Stolen Earth/Journey's End: Ranking - 71

 

 Stolen Earth/Journey's End

(Series 4, Dr 10 with Donna and family, Rose and family, Martha, Sarah Jane and family, Torchwood, Uncle Tom Cobbley, All, 28/6/2008-5/7/2008, showrunner: Russell T Davies, writer: Russell T Davies, director: Graeme Harper) 

Rank: 71

   'The bees have gone missing! Also the ants and the butterflies...wait a minute, what are they doing on Vortis?!? We might need a bigger net to catch The Racnoss. And somebody help me catch the giant wasp before it attacks Agatha Christie again...'

 

And so it ends, this most golden of eras, when Russell T Davies breathed new life into a franchise everyone was convinced was dead and not only managed to win over old fans but new people who’d never even heard of this show before. Even though there four more stories to come for David Tennant’s Dr and Russell T Davies in the commanding officer’s chair, in many ways they feel like encores, last hurrahs in front of the camera to end things with as much spectacle as possible. This two-parter though is the emotional climax of the Russell T years, the pay-off to all the investment we’ve put into these characters and the physical end of an unbroken run of four years when DW went from unloved forgotten cult series to a Saturday afternoon teatime institution, the logical end to everywhere the series has been leading over the past year, if not the past four. This is the story where the odds are higher than almost any other – the Earth has been taken out of orbit and a second out of time (I bet no one in Ormskirk even noticed, it feels like that all the time here) and it takes the combined forces of all our heroes from not just the DW franchises but the Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures ones too to put things right, plus a few others old friends from parallel worlds. It’s a scary ride full of danger, when it looks until the last moment as if the baddies have really won, when our heroes are pushed more than ever before and where their friendship is severely tested like never before in a tale that calls for many sacrifices. Mostly, though, its a celebration. The Dr’s journey since the comeback has been a neat parallel for the series: the 9^th Dr burst onto our screens alone and angry, the time war meaning that all his old achievements had been all but wiped out and forgotten. Gradually, though, he discovers what it means to be loved and give love though, coming to embrace the early 21^st century as a new home every bit as fitting as Coal Hill School in 1963 or UNIT in...whenever it was. In this story its been a very long time since the DR was alone and he’s joined in battle by all the friends he’s made across those four years who all come back for one final (ish) bow: there’s Martha, recently sequestered to UNIT. There’s Captain Jack beaming, everybody’s favourite cheeky hero shortly before Russell’s own (and best) Torchwood series ‘Children Of Earth’ turns him into a pariah. There’s Sarah Jane and clan, saving the world alongside her friend like old times as if she hasn’t aged a day. There’s even Rose, whose been fighting across a parallel world void to return all series long, alongside her mum, her parallel world dad and Mickey. Harriet Jones returns too but doesn’t make it past the opening credits of the second half. Not to mention Donna heading into her own big ending, complete with mum and grandad. It feels a little like a DW version of ‘Friends Reunited’ – everyone in this story has heard so much about everyone else by now but (due to conflicting schedules and budget) have never met; it’s also the single most crowded we ever see the Tardis, with a really moving line (actually taken from a Gareth Roberts novel) about how the Tardis was designed with six sides because that’s how many people its meant to take to work it – only the Dr’s been fighting alone for so long he’s learnt to do it himself. Well, not today. Today is the Dr’s karma for all the good he’s done and it feels like ours too for having faith in this series coming back at all. With all that going on the plot is almost an extra but its a pretty good one too that builds on all sorts of little plot moments that have been building up for years. Remember all those hints about the bees going missing we’ve had all year? Sadly it wasn’t the return of Goronwy from ‘Delta And The Bannermen’ (which might have been a continuity reference too far even for Russell T) but the bees emigrating because they knew the Earth was being ‘pulled’ from space along with 26 other planets. Whose behind it all? Well, Dalek creator Davros is back for the first time since 1988 and as mad as ever, particularly now he’s reduced to creating Daleks out of his own flesh. How can he possibly be back after the time war? Well, remember Dalek Caan from ‘Doomsday two years ago? (What do you mean ‘no’? It’s the one with the Dalek-Cybermen battles!) It turns out he saved Davros by jumping into the time war and teleporting him out, only he’s gone a bit mad. Well, madder. How can the Dr and co stop it, especially when the Daleks have control over the Tardis and have him captured? Well (spoilers) even with all his old friends running around helping him he needs an extra ‘hand’. Remember the hand cut off by the Sycorax in Tennant’s very first story ‘The Christmas Invasion’ that the Dr’s been keeping in a jar? Donna finds herself touching it and ending up causing a half-clone hybrid of her human self and the Dr who runs in and saves the day, babbling in a satisfyingly Donna manner but with all the knowledge of the Dr at her fingertips. Most of all remember the ‘Doctor-Donna’ clues we’ve been getting all year? Yeah, that’s why. It’s like all the loose ends of the past few years are being tied up in a neat bow, but somehow without it seeming like that – everything that happens in this two-parter seems like a natural consequence of the plot. As much as this scene was written as an -in-joke so David Tennant got his own back at Catherine Tate laughing at all the scifi gobbledegook he had to speak and she didn’t (she’s notoriously clueless over scifi in real life but gamely sounds as if she at least vaguely knows what she’s talking about here) it’s a real punch-the-air moment as the temp from Chiswick whose been dismissed as a hopeless failure who’d never amount to anything saves the world, at least as much due to the clone’s Donna half as its Dr bits. It’s a tour de force for Donna’s character who ends up putting everything right again in the same way Rose did as ‘bad Wolf’ three years earlier, but in a satisfyingly Donna way (by talking, as much as anything). And then, just as we’ve had the perfect happy ending, we get the perfect unhappy ending: Donna was never going to leave the Dr’s side for anything but killing her off after all she’d been through would have been too heartbreaking and out of kilter for such an occasion so instead she has her memory wiped, the Dr taking away everything she learnt during his time with her as the price to pay for having her live. The scenes of Donna going back to how she used to be before the Tardis fell into her life are amongst the most heartbreaking of all of DW, obsessed with shallow surface nonsense and her tiny life and not even remembering who he is; the difference is that Donna’s appreciated now even if she can never know it and the people around her look up to her not down. She’s still the same person with the same potential trapped inside her, even if she’s forgotten that she ever used it. And so, just when the Dr had more friends than he’s ever had before, another one he thought was going to be by his side forever leaves and a whole era of the show with her. Curse you Russell T for making me cry – again! The result is an ensemble piece where everyone shines, but David Tennant perhaps most of all, as he gets to go through every emotion the past three years has thrown at him all over again, but in quick succession (and often within the same scene); he’s never been more watchable than this, particularly when doing his best Catherine Tate impression. All that and Richard Dawkins – Lalla Ward/Romana II’s husband in real life (they were introduced at a party by Douglas Adams, who knew them both) – in a cameo too. Now, this finale isn’t perfect by any means. There are too many people running around (and thereis a lot of running around this fortnight) for everyone to get a decent amount of screentime and Martha comes off particularly badly in her last ‘proper’ appearance, while a lot of the first episode feels like vamping until all the pieces are in place for the epic cliffhanger which is, after all, one of the all-time best in any era (see below). The Daleks have been better served in other stories too and its actually a bit of a shame having Davros back as their mouth-piece because he doesn’t get to do anything as interesting as the individual Daleks we’ve seen across the past four series (and it seems to be assumed nowadays that every Dalek story has to have Davros in them), while Dalek Caan is a little too mad, even for a Dalek and his change of heart seems to come out of nowhere, rather conveniently for the plot. This story is trying to tie up so many loose ends, whilst juggling so many ideas and franchises and be a suitable finale(ish) for Donna and be a big and bold spectacle in its own right that it had to give somewhere and this is where: of all the Russell T stories this is actually the one that portrays the daleks worst of all and if you came to this story without the others you would’nt quote get why they’re such a threat. No matter though. I’d happily forgive all that for the best shots of a Dalek invasion since the 1960s, as the Daleks take over not just the home counties but the whole Earth in a mass glossy expensive sequence that seems designed to appear in future documentaries about the show and seems to last forever, yet still not long enough (‘Exterminarium!’ is one of my favourite lines) Given that Russell T was, at the time, overworked underpaid and running on fumes healthwise and still had to make this season ending different to the last three its a wonder its even vaguely as coherent as it is, never mind one of the best stories in arguably Tennant’s best and most consistent season. The second ‘Journey’s End’, particularly, is a fine journey indeed, as gripping, tense, dramatic imaginative and funny as the rest of the Russell T Davies run, all mixed together in new ways he hasn’t used before. Even with a couple of fine stories to come in the specials (along with one good one and one duff one) the Russell T Davies should have ended here with what’s a perfect summary of why I think, however long DW gets to run (maybe forever? Why not?) this era of DW will always be seen by fans as special, whether they were returning to the series, came to it years after or grew up alongside it. The only real downside to this story is that it still isn’t as great as the momentum of ‘Midnight’ and ‘Turn Left’ suggested it would be, where the Dr’s vanity and Donna’s sacrifice catch up with them both. But then what could possibly live up to those two stories? Even if this story ends up turning back to the middle of the road again after such a delightful darker cul-de-sac its a road that was such a privilege to travel down. DW has never been more epic or bold or bright or noisy or colourful than here in all its sixty years and counting.

+ Oh that cliffhanger! It’s not just one person we care about in trouble – its everyone! Sarah Jane’s sobbing as Daleks materialise in Bannerman Road as he rushes back to her son Luke. Torchwood are taking a last stand in their hub. Martha’s preparing to blow herself and half the planet up rather than let the Daleks take to it. Wilf’s just splattered a Dalek with a paintball gun (Bernard Cribbin’s own suggestion) before one turns on him. And most of all The Doctor’s just reunited with Rose after a season of them just missing each other. We finally get the moment we’ve all been dreaming of for two series as they get a chance to actually be together. The Doctor’s running towards Rose and we all breathe a sigh of relief and think things are going to be alright. And then they’re not (spoilers) The extermination and hinted regeneration as the Dr falls to the ground, an episode of the season still to go, was the series’ single biggest talking point since the first sight of a Dalek back in the second story in 1963. Everyone wanted to know how the Dr would get out of this (if indeed he would get out of this) – the solution is very DWy, very clever and very in keeping with the Russell T Davies era.

- Rose somehow doesn’t seem like Rose this episode and it slightly jars, especially up against everyone else being themselves. It’s a combination of Billie Piper being away from playing Rose for so long (and admitting that she had to go back and look at DVDs as she’d forgotten so much of how to play her), Russell being away from writing her for so long, the speed at which Rose changed during her last few stories and the tiny amount of screen-time the character gets, but its still the tiniest of anti-climaxes when she returns after a season of being teased with shots of her trying to ‘break through’ from her world into ours. Even accepting she’s been living without the Doctor for so long and hardened and fighting down the Daleks who all but killed her the last time they met this Rose is awfully bloodthirsty without much of the empathetic soul we first met left. You only have to see this story back to back with ‘Dalek’ to see the sea-change: Rose has gone from being the one trying to save the Dr’s humanity to the one egging him on to lose it. UNIT should have hired her, not Martha (and what’s Martha doing with the storyline of threatening to blow the world up? Surely that’s a more natural fit for Captain Jack or even Sarah Jane given her own long bruising history with The Daleks). Although at least Rose gets the perfect ending, sent back to her parallel world but with a human version of the Dr who’ll age and die alongside her – even as the ‘real’ Dr has to watch her leave and have the life he always wanted with her. .