(Image courtesy the BBC)
Russell. Russell. Russell Russell Russell.
You just couldn’t help yourself, could you? I bet it’s the same with a box of chocolates: you can’t limit yourself to just one. Pretty soon, the whole box is empty and you’re frustrated that there’ll be no chocolate tomorrow.
Ah, well. It’s been a trip, though. Thank you. Thank you for the memories. Thank you for the highlights. And, most of all, and I cannot stress this enough, thank you for bringing back Doctor Who and making it cool again.
(At this point my wife Erin says, “Again?!”)
The two-part Doctor Who holiday special, The End of Time, is a rollicking adventure that promises thrills and tears, but ultimately falls short of what one would have hoped for something that was, after all, not only the finale of David Tennant’s tenth Doctor, but Russell T. Davies tenure as producer of the revived Doctor Who.
Well, that’s my non-spoilery portion of this review out of the way. Now I have to talk about this story in depth. If you haven’t seen it, you need to turn away, now.
The five three specials we’ve had since Christmas 2008 have been leading to this moment. Sort of. The Doctor, who has run companionless for who knows how many years, is aging into this incarnation. The lack of control from both his friends, and the fact he is now the last Time Lord in the universe, has brought him to the brink of disaster. And somehow all of this is connected with the fact that events are brewing which will bring about his imminent regeneration. But what? But what?
Defiant to the last, the Doctor has ignored an obvious summons by the Ood, choosing instead to roam the universe some more and have a little fun before he returns to his responsibilities. We see him land on the planet of the Ood, wearing a cowboy hat and a lei, the very model of a bachelor afraid of his upcoming nuptials.
But his defiance has been his undoing. Arriving on the planet of the Ood, he sees an ascendant civilization that’s rising too fast. Something is messing about with history, and the Ood themselves sense it. After giving the Doctor a suitably cryptic set of mental images, including one of a man who the Doctor knows should be dead but is not, they alert the Doctor to the fact that events are in progress as we speak, and that time machine or no time machine, if the Doctor doesn’t head back to present day Earth toot suite, he’s going to be too late to stop the disaster. The Doctor runs, but already steps take place which resurrect the Master from his fiery grave… though fortunately Lucy Saxon is prepared in her own way to disrupt her former husband’s homecoming.
John Simm makes a welcome return as the Master. His new look, which seemed so strange in the trailers, is explained away in the narrative, and suits him given his new role. And John Simm is, again, one of the strongest elements of the episode. Writer Russell T. Davies sets up a good structure: the Master has returned, albeit in a botched form. He now has super-powers and a desperate need to consume. Skulking in the shadows, he stumbles upon a mysterious alien device that’s about to be misused by some mysterious rich man and makes use of it so that all hell breaks loose.
Actually, that’s only a fair structure. Parts of it sound silly (the Master with superpowers?), and a lot of the plot is so obviously roughed in, you can practically see the girders poking out through the drywall. But it holds together. It doesn’t contradict itself. And, most importantly, John Simm sells it. He makes you believe it. John Simms walks the fine line of chewing a hamburger (and a whole turkey) in a way that makes you stare in horror, while stopping just short of chewing the scenery. In the hands of a lesser actor, these moments would have seemed silly, but I’m beginning to think that John Simm could make reading a phone book seem like an act of insanity.
John Simm and David Tennant also pick up where they left off after The Sound of Drums, hinting at depth in their longstanding relationship, and making us feel almost sorry for the evil man. The two actors manage to recapture that sense that the Doctor and the Master are friends and enemies, and John Simm especially gives us the sense that, while the Master’s greatest desire is to snuff out the Doctor, his greatest fear is that, someday, he might succeed.
And speaking of excellent actors, Bernard Cribbins adds his share with his welcome return as Donna’s grandfather, Wilfred Mott. Mott, having taken a page from Donna’s book, has marshalled the resources of his seniors’ brigade to find the Doctor and beg him to restore Donna’s memory. Again, Cribbins practically steals the show, as the meek old man dwarfed by the events around him, but who nonetheless stands up and rises well above his puny limitations.
Unfortunately, while the script that Russell T. Davies provides is largely competent, and director Euros Lyn knows enough to give David, John and Bernard plenty of room to do their thing, The End of Time is marred by several out-of-tune elements which hamper one’s enjoyment of the story. If these elements had been removed or reworked, the experience would have been a lot more enjoyable, and given David Tennant the send off he deserved. Sadly, they contributed to a rather flawed feel to the production.
Consider the sudden ‘appearance’ by President Obama in the narrative. In a series that has not mentioned a living and current world leader in the past five years, this was a jolt. And why was he placed there? Obama was a largely gratuitous element and an unwelcome intrusion of the real world into the alternate history that Russell has been building since he relaunched the series. They could have cut him, or installed a fictional character, and the story wouldn’t have changed. Indeed, fewer people would have been shaken from their suspension of disbelief.
Then there’s the character of Naismith and his daughter. Even though they bring about the event which pitches the story into the cliffhanger, and even though I can’t complain about their acting abilities, they are so obviously plot puppets that you can practically see the hooks from which Russell took them down off his wall. I mean, who are they? Why are they here? How did they find the technology, and just why is Naismith so desperate to give his daughter immortality? (Putting her in a wheelchair and hooking her up to an IV drip might have helped) I know that, in the end, you don’t really need to know the answer to these questions as they’re not what the story is about, but it’s a shame that Russell has to be so obvious as to their purpose in this story. It’s a shame he couldn’t have taken the time to beef up their story and given us some thematic resonance to the Doctor’s struggle with the Master, or even the Time Lords’ refusal to die.
Then there is the transformation of the entire human race into genetic copies of the Master. A horrifying idea, to be sure, but one that is presaged by a special effect that shall hereafter be referred to as THE BOBBLEHEADS OF DOOM!
Here, let me try that again: the BOBBLEHEADS of DOOOOOOOOOOM!
There. That’s better.
To explain, when the people transformed, thanks to the mysterious machine the Naismiths’ have found and seek to use to try to cure young Miss Naismith of her mortality, people’s heads start shaking at supersonic speeds, until the change is complete, and suddenly you have John Simm standing in a dress. That last part is actually quite effective. The bobblehead effect was not.
The bobblehead effect is especially frustrating, because not only is it impossible to resist the temptation to put your finger to your lips and go bubalebubalebub while this effect goes on, I can’t help but notice that they’ve done this sort of thing before, and better. The concept of a alien medical machine curing an individual and copying that ‘cure’ to the rest of the species is simply another take on the Chula medical ship in Stephen Moffat’s classic story, The Empty Child, and everybody remembers the nightmare-inducing on-screen change that afflicted Dr. Constantine, surely?
That the first transformation in The End of Time works as well as it does is largely due again to the acting that John Simm does to sell it after the fact. But can you imagine what could have happened if we had married the horror of The Empty Child’s transformation with the insanity of John Simm afterwards? Instead of Donna’s mother and the much abused American News Network anchor shaking their heads wildly, we could have had people around the world acting as Wilfred Mott was doing, coughing, going “that face!” (cough) “What’s happening to me?” (cough! cough!) “Gaaaaaaaaaaak!” (pop!) Followed by John Simm shouting “HOW ARE YA!!!”
That would have been creepy, and insane.
More than one person has noted, on Twitter and elsewhere, that in the last five minutes, the first part of The End of Time got really, really silly thanks to the bobblehead scene, only to be pulled back into cool by the arrival of the Time Lords. But that’s Russell T. Davies for you. He knows what is cool, and by golly he shoots for the moon. It’s just that sometimes he goes too far. The bulk of the first part features the intrusive narration of Timothy Dalton as the president of the Time Lords. He is speaking words that are overwritten drivel, but it largely works because (a) that’s how Time Lords often talk and (b), it’s Timothy Dalton. And thanks to Dalton, to Davies and to Lyn, you don’t notice the fact that the Time Lords don’t actually do anything. And yet the threat posed by five Time Lords just standing there feels more overt than an entire computer-generated army of Daleks. And somehow Davies is able to create a compelling climax involving five Time Lords, the Master, and David Tennant’s Doctor standing with a gun, uncertain of who to shoot.
But The End of Time isn’t just David Tennant’s good-bye, it’s Russell T. Davies’ as well, and Russell is the first producer of Doctor Who to have had the opportunity to set the terms of his departure. Seriously. John Nathan-Turner had the show cancelled from under him. Graham Williams and Phillip Hinchcliffe both left sooner than they themselves had expected. Barry Letts and Derrick Sherwin were both occupied with setting up a new Doctor and a new formula for the next guy to follow. All that Stephen Moffat did with respect to Russell T. Davies here was to tell him where to park the TARDIS.
So, for a producer who is as much of a fan of the program as Russell T. Davies is, perhaps we could forgive him this self-indulgence. Fair enough, I’ve forgiven him. But I still have to note that he undercut the dramatic heart of his story with the last ten minutes of his production.
I predicted that Wilfred Mott would be the one who knocked four times, but it was still a brilliant moment. That the Doctor could survive a grand final confrontation with the Master, that he could face down the re-opening of the Time War and the fearsome might of Rassilon himself, only to be forced to sacrifice himself to save an old man who’d gotten himself stuck in a closet, is Doctor Who through and through. And David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins act their socks off in this scene as the Doctor rails at, but finally accepts the choice that he knows he has to make, even though he knows it will cost him his own life.
That’s the moment. That’s the key component of the Doctor’s character laid bare. That’s what makes him special. It’s brilliant, and it shows that, fundamentally, Russell T. Davies gets it. He gets the character of the Doctor. And if Wilfred Mott had held the Doctor while the Doctor died and regenerated, I guarantee you that there wouldn’t have been a dry eye in the United Kingdom. But Russell had to have his own goodbye, his own act of self indulgence. In his mind, each of the companions that have graced our screens these past five years needed to get their due.
Fair enough, those scenes were sweet, but unfortunately Russell undercuts himself again. The tone set by Martha and Mickey’s cameos could have worked if applied throughout: the companions seeing the tenth Doctor in the distance, staring forlornly, knowing that this was goodbye. The cameo by Sarah and Luke matched this, setting up the beginnings of a theme… until Jack had to show up in a bar laden with as many references of the past five years that can be jammed into a suitcase. It’s fun. It’s jaunty. It’s completely out of tune with the two scenes that have come before. Boo!
Donna’s scene is nice, although the plot makes an almost unwelcome intrusion here into a series of goodbyes that should be done with quickly (how are we going to miss you, Russell, if you don’t leave), and things only really save themselves when we come back to Rose.
But this is Russell T. Davies in a nutshell. This is a man who can’t help himself, who doesn’t understand the meaning of ‘less is more’. This is a man who understands much about writing shows which appeal to their audience. He knows how to make viewers feel, and he’s fun and brilliant in his own way, and without him, Doctor Who would never have returned from the dead. But because he doesn’t know when to stop himself, the finale, like some of his previous productions, simply failed to live up to its potential. It tried too hard. It lingered too long. It missed its opportunity to be truly special.
That’s okay, though. It’s only a television show. And The End of Time reminds us that we’ve had some wonderful, wonderful moments these past five years. And, better yet, it’s not over. Oh, no. Now somebody else gets a turn, and we shall see what we shall see.
January 6, 2010 12:38 AM | Reply
“I predicted that Wilfred Mott would be the one who knocked four times …”
Yes, but you also thought Gramps was the Watcher. ;)
This is a very fair review of the experience. Me, I had a little drinking game by taking a slug of hard cider every time there was an emo or fanwank moment. I chugged a whole bottle when we got to the Rassilon reveal … and it was the drunkest I’ve ever been. (I’m not a huge drinker!) Luckily, all I needed was a lie-down and I was better again.
While I appreciate RTD for bringing the series back and making it a super-hit, I still contend that he finished off like Tennant’s Doctor: No one was willing or able to stop him when it was necessary.
But I will say this about “The End of Time”: It was not nearly as bad as “Last of the Time Lords.” That episode nearly made me swear off “Doctor Who” for good.
January 6, 2010 1:36 AM | Reply
Fair enough, James. I can’t argue, though I think the sendoff worked more for me than you. Russell is prone to weak choices, rather than bad ones. But that’s what’s so aggravating, isn’t it? With just a little tinkering, it’s so much stronger. Maybe something as simple as leading with the Captain Jack bit, or toning the music down, or…something.
But a question occurred to me: do you think it would have worked better as a three parter? A little more room for Naismith and the throwaway aliens, and (as the Onion AV club put it) more room for Timothy Dalton et al to do something more than just look menacing, and then the farewell doesn’t seem so disproportionately long.
January 6, 2010 6:56 AM | Reply
That’s much how I felt about the story, but you didn’t mention the thing that really bothered me, which was the general lack of dignity in the Doctor’s attitude to his own death. Contrast “The Caves of Androzani,” in which the Doctor visibly feels the fear, but bravely sacrifices himself for some insignificant human anyway, with Tennant ranting for five minutes about how he doesn’t want to sacrifice himself for Wilf, and then later whimpering “I don’t want to die”. We’d had the cafe scene, which made it pretty clear how frightened he was without making him look like a coward; we didn’t need two other scenes where he whines about it. It would have been much more dignified to have had him realise what he had to do, perhaps hesitate slightly to remind us how frightened he was, and then square up to the task.
January 6, 2010 8:09 AM | Reply
Hiho,
It did seem like part of the story was missing, didn’t it? There was setup about all kinds of supporting characters such as the Naismiths that never played out. It left me wondering if there was a secondary plotline that was dropped in order to give Tennant and Simms more on-screen time together.
The Obama thing, to me, seemed to be there entirely just to give The Master access to a good chunk of the world’s missiles. So the “why” seemed clear to me; the “why couldn’t it have been done better”, however, was definitely missing. :) It also seemed kind of odd that from the time of possession to the time of release, Obama-Master just stood at his podium. Which made me wonder a bit about the details of the Master possessing every single person on the planet. What did every Master do? Did small children rip out of their clothing as they became full-sized masters, or were they little Masters? (The “inch too tall” thing seems to imply the answer to that!) And what happened to pregnant women and their fetuses? People who were missing limbs? People who were having sex when they got possessed? The “dead person” question that Wilf asked was just one of a million questions that could be asked about that whole process. And yeah, I have to agree, there had to be a better way to do it than have the Bobble-Master effect!
I do have to disagree with you somewhat about the last ten minutes though. I think that the tone of each of his encounters perfectly suited his relationship with the person he was “saying goodbye” to in each scene. His Jack moment was fun and jaunty exactly because it reflected his relationship with Jack. But the look they gave was still meaningful, within the context of how they related to each other. Any other way of doing it, to me, would have seemed less “true” to their relationship. Plus, I think the end would have ended up feeling untrue and less interesting if every encounter had the exact same tone.
I also have to disagree with Fiona’s interpretation of Ten’s reaction to his own death. She saw it as cowardice and whimpering. My interpretation was that the Doctor somehow felt that this particular version of himself had a high potential to do far greater things, and he didn’t want to let go of this part of himself. I didn’t see “fear” as much as “regret” and “sorrow”…
In the end, I think I ended up enjoying The End of Time a bit more that you did. I think it worked, it just took a couple of bad shortcuts that prevented it from working “better”. I should add that the one single thing that almost ended up killing it for me was something you didn’t address in your review: “The Revelation Of Rassilon”. It made absolutely no sense, added nothing (except confusion and fanwankery) to the story, and was then left unexplained. Ick.
Oh, one last thought: You said that “Russell is the first producer of Doctor Who to have had the opportunity to set the terms of his departure”, but you only went back as far as Sherwin. Aren’t you forgetting, for example, Verity Lambert?
CU, Andrew
January 6, 2010 11:31 AM | Reply
Andrew, my little viewing group had similar questions about EVERYONE becoming the Master. Did babies suddenly have Master faces? And two people having sex changed and said, “Er … hello!” Awkward.
The Rassilon moment was quite confusing to the two folks with us who were fans mostly of the new series. They couldn’t understand why it was such a big deal. Now I suppose that if the Master was brought back for the Time War that Rassilon could be as well, but as James says, RTD just doesn’t know where to stop.
Another point not really addressed here: I thought the Doctor’s “mother” - and the fact that it’s never made 100% clear that’s who she is - worked very well for me. A little mystery is great, and it keeps people discussing the possibilities - even if the idea that it’s Susan, Romana or Donna(!) seem pretty ridiculous to me.
January 6, 2010 11:41 AM | Reply
To Andrew: it’s possible that Rassilon is an adopted name, similar to kings and popes. Otherwise, if the Time Lords were desperate enough during the Time War to resurrect the Master, then why not Rassilon when things got really bad?
Though, in addition to the identity of the mysterious woman, it felt like a final “Ha ha! Try to retcon that one!” challenge from RTD to the fans. :)
To James: it’s not like the final goodbye to/from the companions is unprecented. RTD was just giving his own spin to the flashbacks/visits in Logopolis and Caves. But I agree it would have been far more effective and dramatic had the Doctor died in Wilfred’s arms and regenerated (that’s what I was expecting). Or had they squeezed in just the final visit to Rose.
To Fiona: I took the tenth Doctor’s final line to be a nod to Tennant himself. He didn’t want to leave, but he didn’t want to outstay his welcome either. As for dignity, were talking about someone who married Elizabeth I on a whim and ran. ;)
January 6, 2010 12:00 PM | Reply
I guess it’s left to me to be the voice of real dislike for the finale.
James touched on my big problem with his comment that RTD “just couldn’t help himself.” The whole thing cried out for someone with the authority to rein Russell in, to make him go back and do a second or third or nth draft on the script, to close up at least some of the hugely gaping plot holes and insane gaps of logic, to pare down the story and remove some of the loose ends and just generally have some bloody self control in his writing.
OK, to specifics. First issue: either The Master’s Master Race!, or The Return of the Time Lords! was enough on its own for a huge two part story and as the sendoff for RTD and David Tennant. Both of them together, combined with an endless series of endings that made “Return of the King” seem short in comparison, was much too much.
Second issue: riduculous, lazy handwaving to resolve huge, dramatic plot issues. Six billion people have been turned into closes of the Master? Timothy Dalton reverses it in two seconds flat. That was terrible, awful, and worst of all dishonest writing. There was much more of that, too, all throughout both parts.
Third issue: setups that were never paid off, even a little bit. Donna, anybody? She’ll die instandly if she remembers the Doctor. Part one ends with her starting to remember, and freaking out. And then, “Oh, the Doctor put some mental defense in her head so she actually wouldn’t die after all, plus she can zap some Master clones while she’s at it”. And thenshe disappears until the end. What a horrible waste, and the character of Donna deserved SO much better.
Fourth issue: the whole damn thing made no sense at all!
Fifth issue: it could EASILY have been so much better. All the pieces were there. Any of the dropped or misused elements could have in themselves made a great story. Before the shows aired, there was a lot of speculation about the book signing scenes, and how they might relate to Donna (or the Master). So much potential there. And entirely wasted!
I’m so frustrated. It should have been great. If Russell had any self control at all, or someone to force him to think just a little bit instead of throwing every idea in his head onto the screen without any regard for plot or logic or sense…it could have been fantastic. And it wasn’t even close.
What a waste.
January 6, 2010 3:23 PM | Reply
Regarding the Rassilon name drop: I didn’t comment on it because, for me, it was a pretty small thing and, really, the best way IMO to insert a nice little nugget for the fans while allowing the story to keep flowing for those who would not get the reference.
Is Timothy Dalton Rassilon? Well, why not? My take on things is that the Time War so mucked up history that the founder of the Time Lords himself was able to ascend to power and lead Gallifrey against the Daleks. It was probably that decision that pushed the Doctor onto the path of looping the whole thing up and destroying the Daleks and Time Lords both.
And, as I said, it’s a name drop. For non-fans, their take could well be something like this: “Oh! So the guy’s name is Rassilon. That’s interesting… Um… why are all you fans rolling around the floor, pointing at the screen and foaming at the mouth?”
I was more frustrated with Russell’s refusal to provide us with even clues to the identity of the mysterious woman. Was she Susan? Was she Romana? Was she the Doctor’s mother? Wife? What? That was also a gift for the fans — something for us to speculate about endlessly, as the matter will never be resolved, but it’s introduced in the worst way. Everybody is now forced to ask who this woman is, considering that she provided a vital contribution to the climax, and now everybody is frustrated and angry that the answers aren’t provided.
January 6, 2010 4:42 PM | Reply
Apparently (so it’s said on the Television without Pity boards), according to one of the behind-the-scenes thingys (Doctor Who COnfidential, maybe?)even RTD isn’t sure who the woman in white is. Which makes it even more frustrating, and also lazy on Russell’s part. “Hey, it looks cool and it’ll rile up the fans, so why not!”
You know, I really do get that Russell’s writing is more about the big emo moments and Big Themes than about plot details. I understand that. I can live with plot holes and illogic and so forth in the service of character moments or Rusty trying to Say Something Important - I just don’t want to be beaten savagely over the head with them, and The End of Time crossed way over that line for me.
January 6, 2010 4:56 PM | Reply
Hiho,
Re: The mysterious Time Lord woman: I don’t know why so many people think it must be the Doctor’s mother. The Doctor’s mother is human. We know this because Eight said so, and the TVM is canon, so it MUST be true. :)
Re: Rassilon. I think that it’s exactly because it was made to be such a small thing that it annoyed me so. If Rassilon, having clearly previously been (in The Five Doctors) a) already kind of “ascended” into a non-corporeal form, and b) violently opposed to anybody seeking “IMMMM-Mortality”, is now suddenly alive, acting as the Last President of the Time Lords, screaming “I WILL NOT DIE!”, and in favour of destroying all of time just so he and his Time Lord Council can ascend to an immortal state… then I want it to be more than just a little thing. It’s a major event, treated as a throw-away name drop. Ick ick ick ick ick. I would have been less annoyed if he had been called “Borusa”.
CU, Andrew
January 7, 2010 12:14 AM | Reply
Hey, I wasn’t actually foaming. Raving, perhaps, but not foaming. ;)
Julie Gardner says the mystery woman is meant to be the Doctor’s mum, and I’m OK with that. On the other hand, I do appreciate that it’s not pounded into us by the end of the episode as so many other things were.
January 7, 2010 2:17 AM | Reply
Re: dignity,
Frustration at Wilf aside, I think it’s telling that his final complaints are entirely to himself once past the point of no return. The Doctor doesn’t allow or want his companions to see him like that. He holds it together until after he’s seen off Rose, dragged himself into the Tardis, and blasted off Earth. I found that part worked perfectly.
Have we ever seen a more human doctor than ten?
January 7, 2010 2:38 AM | Reply
Gee, Andrew, that lady certainly LOOKED human to me!
You’re right about the Rassilon thing being such a throwaway line just as he’s about to fade back into oblivion. I guess his evilness didn’t surprise me much after Big Finish pretty much did the same thing in the Eighth Doctor adventures - although they had more time to give his evilness a better explanation.
January 26, 2010 5:57 PM | Reply
Interesting. When the woman was revealed, my son, who has no history of Old Who asked me if that was his Mother. My first thought, and word was Romana.
Yes, RTD and Mrs Gardner have said that the Woman was his Mom. I am not really happy with that. His Mother! Really! I always enjoyed that the Doctors history was vague, no family that we know of. Now we have a reveal that his Mom is around, then its gone behind the Time Lock