By “Journey’s End”, it had been announced that both Russell T. Davies and David Tennant were leaving Doctor Who.
But nobody (apart from them and Stephen Moffat) knew what form that
was going to take. What the public did know was that “Journey’s End”
had a happy ending in which the Doctor survived and dropped all of his
companions off on Earth and alternate Earth. Would the Doctor take on a
new companion at the last minute intended for his next incarnation?
Not
so much. Instead, the story took a page from “The Deadly Assassin”’s
book and gave the Doctor some time on his own. Some who count
companions would argue that that this “season” has as many as five
companions. I would say that that’s completely ridiculous unless you’re
going to count every guest star in every episode as a companion. Only
Wilf arguably counts as a companion, and he’s pretty much Earthbound
throughout his tenure in Doctor Who, even if you count his appearance in the 1960s.
I
call these the “2009 Specials”, but actually, of the 5 specials, only 3
of them were actually in 2009. This period started on December 25,
2008 and continued until January 1st, 2010, so forgive me if I extend
2009 by seven days for the sake of simplicity. These specials are “The
Next Doctor”, “Planet of the Dead”, “Waters of Mars” and “The End of
Time”. They were aired on Christmas, Easter, November, Christmas, and
New Years, respectively (the end of time was aired in two parts). And
they were not very good.
“The
Next Doctor” is definitely my favorite of the bunch, my primary
complaints being that it had too much time to slow the pacing down (each
of the specials is fifteen minutes longer than the average episode,
save “The End of Time Part 2”, which is thirty) and that it would have
worked better with a seasoned companion for the Doctor to work off of.
The premise is no less functional than the average episode, save the
fact that the entire special was a trick set up by Russell T. Davies to
trick the audience into thinking that the Doctor was regenerating into
David Morrissey.
The
premise of “The Next Doctor” is a Cybermen invasion of Victorian
England. It features a steampunk interpretation of the TARDIS (a hot
air balloon) and of a giant mech created by the Cybermen. The titular
“Next Doctor” is a man who, following a traumatic break with reality,
had thirty seasons of Doctor Who downloaded into his brain in a single
day, and that’s never meant to happen. Convinced he was the Doctor, he
built a TARDIS (in this case, “Tethered Aerial Release Developed In
Style”), took on a companion (Rosita) and fought the Cybermen. There
are plenty of things to nit-pick about this episode, sure, but
ultimately it’s an average episode of Doctor Who that’s main fault was
trying to be an extra long special.
“Planet
of the Dead”, the Easter special, is thoroughly forgettable. The story
features a wormhole, a cat burglar, stingray monsters that the Doctor
doesn’t care about as long as they don’t get to Earth, and is filmed in
Dubai because there are no deserts with better politics to give the
BBC’s business to. Christina is the standout element of the episode,
but as the Doctor’s not in the mood to travel with a companion, she’s
left behind and forgotten, removing all trace of this special except for
a psychic’s premonition of someone knocking four times. This leads to a
lot of people knocking and banging on things for the rest of 2009.
The
November special, “The Waters of Mars”, is by far the most popular of
these stories in my experience. It’s an interesting story, and probably
the worst thing about it is the way that the next special lops off the
better part of the ending, leaving the worse part of it to be the part
that sticks. That “worse part” is the idea that there are absolutely no
consequences to deciding you’re going to disregard the laws of time
because the people who usually guard them are dead. The Doctor realizes
that this idea is going a bit too far at the end, but as I mentioned,
the next special throws that part out the window.
The
story proper of “Mars” is the Doctor being trapped into what this era
refers to as a “fixed point”, an event that is so entrenched in time
that the fabric of the universe would be warped if something actually
managed to change it (which is supposed to be impossible, especially
since a Time Lord’s deepest instinct is to keep all time travelers far
away from them). The last time the Doctor found himself at a fixed
point, he ended up causing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the
destruction of Pompeii. Needless to say, he’s not eager to repeat the
experience, yet for some reason he stays and interferes.
In
the midst of this, a parasitic outbreak is threatening the crew.
Interestingly, the idea of “the potential of infection outweighs the
need of the survivors” is never brought up, though at least the crew of
scientists on Mars do their best to isolate the source of the infection
and ensure that nobody infected has a chance of escape. I imagine
there’d be a lot less drama if Captain Brooke had simply declared escape
to be out of the question thirty minutes into the episode.
The
episode ends with an Ood telling him “something bad is going to
happen”, which leads us into the next episode. “The End of Time” is a
story that is so dramatic that it didn’t bother me the first time, when
everything was a mystery, but subsequent viewings have shown it to be
less than a quality story.
The
Master was believed to be killed, but unbeknownst to the Doctor he
became a disembodied consciousness. He goes on to possess Eric Roberts,
and wait, actually, that’s a better TV movie than this one. It does
provide some kind of precedent for this sort of event, however, as the
Master survived in the form of a ring with Gallifreyan writing on it.
Here is where I would normally comment on the technology and how clever
or stupid various characters were in relation to its use, however, it’s
treated as a magic artifact that requires a magic ritual in order to
conjure up a new John Simm. The ritual is interrupted, which results in
the Master being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, shoot
lightning from his hands, become a spooky and/or comical skeleton for
brief periods of time, and become a speed eater for reasons that may or
may not have been entirely the result of a directing mistake.
By
bringing the Master back to the series so quickly, several problems are
brought to light. One is the fact that every time John Simm is on
screen, he’s knocking four times. Really, the titles for “The End of
Time Part 1” and “Part 2”, and “The Sound of Drums” and “Last of the
Time Lords” could have been switched with their respective alternates
and nobody would have noticed. If you didn’t like John Simm’s Master
because he’s so over the top, you’ll hate him here, where the most over
acted scene of “The Sound of Drums” doesn’t hold a candle to the most
subtle scene he appears in here. If you liked him in the “Sound of
Drums” two-parter... again, the most over the top scene of that story is
more subtle than his most subtle scene here. If you didn’t like the
Doctor wanting to travel the universe with one of the most notorious
mass murderers in all of time and space, well, at least that idea has
less screen time here than Bernard Cribbins gathering everybody old
enough to have bought tickets to his first Doctor Who appearance
together to scour London for the Doctor, because a mysterious person
who may or may not have been either Susan or Romana said that he may
return.
On
top of that, this story gives us Rassilon reduced from a wise immortal
to a raving lunatic (as are most of the Time Lords by this point), and
the Doctor convinced that his regeneration (which takes ages) is going
to mean the end of the world. I defend this scene by saying it’s a nod
to the arrogance and the Superman complex that the Tenth Doctor has
developed, and that radiation poisoning isn’t instant... but those are
shallow defenses of a scene where the failsafe of a nuclear device is
“if somebody else enters, the person about to die may leave”. The
Doctor is right to complain about that scene- the only reason such a
device could possibly exist in this movie is if it’s placed there
specifically for the purpose of forcing him to regenerate. Even though
it gives him time to take several trips in the TARDIS to visit all of
his friends. It’s a shame the Doctor doesn’t have the ability to force
lethal amounts of radiation into his shoe or something.
Altogether,
this “season” is almost definitely the least entertaining and least
intelligent thing that Russell T. Davies has contributed to this
universe. The sole purpose these specials exist is to foreshadow and
then follow through with David Tennant’s regeneration, which to me
translates as a sacrifice of five hours of pointless, largely
forgettable television that is completely driven by plot convenience,
for the sake of “Journey’s End” having a happy ending. It’s doubly a
shame when you realize that Dalek stories in the past have had about a
50% chance of getting rid of either a Doctor or a companion. It would
have been fitting for Davros’s first on-screen appearance in decades,
ending a Dalek-heavy run of the show, would give Davros his first
victory over the Doctor. “Journey’s End” could have been the
“Logopolis” of the new series, completely skipping the need for these
specials. Both the episode and the show would have been better for
them, and maybe fans of this era wouldn’t have quite so much to defend.
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