The Parting of the Ways

[Craig @craig Emperor]

The fate of the Universe is hanging in the balance as the Dalek fleet begin their invasion of Earth. The Doctor must decide whether to sacrifice every human being on Earth in order to save every other living creature in the Universe from the Daleks. Either way, he knows he must send Rose home.

The end of AG Who season one. I’ll not spoil it if you haven’t seen it, but really you should have.

[The Krynoid Man @thekrynoidman]

I think this episode was a great send off for the 9th Doctor. It has a really good moral dilemma at the centre of the story and Eccelston convays it perfectly through his performance. This shows how you don’t need David Tennant shouting to make good drama (but that’s a rant for another time). Speaking of which, the regeneration scene is still one of the best in my opinion.
It surprises me that this is the same man who wrote the previous episode. Did RTD2 bump his head and temporally become a good writer?

[janetteB @janetteb]

I agree that this is one of the highlights of the first season and like so many of the two parters better than the second part. Unfortunately RTD spent the remainder of his tenure trying to better these two stories and failing. One of the strenghts of RTD’s era is the play on modern culture.society and that comes into its own in this story. Unsubtle maybe but it gave the story a lightweight gloss with a dark message beneath it. There are some lovely character moments to though  I may be thinking of the next episode now so I will save those comments for now.

cheers

Janette

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@thekrynoidman

If you want to call Russell T Davies RTD2, can you tell me who’s RTD1?

Anyway, in answer to your comment – in my opinion, he’s a very good writer indeed. He has two noticeable ‘weaknesses’. The first, which we’ll get an opportunity to examine as we go through his stories, is that he has brilliant, creative ideas about dilemmas for the Doctor – and then can’t quite think up equally brilliant ideas for the solution to the dilemma. 😉

The second isn’t really a weakness, more an attitude. It just tends to be an attitude that’s annoying to the dedicated Who fan. Russell T Davies doesn’t give a stuff about continuity. If he has a good idea, he’ll use it, and continuity can go hang. Even if it’s his own continuity.

As it turns out, another Head Writer came along later and explained all the ‘continuity errors’ (::shakes fist:: Moffat!) – so RTD was probably quite right to decide to go for the good idea.

I’d agree with @janetteb that he spent a lot of Who finales trying to match this one – but I think there’s a reason for it. This finale was planned when he knew that there might not be a second series. Ever.

So he brought out his very best idea. If Doctor Who was going to go into that good night, he wasn’t going to go gentle. No ‘we’re off to tea on alien planets’, but a spectacular battle with the Doctor’s greatest enemies. And the Doctor having to answer the question of who he is and what he’s prepared to do.

That would be the way the Whoniverse deserved to end. Not with a whimper, this time. But with a bloody great bang.

[Anonymous @]

@thekrynoidman — I don’t think you could call RTD a bad writer by any stretch of the imagination. His chief flaw is that he’s often got a fixed idea for where he wants the episode to go and tends to be in too much of a hurry to get there. Hence you get a lot of messy, fudged or rushed scenes. But occasionally, like here, he gets it totally right.

But he’s not a bad writer — his non-Who work bears that out big time. I think, like Chris Chibnall too, actually, that he’s a good writer who just can’t do SF, or at the very least can’t do Who, quite as well as he’d like.

But he’s great at character and while this episode has some stone-cold classic Who moments, it’s largely a story in which character reigns.

Definitely the best season finale after The Big Bang for my money…

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

I actually think this cracks along. As others have said, it’s probably one of the most consistent series final episodes under RTD.

The breakneck race to save Rose is well done, and the TARDIS materialising around Rose and the Dalek was a really nice touch. It’s interesting that they definitely made the Dalek mutant seen after Jack terminates it look distinctly different to that seen in Dalek. It looks like it has two eyes to me.

Eccleston is on great form throughout this. Even his delighted “Null points”, as the Daleks try to blast the shield makes me laugh.

Lots of callouts to confused Dalek History here. “You might have removed all your emotions” as a reference to Destiny of the Daleks (never really worked that line, the Daleks always seemed on the precipice of emotional hysteria). The idea of Dalek human mutations/conversion from Revelation of the Daleks, and the idea that the conflict of that stink of humanity may drive them insane (the human factor in Evil of the Daleks).

Thing is – the Emperor is clearly the most insane. Good job he’s floating in that massive jar. Team TARDIS would have been in danger of drowning in mad Emperor spittle otherwise. Always wise to withdraw carefully (and quickly) when you face that much phlegm.

The plan hastily compiled in true Doctor who fashion – “I can do a clever thing, but you’re going to have to give me time. We’ll call your contribution Operation No Chance”. Jack is obviously familiar with this Dance, and goes away after a very tender kiss with the Doctor. This ones for you, slash fiction writers!

Excellent hologram acting as the Doctor sends Rose out of the danger zone. The bit where his hologram suddenly turns directly to her is magnificent. He sends her back to mundane reality. Love that exchange between Mickey and her mum.

Mickey: Have you tried that new pizza place on Midnight Road?
Mum: What’s it selling?
Mickey: Pizza.

You know, when I wrote that blog about changing time, I forgot to mention Fathers Day, which Rose references here to her mum. She saw her dad, and changed the outcome (in turn changing the stories her mum told her). Rose remembering two different (and apparently contradictory) histories actually mirrors Amy having two childhood timelines.

Operation No Chance isn’t going well. Goodbye Patterson. Yes – the Daleks are real. Goodbye Lynda with a y. Hats of to Jo Joyner, I think she made Lynda quite likeable in a very short time. Her death is one of the most striking, because she’s all alone. As is Jack to a certain extent, but reviewing this I can’t remember what I thought when I first watched it, the fact that he survived to get to Miracle Day is a big cloud. Even dying with a swagger though.

Ah – is the Doctor a man or a munchkin? This plays beautifully into the notion of the future War Doctor. He may be the closest incarnation to those devastating events, but he’s changed sufficiently to not be able to commit atrocity to stop one. Huzzah for the Goddess Rose, who is revealed as the Bad Wolf. Bugger – that’s £5 I wagered on Fenric I’ll never see again.

And then .. a moment a self sacrifice as the Doctor diagnoses her problem, and comes up with a cure. Again, hats off to Eccleston for his slightly manic approach to his final scenes. It’s a great regeneration scene.

Wham – the first time we see the new regeneration effect, and it still looks great. And suddenly….

Hello. It’s Doctor Dishy.

And, although it could have a Parting of the Ways, it wasn’t. Yes – I didn’t enjoy all of Series 1, but I don’t think there was any danger of anyone being universal in praise for it. It did what it had to, to make the programme relevant to a new generation, experiment with formats and ideas, casting its net wide and not always getting a consistent tone. But for me, the good stuff definitely outweighed the bad stuff, and I was quite sad to see Eccleston going so soon.

In retrospect though, the regeneration capped a series which introduced every important element of the Doctor to a new audience – including Regeneration. That’s not bad at all.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

I’ve just realised that it’ll be Christmas Invasion next week, as we tuck into our Easter Eggs. At least it’s A Bank Holiday though.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@thekrynoidman

Is the RTD2 reference a Star Wars one? Because he was the brave, realiable droid, and amazingly popular if you go by merchandising useage.

I’d got the impression you didn’t like Russell that much. 😉

[The Krynoid Man @thekrynoidman]

@jimthefish It’s not that I think that he’s a bad writer, it’s just that, as @phaseshift suggested, I don’t particularly like him as a writer. I can’t speak for his non-who work as I haven’t watched any of it, but there are very few of his Who episodes that I would call good.

By the way the RTD2 thing is a Star Wars reference. Not that I think that Russell is anything like R2D2, it’s just a play on the fact that their initials are the similar.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

OK, I will start with a confession. I never really engaged with the RTD years. I could understand why he was doing it the way he was so that he might engage a new audience with the idea of Doctor Who. I could understand the focus on action for those reasons. I could understand the emphasis on bright special effects (like invading Daleks) for those reasons. And I could understand his reasons for making companions like Rose and Donna who they were, as it reached out to a TV audience that represented a 21st century demographic. But…I simply could not emotionally engage with any of that. I found the tone of most of the RTD years to be shrill and immature.

Indeed the stories I remember fondly from those years were written by Moffat.

With Moffat, I felt everything changed. The shrillness was gone, and there was a maturity to stories, to the characters and to the writing, and yet it could engage the 7 year-old in the audience and well as the 47 year-old. And it could capture a sense of magic and wonder.

So, having said all that, I have to confess that I still don’t think all that much of The Parting of the Ways. With one exception: I found the explanation of the return of the Daleks (the fact that they were made from the de-humanised remains of the dead, and as such, hated even themselves…that, I found pure genius. And the interplay between the Doctor and the Dalek Emperor was excellent.

But so much of it (for me) was representative of the things about the RTD years that I could not emotionally engage with. Rose, screaming out: “There’s nothing for me here” as her mother and Mickey continue to do everything for her. Selfish, childish and petulant. Sorry, but that was how I responded.

I am more than grateful to RTD for being responsible for bringing Doctor Who back to our screens. A wonderful, wonderful achievement. For me, at least, that is his achievement, so it is less important that I have never been able to emotionally engage with the RTD years.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@blenkinsopthebrave. I agree re’ Rose’s selfish behaviour in this story. During the RTD years everyday life was shown to be vapid, tedious, pointless. (We just eat chips). That is essentially the life we all live, (though maybe with a rather more varied and healthy diet). Moffat celebrates the “ordinary” everyday life and shows the conflict between the demands of that life, which has it virtues and the excitements of travelling with the Doctor. It is definitely preferable to not be told repeatedly that we the viewer are not living unbearably dull and meaningless lives because we can’t travel in the magic blue box. I am not sure however that that is what RTD intended to convey. Both Rose and Donna were leading very mundane lives when the Doctor met them though both were unable to translate their “growth” from their respective journeys into leading better lives back home as Amy and Rory did. (Though it did take Amy quite a while but that was more because her life had been messed with since childhood and the unsettling influence of travel with the Doctor is not always a positive in their lives.)

Cheers

Janette

 

[Arbutus @arbutus]

I just want to second @blenkinsopthebrave’s comment about the RTD legacy. There are things I liked about his run, things I definitely did not, and things about which I have mixed feelings. I’m not sure that this is the proper place to go into all of them. However. When I used to watch AG Who in the 80’s, and it was this weird underground thing that no one I knew had ever heard of, it would have been impossible to imagine that Doctor Who (and make no mistake, I think that in its essentials, it is the same Doctor Who that it has always been) would be something that generated 21st century “water cooler” chat. People watch it now. Lots of people. And since I don’t think I’ve ever watched anything on TV that I was happy with from start to finish, all the time, it just doesn’t bother me that I haven’t always liked everything about the show. This is normal for TV.

RTD did it the way he did to engage a new audience, to allow the show to survive. And so it has. And thus we were able to celebrate 50 years with a big splashy TV special, in 3D, rather than just a few under-the-radar fan-made mini-specials. This is great! We should all be so happy about this!

Okay. I’m done now.  😳

 

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@janetteb  I agree that I don’t suppose RTD intended to convey a message that his audience’s lives are meaningless. And I think that his portrayal of Rose was a perfectly believable, realistic one. Where he went wrong, I think, was in not having the Doctor call her on her behaviour. Personally, I would like to think that the Doctor would have zero tolerance for selfishness or the belittling of others. This kind of thing is a long way from the Doctor’s attitude in “Planet of the Dead”, where he talks to the people in the bus about how important their lives are. He is, most of the time, a very unselfish person, who looks for the best in everyone (except Daleks, of course!).

But the Doctor made it clear almost from start to finish that in his eyes, Rose was perfect. Of course, this leads right back into the old debate about “was he in love with her, or wasn’t he”? It’s pretty clear that in RTD’s book, he was. So of course he would not see her flaws. But those of us who find the “one true love” theme hard to swallow, can take the view that the Doctor put Rose up on a pedestal because she had done so much for him, to help him recover from the Time War. Either way, it is clear that Rose was the Doctor’s blind spot, which means that he did nothing to contribute to her growth as a person. In a sense, he failed her. @blenkinsopthebrave is correct that her attitude after being returned home shows that she essentially views all her experiences and travels with the Doctor as being all about her, rather than showing her that she is one person in a very large universe.

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@phaseshift – yes, the ‘might have removed all your emotions’ line is a bit daft. The Daleks have always had a bit of an anger management problem – and anger is certainly an emotion.

Russell missed a trick with his Born Again Daleks: “EX-COMM-UN-I-CATE!”

Funny how there’s never enough shuttlecraft. It seems that there’s no SOLAS regulations in space.

The writing in this episode really does play to Eccleston’s strengths. The bleakness in his eyes as he sends Rose away; incredible. I agree that the moment when his hologram turns to address her directly has quite an astonishing impact. It’s also very warm and loving.

Again, this dilemma feels quite different now we’ve seen the War Doctor destroying Gallifrey.

@blenkinsopthebrave – I think you’re being a little unfair towards Rose. Firstly, she’s under huge stress. Her two friends (the Doctor and Captain Jack) are going to die. She can’t do anything about that.

And Jackie and Mickey both know that – you can see it in the way the actors react to her ‘I can’t do this’ fit. The normal reaction would be to yell right back – the closest Mickey gets is a subdued mutter.

Secondly, she does quite promptly admit that she didn’t mean she was better than Mickey and Jackie. She’s supposed to be nineteen years old, an age where most people would struggle to explain why the life their parents live isn’t the one they want.

Finally, I fail to see what’s selfish about deciding that your job isn’t staying safely at home with your mum, but instead is to fight the Daleks. Or, at the very least, help the Doctor escape. If it were a selfish aim, why on earth do both Mickey and Jackie end up helping her? Mickey even tells her not to give up when she’s losing hope. 😉

Rose’s story arc is about leaving home – and part of that journey is discovering that ‘home’ is no longer your parents’ house. As the proverb goes: ‘you can’t go home again’. Rose phrases it, rather bluntly, as ‘There’s nothing for me here.’ Little Rose doesn’t live there any more – though she’ll always visit.

Anyway, while Operation No Chance is going rather badly, Operation Dea Ex Machina is starting to recover. With a recovery truck.

Okay – is Rose a Dea Ex Machina?

Condition 1: Seemingly unsolvable problem. The only way the Doctor can destroy the Daleks is by destroying humanity. He won’t do it.

Condition 2. Sudden and abrupt resolution. The Doctor’s about to get killed, and Rose turns up, casually bats away some energy beams and then disintegrates the entire Dalek fleet.

Condition 3. A previously unknown character, character ability, object or event. The character, object and event were all previously set up – they’re fine. Rose, in fact, has spent half the episode trying to get back to the Doctor.

But since when has the TARDIS had the ability to turn people into gods? Seriously? Telepathic, yes. Opening the console does odd things, yes. But ‘gives people god-like powers’? Which page of the manual was that on?

So yes, of course it’s a DEM, and Russell knows it. If you look at the scene, it’s the moment when all is irretrievably lost that Rose descends in her machine and sorts everything out. It’s not only a DEM, it’s a classically constructed one.

The first regeneration scene of the new series was a stunner. The first sight of that post Time War blow-your-hats-off regeneration effect. No sobbing and holding hands for this Doctor! Unless you want the Companions hand blown off…

… aaand it’s that lovely fella from Casanova!

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@bluesqueakpip

No, my friend, I am not being harsh on Rose, but I am being harsh on the character as RTD writes it. At the end of the day Rose is childish, selfish and petulant. You ask:

If it were a selfish aim, why on earth do both Mickey and Jackie end up helping her?

Because they love her–unconditionally. They display a selfless nobility of spirit that her character lacks.

@arbutus says it with far more eloquence than I do:

her attitude after being returned home shows that she essentially views all her experiences and travels with the Doctor as being all about her, rather than showing her that she is one person in a very large universe

But at the end of the day, of course, she is simply a character. And a character written by RTD. Compare her character with the character of Lorna, who dies at the battle of Demon’s Run. Those two sequences, and those two characters capture, for me, the difference between RTD and SM as writers, just as they capture the difference between the RTD years and the SM years.

But as I said, without RTD, we would not be looking forward to seeing Peter Capaldi in a few months, and we would not have experienced the 50th anniversary the way we did. So I am tremendously grateful to RTD for that.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@blenkinsopthebrave – well, of course Rose is a character. You’ll have to excuse me for the actor’s habit of trying to work out characters as if they were real people. Bit ‘method’, I know. 🙂

I don’t see a monster of selfishness in this first series – though I do see a teenager who definitely is inclined to be self-centred. But to me, a truly selfish person wouldn’t be trying to get the TARDIS to take her back into a war zone. A truly selfish character – in this two-parter – is Rodrick. Rose is trying to save her friends at the risk of her own life. That is not a selfish person; a selfish person is someone who’d say ‘thanks for saving my life, Doctor, I’ll worry about you in ten thousand years time. Meanwhile, anyone seen The Rough Guide to the World?’ 😉

Jackie and Mickey love Rose and want the best for her. But the ‘best’ that they want for her isn’t really the best Rose could be. It’s not even the best Jackie and Mickey can be. To me, it’s fairly clear that

@janetteb‘s point that:

During the RTD years everyday life was shown to be vapid, tedious, pointless. (We just eat chips).

means that RTD didn’t quite say what he wanted to say. Or pitched it slightly wrong. Because what he talks about for all three main companions during his era – and later, when he writes for Jo and Sarah Jane – is the people who settle for ‘chips’ when they could have had more.

[I’m thinking especially of the utterly non-academic Clyde in SJA, who eventually realises that his talent for art might be something he could do for a living]

After all, there’s nothing wrong with chips. The Doctor eats chips…

But it’s about ‘poverty of aspiration’. Rose, who could have done ‘A’ levels – but whose mum was okay with her leaving school. Every chance Jackie gets, she says how much she wants Rose home. Which sounds great, wonderful, what a selfish character Rose is to cause her mum such distress.

Then you put this together with Rose being (first episode) bright enough to do ‘A’ levels and yet leaving school because of a boyfriend. If I were looking how to play Jackie as a character, that’s certainly something I’d pick up on. Thinking over the episodes we’ve seen, did Jackie ever encourage Rose to do anything other than come home and be a counter assistant in a shop?

Martha goes to the opposite spectrum – instead of a mum with ‘poverty of aspiration’, she’s got one who’s almost pushing her too hard. Donna’s back with the ‘poverty of aspiration’ theme again; this time it’s being told constantly that she’s not good enough. Don’t try too high, because you’re not up to that standard.

Moffat certainly celebrates the ordinary – but his ‘ordinary’ people aren’t under-using their talents (I except Amy, because the point is that she’s the girl who waited). Rory’s a nurse. Clara’s now a teacher. When Clara is marking time, it’s made very clear that she’s deliberately marking time – because the people in her life need her right now. But once they’re in a situation where they don’t need her, she’s moving on.

If you’re working at your real level, Moffat says, you can enjoy the barbecues. But if you’re not, RTD says, don’t settle for chips.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@bluesqueakpip Oh dear. I did not intend my opening sentence to imply a confusion between person and character. Clearly, I expressed myself poorly, for what I was trying to say when I said I was not being harsh on Rose, was that I felt I my assessment of Rose was entirely reasonable and accurate, and that my harshness was directed towards the way RTD wrote the character. My fault entirely for not expressing myself more clearly. I would not want you to feel that I was trying to be “clever” at your expense. That was certainly not my intention.

And I certainly respect your interpretation, but I will let what I said in the post above (apart from the poorly expressed opening!) stand.

 

Cheers.

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

A stonking finale.  Most of the things I might have said have been (I’m late to this party, by about a year and a half, having just acquired the box sets of series 1-3 and rewatching for the first time since they were broadcast).

Captain Cheesy’s regen/resurrection – now, was he immortal before this, or did Rose/Bad Wolf’s channelling of the vortex do that to him?  I can’t remember how it was explained when we met him again in Torchwood.  I’m sure someone here will know!  And, did all that timey wimey power then cancel out/reverse the Dalek destruction of earth, and the deaths on the station?  I had something in my eye for the last part of the episode, and can’t be quite sure.

Rose – magnificent as Bad Wolf.  And as an actress Billie Piper was, it has to be said, fantastic.  We had extremely low expectations – oh dear, v v minor league pop starlet tries her hand at a spot of acting…  but no, she was wonderful.  And that’s demonstrated in this episode particularly I think.  In the scene in the cafe (where Jackie is once again awesome) – she’s on the one hand entirely understandably and laudably desperate to not be able to save her friends, to have left them dying while she eats coleslaw, and on the other she is entirely understandably (if one has ever been 19 or the parent of someone who is or was once 19)  cruelly oblivious to what she’s doing to Jackie and Mickey.  The moment when she says that there’s nothing for her here was brutal.   Piper inhabits both, and goes on to be equally convincingly a mega powerful cosmic force.  Not bad for a v v minor league pop starlet.

I think the Doctor does have a blind spot for Rose.  He doesn’t see – maybe doesn’t want to see – the selfishness in her treatment of family/boyfriend, but despite the importance he places on ordinary people and ordinary lives, he doesn’t totally get it.  How would he?  So what he recognises in Rose is her courage, her adventurous spirit, her empathy (with everyone except Jackie and Mickey perhaps….).  And she is all those things, even if she is also a pain in the bum teenager.

Mickey’s finest hour – he gets the punch to the guts that’s ‘there’s nothing for me here’ and rather than going off in a huff, he rises splendidly to the occasion and commits to giving Rose the chance to do what she needs to do.  He doesn’t quite manage it, it takes Jackie to bring the power to do the job.  But he wants to, at the cost, potentially, of losing her for ever.  Mickey the Hero.

So, on to Doctor Dishy (cheers, @phaseshift!).   He is, though, isn’t he.  Whether that was an entirely good thing, I’m not sure – I don’t necessarily want to fancy the Doctor,  but Tennant didn’t give me a choice.  Can’t wait to crack open the next box set….

 

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@cathannabel    Ha. You’ve nailed exactly how I felt about the shift from Ten to Eleven. The problem then became one of feeling maternal about the Doctor, which is no good either!  🙂

I like your thoughts about Rose. I haven’t watched Series 1 in a very long time, and should do it at some point. Also Mickey; his personal growth trajectory was really phenomenal throughout his time on the show, and his share of the Doctor’s respect was a long time coming.

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

@arbutus Yes, now you mention it  that transition is particularly dodgy if one fancies Ten and then wants to mother Eleven…  Hmmmm.   Thank heavens for Twelve!

I think Rose partly gets stick for being a fairly realistically drawn teenager – over on the Buffy blogs it was noted I think that Dawn was utterly loathed by many fans of the series, whereas I felt she was infuriating in precisely the ways in which real teenagers are infuriating (of which I was probably being reminded fairly frequently during at least some of my re-watches of the series). I’ve seen the same thing on other TV series blogs – the daughter in series 1 of Homeland, for example (Dana? can’t remember for sure).  Maybe we don’t like being reminded of what utter Pains in the Posterior we ourselves were at that age…

[gamergirlavatar @gamergirlavatar]

The Parting of Ways was a great season finally for the first season. It gave us a unexpected cliffhanger. It showed the power of the TARDIS. It also showed how Rose changed from a shop girl to a companion worthy of the tittle. Rose never gave up when it came to The Doctor. She was in a safe zone, nothing would have happen to her if she stayed home. Billie Piper gave the fans a great speech about how you say no and don’t let days wonder by. Rose showed strength opening the heart of the TARDIS when knowing that it is great power that no human should have, but Rose was able to use the power to come back and be a hero. All fans can watch this episode and think back to when Doctor Who return to our homes.

[tardigrade @tardigrade]

The first “big” episode in the new incarnation of Dr Who and I found it impossible not to like it, despite its issues. The first return of the daleks was a damp squib – just the one – so to ramp that up to half a million brought a broad smile to my face.

Rose becomes a goddess quite literally- invulnerable, total knowledge, power over life, death and all matter. She dismisses the “false god” of the emperor dalek with a thought and equally easily brings Captain Jack back to life- in fact overdoing it so much that’s he’s left practically immortal.

To me the biggest issue I had though wasn’t the deus (dea?) ex machine resolution, it was the Doctor being unprepared to destroy the daleks at the cost of Earth. You could argue that showed how he had changed, but as later events showed he was still in later regenerations prepared to repeat his actions at the end of the Time War, as the lesser of two evils. Once the daleks cluster bomb Earth, leaving little to save anyway, the equation I would have thought was much more in favour of action. I could have accepted him being unprepared to do it, but Christopher Eccleston’s gormless grin (not blaming him necessarily- more how he was directed) following that was too much, given the level of soul-searching this decision should have entailed, not to mention his meek surrender while still holding a major bargaining chip. Not that it would have mattered in the end had he used the delta wave- Bad Wolf Rose could just have resurrected everyone and restored the Earth. But it was symptomatic of what I thought was an inconsistent characterisation of the Doctor throughout this series.

Overall series one was reasonably enjoyable, but in the end, for me at least, I think its major contribution was to secure the future of the program into series 2 and beyond.

[winston @winston]

I rewatched this 2 parter last night and I really liked it …again.   When I watched the first time I was not online or a BG fan and being in Canada knew nothing of Billie Piper and little of Chris Eccleston. I had no idea that Chris was leaving so I was shocked and heartbroken when he told Rose he was dying but would regenerate. What ? just when I thought they had made it through another “sticky situation”.

The scene in the cafe when Rose tries to explain that the Doctor had taught her a better way to live her life brings me to tears. He taught her that you don’t back down , that you do what’s right ,that you fight injustice and that you don’t walk away . That is who I think the Doctor is and what he teaches us all.

I loved the hologram message in the TARDIS and Jackie’s borrowed truck and Bad Wolf scattered across time as a message to Rose and of course Mickey. There was way more I liked than not in this episode mostly because of the acting skills of Chris. and Billie and the rest of the wonderful cast.

This story was both sad and beautiful.

[danh19 @danh19]

it was a very well told emotional story with very little flaws to me I remember  thinking that I could not watch it again if a new man in the role it was my first real regeneration

[Ollie14 @ollie14]

Hi all. I started watching Doctor Who during the first Tennant series and, something I’m not proud of admitting, stopped watching when he left. However since then I have caught up on all the Smith and Capaldi series and just this morning finished watching Ecclestone.

I surprisingly loved Ecclestone’s series despite the 2005-like graphics. The ending to the last episode, “The Parting Of Ways”, I thought was a little weak. I get that Rose opened up the TARDIS to travel through time and scatter Bad Wolf across time and space but the fact she could remove and reinstate life willy-nilly seemed a bit loose. Therefore, surely if ever in a situation where the Doctor is backed into a corner he could just open up the TARDIS and eliminate the threat by looking into the heart of the it, at the cost of a regeneration??

Have I read this wrong? If so let me know. Otherwise I loved the series.

@tardigrade. Your point on the Doctor at the end of the episode is spot on too. Considering what a difficult decision it was to end the time war, he should been a lot more emotional when the he was questioning whether to do it again with Earth and the Daleks. That conversation between him and the Empror Dalek had the potential to be so much more than it was. They should of spent less time filming a massive truck trying to open the TARDIS and more time on that conversation.

Ollie

[AmeliaG @ameliag]

Amazing, and first regeneration of the new series was brilliant to watch. Tie up of the bad wolf arc, very nicely done. Amd and loved the daleks

[Rewvian @rewvian]

This episode started off pretty cool with the Doctor and Jack swooping in through the Dalek fleet and raising their shields, and then rescuing Rose straight away.  The introduction of the Emperor Dalek and revelation that it survived and created new Daleks from humanity’s criminals was something, but then it might have made more sense if the people who lost the reality shows were the ones sent to become Daleks.

A lot of people died in the episode.  The background characters, the temporary companion Lynda, all of the people down on floor zero, a lot of people down on Earth and even Captain Jack for a while there.  Most of the episode got pretty dark with the Doctor planning on launching the Delta Wave, which would kill all sentient life nearby and on Earth, and to be honest by the end of the episode most of those people had died anyway due to the Daleks bombing Earth and infiltrating the space station.

The Doctor tricking Rose and sending her away is something the viewer can kind of see both sides of.  Fortunately Rose notices things aren’t all wrapped up nice and neat and there is still the matter of the Bad Wolf messages.  And, fortunately Mickey and Jackie are determined to help Rose get the console open on the TARDIS so she can stare into its heart.  I’m still not certain I know what Bad Wolf meant after watching the episode again, but it was just about the only sort of plot device that could have wrapped up the situation for the best possible outcome.

The way I see it, Rose and Bad Wolf saved the Doctor, saved Jack, saved the adventures of Rose and the Doctor, and possibly saved people on the space station (in the game shows) and maybe down on Earth if any were still left.  I liked that the way the Doctor had to save Rose was to kiss her to absorb the energy of the time vortex, and that this ultimately led to the conclusion of the first season – the Doctor regenerating from Nine into Ten.

This regeneration scene was quick, but it gave Nine the time to really sum things up well.  Rose was fantastic.  He was fantastic.  And it truly was the end of the beginning.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@rewvian     This was a pretty good finale double-episode for the first (new) series.    It started off as a satire on humans’ deplorable taste in TV shows and soon morphed into something much darker.    I particularly liked Jackie turning up in a honking great industrial tow truck.   Her relaxed attitude to morality obviously has its fringe benefits.    And there is one really striking image that sticks in my mind – Rose, having absorbed the time vortex, glowing with god-like powers, dividing the Daleks.

P.S.  You really are chewing through them at a great rate, aren’t you   🙂

[Rewvian @rewvian]

@dentarthurdent I’m getting through as many episodes as I can, but I had the benefit of it being the weekend and me being free to binge a great lot of episodes over the past few days.  That will likely slow.  And I’m not so sure I’ll get the opportunity to chew through so much Who on other weekends.

I think I was determined to watch through the first series because it brought back a lot of nostalgia, and many of those episodes I had only seen a time or two over a decade ago.  Certainly watching the tenth Doctor’s adventures is great because he was kind of my favorite Doctor, but I tend to think most of the Doctors get better as their time in the role continues, and I think he improved a lot following the second series.

I had no memory of that part where Mickey and Jackie tried to help Rose get the TARDIS console open with first Mickey’s car and then the industrial tow truck.  So that was another thing I had fun piecing back together to remember how Rose entered that Bad Wolf state again to begin with.  Going off of memory I didn’t even remember the Doctor sending Rose away, so I only remembered her being there on the station the whole time.  In a way it is cool that Mickey and Jackie got to play some role in saving the day for that episode.

Well, hopefully I can keep finding constructive things to say about the episodes as I watch them.  For now I am commenting on every episode, but I guess it depends on my mood and my well-being if I keep this up, lol.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@rewvian   I was really impressed when Jackie turned up with that tow truck.  It wasn’t the sort of tow truck you call when your Mini breaks down, IIRC it was the sort of heavy duty truck you call when your HGV breaks down.   It made me like Jackie a lot more, because I’m sure she would be happier with Rose stuck on Earth, but she decided to help Rose anyway in very practical terms.   Also, I was impressed that she could persuade her friend to lend her this huge and expensive track – and that she could drive it!   (Probably not legally, but I guess trivial things like licences never bothered Jackie).

 

[Rewvian @rewvian]

@dentarthurdent I suspected Jackie was dating the man she borrowed the truck from, or at least it seemed that way when I watched it.  I think by the time of the Christmas Invasion she is dating some other guy though, and she lent the Doctor his pajamas.

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