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 After the tremendous build-up of tension during Bad Wolf, The Parting of the Ways kicks off in full-on, butt-kicking style, with the Doctor & Jack dashing across space in the TARDIS (not using the space/time vortex this time..curious! Doubtless done for visual effect rather than continuity!), escaping the Dalek missiles & materializing on the saucer around Rose & a Dalek (neat bit of piloting there Doc!), with Jack doing his Rambo bit & blowing the Dalek to kingdom come. This works on one level as a good action sequence, but from hereon in the pace necessarily slackens & the Doctor's rescuing of Rose appears ridiculously easy. Also, during the recent years we haven't seen the Doctor having his adventures, the TARDIS' state of temporal grace has gone to pot, as Jack's huge weapon (oo-er) functioned well enough, as did the Dalek's gun, still, this is not so important as the Doctor & Jack having to use the extrapolator to provide the TARDIS with force shields...huh??? Since when? The TARDIS has always been pretty much indestructible & although I like to think that it still is & that the extrapolator plotline was done to provide an additional force field round the Doctor & co when he materialised on board the saucer, I worry that RTD might be reinventing something else.
Once on board the Dalek saucer for his little chat, Eccleston shines again. The idea of him being known as "The Oncoming Storm" on Skaro is a bit flowery for the Daleks, but sounds superb when used in dialogue. All the scenes this year between Doctor & Daleks have dripped with tension & electricity & these are no different. After the Emperor makes his presence known & the Dalek minions try to stop the Doctor interrupting, the way they back up when the Doctor turns on them is a tremendous touch. The Emperor itself is even more doolally than Davros was!!! Whether this is as a result of the Time War or not, we may never know, but to hear a Dalek using words like God, blasphemy, worship & heaven is truly bizarre. I know that some have objected to the idea of the Daleks being made half-human, but I think this is an attempt to strike a chord with the American market, which needs any alien or demon to be half-human in order to work. You can call it the Legacy of Spock if you like! Anyway, the Daleks have long been cultivating genetic material from other races for their own devilish ends & using human DNA goes some way towards explaining how Rose's touch was able to regenerate the lone Dalek in Van Statten's museum.
Having realised that he is up against yet another megalomaniacal dictator, the Doctor & party whip back to Satellite 5 to find a way to stop the Dalek army. Jack has to raise a defence force & suspecting that this is a suicide mission (which he nevertheless accepts with gusto), the erstwhile Captain has to make what he believes will be his final goodbyes to his two friends. I expect, like many, I was approaching this scene with some dread, as the Doctor kissing or being kissed by a female companion is one thing, but to get a full-on lip-smacker from a geezer.?? As it transpired, the scene was handled exceptionally well & I saw no cause for any criticism of it.
Although we have this sexual tension on board the TARDIS this year, particularly between Rose & the Doctor, one of the reasons that the show has endured as long as it has is that the Doctor is essentially sexless, not implying that he doesn't have all the necessary equipment to do the business, but that those things just don't really interest him. How else could a man aged over 80 (by some way) spend over 40 years travelling around with (predominantly) with young girls in a glorified beach hut & not be pounced on by the censors & moral guardians of today's society? So when I knew that Jack was going to plant a smooch on our favourite Time Lord, I was apprehensive to say the least. What John Barrowman did, though, was to play the scene in such a way that there was such a small amount of sexuality in the act that it passed by as a genuine, emotional moment. First he kissed Rose, for whom we knew he had an attraction. It was a gentle, tender kiss rather than a passionate, "This is what you could have had!" type kiss. It was the act of one who has grown to have a deep respect & emotional attachment to someone they felt they would never see again. So when Jack then turned to the Doctor, he did exactly the same thing and it worked very nicely. Also, the lack of any reaction other than a kind of "Thank you" smile from each of them, helped to make it yet another of the genuinely touching emotional moments of the season.
For a while the pace picks up again as the Doctor & Rose work on the Delta wave generator & Jack rallies the troops, even if most of the Game Station operatives aren't interested in helping or just don't believe the Daleks still exist. The Doctor realizes that his plan probably won't work & cons Rose into going home. Jack understands his actions, but when he asks if the Delta wave generator will be ready, the Emperor butts in, having clearly been monitoring events on the Game Station. The Doctor has the capacity to destroy the Daleks, but only at the expense of all life on Earth as well. If he is God, postulates the Emperor, then what would that make the Doctor? The Daleks have long been regarded as symbolizing the Nazis & adding this quasi-religious emphasis merely adds to the similarities between the two forces of evil. More importantly, it makes for some damn fine dialogue!!! Once more the Doctor is faced with a moral & ethical dilemma when faced with the prospects of annihilating his oldest & deadliest foes. In Genesis he had to face the prospect of committing genocide & all the repercussions throughout time that would have had. During the Time War there is every possibility that he was forced to eliminate his own people to stop the Daleks. Here he again has the opportunity, but again is the cost too high? Ultimately, it will prove to be so. The Doctor is no killer, he merely does what he has to do for the greater good, but there are times when the sacrifices required are just too great even for him. If it were merely his own life then he would not hesitate, but when you start talking about untold millions, the decision becomes unbelievably hard. It is only because the alternative is untold billions suffering at the plungers of the Dalek army that he can even consider such a choice, but inevitably the Doctor cannot commit himself to mass murder.
Rose, meanwhile is back home & in a right state, feeling utterly helpless. Her mum & Mickey try to persuade her that her life can return to normal & that the Doctor's dilemma is thousands of year away, but Rose has been changed by her travels. She cannot think of time in the same way as her family, to her, the Doctor & the Daleks are somewhere else, not some other time, and how can she sit idly by & let the world end & her best friends die? She has seen a better way of living her life, a way in which she can make a difference. Her words are etched with passion & understanding & they reach deep inside both Jackie & Mickey, persuading both to help in every way possible. Rose finds more Bad Wolf messages & realizes that rather than being a warning, that they are a message linking her to the Doctor. Working out that if she opens the TARDIS deck plating again, as in Boom Town, she can telepathically link to the time machine, the humans set to work on prising the panelling open. Mickey's new Mini hasn't got the oomph, but just when all seems hopeless Jackie turns up in a tow truck by calling in a 'favour' from a 'friend'. This new vehicle is powerful enough & Rose bonds with the TARDIS, soaking up the energy of the Time Vortex & telepathically piloting the type 40 back to the Game Station, where things aren't going well.
Jack's little army have inevitably been pushed back, their numbers dwindling as the Daleks wipe them out one by one. Even those who refused to help are slaughtered, simply because the Daleks can. This scene is a stark reminder of why they are such a powerful foe. They hate all things non-Dalek, so even though their main objective is to stop the Doctor, there is always enough time to spare a few Daleks to exterminate a few worthless life forms. This group includes Rodrick, the guy who beat Rose in The Weakest Link & we don't shed a tear at his passing, for although he wasn't a bad man in himself, he was ruthless in his own self-interests & inevitably this proves to be his undoing. Anne Robinson's undoing is that she talks too much! The Anne Droid successfully wipes out three Daleks, but because she will insist on saying her catchphrase before each elimination, the Daleks have enough time to blow her up too. From her position in one of the observation rooms, Lynda (with a Y) watches the Dalek fleet descend upon the Earth & in a simple but terrifyingly effective sequence, we watch the continents being reshaped by the force of the Dalek weaponry. Hers is a more sympathetic character, so when the Daleks begin cutting through the door we all hope someone will come to her rescue. In a nice twist, the Daleks don't break through the door, but 4 of them rise up from below the observation window & exterminate her from outside the Game Station.
Once again, the Mill have pulled out all the CGI stops & the effects here are as good as anything you've seen to date. In the old TV21 comics we saw Daleks flying around in space & finally here we see thousands of Daleks casually zipping about outside the saucers. It is very reassuring to know that the company behind such outstanding work this year will be back again next season. The last lines of defence fall. The male programmer is one of the last to lose his life, after seeing his female counterpart gunned down by the Daleks. We are allowed a few moments with these two prior to this moment to establish his feelings for her, thus making their deaths a little more upsetting. Last to fall is, of course, Jack in a shocking scene in which he fires every piece of ammunition at the Daleks before being calmly blasted.
The transformation of Jack from galactic con-man, merely out for his own ends, into this true all-action-hero is astonishing & another prime example of how the Doctor touches peoples lives in such a positive way. Of course, we all expect Jack to survive, so his death is particularly harrowing & surprising. He was the last man standing & there is now nothing to stop the Daleks as they swarm into the control room & surround the Doctor, just as he finishes his work. Unable to defend himself, the Doctor merely stands still, his eyes closed & we suspect that this is the end for the ninth Doctor, but just in the nick of time, the TARDIS returns & the enhanced Rose Tyler steps out, eyes blazing with her new power. The Daleks try to exterminate her, but she handles that as easily as brushing a hair out of her eyes. With some time to spare now that she is untouchable, Rose explains that she, or rather the telepathic connection between her, the TARDIS & the time vortex, is the Bad Wolf & she now takes the name of the Corporation controlling the Game Station, in itself probably a legitimate company & scatters the words through time, in all the places she knows she & the Doctor have been (& not just the ones we have seen either) so as to leave herself a message which she now knows she will understand in time to save the Doctor from his fate. Pulsing with the power within her, Rose has the power to take things apart atom by atom & uses it on the Daleks, mirroring the Doctor's word form the end of The Doctor Dances by stating "Everything dies!" As the Emperor continues insisting that it is immortal, Rose calmly wipes the Daleks from existence, disintegrating each & every Dalek & Dalek saucer. Of course, we all suspect that somewhere there are other Daleks & that they will return to menace the Doctor once again, but for now, their threat is no more, the Earth is safe & the only one currently in danger is Rose herself, being eaten away inside by forces too powerful to control. She currently has the power of life & death & uses it to resurrect Jack, much to John Barrowman's delight (& Buer's dismay!). She can see the entirety of creation, the whole of time & all the possible outcomes, which, it transpires, is a gift the Doctor possesses, although probably in a lesser way. She knows that she is killing herself by having this power & so does the Doctor, so he takes it from her by kissing her & transferring the energy to himself before sending it back to the TARDIS. Empty of the time vortex, Rose collapses under the strain & the Doctor carries her back to the TARDIS, dematerialising just before Jack returns to see his friends disappear without him. Fear not, for we shall meet up with him again.
In the TARDIS Rose recovers, but the Doctor must still have some vestige of the vortex inside him because his hands are doing very strange things. He realizes the implications & for once he actually has time to prepare his companion for what he knows is to come. Of course, whilst he is familiar with the process & most of us too, Rose has no concept of regeneration & when the Doctor stands back immersed in light & morphs into a different form, she is stunned, as would anyone be. The new Doctor has just enough time to reflect on his new mouth before the end credits roll & this astonishing season finally draws to a close. From the commencement of his tenure as the Doctor, to his regeneration Christopher Eccleston has lasted a ridiculous 13 weeks, but in that short space of time, he has re-energized the series & left a legacy which David Tennant will have to try hard to eclipse. Doubtless we will see more of the 9th Doctor in books & hopefully in the Big Finish audio adventures, possibly even in future episodes on TV if past Doctors return, but for now, that's your lot! David Tennant is the Doctor now & at least we only have to wait 5 months before he returns in The Christmas Invasion. The 27th season of this remarkable show has been one of almost unparalleled success, starting out with huge viewing figures & knocking the kings of Saturday night TV, Ant & Dec, off their perch & maintaining the same high standards of writing, production, music, acting, direction & effects throughout its run. The Parting of the Ways had an impressive 41% share of TV viewers watching that night & they all saw a stunning climax to what has to have been the televisual event of the year.
We saw the return of the Autons, the Daleks, the Emperor Dalek & UNIT, we learned of the Time War & the affect it had for the Time Lords & the Daleks, not to mention the Nestenes & the Gelth, we met the Slitheen & the Reapers & the Jagrofess. We saw the Doctor & Rose develop a very close relationship in which each learned from the other, we saw Adam come & go & Jack turn from a con man to a hero, we saw Christopher Eccleston become David Tenant & we did it all with a sense of pride in our hearts because our show was back, & not only was it back, but it was GOOD - It was still good & everybody seemed to like it. They liked it, they talked about it, it was cool again. It beat off Ant & Dec & destroyed Celebrity Wrestling, by doing so changing the way we looked at how television works. Whether it will be the first few nails in the reality TV coffin remains to be seen, but if not then Bad Wolf has shown us how that format might end up. For now, though, family viewing & entertaining drama are back with us & I for one await anxiously the plethora of awards the programme & its major players will surely reap at this year's awards ceremonies. Final mention must go though to Russell T Davies, who has lovingly brought the show back from the dead (on TV at least) & reinvigorated it in such a way a to make it once again a British institution of which to be proud.
See you in 5 months time Doctor!
» Review by Miles Northcott, Copyright 2005.
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