A Doctor Who End of Time - Part Two review...
Caution, I ramble on a bit...okay, a lot.
RTD's take of the Doctor Who in the past has always been able to made me feel something. Whether it was heartbreak as in The Fires of Pompeii, uneasiness as in Midnight, nostalgia for School Reunion or fear as in Blink.
If the last episode left me thinking, "What the devil was that?" This one had me going, "What was the point of that?"
In the past, I may have complained about how RTD refuses to use any scientific research in his writings and relies too much on magic for a sci-fi show. Or how his resolutions never make any sense in light of how the mystery should have gone. (Like Shirley Bassey turning out to be a duck as I wrote in End of Time - Part One review.) But you know what? Good or bad, those episodes were always cracktastic. So, out there that even if they made absolutely no sense at least they were fun. Like someone telling you that you were going to eat a seven course meal but it turned out every course was actually a different desert. Sure, you were hoping for maybe some pasta or a steak. Something meaty that you could chew over but, hey, a molten chocolate cake served with summer berries and whipped cream can be just as tasty.
But this episode reminded me of a quote from RTD's book, Doctor Who: A Writer's Tale, in reference to his way of writing scripts;
"There's little physical evidence of the script process to show you. No notes. Nothing. I think, and think, and think...and by the time I come to write, a lot has been decided."
To this I say, sir, it shows.
That is, this episode was nothing like a slice of cake. It wasn't even a plain sugar cookie. It was barely anything. A Tic Tac.
Now almost everything we were shown in the last episode, not even the last episode, but the entire new series that was supposed to be tied to this episode, showed to be lacking any point.
Why have the Time Lady even talk to Wilf if you were never going to show what's her relationship to Wilf or the Doctor? How did she even know that the Doctor was going to die if she had been Time Locked with the rest of the Time Lords? If she had seen it because she had been to future then she would have seen that the Doctor had regenerated and was fine. So, why try to save the Doctor? And how the devil did she even talk to Wilf in the first place if she was Time Locked? Again, if that was her future self that some how found herself freed from the Time Locked prison, why did she even bother to talk to Wilf? Why did she not warn the Doctor, himself?
It doesn't make any sense. There was no point to her! None. RTD did not even bother to give her a name.
And it did not make any sense for Wilf to ask the Doctor in the end, "Who was she?" in reference to the Time Lady because the Doctor never saw Wilf and her talking and Wilf never mentioned to the Doctor before that he had even talked to the woman.
What was the point of having The Master take over the planet if he did nothing with it other than hunting down Donna? And why even have Donna remember anything if you are going to relock her memories a minute later?
Then to have the Master disappear all together after the Doctor blew up the machine and sent the Time Lords back, what was that about? Someone pointed out to me that he was time locked too. But that doesn't make any sense. Why was he the only one to be sucked in with the Time Lords? The Doctor was standing just as close to the portal as the Master. Besides why would the Master sacrifice himself when he has never shown any bravery or selflessness ever? He may be a coward but he's a survivor. He ran away from the war to live. Why would he shove himself right back in it? If the Master is still running around, God knows where, why have the Doctor busy going down memory lane? Shouldn't the Doctor be running after the Master?
Then there was the dialog. RTD usually has a knack for writing decent dialog but in this case it was just so heavy handed and cliche that I couldn't help but crack up at many parts because it sounded like lyrics to a bad John Mayer's song;
The Doctor's ballad to the Master;
You could be so much more
You could be beautiful
With a mind like that
We could travel the stars
It would be my honor
Because you don't need
to own the universe just to see it
Have the privilege of seeing
time and space
That's ownership enough
(cut to guitar solo)
And then for other parts I couldn't help but do Rocky Horror Picture shout outs just to keep my eyes from popping out of their sockets because they were rolling so much;
(The Master talking to a strapped down in a chair Doctor.)
MASTER: Would it stop then? The noise in my head.
DOCTOR: I can help.
MASTER: I don't know what I would be without that noise.
ME: Sane.
DOCTOR: I wonder what I'd be without you.
ME: Unstrapped.
The thing that ticked me off the most was the complete and utter waste of the Time Lords and their Time War back story. Why have the Doctor morn them for all of these years when he was in actuality horrified and in loathing of them to the point that he was willing to take a gun and commit homicide? Not to mention it goes against what the Doctor has said in the past about the fate of the Time Lords. In "Dalek" the Doctor said it was the Daleks who destroyed his home and people. So, there shouldn't be planet to Time Lock. In fact, the 9th Doctor said, "Oh, Rose. They're all dead." And that was a honest confession. So, why make them not be dead but just locked up? Heck, he said the same thing only two episodes ago in "The Waters of Mars". The Time Lords are dead. Not locked up. Dead. You took the tragedy of the Time Lords and stomped all over it with steel toed boots. The fact that the Doctor is not a survivor but a jailer changes his whole story. He shouldn't have shown any of the survivor's guilt that he has had in the last five years. When was the last time you have heard of a corrections officer crying over his prisoners even if the prisons are of the same species and culture as him? And if his back story is a lie then how can we take anything else in this show seriously?
This story line doesn't make any sense. It is not even a cop out, an easy and sloppy way to tell of the Time War. No, to Time Lock the Time Lords is simply a slap in the face to everyone who invested in the new Who story line.
Not to mention, RTD used the phrase "Time Locked" wrong. The Time Lords aren't Time Locked. They are Space Locked. Shoved away from everyone in their own little cubby hole dimension. If they were Time Locked they wouldn't be able to move at all. They would be suspended in time. Never to move forward or backward. But since they talked about the past, present and future, with them sending the drum beat to the Master in the past in order to escape now before what the seer had said unfolded, means that they were indeed moving through time. Only not through space.
The only good thing I can say about this is that this is New Doctor Who. Back stories and story lines change all the time as proven with the Time Lords' one. I hope Moffat is smart enough to rewrite this rubbish for something more deserving. And, at least, turn the Doctor back into a survivor and not a jailer.
I wish I could say that at least I liked the "This is your Life" run through of the 10th Doctor's greatest hits. But I found him going through time to check out Martha, Donna, Rose and the others to be as schmaltzy as it comes. I know this was done for Tennant's sake but it felt all wrong for the Doctor Who cannon. Why couldn't the Doctor see these people again? When 9 changed into 10, the Doctor was still the same as he had put it. Well, with better hair. To have him go all weepy about changing was so un-Doctorish that I wanted to kick the television. There were a million other ways to handle Tennant's leaving. Ways that would have made sense. For RTD to claim to be a Doctor Who fanboy, why doesn't he have the Doctor do Doctor Who things?
The only thing that I liked in this episode and that made me smile was that he referred to Donna as his, "best friend." ("You'd think I'd leave my best friend without a defense mechanism?") He never referred this to Martha or Rose. They were called companions or "plus one". And I am sure the Doctor thought of them as friends but not "best friends." Which made the fact that the Doctor had to let her go for her own safety that much more painful.
But other than that, I want the sixth series NOW to get this RTD taste out of my mouth.
Still, this episode did manage to inspire me to draw a comic that sums up my feelings for The End of Time;
Donna does indeed have a crush on Jack.
RTD's take of the Doctor Who in the past has always been able to made me feel something. Whether it was heartbreak as in The Fires of Pompeii, uneasiness as in Midnight, nostalgia for School Reunion or fear as in Blink.
If the last episode left me thinking, "What the devil was that?" This one had me going, "What was the point of that?"
In the past, I may have complained about how RTD refuses to use any scientific research in his writings and relies too much on magic for a sci-fi show. Or how his resolutions never make any sense in light of how the mystery should have gone. (Like Shirley Bassey turning out to be a duck as I wrote in End of Time - Part One review.) But you know what? Good or bad, those episodes were always cracktastic. So, out there that even if they made absolutely no sense at least they were fun. Like someone telling you that you were going to eat a seven course meal but it turned out every course was actually a different desert. Sure, you were hoping for maybe some pasta or a steak. Something meaty that you could chew over but, hey, a molten chocolate cake served with summer berries and whipped cream can be just as tasty.
But this episode reminded me of a quote from RTD's book, Doctor Who: A Writer's Tale, in reference to his way of writing scripts;
"There's little physical evidence of the script process to show you. No notes. Nothing. I think, and think, and think...and by the time I come to write, a lot has been decided."
To this I say, sir, it shows.
That is, this episode was nothing like a slice of cake. It wasn't even a plain sugar cookie. It was barely anything. A Tic Tac.
Now almost everything we were shown in the last episode, not even the last episode, but the entire new series that was supposed to be tied to this episode, showed to be lacking any point.
Why have the Time Lady even talk to Wilf if you were never going to show what's her relationship to Wilf or the Doctor? How did she even know that the Doctor was going to die if she had been Time Locked with the rest of the Time Lords? If she had seen it because she had been to future then she would have seen that the Doctor had regenerated and was fine. So, why try to save the Doctor? And how the devil did she even talk to Wilf in the first place if she was Time Locked? Again, if that was her future self that some how found herself freed from the Time Locked prison, why did she even bother to talk to Wilf? Why did she not warn the Doctor, himself?
It doesn't make any sense. There was no point to her! None. RTD did not even bother to give her a name.
And it did not make any sense for Wilf to ask the Doctor in the end, "Who was she?" in reference to the Time Lady because the Doctor never saw Wilf and her talking and Wilf never mentioned to the Doctor before that he had even talked to the woman.
What was the point of having The Master take over the planet if he did nothing with it other than hunting down Donna? And why even have Donna remember anything if you are going to relock her memories a minute later?
Then to have the Master disappear all together after the Doctor blew up the machine and sent the Time Lords back, what was that about? Someone pointed out to me that he was time locked too. But that doesn't make any sense. Why was he the only one to be sucked in with the Time Lords? The Doctor was standing just as close to the portal as the Master. Besides why would the Master sacrifice himself when he has never shown any bravery or selflessness ever? He may be a coward but he's a survivor. He ran away from the war to live. Why would he shove himself right back in it? If the Master is still running around, God knows where, why have the Doctor busy going down memory lane? Shouldn't the Doctor be running after the Master?
Then there was the dialog. RTD usually has a knack for writing decent dialog but in this case it was just so heavy handed and cliche that I couldn't help but crack up at many parts because it sounded like lyrics to a bad John Mayer's song;
The Doctor's ballad to the Master;
You could be so much more
You could be beautiful
With a mind like that
We could travel the stars
It would be my honor
Because you don't need
to own the universe just to see it
Have the privilege of seeing
time and space
That's ownership enough
(cut to guitar solo)
And then for other parts I couldn't help but do Rocky Horror Picture shout outs just to keep my eyes from popping out of their sockets because they were rolling so much;
(The Master talking to a strapped down in a chair Doctor.)
MASTER: Would it stop then? The noise in my head.
DOCTOR: I can help.
MASTER: I don't know what I would be without that noise.
ME: Sane.
DOCTOR: I wonder what I'd be without you.
ME: Unstrapped.
The thing that ticked me off the most was the complete and utter waste of the Time Lords and their Time War back story. Why have the Doctor morn them for all of these years when he was in actuality horrified and in loathing of them to the point that he was willing to take a gun and commit homicide? Not to mention it goes against what the Doctor has said in the past about the fate of the Time Lords. In "Dalek" the Doctor said it was the Daleks who destroyed his home and people. So, there shouldn't be planet to Time Lock. In fact, the 9th Doctor said, "Oh, Rose. They're all dead." And that was a honest confession. So, why make them not be dead but just locked up? Heck, he said the same thing only two episodes ago in "The Waters of Mars". The Time Lords are dead. Not locked up. Dead. You took the tragedy of the Time Lords and stomped all over it with steel toed boots. The fact that the Doctor is not a survivor but a jailer changes his whole story. He shouldn't have shown any of the survivor's guilt that he has had in the last five years. When was the last time you have heard of a corrections officer crying over his prisoners even if the prisons are of the same species and culture as him? And if his back story is a lie then how can we take anything else in this show seriously?
This story line doesn't make any sense. It is not even a cop out, an easy and sloppy way to tell of the Time War. No, to Time Lock the Time Lords is simply a slap in the face to everyone who invested in the new Who story line.
Not to mention, RTD used the phrase "Time Locked" wrong. The Time Lords aren't Time Locked. They are Space Locked. Shoved away from everyone in their own little cubby hole dimension. If they were Time Locked they wouldn't be able to move at all. They would be suspended in time. Never to move forward or backward. But since they talked about the past, present and future, with them sending the drum beat to the Master in the past in order to escape now before what the seer had said unfolded, means that they were indeed moving through time. Only not through space.
The only good thing I can say about this is that this is New Doctor Who. Back stories and story lines change all the time as proven with the Time Lords' one. I hope Moffat is smart enough to rewrite this rubbish for something more deserving. And, at least, turn the Doctor back into a survivor and not a jailer.
I wish I could say that at least I liked the "This is your Life" run through of the 10th Doctor's greatest hits. But I found him going through time to check out Martha, Donna, Rose and the others to be as schmaltzy as it comes. I know this was done for Tennant's sake but it felt all wrong for the Doctor Who cannon. Why couldn't the Doctor see these people again? When 9 changed into 10, the Doctor was still the same as he had put it. Well, with better hair. To have him go all weepy about changing was so un-Doctorish that I wanted to kick the television. There were a million other ways to handle Tennant's leaving. Ways that would have made sense. For RTD to claim to be a Doctor Who fanboy, why doesn't he have the Doctor do Doctor Who things?
The only thing that I liked in this episode and that made me smile was that he referred to Donna as his, "best friend." ("You'd think I'd leave my best friend without a defense mechanism?") He never referred this to Martha or Rose. They were called companions or "plus one". And I am sure the Doctor thought of them as friends but not "best friends." Which made the fact that the Doctor had to let her go for her own safety that much more painful.
But other than that, I want the sixth series NOW to get this RTD taste out of my mouth.
Still, this episode did manage to inspire me to draw a comic that sums up my feelings for The End of Time;
Donna does indeed have a crush on Jack.