The previous episode The Stolen Earth was a legend in itself , an episode that contained the greatest cliffhanger in the programme's 45 year history Not only that but it was number two in that week's TV charts . Would Journey's End deliver the goods and top the TV charts for that week ? It did . Did it deliver the goods though ? Probably not
It would be impossible to think we'd be seeing a new doctor at the helm of the Tardis because the show is so popular the BBC would never be able to keep a lid on it . Indeed watching The Stolen Earth again it's fairly obvious how the Doctor was going save his present incarnation and I don't believe for a second that Russell T Davies ever envisaged that the Doctor's hand would ever play a prominent role when he wrote The Christmas Invasion except for a vague inkling that he'd be able to use it as a cop out ending one day . He also had a cop out with his " One of the companions will die " spiel . Wasn't Rose supposed to die at the end of season two ? Yes she did but not dead in the sense you or I would understand
Much of the failings of this episode are entirely down to the pen of RTD . The writing is overblown , cluttered and underdeveloped but I imagine that's only to be expected since it straddles four seasons of Nu-Who and the two spin off shows . The episode is a hideous example of incestuous cannibalism with references everywhere , so much so that it's impossible to make head nor tail of it half of the time and when you do there's often a big plot hole there somewhere . Let's see now , The Osterhagen Key will blow up planet Earth if the world is stolen and used as part of a reality bomb ? It might make sense if you honestly believe that the Earth can be stolen but not even in a fantasy series like DOCTOR WHO does this seem credible . Even if it were why couldn't the Daleks and Davros have used another planet ? Why did it have to be the Earth ?
The irritating thing about all this is that the episode can be fairly good when it tries to be . Davros taunting the Doctor while we have flashbacks to people sacrificing their lives to save the Doctor do have an impact to them . Likewise the flashbacks of Donna but these strengths are often undermined by the nonsense that surrounds them . If we're going to see ten minutes of a manipulative character scene then why not go the whole hog and kill off that character ? Probably because RTD wants to leave the door open to that character returning at a later date no doubt . I really do fear that Tennant's final story will be the biggest fan obsessed continuity ridden mess that it is possible to make
Journey'sEnd has been typical of end of season stories from the pen of RTD butonly Bad Wolf/Parting Of The Ways can be described as being dramatic .In fact I would go as far as saying that story was one of the greatest pieces of television drama ever written so obviously Russell T Davies can come up with the goods when he tries . Unfortunately coming up with the goods is a rare occurrence from his pen and I'll be glad when he leaves the show . He does deserve great credit for being a populist though and it'll be interesting to see how well the show fares under a combination of Matt Smith in the title role and Steven Moffat as producer
It would be impossible to think we'd be seeing a new doctor at the helm of the Tardis because the show is so popular the BBC would never be able to keep a lid on it . Indeed watching The Stolen Earth again it's fairly obvious how the Doctor was going save his present incarnation and I don't believe for a second that Russell T Davies ever envisaged that the Doctor's hand would ever play a prominent role when he wrote The Christmas Invasion except for a vague inkling that he'd be able to use it as a cop out ending one day . He also had a cop out with his " One of the companions will die " spiel . Wasn't Rose supposed to die at the end of season two ? Yes she did but not dead in the sense you or I would understand
Much of the failings of this episode are entirely down to the pen of RTD . The writing is overblown , cluttered and underdeveloped but I imagine that's only to be expected since it straddles four seasons of Nu-Who and the two spin off shows . The episode is a hideous example of incestuous cannibalism with references everywhere , so much so that it's impossible to make head nor tail of it half of the time and when you do there's often a big plot hole there somewhere . Let's see now , The Osterhagen Key will blow up planet Earth if the world is stolen and used as part of a reality bomb ? It might make sense if you honestly believe that the Earth can be stolen but not even in a fantasy series like DOCTOR WHO does this seem credible . Even if it were why couldn't the Daleks and Davros have used another planet ? Why did it have to be the Earth ?
The irritating thing about all this is that the episode can be fairly good when it tries to be . Davros taunting the Doctor while we have flashbacks to people sacrificing their lives to save the Doctor do have an impact to them . Likewise the flashbacks of Donna but these strengths are often undermined by the nonsense that surrounds them . If we're going to see ten minutes of a manipulative character scene then why not go the whole hog and kill off that character ? Probably because RTD wants to leave the door open to that character returning at a later date no doubt . I really do fear that Tennant's final story will be the biggest fan obsessed continuity ridden mess that it is possible to make
Journey'sEnd has been typical of end of season stories from the pen of RTD butonly Bad Wolf/Parting Of The Ways can be described as being dramatic .In fact I would go as far as saying that story was one of the greatest pieces of television drama ever written so obviously Russell T Davies can come up with the goods when he tries . Unfortunately coming up with the goods is a rare occurrence from his pen and I'll be glad when he leaves the show . He does deserve great credit for being a populist though and it'll be interesting to see how well the show fares under a combination of Matt Smith in the title role and Steven Moffat as producer