Doctor Who: Doomsday

The final episode of new-series two. May be mildly spoilerish.

Doctor Who returns for a Christmas episode featuring the impressionist Catherine Tate in The Runaway Bride, and then for a third series in spring 2007, which is just starting filming.

Cast and Crew

David Tennant as the Doctor
Billie Piper as Rose Tyler
Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler
Noel Clarke as Mickey
Raji James as Doctor Singh
Nicholas Briggs was the voice of the Cybermen
Tracy-Ann Oberman as Yvonne Hartman
Shaun Dingwall as Pete Tyler
Andrew Hayden Smith as Jake Symmonds
Paul Kasey as Cyber Leader

Written by Russell T. Davies

Directed by Graeme Harper

Originally aired on the 7th of July 2006 on BBC One in the United Kingdom.

Synopsis

The Cybermen are in control of Earth, but four Daleks and a mysterious ‘Genesis Ark’ threaten to plunge the planet into all-out war.

High Points

  • The Daleks and Cybermen insulting each other. Arrogant though the Daleks sound, one can’t help but get the feeling that they’re correct about their chances.
  • Pete and Jackie’s meeting.
  • The revelation of what the Genesis Ark is.
  • The very final setup for this year’s Christmas episode.
  • Yvonne’s final scene, which raises some questions about the Cybermen and what happens after.

Low Points

  • The final outcome, which I’m not going to mention due to it being intensely spoileriffic, doesn’t quite match what we’ve come to expect from the starting voiceovers. It’s a fine ending, but one feels slightly cheated.

The Scores

Not an enormous chance to be original here, but as with last week it doesn’t feel particularly rehashed and gets another four out of six.

The effects were a bit disappointing after last week. As we observed in series one, flying Daleks don’t look quite real enough on this sort of budget. Five out of six.

In terms of story this is a fitting conclusion to last week, offering even more peril and disaster for the Doctor to avert, with a nice dose of self-sacrifice to go with it. Fortunately the Daleks vs Cybermen thing didn’t get too cheesy, neither did it feel like a fanboy’s idle musings. Five out of six.

Acting was again good, but we’re now entirely into characters we’ve seen before and we know how we expect them to behave and how we expect the actors to handle them. Fortunately, this is exactly what is delivered. Five out of six.

There’s a true sense of disaster approaching which gives a nice emotional response, especially when the Daleks and Cybermen are fighting all across London. I don’t think the departure of Rose prodded quite as much as it was intended to though. Five out of six.

Production was again worthy of a great deal of credit, although I’ve not yet figured out why alternate-Torchwood is all dark and gloomy and looks like someone recently detonated a bomb in it. Maybe someone recently detonated a bomb in it, but that doesn’t quite fit with their given timeline. Five out of six.

Overall I’m pleased to withdraw my misgivings from last week and give this episode an enthusiastic six out of six.

Doomsday therefore receives a grand total of thirty-six out of forty-two.

33 replies on “Doctor Who: Doomsday”

  1. Dooooooooom
    All in all a good episode. A few points:

    I wondered how long Jackie and Pete (and the others) were going to stand around and have that conversation for. Ummm, it’s the end of the world, shouldn’t someone be doing something?

    Rose’s ending. (Look away now if you don’t want to know the score) I was wondering how that was going to end. The start to the first episode was a bit naff. Unless you actually kill her there is now way to live up to it. That being said, however, I did like the ending with Pete popping up at the last moment. I did think she was going to die.

    The Cybermen vs Dalek meeting was done well as you say. When I saw the preview for this I truely feared, but it was handled well. Dalek arrogance was well founded, I felt.

    "Local" Cybermen. I was left with one thought after the ending (more spoilers). Surely the Cybermen created in this universe (Yvonne included) would not have had "void stuff" since they didn’t pass through between universes. And so surely they wouldn’t not have been sucked in?

    • Re: Dooooooooom
      Oh.. and I did keep wondering about the glasses. Why oh why did no one ask about them until he pointed it. I know the Doctor can be a bit scatty, but there is usually a reason!

      • Re: Dooooooooom

        Oh.. and I did keep wondering about the glasses. Why oh why did no one ask about them until he pointed it. I know the Doctor can be a bit scatty, but there is usually a reason!

        I loved that bit. I was asking myself the same question throughout the episode. I like how it was handled. They really didn’t have time for a simple question like that before they asked it (but we, the viewer, did).

        • Re: Dooooooooom

          Oh.. and I did keep wondering about the glasses. Why oh why did no one ask about them until he pointed it. I know the Doctor can be a bit scatty, but there is usually a reason!

          I loved that bit. I was asking myself the same question throughout the episode. I like how it was handled. They really didn’t have time for a simple question like that before they asked it (but we, the viewer, did).

          I loved the glasses too. I was really quite pleased with this two-parter, and I was especially happy with the ending, in regards to the Doctor not getting to say "I love you" to Rose. I honestly didn’t think the show would conclude this arc in a way that proved satisfactory (to me). I was happy to be proved wrong. :)

          My conjectures:

          A Torchwood in a parallel universe implies a parallel Doctor. Where is he? Possibly a parallel Master too. Where is he?

          The Doctor uses the word "impossible" too often for my tastes, especially as a member of a species that supposedly knows damned-near everything. If it were impossible, the evidence of it being possible would not be hovering in mid-air directly in front of him. I kept thinking of Vezzini in "The Princess Bride" "That’s IN-conceivable!" All we needed was Iniego saying "I do not think that word means what you think it means."

          Yvonne will be back, I suspect — she had one of the alternate-Earth resistance weapons — but why wasn’t her brain overcome by Cyberman conditioning/surgery?

          Finally, the black Dalek got away. We’ll have more Dalek stories.

          I’m not sure why we fear RTD’s episodes so much. Not all of the episodes he has written have been great, but most of the great episodes were written by him. :)

          -Joe G.

          • Re: Dooooooooom

            I loved the glasses too. I was really quite pleased with this two-parter, and I was especially happy with the ending, in regards to the Doctor not getting to say "I love you" to Rose. I honestly didn’t think the show would conclude this arc in a way that proved satisfactory (to me). I was happy to be proved wrong. :)

            I’m not sure why we fear RTD’s episodes so much. Not all of the episodes he has written have been great, but most of the great episodes were written by him. :)

            -Joe G.

            I agree completely. The Doctor saying I love you would have ruined the show. It was perfect the way it was written.

            I agree with your sentiments about RTD too. But the main reason I was worried about the finale is because the "Whatever(I can’t remember) and Monsters" episode was soooo very bad.

            This episode was great.

          • Re: Dooooooooom

            why wasn’t her brain overcome

            Torchwood personnel all get basic psychic training, and she’s the best they got. She was annoying, but very competant.

          • Re: Dooooooooom

            a parallel Doctor. Where is he? Possibly a parallel Master too. Where is he?

            Not necesseraly. The explanation the Doctor gave to Jackie was that parallel worlds are the result of a choice made that forked the possibilities, both choices were made in parallel.
            So if that universe results from a choice made after Queen Victoria decided to create Torchwood, then you have a parallel world without the Doctor, where maybe Torchwood saved the day in a moment where the Doctor did in the universe we’re familiar with…
            As for the Doctor and the Master, Timelords are not a regular part of the universe, they might not be forked by decisions the same way that Jackie and other muggles are (who, muddled references!).

      • Re: Dooooooooom

        Oh.. and I did keep wondering about the glasses. Why oh why did no one ask about them until he pointed it. I know the Doctor can be a bit scatty, but there is usually a reason!

        The glasses were brilliant, a wonderful running gag with as plausible an explanation as the Doctor’s quirks ever have. I wondered why nobody asked, but it had _us_ asking which was the more important bit.

    • Re: Dooooooooom

      "Local" Cybermen. I was left with one thought after the ending (more spoilers). Surely the Cybermen created in this universe (Yvonne included) would not have had "void stuff" since they didn’t pass through between universes. And so surely they wouldn’t not have been sucked in?

      I think Yvonne ended up dead at the hands of the Cybermen she was trying to stop. Also, they did show that the military could take out cybermen with enough firepower, so they should be able to mop up the handful of remaining Cybermen.

    • Re: Dooooooooom

      the Cybermen created in this universe

      Well, they didn’t have factories in this universe, so they must have brought a supply of empty suits in which to insert fresh brains.

      • Braaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnssssssss

        Well, they didn’t have factories in this universe, so they must have brought a supply of empty suits in which to insert fresh brains.

        Sorry, someone had to say it. :)

        -Joe

  2. Daleks and Cybermen

    Fortunately the Daleks vs Cybermen thing didn’t get too cheesy, neither did it feel like a fanboy’s idle musings. Five out of six.

    I respectfully disagree on both points. It felt to me a bit like two vulcans fighting over a toy firetruck. Daleks have always gone around yelling and screaming, but I’ve never heard them bantering insults (although they do call it as their arrogant eyes see it). The cybermen are supposed to be non-feeling, cold, and borg-like (although they came before the borg) and they _really_ wouldn’t be bantering insults. And even if they could be throwing insults back and forth, the whole thing was just a big "ooh, let’s throw daleks and cybermen together and have them fight", like Q pitting the borg and species 8479 together in an arena.

    The episode was great in spite of the daleks and cybermen.

    • Okay, I Gotta Say It….

      The cybermen are supposed to be non-feeling, cold, and borg-like (although they came before the borg) and they _really_ wouldn’t be bantering insults. And even if they could be throwing insults back and forth, the whole thing was just a big "ooh, let’s throw daleks and cybermen together and have them fight", like Q pitting the borg and species 8479 together in an arena.

      The episode was great in spite of the daleks and cybermen.

      The Daleks Would Totally Mop The Floor With The Borg.

      (And I’d Totally Pay Current Movie Admission Prices To See It. Hell, I’d Buy Popcorn.)

      • Re: Okay, I Gotta Say It….

        The Daleks Would Totally Mop The Floor With The Borg.

        (And I’d Totally Pay Current Movie Admission Prices To See It. Hell, I’d Buy Popcorn.)

        I second that.

        Actually, I’d probably pay more to see the Daleks mop the floor with Berman & Braga.

  3. Alternate Torchwood
    I’d have to watch the scene again, but it looked less like a bomb was detonated there as construction was stopped several months earlier and never got cleaned up.

    Given that we knowwhy Torchwood Tower was built, and how recently they were acting on it, it’s quite possible the alternate tower was either still being built or never got finished due to the Cybermen stuff.

    • Re: Alternate Torchwood

      I’d have to watch the scene again, but it looked less like a bomb was detonated there as construction was stopped several months earlier and never got cleaned up.

      Given that we knowwhy Torchwood Tower was built, and how recently they were acting on it, it’s quite possible the alternate tower was either still being built or never got finished due to the Cybermen stuff.

      Or, If The Zero Ship Didn’t Go Through Pete’s World, They breach Might Not Be There, Or Might Be Someplace Else, So They Might Not Have Had A Reason To Build That Particular Skyscrapper. That could Just Be A Building, And The Alternate Torchwood Was Someplace Else, They Just Went To The Right Spot To Jump Across.

  4. Kvetching
    I think my problem with the RTD episodes is an annoying itch that may or may not be grounded in anything that others agree with. Here’s my problem. We have the TARDIS. It goes all over time and space. We have potential problems to solve everywhere and when. We even know (because they tell us) that Rose and the Doctor are, in fact, experiencing getting stuck in situations involving cool problems all over the place. They deal with wacky ones (the Friz Freleng door gag in Love and Monsters shows that RTD even understands this) that we never see the resolution of. There are throwaway references to places and situations. There are even excellent conundrums involving Earth (Mme. de Pompadour).

    But then it always feels, to me, that in order to generate ‘arc type drama,’ RTD has to show up and pull in from a set list of elements:

    1) Jackie and/or Earth’s IMMINENT PERIL
    2) Daleks
    3) Hints thrown around all season.

    Ideally, LET’S DO ALL THREE!

    And what’s worse, the ‘hints thrown around all season’ don’t even have a clever puzzle behind them. They’re just references to something explained in their first appearance. There’s this clunky, visible scaffolding of ‘DRAMATIC TENSION, AUDIENCE, EARTH HUMAN, CONSTRUCTION SET MK. I’ peeping out from behind the curtains.

    For Gallifrey’s sake, you’ve got all of time and space. You’ve been able to write and produce good episodes, even good two-parter episodes. Don’t rewind us back to the same damn EARTH IS IN IMMINENT PERIL spot for the…what, fourth? Fifth? …time in the past ten stories, just because it’s ‘time for a season cliffhanger ender, break out the props, boys!’

    I mean, Daleks, come on. Either you killed ’em off, or you didn’t. If you take the third path of ‘maybe we didn’t’ that *might* buy you a ‘tantalize them’ thread…but only if it’s handled well, with hints over time maybe, not if the Daleks are a ‘deus ex’ you can yank out of a timewarp bottle every time you can’t be bothered to think of a clever and scary villain and just need sturm und drang. I mean, come on – millions of Daleks, and we beat them with a vacuum cleaner that can suck them in from miles away but can’t pull a shop clerk blonde off a wall hanging?

    Sigh.

    Don’t get me wrong, I like the show. But this is my problem with RTD. It’s the laziness, the one-trick ponyism and the wasted potential.

    • Re: Kvetching

      But then it always feels, to me, that in order to generate ‘arc type drama,’ RTD has to show up and pull in from a set list of elements:

      1) Jackie and/or Earth’s IMMINENT PERIL
      2) Daleks
      3) Hints thrown around all season.

      Ideally, LET’S DO ALL THREE!

      And what’s worse, the ‘hints thrown around all season’ don’t even have a clever puzzle behind them. They’re just references to something explained in their first appearance. There’s this clunky, visible scaffolding of ‘DRAMATIC TENSION, AUDIENCE, EARTH HUMAN, CONSTRUCTION SET MK. I’ peeping out from behind the curtains.

      For Gallifrey’s sake, you’ve got all of time and space. You’ve been able to write and produce good episodes, even good two-parter episodes. Don’t rewind us back to the same damn EARTH IS IN IMMINENT PERIL spot for the…what, fourth? Fifth? …time in the past ten stories, just because it’s ‘time for a season cliffhanger ender, break out the props, boys!’

      I mean, Daleks, come on. Either you killed ’em off, or you didn’t. If you take the third path of ‘maybe we didn’t’ that *might* buy you a ‘tantalize them’ thread…but only if it’s handled well, with hints over time maybe, not if the Daleks are a ‘deus ex’ you can yank out of a timewarp bottle every time you can’t be bothered to think of a clever and scary villain and just need sturm und drang. I mean, come on – millions of Daleks, and we beat them with a vacuum cleaner that can suck them in from miles away but can’t pull a shop clerk blonde off a wall hanging?

      Sigh.

      Don’t get me wrong, I like the show. But this is my problem with RTD. It’s the laziness, the one-trick ponyism and the wasted potential.

      Don’t hold back, say what you’re *really* feeling. :) My apologies regarding the rambling nature of the following post. It’s bed time. :)

      Actually, you make excellent points, and I really can’t disagree with any of them, but when I think back to previous doctors, there was almost *always* imminent peril, usually involving humans, if not Earth. The Daleks weren’t the only bad guys back then, but they play such an important role today because they *did* wipe out every Time Lord except the Doctor.

      I think maybe the reason we see so many shows set back on Earth today is because in today’s world of digital matte paintings and high-end animation it’s become a lot more difficult to make convincing alien sets. The days of throwing up a colored sheet in the background, scattering orange sand, painting some grass purple, and having a character say "I hate the weather here on …" (Castrovalva, Gallifrey, Mars, Procyon) to establish an alien setting are long over. :) Audiences have grown used to realistic clouds and flying thingies in the sky, realistic alien thingies towering in the distance, realistic alien thingies prowling around the realistic alien landscape. Visits to alien worlds don’t happen too often on most TV shows, unless we’re talking about Cylon-occupied Vancouver, New Caprica, Nunavut, and Kobol National Park, British Columbia. :)

      As for the plot constructs RTD puts in place to manipulate all of his characters to the correct location for the next scene/episode, every writer does it, but I’ll grant you that RTD does fall prey to "deus ex machina" more than some. The clues the first season had lots of people looking for bad wolf references, but this season there really weren’t any mysteries regarding Torchwood. As you say, there was lots of obvious scaffolding left about for people to see. We knew TW was coming, so the only real mystery was "when"?

      Still, I am enjoying the new series quite a bit, as much as I enjoyed the old series, if not more so. Both the new series and the old series have/had their hokey moments, but from my own experience with the older series over time the hokey moments become quirks for which many of us seem to develop an affection. :)

      Dalek plungers still look like Dalek plungers for a reason. :)

      -Joe

    • Re: Kvetching

      I think my problem with the RTD episodes is an annoying itch that may or may not be grounded in anything that others agree with. Here’s my problem. We have the TARDIS. It goes all over time and space. We have potential problems to solve everywhere and when. We even know (because they tell us) that Rose and the Doctor are, in fact, experiencing getting stuck in situations involving cool problems all over the place. They deal with wacky ones (the Friz Freleng door gag in Love and Monsters shows that RTD even understands this) that we never see the resolution of. There are throwaway references to places and situations. There are even excellent conundrums involving Earth (Mme. de Pompadour).

      But then it always feels, to me, that in order to generate ‘arc type drama,’ RTD has to show up and pull in from a set list of elements:

      1) Jackie and/or Earth’s IMMINENT PERIL
      2) Daleks
      3) Hints thrown around all season.

      Ideally, LET’S DO ALL THREE!

      And what’s worse, the ‘hints thrown around all season’ don’t even have a clever puzzle behind them. They’re just references to something explained in their first appearance. There’s this clunky, visible scaffolding of ‘DRAMATIC TENSION, AUDIENCE, EARTH HUMAN, CONSTRUCTION SET MK. I’ peeping out from behind the curtains.

      For Gallifrey’s sake, you’ve got all of time and space. You’ve been able to write and produce good episodes, even good two-parter episodes. Don’t rewind us back to the same damn EARTH IS IN IMMINENT PERIL spot for the…what, fourth? Fifth? …time in the past ten stories, just because it’s ‘time for a season cliffhanger ender, break out the props, boys!’

      I mean, Daleks, come on. Either you killed ’em off, or you didn’t. If you take the third path of ‘maybe we didn’t’ that *might* buy you a ‘tantalize them’ thread…but only if it’s handled well, with hints over time maybe, not if the Daleks are a ‘deus ex’ you can yank out of a timewarp bottle every time you can’t be bothered to think of a clever and scary villain and just need sturm und drang. I mean, come on – millions of Daleks, and we beat them with a vacuum cleaner that can suck them in from miles away but can’t pull a shop clerk blonde off a wall hanging?

      Sigh.

      Don’t get me wrong, I like the show. But this is my problem with RTD. It’s the laziness, the one-trick ponyism and the wasted potential.

      Those "dropped in hints" this season weren’t hints, they were product placement. All season long Torchwood has been product placement for the upcoming series. I don’t really mind it too much, but that is exactly what it has been. Only in the werewolf episode and the finale was there any real meat to the Torchwood references.

    • cutting some slack

      I think my problem with the RTD episodes is an annoying itch that may or may not be grounded in anything that others agree with. Here’s my problem. […] the same damn EARTH IS IN IMMINENT PERIL spot

      Well, it’s a kid’s show, remember. We as grownups have, well, grown beyond it, but the kids haven’t seen the earth saved as many times as us. They quite like it.

      As for the Daleks, they’re DALEKS! Come on! I was psyched to see ’em! And again, think of the 10 year olds who weren’t even born last time there was a Doctor Who series on, you can’t deny them Daleks!

      millions of Daleks, and we beat them with a vacuum cleaner that can suck them in from miles away but can’t pull a shop clerk blonde off a wall hanging?

      The Doctor and Rose only went through the void twice, the daleks and cybermen lived in it for months, years! They’re saturated with void stuff, so the attraction is much stronger on them… You have to pay more attention when the Doctor explains his brilliant plan to save the world for the nth time :)

      • Re: cutting some slack

        The Doctor and Rose only went through the void twice, the daleks and cybermen lived in it for months, years! They’re saturated with void stuff, so the attraction is much stronger on them…

        Plus, those things they were hanging on were gravity neutalizers. I presume the good Doctor adjusted them with the sonic screwdriver or something, so as to neutalize part of the void-sucking effect.

    • Re: Kvetching

      1) Jackie and/or Earth’s IMMINENT PERIL

      I think this is the real key element right here.

      Yes, they’ve got a whole universe to play with, but most of us haven’t been anywhere except this particular little ball of mud. Situations that put Earth in danger, or Jackie (as an Everyman-sorta character), are much easier to identify with for mainstream viewers. I’m sure the fact that Earth-like locations for filming are relatively cheap and easy to come by is just a coincidence. :)

  5. I can’t believe
    that people here apparantly expected Rose would literally die based on the narration.

    I mean, Rose was actually doing the narration which would be rather hard if she was literally dead……

    • Re: I can’t believe

      that people here apparantly expected Rose would literally die based on the narration.

      I mean, Rose was actually doing the narration which would be rather hard if she was literally dead……

      Ah, but the first episode was called Army Of Ghosts…

    • Re: I can’t believe

      that people here apparantly expected Rose would literally die based on the narration.

      I mean, Rose was actually doing the narration which would be rather hard if she was literally dead……

      Plus, the Beast said she would die, and they played up on that. Now did the Beast know it would be just a legal death and try to psych her out (Father of Lies stuff) or is the Beast not as all knowing as he claims to be?

      I wonder if it was something to do with the void ship that threw the TARDIS to Pete’s world in the first place? Will Jackie and Pete’s baby have any special connection to both realities? Will Rose manage to find the Dr on that side?

      • Re: I can’t believe

        I wonder if it was something to do with the void ship that threw the TARDIS to Pete’s world in the first place? Will Jackie and Pete’s baby have any special connection to both realities? Will Rose manage to find the Dr on that side?

        I smell a spin-off!

        I’ve some unanswered questions, not for this episode in particular:

        – Did the Daleks cause the TARDIS to break into Pete’s world?
        – When the Beast was talking about being outside time and space, was he talking about the void?
        – Who where the beings where that imprisioned the Beast, and where expecting the Doctor. I expected something about this in the final episode.
        – As someone else mentioned, if there is an alternative Torchwood then shouldn’t there be an alternative Doctor?
        – Did the Daleks build the void ship? Seems even the Timelords didn’t have that level of technology.
        Does the escape of one of the Daleks mean some link with Pete’s world remains?
        – In ‘Fear Her’ the Doctor said he was a father once. Is this something new? I’ve not seen any of the old (pre-RTD) episodes.

        Whew .. more questions than I thought. I think to much! It’s only a TV show…

        • Re: I can’t believe

          I wonder if it was something to do with the void ship that threw the TARDIS to Pete’s world in the first place? Will Jackie and Pete’s baby have any special connection to both realities? Will Rose manage to find the Dr on that side?

          – Did the Daleks cause the TARDIS to break into Pete’s world?

          Dunno bout that one.

          – When the Beast was talking about being outside time and space, was he talking about the void?

          The Doctor did say of the void "Time Lords called it The Void, the Ancients called it The Howling, some call it Hell."

          – Who where the beings where that imprisioned the Beast, and where expecting the Doctor. I expected something about this in the final episode.

          Ah, but the Face of Bo did say the lonely god would meet him one more time … There’s an underlying mythology centered around the Doctor. More Will Be Revealed, I am sure. :)

          – As someone else mentioned, if there is an alternative Torchwood then shouldn’t there be an alternative Doctor?

          On the nosey. ;)

          – Did the Daleks build the void ship? Seems even the Timelords didn’t have that level of technology.

          And the Doctor said "that’s impossible!" … I wonder about that one too. The Daleks cannot build an object that’s bigger on the inside than on the outside, but they can build an object that handily removes itself from the universe …

          Does the escape of one of the Daleks mean some link with Pete’s world remains?

          Those Daleks were from Rose’s universe. They had never been to Pete’s world.

          – In ‘Fear Her’ the Doctor said he was a father once. Is this something new? I’ve not seen any of the old (pre-RTD) episodes.

          I wondered about this one myself.

          Personally, I think the link has been there for a while in one form or another. The Daleks enlarged it with their void ship enough for the Cybermen to notice it, but it has been there for a looooooong time.

          Gotta say it that way, looooooooong.

          Anyways, it’s a convenient way for future plot contri … I mean, future episodes with Rose, Mickey, Jack, and Jackie. :)

          -Joe

        • Re: I can’t believe

          – In ‘Fear Her’ the Doctor said he was a father once. Is this something new? I’ve not seen any of the old (pre-RTD) episodes.

          The first doctor traveled with his granddaughter, Susan. I’m not sure it was ever clear why they were on Earth, but she was attending a school, a couple of her teachers wandered into the TARDIS, and that is how it all started.

          A later seventh Doctor story indicates he left some unfinished business when he originally departed; if memory serves two factions of Daleks were after the Hand of Omega (a stellar manipulator created by Omega, an ancient Time Lord scientist).

          At any rate, if there was a granddaughter, the inference is there was at least one son or daughter. I seem to remember very few if any references to his family, in all the original episodes I’ve seen, and if anything they were oblique. Aside from the Fox movie (eighth doctor) that indicates the Doctor is "half human" there is no background on any of the Doctor’s relatives.

          • Re: I can’t believe

            The first doctor traveled with his granddaughter, Susan. I’m not sure it was ever clear why they were on Earth, but she was attending a school, a couple of her teachers wandered into the TARDIS, and that is how it all started.

            A later seventh Doctor story indicates he left some unfinished business when he originally departed; if memory serves two factions of Daleks were after the Hand of Omega (a stellar manipulator created by Omega, an ancient Time Lord scientist).

            At any rate, if there was a granddaughter, the inference is there was at least one son or daughter. I seem to remember very few if any references to his family, in all the original episodes I’ve seen, and if anything they were oblique. Aside from the Fox movie (eighth doctor) that indicates the Doctor is "half human" there is no background on any of the Doctor’s relatives.

            I forgot about the Doctor’s granddaughter. Those really early episodes were difficult for me to get into. Yah, if he had a granddaughter it stands to reason he was a father at some time or another.

            Which begs the question, whither Susan? I remember seeing her in "The Five Doctors" (which was more like 4 and one third doctors, because all Tom Baker’s doctor did was get stuck in a partially-completed transmat. :) ) Anyways, it seems to be implied that Susan was/is a casualty too, but odd that the Doctor mentioned her parent, isn’t it?

            Stay tuned … :)

            -Joe

      • Re: I can’t believe

        Plus, the Beast said she would die, and they played up on that. Now did the Beast know it would be just a legal death and try to psych her out (Father of Lies stuff) or is the Beast not as all knowing as he claims to be?

        It was just a lie. If the Beast was actually prescient and knew how Rose was going to die he’d have also probably twigged that Rose and The Doctor was going to kick his ass!

      • Re: I can’t believe

        Plus, the Beast said she would die, and they played up on that. Now did the Beast know it would be just a legal death and try to psych her out (Father of Lies stuff) or is the Beast not as all knowing as he claims to be?

        Well, I don’t think the Beast was all that knowing, but if one had precognition, and saw that Rose was alive in this universe on date X, and no longer alive in it on date Y, one would probably leap to the conclusion that Rose was in fact dead, i.e. not just a legal technicality.

        Will Rose manage to find the Dr on that side?

        Might not be one – there’s no Rose2, after all (not counting the dog). Or there may be one but he’s completely different, or there was but he didn’t survive the Time War.

  6. Almost every comment in here …
    … is full of conjecture, discussing story details, not the actual structure of the ep itself.

    To me that’s the best indicator of a great episode of a show. :)

    -Joe

  7. Almost every comment in here …
    … is full of conjecture, discussing story details, not the actual structure of the ep itself.

    To me that’s the best indicator of a great episode of a show. :)

    -Joe

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