Journey's End (3013/413)

[MasySyma]

I don't want the Doctor to show up in TW, maybe just to give Jack and crew some advice/guidance/more TARDIS coral to help them better control/manipulate the rift.

As for the teleport, we've already got working, apparently telepathic teleport technology [Project Indigo]. Taking away Jack's just makes it one-sided in favour of the would-be world-destroying UNIT. I'd also hope Jack's teleport has some kind of security lockout, so random people can't use it.They did! TW now has access to Dalek technology! I wonder if the Doctor took away the Dalek's remains, too.

I just think it'd downright stupid to neuter your friends' ability to defend themselves and others.

I can see your point. I suspect the Doctor is shutting the teleport down because Jack can use it to teleport in time as well as distance. He becomes a second Doctor of sorts, and the Doctor doesn't want Jack mucking up time lines. Project Indigo only let Martha get from London to Germany in our time, and even then, he asked her to get rid of Unit's weapons, which would likely include the teleportation pack.

[nx01a]

I loved how the teleporters were patterned after parachutes. I guess they were to be used only in emergency cases, not for a hop to the store and back.

The Doctor asked her to get rid of the ice cream kitchen appliance key. Besides, if she does leave UNIT, she won't get to keep the paraport / telechute [parachute + teleport].

Jack's proven his trustworthiness in terms of keeping the timeline unpolluted. He avoided the Doctor and Rose during his second time living in the 20th + 21st C AND by avoided TW in his third time doing it. Remember, he was a Time Agent; most likely not as versed in the intricacies of time travel as the Doctor, but definitely able to handle himself... apart from that whole nanogene thing. Still, I'm not sure about him being able to travel through time simply because, as you said, MasySyma, he'd be another Doctor and we've already got 3. Plotwise, it would also make TW's job with the rift too easy. Bouncing around the Earth, I have no problem with. The bad guy of the week can find a way to block it.

[Sealurk]

I loved how the teleporters were patterned after parachutes. I guess they were to be used only in emergency cases, not for a hop to the store and back.

The Doctor asked her to get rid of the ice cream kitchen appliance key. Besides, if she does leave UNIT, she won't get to keep the paraport / telechute [parachute + teleport].

Telechute - is that where you pull the ripcord and the chute deploys out of somebody else's pack?

But yes, I liked the design of Project Indigo, a clever and original variation on a sci-fi staple. But then that pretty much describes everything in Doctor Who.

Will Martha have any luck getting rid of the Osterhagen system? While her experience with the Doctor gives her opinion weight, will it be enough to make what remains of UNIT decide that the nukes have gotta go?

Actually, the question I want answered about the whole two part story is...will the Valiant be replaced? It might be ridiculous, it might look out of place, but there's just something about UNIT owning a huge hovering warship with alien WMDs.

[nx01a]

If I could green you, I would for that entire post.

I LOVE the fact that they have/had a SHIELD helicarrier! That's so cool! I was sad they didn't use the TW weapon in London or the similar one aboard the Valiant against the Dalek ships. That would have been great CGI.
It was partly designed by the Master, so it might take us mere humans a bit longer to rebuild, but I hope we do.

I doubt Martha has the clout to get them to change that system. She may be the one who had the Doctor's #, but now many people do. She's not the It Girl anymore; important, yes, but not vital. I actually agree with the whole 'blow up the planet if we're about to be plunged into mind-numbing horror out of space' thing, but that's just me. Of course, only needing 3 people to set it off is just screaming for misuse.

[Sealurk]

If I could green you, I would for that entire post.

That's perfectly alright - I'll just keep PMing you until you can...

I LOVE the fact that they have/had a SHIELD helicarrier! That's so cool! I was sad they didn't use the TW weapon in London or the similar one aboard the Valiant against the Dalek ships. That would have been great CGI.

It's by no means an original concept - Captain Scarlet's Cloudbase / Skybase, the SHIELD Helicarriers as you say, and probably a half dozen or more Animes, but I do think the Valiant was one of the best depictions of an airborne aircraft carrier.

And yeah, using the Torchwood weapon against the Dalek fleet would have been another clever tie-in to the rest of the series.

It was partly designed by the Master, so it might take us mere humans a bit longer to rebuild, but I hope we do.

I wonder if the Doctor will contribute to a successor...he seemed quite taken with it in The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky and he and UNIT go way back. Probably not, given it's got a frickin' huge alien beam weapon and it's a military vessel. "If I see one more gun" indeed.

I doubt Martha has the clout to get them to change that system. She may be the one who had the Doctor's #, but now many people do. She's not the It Girl anymore; important, yes, but not vital. I actually agree with the whole 'blow up the planet if we're about to be plunged into mind-numbing horror out of space' thing, but that's just me. Of course, only needing 3 people to set it off is just screaming for misuse.

And yes, the Osterhagen key is a great idea: from the viewer's p.o.v., it's so terminally, depressingly final it appeals to our dark and morbid sides (or is that just me?).

But there's more than just that...I thought it was excellent how Martha intends to use this thing that is supposed to end a world's inescapable torment and misery to instead do something incredibly noble - sacrifice her own world, her own species to save the universe.

Davros may have been right, that the Doctor turns people into weapons, but that isn't actually a bad thing. People who meet the Doctor become fighters and soldiers, yes, but an army can be a good thing. Soldiers are generally held in high estimation because they choose to fight for what they believe is right, they choose to contribute to a cause and they choose to lay down their lives, should the need arise, for such a cause. What the Doctor does is inspire people and give them a better reason for fighting.

So while the actions of the companions in Journey's End might be perceived as overly violent, the reason is always admirable.

[nx01a]

Er... mods... I'm being stalked!

I loved the montage of the dead. All those people who gave their lives in the service of the Doctor. And the people who continue to be willing to lay down their lives [and the lives of everyone they love] in service of something greater.

Martha following the Doctor's suicidal trend of giving the villain who'll obviously never back down a final chance to back down was, well, suicidal. It works for the Doctor because he's the Doctor. On the other hand, Martha probably realized that something usually interrupts the Doctor before he goes genocidal and things go in a better direction [though not for the Sontarans].
I don't watch Sarah Jane's adventures, so I know nothing of this warp star, but Jack using a piece of jewelery as a weapon of mass destruction is somehow fitting.

[SGalisa]

speaking of fates, they never did explain why it was that the Doctor and Donna kept getting drawn together, did they? (although, really, she was trying to find him in Partners in Crime, so I'm not sure what the fuss is about that one)

Alas, poor Donna. We knew her, as she no longer knows herself. I suppose that qualifies as Dalek Caan's revenge on the Doctor, like the destruction of the Crucible was his revenge on Davros for ever creating the Daleks. I do like the idea that a Dalek would make up for the crimes of its race by destroying billions of lives; it fits well.

And Dalek Caan as the Bad Wolf. Neat.

I don't think Dalek Caan was actually orchestrating the entire situation, including getting Donna and the Doctor meeting up with each other in the ways that they did. I think he (Dalek Caan) simply foresaw the various events, and got delusional into believing he had something to do with it. Otherwise, that would make him "ALL-Powerful" as "GOD".. and I just don't see any of the Daleks being in that omni-everywhere at all times, etc., category.

I could understand that Dalek Caan became hyper-sensory sensitive to the time lines and could see the whole future happening, because some people are able to actually perceive in that sense when in certain sleep / trance / memory modes. But the amazing feat from Dalek Caan that I saw was to convince Davros, himself, that the prophecies (future events) MUST all take place --at all.

[Pitry]

I agree with you, but I did find Jack and Torchwood's use in the finale a bit hypocritical of TPTB. It was fine last year when it was just Jack, but this year, we see his family. We even heard of Reese.

TPTB claim that they will never use the Doctor or Daleks in Torchwood because it might cause younger viewers to watch a show that is too adult for them, but then, they bring all of the current Torchwood staff into Doctor Who and show these same viewers (who might or might not need protecting) that Ianto and Gwen should be rescued and appreciated. They also hint that Martha and Mickey might hang out with Jack more. To me, TPTB might as well have thrown a Dalek in the Hub. These are characters people care about, and of course viewers might follow them. TPTB either need to elimate crossovers entirely (which I hope they don't) or stop worrying about younger viewers (it's their parents' job to worry about what the kiddies watch).

Well, in all honesty, now that they make pre-watershed versions of Torchwood they can let the kiddies watch.
I'm still hoping this means there would be a Doctor somewhere in the near future there then

And yes, the Osterhagen key is a great idea: from the viewer's p.o.v., it's so terminally, depressingly final it appeals to our dark and morbid sides (or is that just me?).

But there's more than just that...I thought it was excellent how Martha intends to use this thing that is supposed to end a world's inescapable torment and misery to instead do something incredibly noble - sacrifice her own world, her own species to save the universe.

Davros may have been right, that the Doctor turns people into weapons, but that isn't actually a bad thing. People who meet the Doctor become fighters and soldiers, yes, but an army can be a good thing. Soldiers are generally held in high estimation because they choose to fight for what they believe is right, they choose to contribute to a cause and they choose to lay down their lives, should the need arise, for such a cause. What the Doctor does is inspire people and give them a better reason for fighting.

So while the actions of the companions in Journey's End might be perceived as overly violent, the reason is always admirable.

I loved the montage of the dead. All those people who gave their lives in the service of the Doctor. And the people who continue to be willing to lay down their lives [and the lives of everyone they love] in service of something greater.

Martha following the Doctor's suicidal trend of giving the villain who'll obviously never back down a final chance to back down was, well, suicidal. It works for the Doctor because he's the Doctor. On the other hand, Martha probably realized that something usually interrupts the Doctor before he goes genocidal and things go in a better direction [though not for the Sontarans].
I don't watch Sarah Jane's adventures, so I know nothing of this warp star, but Jack using a piece of jewelery as a weapon of mass destruction is somehow fitting.

I don't know. I mean, I truly don\'t know. To play devil's advocate - look at the l;ast time someone in the Whoniverse did the noble sacrifice and destroyed his entire planet in order to stop the Daleks. Fat lot of good that did him, methinks. The Doctor is talking from experience when he tells her it's never an option.
Thing is, when the reasons for that montage came, it wasn't jsut her life Martha was willing to risk, or Jack, Mickey, Sarah adn Jackie their own. It was everyone's. He didn't turn them into soldiers, he turned them into weapons of mass destruction - created them in his own image, so to speak. That was the pont, as I understood it, which is why earlier Davroros refers to him as "the man who butchered millions".
(side note, as for that warp star it was never mentioned in SJA )

[nx01a]

In the grand scheme of things, generations down the line, the evil oppressors might be driven from Earth and we might again be free, so the extreme suffering of the entire human race may only be temporary. Is it right to deny future generations the chance to make things better simply because things are darkest for you right now/for the rest of your lifetime?

Martha sacrificing the Earth and humanity would mirror the Doctor sacrificing Gallifrey and the Time Lords. At the time, I'm sure the Doctor thought it was the only way to stop the Daleks once and for all, but this is TV. All he did was slow them down. Martha was conscious of the fact that blowing up Earth wouldn't stop them, simply slow them down, or make them rethink holding the Doctor. Of course, there have got to be lots of Minshara class planets out there to take Earth's place in the Great Machine...

Spoiler:

[wow, got in a Trek and a B5 reference in a Who post]

so she might only have ended the suffering of humanity for the brief minutes it took for Davros to find another suitable planet and end existence.

The Doctor is a mass murderer. Plain and simple. He's engineered [whether intentionally or not] the deaths of so many people in order to achieve his aims. Of course that would rub off on the people he chooses to associate himself with, or maybe that's why he associates himself with them in the first place. If he has to destroy a town to save the planet, he does it. If he has to destroy his own planet to save the universe, he does it. Though I wonder what say the other Time Lords had in this, or if it was a similar UNIT/Martha/Key/final option situation. It's clear [to me] that he hates himself for these actions and the ramifications they have, since looking at those closest to him was like holding up a mirror to himself. His soul was revealed, poor man. He doesn't go around mowing down his enemies with a sonic blaster, but he might as well considering the usual outcome.

[SGalisa]

Time Ladies such as Romana apparently regenerate differently from Time Lords. Romana wasn't going through different regenerations when she was picking out the bodies, she was just showing the Doctor the different possibilities, that scene was part of her regenerative process. Time Ladies can choose which form they want to regenerate into whereas Time Lords cannot.

That's the first time I've ever heard of this in all of the eps, I've ever watched. I got the impression, when Romana changed, it wasn't a crisis matter, but a moment of choosing. That's what made her ability different than the Doctor's regeneration cycles. I've spent years trying to rationalize why hers was different, and that is the only one that I can possibly see making the difference.

Romana was not injured, dying, or hurt in any way, shape or form. She merely decided to change her looks, and that was it. Whereas, every time the Doctor has changed, it was because he was always seriously injured or near death. That has always been the explanation for the Doctor's change in appearance, including the ones where the former actors got booted out and someone new came in to replace the former (# 6 to # 7). I forget how # 8 came in tho..

Anyway, once the master was past his 13th cycle (12th regenerative self),the master found a way to steal his new (Time Lord) regeneration body (and cycle -- which somehow also eventually got granted to him) when he took over Nyssa's father. That wasn't actually a crisis matter either, unless he was on a time schedule to choose and change, which I don't think was actually the situation when he did it; but it did become a moment of the master's own selective choosing (thus, male Time Lord).

None of that was ever properly explained in the series. The only time I've ever heard something even remotely explained was when Doctor # 9 turned into Doctor # 10 -- "regeneration -- you never know what you're going to get"
(or words to that effect).

Would I be right in saying that some Time Lords (in the classic series) seem to have effortless regenerations, its almost a casual act they perform to overcome boredom, and some Time Lords (like the Doctor, and apparently the Master) suffer very traumatic, painful regenerations that leave them disoriented and unstable for some time afterwards? If I'm wrong, please correct me!

maybe. I think what I just said might explain a few things to that..

with the re-regeneration and channeling all the energy into the hand after healing himself does it mean that the Doc is on his 11th regeneration? is DT the 10th and 11th Doc?

I think this is more one of those things where it's just up to each individual fan as to whether he's 10 or 11 now. My personal preference is to keep calling him the 10th Doctor, because he didn't change, he just used up a regeneration 'slot' to heal himself and make Doctor Two.

Personally, I think he's still Doctor #10 - even with his clone. Otherwise, he's already used up 12 of his selves, and this includes his daughter, Jenny being extracted from him. I don't think clones and stem cellular growth actually count.

I also believe that the entire regeneration number cycle is up to TPTB, and not up to us the fans, unless the majority kills off the entire series. It's the writers and producers who keep the show's details going. I've read dozens of Doctor Who magazines, and even been a "whovian," but I've never seen so much brain bending activity going on over whether the Doctor is # 10 or whatever. Include the Peter Cushing movies,
plus the stand-in for # 1 during "The Five Doctors" episode (because William Hartnell couldn't do the ep at all), and the Doctor -- as most whovians have all known and seen him -- is already a gonner..
hmmm. . .

DWhovian FACTs:
from the book "DOCTOR WHO - a Celebration" by Peter Haining, © 1983.
page 73, Peter Cushing = *the Forgotten Doctor*
page 71, Richard Hurndall = "Who's That? A Sixth Doctor!" (and obviously not Colin Baker's # 6 regeneration, as in the actual DW series).

[Klenotka]

OK, I finally found a courage to watch it for second time. First time, it was on Saturday, on a convention, in a room full of obsessed Dr.Who fans who were yelling and crying (but they were yelling more at the previous episode) which was awesome but I was able to understand only every third word in that noise

Now, on the second look, it was much better.

Spoiler:

But I cried in the end. They can´t do this to Donna and I hope they´ll be able to fix her and she´ll be back with the Doctor as a companion. She saved whole universe and she doesn´t know. I loved how the Doctor said to Sylvia that she should behave to Donna as to her daughter sometimes.
Still the thing with the other Doctor was strange and leading too much to the happy end. Well, it can be comforting that the "Rose line" is closed. Rose has her Doctor and we will probably never see her again, which is good.
Well, I have nothing agaist her but she left and she should stay that way.

I loved some of Jack lines "Don´t even want to know what I am thinking right now" Or Donna with her "no, seriously, you can hug me now"

Will be Mickey in Torchwood? I think Jack has a soft-spot for him

The waiting for the last episode was horrible. I was in a ten days convention and people were not able to talk about anything else. Can you imagine that?

But when I think how far is to X-mas and how far is the 5th season...

[Willow'sCat]

The Doctor is a mass murderer. Plain and simple. He's engineered [whether intentionally or not] the deaths of so many people in order to achieve his aims. Of course that would rub off on the people he chooses to associate himself with, or maybe that's why he associates himself with them in the first place. If he has to destroy a town to save the planet, he does it. If he has to destroy his own planet to save the universe, he does it. Though I wonder what say the other Time Lords had in this, or if it was a similar UNIT/Martha/Key/final option situation. It's clear [to me] that he hates himself for these actions and the ramifications they have, since looking at those closest to him was like holding up a mirror to himself. His soul was revealed, poor man. He doesn't go around mowing down his enemies with a sonic blaster, but he might as well considering the usual outcome.

I disagree.

While I see your point I would then have to agree that all soldiers in war are mass murders and all those who take a life in self defense or for the greater good are also nothing more then murders.

While one part of me thinks that is indeed the truth, a hard and harsh truth for many to live with.... I have little time for armed forces or those who serve in them. I think it is a big stretch to call The Doctor nothing more then a mass murder. Plain or Simply.

The Doctor as far as we know has only acted in self defense or in the name of his people or as you say the Universe. The UNIVERSE!!! I guess it gets down to one man's terrorist being another's freedom fighter.

I think The Doctor is more about freedom then terror.

Also lets not forget he refused in the end to commit genocide on The Daleks first time around and we still have no real proof of what he did do in the Time War, just talk from his enemies (Master and Davros).

I have to say while I have been glad to have Doctor Who back and happy about most of what RTD has done for the show... I do find RTD has a bent towards making The Doctor more evil then good and I don't like it... nope not one little bit.

So yeah while I do disagree with your post I can see why you might come to thous conclusions based on New Who. IF you have watched all of Who then I don't understand at all.

[nx01a]

Apart from loving the new series, I'm most familiar with the Tom Baker/4th Doctor episodes.

The Doctor's definitely not simply a mass murderer... perhaps 'serial killer' is a better term. Even in the old series, what happened to most of his opponents? He might not have directly killed them, but his presence in events led to their demise. He does what he does to protect the majority of the universe, but some have to be sacrificed so that most may survive. I believe that, if any of the previous Doctors had been put in similar situations, they'd do the same thing.

I think the Doctor's said he's the one who destroyed Gallifrey, the Time Lords and the Daleks to end the time war. That same 'unforgivable' crime is repeated by his metacrisis clone, hence both of them needing the rehabilitative prowess [or whatever it is] of Rose. I see the Doctor as a man who'll do whatever's necesssary to save people. Sometimes, that involves not nice things but it's necessary.

I'm quite looking forward to seeing a happier Doctor. He's reached some closure now and I'm hoping the specials with him going it alone for the most part will be great.

[Coco Pops]

You guys reminded me of "trial of a timelord"

From the old series and "trial of a timelord" isn't the Valeyard the Doctor's own evil half of his personality....

I wonder where he nicked off to?

[nx01a]

100 trillion AD.