NuWho Rewatch: The End of Time

[purplecat]

Watched in context of the whole of the Tenth Doctor's tenure The End of Time is... still pretty rubbish.

I was really hoping that, watched in context, this would show us the tenth Doctor pulling back from the brink while at the same time being confronted by the logical end point of the idea of the Time Lord Victorious.

But no. He's still, if not sulking, contriving to make everyone else's problems all about him. He's not so worried about the prophesied end of time as he is about the prophesy of his own regeneration. He's not so worried about whether Donna is happy as that she wasn't there to stop him. He is, if anything, even more self-obsessed than he was in Waters of Mars. It's not particularly pretty.

Meanwhile, although Timothy Dalton (an actor of whom I'm fond) is doing his best, and does give the impression that he's read the memo about Time Lords victorious, there really isn't enough there in the script to really convey the concept.

And around this you've just got lots of random stuff that barely holds together. I rather wish the whole regeneration had ended with Journey's End. It's a better story and a better send off.

NLSS Child wanted to know who the woman was. I said I thought it was Romana. After I had explained who Romana was, NLSS Child rejected this hypothesis and opted for the Doctor's mother. Just so you know. Then she stood in the centre of the room for about ten minutes while Tame Layman and I sat on the sofa, and held forth about the superiority of the ninth Doctor. We agreed with her thesis, though much of her reasoning seemed to obscurely centre around a sight gag involving a banana.

So, yes, still rubbish*. A disappointing end to an era and, I think, one of Davies' worst efforts.

*Though, I should point out, that in this context "rubbish" still implies its better than the TV Movie (which I have something a of a soft spot for, and isn't dreadful by a long shot) and so in an entirely different league to, say, Time and the Rani. This rubbish in the context of NuWho not in the context of some of the horrors classic Who occasionally managed to perpetrate. A lot of my bitterness about it is that it is such a disappointment after what has gone before.

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I still like it despite the weaknesses; the anticipation built up around characters who end up not meaning very much is an irritation but does encourage speculation about roads not taken which nevertheless would have led inexorably to the Doctor's regeneration.

[purplecat]

Is that what it's trying to do though? It just feels rather disjointed to me. First you have the rather powerful sections involving the Master in the wasteland, then you have comedy older people, followed by the Naismiths. That's part one, basically then part two involves a lot of running around with the cactus people, the pointless inclusion of Donna, the Time Lords return and then an over-extended farewell sequence - with the regeneration hinging on the rather daft design of the nuclear bolt box.

It doesn't feel like a lot of what ifs, more like random ideas thrown at the screen and a regeneration at the end.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

The 'comedy older people' are a comment on the Doctor's age as well as providing a context for Wilf's search for the Docctor. The Naismiths are sufficiently bonkers that their scheme could easily have led to a similar crisis without the involvement of the Master, Donna is there because she represents the consequences of the Doctor's hubristic use of his power (though she is dismissed rather quickly). The nuclear bolt box is really a big symbol for a big problem, and might have worked better in its original context in Russell's small-scale regeneration story, but I appreciate it poetically. It could have been more polished, and The Writer's Tale shows how much was lost as RTD was more interested in characters who were peripheral to the plot, but I still find it works, long farewell to the companions and all.