded? And why do they then spend the rest of the story trying desperately to kill him? In fact, given that they’re terrified of him being the one factor in the Universe that could bring about their end, why would they go out of their way to bring him into the picture in the first place?

This isn’t nit-picking, nor the stomping ground of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. This is basic scriptwriting 101.

Now this being time travel, and in particular being a story that ends with a God-like figure manipulating the whole timeline with omnipotent power, you could probably come up with any sort of half-baked explanation you like. That doesn’t excuse the fact that Davies simply didn’t bother to try.

People complain about deus ex machina (or should that be dei in the plural?), but at least a script with a deus ex machina is a finished script. It may be lazy and unfulfilling, but it’s done. A script that doesn’t make sense is not only lazy; it’s incompetent. It should still be on the writer’s office floor. If anyone is free to throw away the constraints of causality just to make a distracting hour of TV, then what’s the point in putting any effort in whatsoever? Why are we paying pro writers big bucks to not-do their job? Why not just get a drunk from the nearest pub to come up with something creative for a couple more pints?

Maybe Davies believes that a coherent plot is worth the price to pay for a slightly more interesting one. But doesn’t that sound like the plenary definition of a cheap thrill? Or maybe he thinks that because a large portion of his audience consists of children, he’s justified in ignoring plot logic, since they probably won’t notice anyway.

But here’s a lesson he seems to need: a large portion may be children, but the majority are still adults. And seeing as many of those adults are people who were children when the original series was being broadcast, and seeing as they are the very reason that the series is back in the first place, they deserve his attention. Besides, don’t we all want children’s shows that captivate us when we’re young but that we can look back on when we’re older like a favourite stuffed animal and say, ‘Yeah, that really was good.’ …as opposed to just shaking our heads and wondering how we were ever sucked in?

Hell, I think a story where there’s somebody hiding in the TARDIS so the Doctor materializes it underwater and opens the door sounds pretty exciting. Or how about one where giant ants come out of my butt and make me feed them sugar cubes? At least I’m being satirical, and so I suspect was Christopher Bidmead in 1980. But Davies is not. Get your $&^! together, and if you can’t take this seriously, move over for someone who can.

It seems like a screechingly bad idea – Earth, hundreds of thousands of years in the future, dominated by . . . turn of the 21st Century reality-TV shows? OK, so maybe it doesn’t just *seem* like a bad idea. On paper, this story really couldn’t be more ludicrous, and from hearing about it beforehand I was frankly dreading it. And while I wouldn’t call this two-parter a classic story, or even a great one, ultimately it is a surprisingly watchable one, and considering the mess of a plot we’re asked to swallow, that is accomplishment enough in itself. The key to the success of this story, apart from the obvious crowd-pleasing plot points, might be Joe Ahearne’s straight-faced approach to the material – when the Anne Droid is brought out, it isn’t presented as a joke (even though the script works hard to make it one), and Ahearne’s unwillingness to wink at the audience helps us to believe it (or to try to, anyway, which is always enough in ‘Doctor Who’).

The idea of TV shows being tied in to a hideous conspiracy is hardly the freshest at this point – in fact, even in the context of this new series, the enslaved-by-television-fads concept is basically a reworking of ideas from this story’s prequel, ‘The Long Game.’ Russell T. Davies really doesn’t take his satire anywhere new here – but still, his point is certainly more relevant than ever. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about it is that he chose to use *real* TV shows as the butt of his jokes instead of inventing his own – not only would this have allowed him to satirize a little more freely, it also would have diminished the story’s high gimme-a-break factor. But he made the choice that he did, and for the most part it’s not too irritating. The ‘What Not to Wear’ segments are perhaps overly broad, but John Barrowman plays them so lightly that it seems at worst a silly distraction. And perhaps the most successful element of this story is the Controller, who works as a sad and terrifying symbol for the modern television viewer: literally tuned in to hundreds of channels, ostensibly controlling which ones get accessed, but imprisoned and blinded by her viewing habits at the same time. A smart, very scary idea.

This story abruptly drops the satire to bring back the Daleks, of course, and they look great in their new gold livery. Personally, I was relieved that the rumored ‘spider Daleks’ never actually surfaced – as someone mentioned, the Daleks are actually the most genuinely futuristic-looking of the new series’ monsters, and despite decades of pepperpot jokes, this is a real testament to the genius of Ray Cusick’s design. But the Daleks themselves aren’t used too well by the script – they’re presented as traditional ‘Remembrance’-style Daleks: i.e., mindless tanks with annoying voices. There was all sorts of speculation about whether Davros would or would not appear in this story; we got the Emperor Dalek instead, but it might as well have been Davros, and the series’ continuing concept of the Daleks as dependent on these ‘Super-Daleks’ for orders just doesn’t show them at their best, in my view. Still, the script makes them imposing enough – only one gets blown up, and when the Daleks appear at the space station window to kill Lynda (whilst flashing a four-syllable word, a lovely touch), it’s a great moment. And of course there are the requisite (and fun) nods to the past (“MY VISION IS IMPAIRED! I CANNOT SEE!”). But, again, Nicholas Briggs’s voices are a touch self-conscious, and the Daleks are so bloody *slow*! Honestly, I think my vacuum cleaner could outrun all half a million of them and not break a sweat.

As for the Doctor, some have convincingly argued that the character wouldn’t hesitate to wipe out life on Earth by using the Delta Wave against the Daleks, especially since he didn’t shrink from destroying Skaro in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ and, it may be inferred, from doing the same to Gallifrey itself during the Time War. But to me it actually seems quite consistent with the Doctor’s character – not only has he often shown himself unable to single-handedly take life to achieve his aims (he most often prefers to let others do it for him, as Blon Slitheen rightly points out in ‘Boom Town!’), it can also be argued that by this point the Earth is more his real home than Gallifrey anyway, and is therefore the *only* thing that could stand in his way of destroying an enemy forever – even the Daleks. I think it works perfectly, in fact.

As for the explanation of the ‘Bad Wolf’ mystery, and the deus ex machina of Rose’s final solution of the Dalek problem, they have been much reviled by some fans, and, indeed, they are kind of crazy. The use of the TARDIS as a talisman to magically save the day at the eleventh hour is always somewhat unfair; it doesn’t help that Davies already did the same thing in the previous story, ‘Boom Town!’ But it’s obvious that Davies wanted this first series of the restored ‘Doctor Who’ to go out with a big bang, and these two story elements certainly provide that, even if they don’t work as nicely as some fans would hope. The story also achieves a sort of large scale in that it sees the shocking (if ultimately unreal) deaths of two companions, as well as the (real) one of the likeable semi-assistant Lynda. The floodlit finale is slightly melodramatic, but it works, allowing Rose to sacrifice herself to save the Doctor, and then allowing him to do the same thing for her – which is nice. And the regeneration scene itself is just lovely – for all his bluffed arrogance throughout the season, this Doctor is particularly aware of his own faults, and his self-deprecating jokes as he changes (“Can you imagine that, me with no head? Don’t say it’d be an improvement.”), make this perhaps most fallible and sad of all the Doctor’s incarnations seem terribly human for a moment. And then, the sudden change – for a moment the series really *is* brand-new again, and even those of us who have seen many regenerations past experience the shock of it as if for the first time.

In the end, this may not be the smartest ‘Doctor Who’ story ever, but it’s tasteful enough, and magical at the end – a fitting finale to a new age.

Come In, Number Nine, Your Time Is Up…

There’s so much to talk about with these two episodes that I barely know where to begin, so let’s start at the very beginning. After a short recap, it suddenly appears that I’ve sat on the remote and switched to Channel Four. Of course, I’ve done no such thing. Having destroyed one reality TV Show in the ratings, Doctor Who now proceeds to send up the daddy of them all for an encore. It may be somewhat implausible for Big Brother to still be on air in 200100 AD, but frankly, that’s besides the point. The scenes of The Doctor in the Big Brother house are cheeky, very iconic, and superbly written and played by all. In the meantime, Rose’s Weakest Link segment provides some real danger, and Captain Jack is an absolute scream in What Not To Wear.

And to think when Russell first mentioned copyright issues with this episode way back in his first DWM column, I was convinced he was talking about using the daleks. Speaking of which…

They’re back. Sadly, it’s impossible to keep these things secret anymore – the age of Earthshock has long since passed – but for the BBC themselves to spoil the revelation of the daleks by including them in the Boom Town trailer just smacked of desperate ratings-grabbing. But never mind that – what are they actually like?

Thankfully, they’re superficially the same daleks we know and fear from Episode Six, and all the talk of redesigns that filled me with such dread has proved to be unfounded. There are literally hundreds of them onscreen, and they’re unstoppable (indeed, I counted only four dalek casualties before the final showdown). Their new-found religion/madness is intended to give them new depth, but it is really only through the Emperor’s dialogue that it is explored – otherwise the daleks act exactly as daleks should, exterminating everything and everyone in sight (and for my money, it is Lynda-with-a-y who gets the most spectacular exit). Even the TARDIS crew are not exempt from this fate, and after a touching goodbye to The Doctor and Rose, Captain Jack dies with honour, dignity, and most of all, style.

The daleks’ master plan, though, is somewhat flawed. Given that their species is weapons capable of cracking open an entire planet, why don’t they destroy the satellite once The Doctor has shown up? (And whilst I’m nit-picking, how exactly did the Controller acquire a transmat capable of breaching the defences of the TARDIS in flight?)

Nevertheless, the invasion of the satellite gives The Doctor a superb moral dilemma to grapple with at the series’ climax. He’s already hurting having wiped out the Time Lords in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to destroy the daleks – of course he’s not going to do it again. This whole episode is built upon past stories in which The Doctor’s actions have not turned out for the best, so this time he picks the supposedly “cowardly” option instead.

Fortunately for him, Rose’s more simplistic outlook means she is far more willing to commit genocide than The Doctor is. Given slightly-explained new powers from the TARDIS she is able to destroy all the daleks, bring Jack (but no-one else?) back to life, initiate the whole Bad Wolf thing, and get a snog out of The Doctor to boot. However overblown and poorly-explained this sequence may be, there’s no denying that her performance is incredible, with Cate-Blanchett-in-Lord-Of-The-Rings effects to match.

In summary, the whole show is well-structured, well-acted (even by Mickey and Jackie) and beautifully directed, with some superb dialogue. My one complaint with the realisation of this story is the amount of glare applied to the picture – especially when the daleks’ head-bulbs light up. It’s been a minor irritation all series, but it’s really noticeable here. However, such quibbles are unimportant. We’ve been given the flashiest finale to date in a gloriously wild and unpredictable season, in which Chris Eccleston has cemented a truly wonderful portrayal of the Doctor. He will be sorely missed by many.

9/10.

But wait! I can’t finish without adding my two cents about the final scene. Chris’s final words are beautifully written and delivered, and his regeneration is originally executed and very moving. Unfortunately, he appears to have turned into that Casanova chappie, who may have a lot more of The Doctor’s quirkiness than Chris did, but appears at first glance to be too young, comical and generally unimpressive to play the part with the necessary weight and conviction. I predict many comparisons to Sylvester McCoy in the episodes to come. “Time will tell. It usually does.”