In Depth Response: End of Time Part 2

[daniidebrabant]

...I'm not even covering Part 1. Because it was a hot mess. RTD reversed his usual pattern of good first one, crap second one this time around.

Things I Loved

• The Master: As I'm not covering Part 1, I'm not even mentioning the rabig dog bits. But in Part 2, he shined. There were shades of some of the older Masters in there, the "Ahaha! I have you! ...okay, I don't have you, but we can make a deal!" I was having flashbacks to The Five Doctors for a few moments. Still a little too manic, but much better.
  
• The Master and the Doctor: ...yeah, I don't think anyone who saw this could deny the FoYay here. And yet, in ways that are hard to explain, I think it was absolutely IC. Two bastards who've been fighting for years and years and years, but when the chips are down, they knew who the enemy was.
  
• Susan: That was one of the most masterful subtle little pieces in there. There was so much speculation on 'the woman in white' and I heard so many people call 'Romana' but the second someone mentioned it was Susan's actress, (ETA: this is unconfirmed, but character-wise, I think it was definitely Susan, if only because of the glance towards Donna when Wilf asked. He looked at Wilf's granddaughter because that was HIS granddaughter). I immediately pinged into it. The camera hints, the parallels, some of the reasoning behind what she did. One person said they wished there'd been a scene between her and the Doctor, but I think it was played just right. I think she told Wilf not to tell him because she needed to make that kind of impact on the Doctor to ensure he did the right thing. We've seen for five years just how much it has hurt the Doctor to be alone, to know his world is gone and his planet dead. And given the revelations of this episode? That must have been like the breakup from Hell. He needed the shock. The whole thing, it was a beautiful stroke of storytelling. It made the 'old soldier' parallels ring all the better between the Doctor and
  
• Wilf: I can't even start to say how perfect every scene, every note from Wilf was. He was perfectly, achingly human in the face of everything that happened. Even during the ridiculousness of the first half, he was the part that kept me watching. And during the second? Oh, how he shone. I haven't heard anyone say a bad thing about Wilf and rightly so.
  
• Eleven: I've seen so many ZOMG MY DOCTOR posts, as well as my mother and my brother both wailing that this new guy 'isn't Doctor Who!'. But in the 45 seconds we got of Eleven, I absolutely adored him. He seems to be a blend between 10 and 5 (dashes of 2 and 3) so far, but I'm really excited to see what happens with him and how things go. As early as The Next Doctor, you could see that Tennant was ready to go. Planet of the Dead seemed, well, lifeless though the companion helped there. The Waters of Mars was a lovely set up for End of Time, and scary as all get out to watch. "I don't want to go" aside, it was time. That isn't to say I won't miss Ten. When I first heard they were switching Doctors, I was so sad. Ten wasn't the first Doctor I saw (I saw 4 when I was little, smatterings of 3, and I started properly with 9) but he was my Doctor. Definitely my favorite, definitely the one I liked the most (with 5 and 6 trailing right after and 4 coming up only a little behind them), and the one I thought of when I thought 'Doctor'. But we had a year. And in that year, I settled that we would get a new Doctor. And I like the new guy. So yes, in the 'Loved it' category, I put Eleventh Doctor proudly even though I will definitely miss Ten.
  
• The Ride: this part was just a roller coaster. There was plenty of fridge logic to go around, I know and I'll get to that, but actually watching it was a lot of fun. I've heard that a few people felt differently but I will politely disagree and say that I was bouncing and spazzing and jumping and shouting through most of it. Even if it made my brain hurt in a few places, it was Entertainment.

Things I Liked

• The Cactus Duo - they were amusing and helpful and awesome. Nuff said.
  
• Wheeling the Doctor Around - that whole sequence was just love.
  
• The Ride Back to Earth - it was goofy, it was ridiculous, but Wilf got to shoot stuff. I was happy.
  
• The Silly Costumes - hey, say what you like about the Time Lords, they were dressed up SNAZZY. I'm still wondering why the Seal of Rassilon wasn't on ANYTHING (and some other stuff below), but uh, whatevs.
  
• Gallifreyan writing - ...I dunno, I just think it looks cool.
  
• The Goodbyes - While I'll get to the actual mechanics/storytelling behind them, the goodbyes themselves made me smile. I don't quite know how to explain that I kind of thought they were a cheap thing to do but the actual DOING made me happy, but that's about the long and short of it.
  
• Donna's Wedding - YAY she gets a happy ending. And yay that the Doctor called her his best friend.
  
• Sara Jane Immediately Pinging To What's Going On - Nuff said.
  
• The Master Getting Revenge - yes, Rassilon, SUCK COMPLETELY RANDOM LIGHTNING BLASTS; that's what you get for ruining a child's psyche.

Things That Made me WTF

• The Master Clones - WHY DID THEY ALL LISTEN TO HIM? Okay, see, there were two options for having a world full of Master. 1. they're a hive mind and that's why they all went along with it. If this is so, talking is completely unnecessary. The other option is 2. you have 6 billion Masters and all of them want to be the Master of All. Further, if there was a machine that could 'heal' someone and make them from a human into a Time Lord (like the Master did to 6 billion people), why didn't the Doctor use such a thing to make Donna a full Time Lord? Either way, epic fail.
  
• Gallifrey - WHY did it bring Gallifrey through there? How does that even make sense? It should have reappeared where it had come from. It was a TIMELOCK. It shouldn't have done anything with space. And if the hole in the Timelock was right there on Earth, it shouldn't have just reappeared. It should have been like a Stargate. That whole thing was just silly. And it was entirely unnecessary to put the Earth in peril when the whole point anyway was 'ZOMG FILLED WITH HORRORS'.
  
• ZOMG FILLED WITH HORRORS - ...WHY. Look, I know it's war and war is terrible and brutal, but WHY. The war was against the Daleks. The Daleks? Aren't exactly a complex enemy. They are efficient, they are ruthless, they are destruction, but they aren't a complex enemy. They don't NEED horrors. The only way you can beat them is guile or strength. You can't horrify them, you can't scare them, nothing. Filled with horrors MAKES NO BLOODY SENSE.
  
• Rassilon - really? REALLY FOLKS, REALLY? Did you forget that he was dead? And you know what, you know what? I could do it if you'd explained that they'd taken his memories from the Matrix or something and transplanted them into another Time Lord who sacrificed his life to give Gallifrey a strong leader during the war. Or maybe some Time Lord father had Big Plans. Either way, EXPLANATIONS ARE YOUR FRIEND. You don't plop that on an audience with nothing. And you know what, I was willing to go with you on the Visionary given the whole thing with the Pythia in Gallifrey's past... but if you have RASSILON sitting there, that doesn't WORK. Rassilon was AGAINST mysticism. She might have been allowed on the council because Time Lords like Tradition, but there should have been SOMETHING, man. And the Pissy Pissy Lord President Smash schpiel? WTF, man. WTF. The High Council can overpower the Lord President in times of emergency. That's even in the TV show. Come on.
  
• Silly Costume Fail - why was the entire council in Prydonian colors? THERE ARE OTHER HOUSES, BBC. Come ON.
  
• Lack of Time Lords return - I like the Time Lords. I like the balance they provide. I like that they're there to check the Doctor. I like that they question him and that he has to consider them. It gives him more limitations. And I like the Time Lords popping in and causing trouble/plot. I'm sad they don't get to come back. I am hoping that Moffat will pull another plothole out of his butt to get them back at some point. If RTD could do it, so can he.
  
• Lack of Rani - ...I'm hoping she shows up in the next season just to ask 'Gallifrey. Back for about ten minutes. EXPLAIN, Doctor.'

Things that I flat-out Hated

• Donna - was completely underused. And pretty much just held as a threat at various points to racket up the tension. I missed Donna and seeing her as a plot puppet aggravated me.
  
• The Doctor Whinging - some people have said the Doctor doesn't dither. I disagree. Some people have said the Doctor doesn't whine. I AGREE. He'll complain and he'll bitch, but some of Ten's swansong was just a bit much. I can give him a little more slack considering he just stopped the return of Gallifrey and lost his best frenemy and all that, so he's stressed, but the whole extended 'and now I have to go and SAAAVE you and DIE because of it' bit just made me wince. Wailing and flailing I could have dealt with, bitching and moaning, but making Wilf feel like shit because you're going to choose to save him kind of made me want to smack the Doctor.
  
• The Plot - was terribly contrived. See, the thing is? I think that the character work (other than the couple of things I've pointed out) was brilliant. Great stuff. But the plot itself? It was reliant on so many random ass factors, etc. etc. It just hung together BARELY and it could have been done better. I think that the ideas for the whole thing were great, but the execution were 'just repeat to yourself it's just a show, you should really just relax' in detail.

Overview
Overall, I liked it. I liked it as an episode, as a part of the story, and as a send off. I'm ridiculously excited for the new season, I can't wait to see the new Doctor in action, and I really want to know what Moffat's cooking up. Worth watching (whereas I think the first part is mostly just worth a summary paragraph), the second part redeemed the first (somewhat) and was definitely a good time to watch. All in all, it was RTD at his RTDiest. That's not necessarily a good or a bad thing, but I wasn't surprised in respect to what I liked (character stuff) and what I hated (plot and Doctor Who continuity fail).

Totally up for discussion if anyone wants to babble with me.