Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 13 - Doomsday

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 13 - Doomsday

Gods, I'm nearly in tears already, knowing what's coming and all...

Last time, Cybermen from Pete's World had invaded, and Daleks were coming out of a sphere...and Mickey was back...and Rose told us that this was the *sniff* story of how *sob* she died...

The Daleks advance on Rose, Mickey and the scientist, but Rose casts 'shout their name at them' and it lands a high enough d20 roll to convince them to leave the humans alive. After all, at this point how could a human know about Daleks and the Time War? Anyhow, the Daleks seem more fussed about protecting 'The Genesis Ark' at all costs. Higher up in the building, Jackie is panicking, whilst The Doctor promises that he will save them all. The Cybermen broadcast to the world to tell them that they're going to assimilate everyone. The army do a frankly rubbish job of trying to stop them, and fires are breaking out everywhere, which is a pretty cool image really. 

The Daleks want the least important of Rose, Mickey and the scientist to come forward, so obviously the scientist volunteers, having his brainwaves painfully extracted through the fabled 'head squash via Dalek-plunger' finishing move. They learn of the presence of the Cybermen, and they have a brilliant stand off where each refuses to identify first. The Doctor, meanwhile, watches this on a monitor looking slightly troubled. The Cybermen propose an alliance to upgrade the universe, but the Daleks give them the finger and kill their two scouts. They also spot The Doctor in the background of a video feed.The rest of the Cybermen start to prepare the Torchwood employees (and Jackie) for assimilation, with Yvonne protesting that she did her duty for Queen and country before she died. 

In the control room again, a group of people from Pete's World (including Jake from those episodes) suddenly appear, taking out the Cybermen, which allows Jackie to escape a few floors below as the Cybermen need to designate a new leader. The Doctor says that Pete's World shouldn't have the sort of technology that can transport across parallel worlds, but Jake says their version of Torchwood developed it, and uses the tech to take The Doctor across to his world. He meets Pete, who tells him it's time to listen for once.

Rose and Mickey wonder what's going on, and why Mickey is being kept alive. Rose speculates that the Daleks need the background radiation that time-travellers pick up on their journeys, to wake up a part of them as happened in Dalek, but the Daleks reveal that the Genesis Ark is of Time lord design. They believe that Rose's handprint will open the Ark up, 

On Pete's World, Pete explains that the Cybermen were locked up in the factories, but protesters argued that they were living beings and so set them free. They then jumped across the Void and so the moral of the story is, protesters are arseholes. Pete mentions that global temperatures have risen by two degrees in the last six months, and The Doctor says it's because every journey across the Void onto a parallel world rips the fabric of space apart, and that this is making the planet boil. They want The Doctor to close the breach, but he this would strand 5 million Cybermen on our Earth. He'll need to defeat them and The Daleks before he does that...but he's The Doctor, so go get 'em, champ. Or surrender to the Cybermen back in our world, whatever.

The Daleks are demanding that Rose open the Ark, but she taunts them with the knowledge that she destroyed the Emperor Dalek in Series 1. Just as they decide she should die for that act, The Doctor appears at the door. I'll now point out the 3D glasses that he's been wearing a fair bit during the last episode and this one, as it's probably about time they were mentioned. They turn out to be the Cult of Skaro, a legend that were designed to think as the enemy thinks, different from regular Daleks. When the Daleks tell him 'seriously, shut up and just open the damn Ark', he goes all Tenth Doctor on them, pointing out that his sonic screwdriver might be small but it's excellent at opening doors, blowing open some of them and unleashing a newly formed alliance of Pete's World people and Cybermen. Unforunately, during their escape, Mickey's hand ends up on the Genesis Ark, and starts the opening process.

Jackie finally meets up with them all again after apparently running up and down some stairs for a couple of hours. Bit awkward between Pete and Jackie for a while, but there's love in the air still. Gods, I'm in tears when they finally hug. If you aren't too, then you're DEAD inside. The Cybermen and Daleks are still fighting elsewhere in the building, but the Genesis Ark is still making its way to where the Daleks need it, even with Cybermen reinforcements being order to converge on Torchwood's location. Reaching their destination, the Daleks open the roof and head upwards with the Genesis Ark into the sky. The Ark opens and...well, shit, that's not good. Time Lord science=it's bigger on the inside i.e. the Genesis Ark is a prison ship, and there's millions of Daleks beginning to flood out. Still, epic battle about to commence.

It's time for The Doctor to leap into the action, 3D glasses and all. He's been using the glasses to see 'Void Stuff', or the background radiation, attached to everyone who has travelled through the Void to get to other worlds. All he needs to do is open the Void, and all the Void Stuff will get sucked back through, taking those it's attached to with it. Only one problem - to avoid getting sucked in from this side, everyone needs to head over to Pete's World, and that includes Rose. When the breach closes she'll be trapped there forever. Though she tries to convince Jackie that she will stay here with him, Pete and The Doctor share a knowing look, and manage to sneak a travelling medallion around Rose and Jackie's necks, sending them to Pete's World before they realise what is happening. Rose immediately travels back, telling The Doctor that she picks him over Jackie, and he reluctantly tells her how to help.

Rather randomly, the Yvonne Cyberman has somehow retained her humanity and busts a load of Cybermen. Locking some extremely powerful gravity clamps against the wall, The Doctor and Rose prepare to send everything into the Void, whilst hanging on for dear life. All the Cybermen and Daleks around the world are sucked back to London, and thrown into the Void, except for one Dalek who does an Emergency Temporal Shift the hell out of there. They're all nearly through when one of the levers begins to move, shutting the process down. Rose manages to make her way across to it to get it working again, but the power of the Void starts sucking her in. She desperately tries to hold on, but she slips and heads straight for it. At the last second, Pete appears with a medallion, saving her and taking her back to Pete's World, just before the breach is closed. The Doctor looks on, broken. On Pete's World, Rose pleads to be sent back, but the medallions have stopped working as the breach is closed.

Rose begins to dream that she hears The Doctor's voice, whispering her name. They get into Pete's old jeep, following the voice, leading them to Bad Wolf Bay in Norway. The Doctor appears as a transparent image, burning up a star to send a last message to her across the last tiny gap between worlds. He brings his image more into focus, but she still can't touch him. I want to hug them both, to tell them it'll be alright, but I know it won't be. She;s going to work for Torchwood, Jackie is pregnant, and I don't care because I'm still crying. She tells him that she loves him, confirming everything we already know. You know the rest - he's just about to say it back, when he fades from view, tears running down his face back in the TARDIS. 

Fiddling with the controls, he gets set to head off once more, only to be justifiably shocked to find Catherine Tate in a wedding dress wondering where the bloody hell she is.

Words will never quite do justice to the end of this episode. If you thought that the end of The Girl in the Fireplace was tear-jerker, then you ain't seen nothing yet. The end of Rose's journey is so heart-breaking, I'm still crying writing this now. It gets me every single time, no matter who I watch it with. It's a breathtaking end to the season, particularly as the rest of the episode is nothing more than 'good'. Entertaining, but not spectacular, which is a shame considering it features Cybermen vs Daleks. There's just something about the meeting of the two enemies that falls a little flat. They shoot at each other a lot, but that's it. It's surely just budgetary restrictions meaning the fight scenes of million of Daleks versus millions of Cybermen are so short, but it does mean that I'm left thinking, 'oh, right, yeah' rather than 'OH. MY. GOD.' It's a shame, because it's such a brilliant stand-off when the Daleks and Cybermen first meet each other, each refusing to identify themselves to the other. It's something that fans must have wanted for years (assuming that they haven't actually met before in a classic-Who episode.

When Rose can't hold on to the lever any more and heads straight for the Void, that howl of angst that David Tennant gives out caused the tears to prick my eyes again. Seriously, the whole last fifteen minutes are just one giant blubfest. As soon as that takes place, The Doctor's face is one of utter despair, Rose is smashing her hands against the wall pleading to be taken back, and I can't emphasise just how heart-breaking this all is. For a friendship that we've seen built up over the last two series, seeing it broken apart like this is almost too much. It's these moments that make Doctor Who so utterly brilliant.

David Tennant's face when he realises that Rose is gone, saved at the last second but still gone, is one of the most affecting he will ever give. The shot of The Doctor and Rose with their faces pressed against the wall, mirroring each other's actions as the Doomsday theme plays is one of new-Who's most iconic. The Doctor walks away a broken man, and we're all broken with him. Those tears sum everything up. Seriously, even those who don't like Rose MUST be affected by this.

Another bit that Russell T Davies absolutely nails perfectly is the way The Doctor explains that Rose will have to go to Pete's World and then just gets on with it. While she is looking traumatised, he knows that he can't afford to stop for a second, because if he does he won't be able to go through with it. Even with the ending, this is possibly the strongest showing of his love for Rose, and it's absolutely wonderful.

This is also what we believe to be the last time we'll see Jackie and Mickey. Both have been integral parts of Rose's story in Series 1 and 2, and both have been absolutely fantastic. Jackie is still the funniest character in new-Who; I loved it when The Doctor tried to explain parallel realities to her and she just told him to shut up. Never a dull scene with Jackie in it. Mickey, too has had a great character arc, finally proving himself to be a hero and ending up with Rose (we presume). For a while, at least...

My wife thinks I'm a ludicrously sensitive soul, and it's probably things like the fact I had tears in my eyes when Pete and Jackie saw each other for the first time that give her that impression. Hell, when she says that in twenty years there was never anyone else, and then he says that she did make something of herself after all because she raised Rose, and then they finally hug, I don't see how anyone can't feel a swelling in their heart. Yet people apparently think Twilight has an epic romantic story to it but would ignore Doctor Who. These people are morons.

Special praise needs to go to Murray Gold's 'Doomsday' theme. I can't hear the opening piano and bass without welling up, knowing what scene it comes from. It's so different to all his other pieces of music, and it must be one of his most iconic. He's always superb, but he surpasses himself here.

Ooh, those Daleks are mean. 'You didn't have to kill him!' Rose shouts at them, when they murder the scientist who had been studying the sphere. 'Neither did we need him alive' is their reply. Well, they have a point, but perhaps killing him was a little excessive? A quite retirement would have been fairer. The Daleks give the equivalent of a 'yo momma' comeback, when telling the Cybermen they are better at only one thing - dying. Ooh, you can feel the burn from here!

There's a big bit of Who-lore that influenced a lot of guessing about the 50th Anniversary special, as The Doctor tells the Daleks he was at the Fall of Arcadia. Still waiting to see it on the TV, but if they can persuade John Hurt to come back...

There are a couple more things that bug me, but that are fairly minor quibbles. The first is that when Pete saves Rose at the end, he is able to stand still despite the pull of the Void. Yes, he's only there for a second or two, and the breach is nearly closed, but when the pull of the Void is so great that Cybermen are dragged all the way from India, there's no way he would be able to stand absolutely steady. The second is that I don't really understand the bit where it turns out Yvonne survived the Cyber-assimilation. It's a needless scene, and doesn't make me cheer at all, though I understand it's probably a sign that humanity will win out against evil. It just makes me think, 'well why the hell did that happen?'

Torchwood Mentions
Oh, don't be stupid.

Overall
Though the episode itself is a little flawed, the ending is perhaps the greatest since new-Who began. It's the most heart-breaking, tear-jerking finish to a season, even more so than Series 4, and I'm still feeling the effects half a day later (well, nearly 7 YEARS later from when I first saw it). Fantastic end to the season, and a very fond farewell to Rose, Mickey and Jackie.

9/10