Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday: Ranking - 116

      Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday

(Series 2, Dr 10 with Rose, 1-8/7/2006, showrunner: Russell T Davies, writer: Russell T Davies, director: Graeme Harper)

Rank: 116

In an emoji: 💥👻

  'That's odd - that ghost over there doesn't look human and it seems to be in a wheelchair, with only one hand. Is it Davros?And over there, that shape can surely only be the Emperor Dalek. So whose that in the Genesisarc then? Wait, they're Cybermen.We must be in some parallel universe where the Dalek and Cybermen plans got switched over. Apparently in this one the baddie's played by Tracy Ann Oberdalek'

In contrast to the sudden ending given to ‘Parting Of The Ways’ when it turned out Christopher Eccleston wouldn’t be staying on as assumed up to the last minute, Billie Piper had given lots of notice that she was leaving at the end of series two and Russell T had plenty of time to build an epic to see her off. Many wondered if Dr Who would last without her – Rose had become a huge part of the reason for the show’s success, surprising many (including me, I admit) with just how good an ex-pop teenage heart-throb could act. For many new fans brought up on lesser series that either went downhill or ended after a couple of years anyway it seemed like a final end. But Dr Who is a series that’s all about change and bigger than any one person and as much as this two-parter is about waving goodbye to an era and tying up loose ends, it’s also very much about how life goes on. In many ways this is Russell T Davies taking the hand of all the viewers who aren’t used to such big changes in a series and remembering his own grief at Jon Pertwee changing into Rom Baker and saying ‘don’t worry, change is an inevitable part of life’. This is a story, after all, that starts with the tension of the Doctor and rose coming home to the Powell estate, little realising its their last Tardis trip together, horrifying Rose’s mum Jackie about how much she’s changed since the last time she came home. It’s not just in a space and time travel danger sense either: Dr Who is a series about how all of us impact on the people around us even when we’re human and this is about young people growing up and becoming independent, taking on the characteristics of their friends as they have new experiences and see new worlds, even if it’s just the inside of a different building that isn’t school. As much as people think of this story as the one that’s Dalek v Cybermen action the real heart of it comes in an emotionally charged scene in the Tardis where Jackie wonders if any of ‘her’ Rose will be left when she’s dead and buried and her daughter no longer has any excuse to come home. Jackie is oike many anxious parents, but also she’s like most anxious humans, wanting things to stay the same – which is why she’s so pleased when their ‘Grandad’ comes to visit in the form of a ghost (because death is the ultimate journey, the ultimate parting, the ultimate change). And it’s that gullibility the Cybermen have been relying on for their plan because, while stories about them being superior for having no emotions are two a penny in Dr who, this one is about how Cybermen are superior because they’re not nostalgic. They aren’t tied down by family and friends the way Rose is, they can just plunder the universe and never look back and don’t mind what world they wake up in. There is change by the end of course – Rose leaves the series at the end – but ultimately it’s not as big and scary and horrific a break as new-time fans might have been expecting: by the end of the story we’re in a parallel world that’s much the same as the old one, where most of the same things still apply. This really is a very clever script – one of Russell T’s best in that sense of being rounded – and it’s a story that he’s clearly been thinking about hard (this might well have been his original plan to end his first series till it was re-commissioned and Christopher Eccleston decided to leave, inspiring a very different sort of script). 

 Unusually, actually uniquely for modern Who until as late as series seven, this finale isn’t something that’s been set up multiple episode in advance, although it helps if you’ve seen the Cybermen two-parter and Dalek stories before it. For a while it starts like so many other Russell T episodes with a comforting familiarity to it: the Doctor and Rose return to the Powell council estate full of big stories and adventures of where they’ve been and find one has been happening without them: ghosts have arrived around the world. At the time it seemed unlikely that so many people could have been brainwashed into wishful thinking over some blurry lines that (spoilers) turn out to be the Cybermen from a parallel world trying to get back into this one, but having lived through a pandemic since then, well, let’s just say that might just be the most believable part of the whole story now – people will just believe what they want to believe if they’re told it enough times, even when all the evidence points to something else. Yet again, while Russell has high opinions of individual Humans and enough faith in good people being turned great by difficult circumstances, he has a very low opinion of humanity en masse: we’re easily duped, confused and all too ready to believe a pretty voice that tells us what we want to hear. Before long this amazing impossible thing, the dead coming back to life (sort of), has just been absorbed into popular culture and turned ‘normal’, with some very clever uses of Russell’s characteristic cameos: French and Japanese news bulletins, a new advert for Cillit-Bang style ‘Ecto-Shine’ designed to make ghosts seem less blurry (even though that seems to be all wishful thinking), TV interviewer Trisha Goddard (Britain’s equivalent of the usual fictional American Who TV presenter Trinity Wells), ‘Cash In the Attic’ presenter Alistair Appleton’s new fictional TV series ‘Ghostwatch’ with a very cute weather map filled with pac-man ghosts for sightings, ‘Most Haunted’s psychic medium Derek Acorah (sadly his best line got trimmed: ‘I guess I’m out of a job now…I give up!’) and the biggest in-joke, Eastenders’ Barbara Windsor as Peggy Mitchell telling a spooky shape she thinks is Den Watts to ‘get out maaa pub’ (the in-joke being he was shot dead by his wife the year before, a character played by this episode’s villain Tracey Ann-Oberman, an early clue as to what’s really going on – which makes sense given the close ties between the two shows but makes the fact-fictional borders of 30th anniversary story ‘Dimensions In Time’ all the weirder it has to be said). In another gaga a ghost is ‘elected MP for Leeds’ – in case you were wondering that was a borough without a majority in the 2005 election so they were safe to make that joke without treading on anyone’s toes (though it’s very much in keeping with ‘Aliens of London’ that a white blur is still better than your general politician). 

 The Doctor isn’t fooled though of course and quickly works out that the signal is coming from Canary Wharf, the most alien and extraordinary looking part of London, this series’ biggest link with our ‘ordinary’ world (so it’s a wonder it hasn’t featured in the series before this). After some and games where Jackie gets accidentally kidnapped (because the plot needs her later), giving us a last burst of comedy before things get serious (David Tennant’s insults that she looked into the eye of harmony and aged 57 years while Jackie splutters ‘but I’m 40!’ is one of Russell’s funniest lines) we end up in Torchwood – the English one. It’s all a bit get sup for the Welsh Torchwood spin-off series that began three month after these episodes were on and for now, at least they’re basically Britain’s Area 51, full of stolen weapons and gadgets. Though it’s a bit of a steal from the museum setting of ‘Dalek’ Russell is far more acerbic in his bitching in these lines: that was the collection of rogue American collector Henry Van Statten whose a tyrant in the Trump mode long before the orang-u-tang ran to be president (he was though known from the American ‘Apprentice’ – Canary Wharf is where the British version is ‘set’ according to the opening credits, although it’s actually a little down the road). They’re everything the Doctor isn’t, hoarding alien artefacts and shooting down aliens that invade their airspace because they want to get an edge over other countries and make Britain great again (this story’s best gag: ‘We’ve taken them for the British Empire’ ‘But Britain doesn’t have an empire’ ‘Not yet’). They’re not explorers and pioneers like Rose, the epitome of someone who should be travelling because of how much it broadens her mind, but pirates, who see how big and wonderful the universe can be and then view it through a vision narrower than a 1982 Dr Who viewfinder, only seeing what’s right in front of them for profit and greed. 

At Torchwood Rose bumps into a returning Mickey back from the parallel world of ‘Age Of Steel/Rise Of the Cybermen’ whose been investigating something suspicious the way the Doctor would. So far so normal, but then the signal is traced to something called a ‘Genesis Ark’, a device that by name recalls two beloved DW stories of old (‘Genesis of The Daleks’ and ‘The Ark In Space’) and suddenly all bets are off as everything goes mental for the cliffhanger as we get a story that goes from being humdrum to being epic. Russell had really set himself a challenge topping the Dalek army and regeneration of the end of series one – after all, for all he knew when he was writing it this would be the last bit of DW that was ever made so he’d pulled all the stops out already. The solution for the end of series two is a masterstroke: not only do you bring back the Dalek army you throw a Cybermen army at them too! Which seems like the most obvious thing for Dr Who to do ever, but had never actually happened before: indeed until 2006 it couldn’t. A bit of context for that now. Terry Nation, Dalek originator in our world the way Davros is in the series, was as wary and distrustful as you’d expect the creator of the universe’s biggest xenophobes to be, although he also had access to lawyers the Daleks could only ever dream of. Terry feared that one day his invention would end up just another Dr Who monster making up the numbers, a supporting character to some lesser modern foe that wasn’t worthy of polishing its baubles, so it was actually written into his contract that the Daleks would never appear with another race without the permission of him or his estate and it was something he never gave during his lifetime (he died in 1997, a year after the McGann TV movie). Worried about losing the rights to the Daleks altogether the production teams of old Who always kowtowed, to the point where the few times more than one enemy appeared more often than not it was the other way round and the only time they do share the screen with anyone it’s either the dumb heavies The Ogrons or 1973 creations The Draconians ended up being the patsies for the Daleks. For a while the modern series was blocked from using the Daleks for months until they could check the Who revival was worthy of the name (see ‘Dalek’ for how they would have got round this problem with the similar but not copyright infringing Toclafane) the BBC and Terry Nation’s family are now on much friendlier terms all round and, no doubt, eager to capitalise on the sudden spike in Dalek merchandise toys. So we get the big Cybermen versus Dalek battle we’d all played using our toys down the years (em I did, what do you mean you didn’t?!) but which we had always assumed could never be. Russell, of course, kept this development to himself so that it was a genuine thrill for fans in the know when they both turned up sharing screen time together. Suddenly the Doctor and Rose take a back role to an epic if all too brief CGI battle where the Daleks and Cybermen actually taunt each other, like they’re head of rival gangs of bullies looking to duff up the Doctor and steal his lunchbox. In the end it doesn’t have all that much to do with the plot, but its a fabulous moment – a celebration of how big this series has become, written and filmed safe in the knowledge that Dr Who is the biggest it’s been in thirty years and how everyone at home is geek enough to at least know somebody who can tell them what the hell is going on. The revelation is one of my favourite memories as a fan even in a series that’s full of them – an unexpected treat from a production team that knew just what presents we wanted. 

 Rose’s departure is almost an afterthought by comparison, but its well handled as it goes: she loses the Doctor because of course she refuses to leave his side even when he’s tried to trick her into being safe one last time (because that’s their whole relationship in one scene) and she gets sucked into a parallel world when Daleks and Cybermen are being hoovered up by something technical the Doctor’s set up. Luckily for Rose its the parallel world she was in a few episodes ago – a world that just happens to be missing a Rose (and, after she’s converted into a Cybermen in ‘their’ world, a Jackie too). She gets a whole There’s no way Rose could ever leave the Doctor willingly and killing her off would really go against the optimistic tone of this new-look series, so as a substitute she gets the nuclear family she craved for in ‘Father’s Day’ all together and safe (and in Norway – a rare example of some big central point in time that doesn’t happen to be in the British isles). It’s a clever solution, giving Jackie her daughter back and Rose the nuclear family she always wanted, while Mickey looks cheered up no end at being back together with Rose again too, but of course it’s not what Rose really wanted and it’s very much not what the Doctor wanted. Rose is effectively ‘grounded’, unable to travel the stars, but at the same time she gets back everyone she’d started out with when we first met her, along with two years’ worth of time travelling experience and knowledge so that you know that she’s going to do more with her life than end up in a shop and eat chips this time around (even before she returns to the series and gets an even more suitable ending with a ‘human’ Doctor in ‘Journey’s End’). 

 It’s as big and emotional a goodbye as you’d hope, this two parter, so beloved by fans and a more general public that it was voted ‘best scifi moment ever’ in a 2014 poll by sFX Magazine, even though it features little to no scifi elements at all. I wouldn’t quite go as far as that (I mean, it’s either the cliffhanger at the end of the first Dalek story or the revelation in episode one of ‘The Space Museum’ for me) but it’s certainly powerful as we say goodbye to a character we’ve come to know so well, our main audience identification person (until she stopped being one and Mickey took that role). This is also our last chance to see Jackie and Mickey and that’s almost as sad as saying goodbye to Rose herself – they’ve really grown so across these two series. Mickey is no longer the coward but is now a fully three-dimensional character putting himself in harm’s way to do the right thing because he can see further than his tiny life and needs and the ‘pretence’ that Jackie is Rose but ‘prematurely aged’ while the Doctor gets his own back for multiple episode’s worth of digs at him while she strops in return is one last great comedy Jackie moment, one she’s gladly put up with to have her daughter back. It’s worthy too that Pete is the one who gets to save Rose, returning from a parallel world long enough to catch his daughter as she gets sucked into the void. There was a lot of debate amongst the showrunners/producers over who this should be: Russell wasn’t sure if it should be Pete or Mickey and there was debate that went on weeks about who it should be. Which seems odd to me: Pete is the obvious choice and it’s the perfect resolution for their ‘story arc’ – he always refused to accept that he had a daughter in another parallel world and Rose has spent the last two years running around with the Doctor as a sort of surrogate father figure as well as a boyfriend; she always wanted her dad to be there to protect her (against her mum as much as anything) and finally he does. 

 Of course it’s not quite as neat as it seems when you watch this story lots and aren’t caught up in the moment, with one of Russell’s weakest scripting in there too. Russell has a tendency to wrap things up in a neat bow in the last few minutes out of nowhere (some of us fans affectionately call it a ‘Davies Et Machina’ after the Greek phrase ‘Deux Et Machina’ where a plot device is abruptly solved that you couldn’t have guessed minutes before it happens, a phrase I wish was mine but isn’t) and the ‘void’ is one of his worst: if there really was a method of sending space travellers into what’s effectively ‘hell’ then you think he’d have done it long before now. Setting this up via ‘time travel’ energy that can only be seen through 3D glasses frankly comes too late in the day for this to be a ‘thing’. It’s an odd plan that relies solely on metal clamps to get him out of trouble and you have to say the Doctor has a lot of faith in the people who constructed the walls of the canary Wharf branch of Torchwood versus the power of the void (you also have to wonder if there are some rogue Daleks and Cybermen hanging to walls somewhere when the void is closed too; we know of at least ne, the partly converted ‘Cyberwoman’, who’ll end up starring in one of Torchwood’s sexiest i.e. dumbest plots during their first year). The Doctor, too, either second-guesses that Rose will ignore his attempts to keep her safe and send her back in the Tardis or gets very lucky in the fact he brings two wall clamps with him so she can have one too. This entire scene stands as one of the daftest in the modern series when you stop and think about it, not to mention the fact that parallel world Pete manages to have super-powers enough to both know where he’s standing to catch his daughter when she falls and isn’t sucked through into the void too the second he passes through. Russell’s written a better plot resolution than just ‘the Doctor pulled on a lever and opened up a sinkhole and sucked all the baddies out into the ether’ – on paper that’s as hollow as his writing ever gets. Even so, that’s the sort of thing you only pick up on after repeated watches. At the time the drama is enough to keep you blubbing, especially the post-climax when the Doctor and Rose are holding onto the opposite ends of a wall, a split-screen making it seem like they’re together artificially one last time as they say goodbye. For once even a writer as powerful as Russell T has run out of words and the silence between them is a golden moment, two characters who’ve been amongst the series’ chattiest now without their constant companion. It’s the perfect end, slightly negated by the post-scene when the Doctor burns up a star to half say goodbye to Rose in her new life in ‘Bad Wolf Bay’ in Norway, where he doesn’t quite get to say ‘I love you’ (though Russell is adamant that he didn’t actually know what the Doctor was about to say when the rift ended), which feels more like emotional manipulation by comparison. Still got me when the Doctor-projection turns round to look Rose squarely in the eyes because he knows where she’s likely to be standing this far into the speech though, one last connection between them we weren’t expecting). 

 There are other little things that prevent this story from being the perfect finale too. Tracey Ann Oberman is one of Dr Who’s lesser human baddies (many fans wondered if her name was an Anthony Ainley style ‘clue’ the Cybermen were involved again but no, that really is her name). She’s a one-dimensional character trying to be ‘rough’ without any layers beneath that, Russell basing her on a TV producer he met earlier in his career who wished she was a ‘people person’ and was one of the coldest people he’d ever met; a combination of the script not giving her much to do and Oberman being mis-cast means she just falls flat though, unbelievable as the boss of Torchwood never mind one of the most evil people we meet in the series. I wonder too if Russell had someone like Alan Sugar in mind, given the Apprentice location, before changing his mind (it’s a shame he didn’t throw in Sugar’s love of bad puns and occasional rants, which would have given her more character). Torchwood itself isn’t properly explored: all we really see are two big rooms, one filled with computers run by brainwashed ‘experts’ like the end of ‘The Demon Headmaster’s first series; there’s not even the scope or gadgets of Van Statten’s collection. It feels a bit too much like a promotional video for the series to come, a little too cute (by contrast you can tell ‘School Reunion’ came long before ‘Sarah Jane Adventures’ was a thing, even though it’s ostensibly a pilot episode for how that series turns out). Freema Agyeman gets an early cameo as one of these people before her stint as companion Martha the following year, in a character that’s retconned later as her ‘identical cousin’ Adeola (Russell said once one of his biggest regrets was missing this taping session, so he hadn’t seen how good Freema was and they’d filmed her death scene by the time he came to write Martha, otherwise having her character survive this story would have been a great bit of continuation to fit with the episode’s overall theme of change), but other than to audition she might as well not be there: she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets converted by chance, dispatched in a couple of scenes just as an interesting love story seems to be growing (although it goes without saying that, as these are Russell-written scenes, she still feels more like a ‘real’ person than Yaz did after three series). The script could have made a lot more of that – and the idea of ghosts that turn out to be Cybermen, which is a great idea that just gets forgotten. I moan a lot on here about Steven Moffat two-parters and how the second episode ignores most of what happened in the first episode, but in many respects this is worse: the ghostly Cybermen idea was strong enough to have taken up far more of the plot but it’s barely explained, just an excuse for the Doctor to go investigating and we don’t really get the ‘feel’ of how this invasion by stealth has changed the world, the way we usually do with Russell. Fun as the cameos are they don’t really cut it this time: long lost relatives returning from the grave and proving the existence of life after death would surely make a bigger ripple than this but we barely see anyone in this story outside Rose’s family. The ‘Genesis Ark’ too is rather flimsily explained; it’s just an excuse to keep Daleks out the way until the cliffhanger, with a most odd explanation for how they survived the events of ‘Parting Of the Ways’ at all (and talking of Davies Et machinas, that one’s a doozy…) It has to be said, too, that a lot of us invented a far better second half to this story after seeing the first: as clever as this story is at giving us something unexpected, it might have been better yet to see the Doctor and Rose parted in the middle of a big Cyber-Dalek war, something that feels like the biggest threat we’ve ever faced in the series but then gets tidied back into the playbox with ease (frustratingly we never see whose ‘winning’, perhaps deliberately so Terry Nation’s estate aren’t cross and Gerry Dais/Kit Pedler’s estates don’t start asking awkward questions too. Though I’d loved it if an opportunistic alien like the Sontarons had turned up in the middle when both sides were weak and taken them both over, which is almost sort-of what they do in ‘Flux’). 

 Still, for all the nitpicking, for all the faults, for all the slightly disappointing ending, this is still one hell of a strong story. They saved a lot of the budget from the series to make this one (Russell even writing the ‘cheapo’ episode ‘Love and Monsters’ himself to make sure there was enough left over for the finale) and it looks as spectacular as you’d think, with huge sets, explosions and CGI Dalek-Cyber battles galore. Watching this back to back with the 60th anniversary specials you’d think it was this one that was made with Disney money – it is, arguably, the most expensive Dr Who story made until ‘The Star Beast’ adjusting for inflation, either episode. It’s only when you see stills from this episode, rather than see it moving, that you can tell the Daleks aren’t really flying over London after all; ‘Bad Wolf/Parting Of the Ways’ looked amazing too but these two parts look even better. However the effects never get in the way of the story and the one at the heart of it, the age-old old tale of two lovers being parted (impossibly old boy meets girl, saves her from shop window dummies, loses her to a parallel world in an epic Cyber-Dalek battle, you know the usual) is exquisitely told by a master craftsmen at his best, acted by regulars at the peak of their game. One of the reasons Rose’s departure is oh so sad is that, after starting well, the David Tennant-Billie Piper pairing have reached new heights of chemistry and believability. This is a worthy and magical end to a particularly magical and worthy era of the series, one that has just the right amount of action, comedy, thrills, spills, battles and human moments to make this story as great as the rest of the series, while being that little bit extra special. As much as Russell tries to cushion the blow, as much as this is a story about how life flows on within you and without you even after awful life-changing events and how change is the one constant in all our lives, he’s just too good a writer to make me accept it all. In the Doctor’s words from ‘The End Of Time’ ‘I don’t want them to go’. Would that those days would come again. Maybe, with Russell back in charge, one day they will? 

 POSITIVES + They actually mentioned ‘Shiver and Shake’, one of my favourite weirdo comics only weirdo English kids would buy, which repeated the fake rivalry of ‘Whizzer and Chips’ without the same great characters but far worse puns. For the record the Doctor says that he sees himself as ‘Shake’ and Rose as ‘Shiver’ – for anyone that doesn’t know, that means he’s an accident prone elephant whose always getting in the way and she’s a smart-alecky ghost. The best strip was ‘Soggy The Sea Monster’ though, whose always trying to help humans but who gets in a muddle over his size. He looks like one of the Skarasen from ‘Terror Of the Zygons’, but cuter.

 NEGATIVES - One thing that always puzzled me about this story is Rose’s misleading voiceover at the start of this story that ‘this was the day she was going to die’. She doesn’t. I mean, in ‘our’ world she’s officially listed as being dead, but that’s different to actually dying and anyone who cares about her knows the truth anyway. What’s more, she hasn’t died yet in anything official in the Dr Who universe. She just ends up in a parallel world without the timelord she loves, which is bad enough but not death. Why, then, is she saying this directly and to whom? It’s only the third time anyone in Dr Who breaks the ‘fourth wall’ and I can kinda sorta excuse the others (in ‘The Dalek’s Masterplan’ the Doctor’s wishing an ‘incidentally, merry Christmas to those of you at home’ because he knows people might be watching him on the space-time visualiser and, well, he’s drunk – it’s completely in the ego of the 1st Doctor that everyone’s watching him, as indeed they are a few stories later in ‘The Savages’, while I can kind of fudge that Rose in ‘Father’s Day’ is either talking to herself or her future family) but this one? Why would she lie to us? And what for? It’s a manipulation too far and wholly unnecessary, because nobody seriously thought they were going to kill her off. I was fully expecting a reveal at the end of the story that an elderly Rose at the point of death was gathered round a campfire telling some last stragglers of humanity of her time with the Doctor and to stay hopeful the way she always learned to be with him before she pegged it, with this a story of ‘how I died…here’ or even just writing in a journal, but nothing. The only people’s she’s with are her parents and Mickey and they know her story so she can’t be telling them. Is she saying this story to ‘us’ then? If so then how – and why has she never assumed she’s being followed by TV cameras before? Another thing about that ending: how does parallel world Pete feel about grieving his wife being turned into a Cyberman and then getting a parallel world version that’s different in so many ways? How does our Jackie feel about being reunited with her sort-of dead husband? How does Mickey feel about getting Rose back safe and sound but still pining for her timelordy ex? Russell has done so much work to make us care about the supporting characters this series and then rather dumps them at the end, onlookers to Rose’s last tearful goodbye to the Doctor (which does go on a bit it has to be said, like many a Russell T ending). Oh and how come the Doctor’s suddenly so hesitant to tell Rose that he loves her? He’s never had problems before and he knows time is running short given that he’s burning up a star to even say as much to Rose as he does say. This is the 10th Dr after all, no stranger to emotion even in the calmest of stories, not the flipping 12th!

 BEST QUOTE: ‘Daleks have no concept of elegance!’ Cybermen: ‘This is obvious!’

PREQUELS/SEQUELS: The last of the ‘series two’ Tardisodes intended to create long-standing followers via mobile phone subscriptions, although in the end the quick changing tech market meant that they cost a fortune and most people watched them for free on the Dr Who website instead. These 2 x minute long Gareth Roberts Tardisodes feature a reporter getting the scoop on Torchwood and discovering that it goes all the way back to Queen Victoria, before interference means her article is spiked and she’s very nearly spiked too, instead being sent to an asylum; plus an emergency broadcast after the Cybermen have invaded where a reporter giving the news is invaded live on air, only to reveal that it’s a fleet of Daleks instead who compete over whether to delete or exterminate her. In my heart of hearts I like to think this was GB News and that they’ve all secretly been over-run by Cybermen

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