"Doctor Who, episode 4x13: Journey’s End" Starring: David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Elizabeth Sladen, Bernard Cribbins, Noel Clarke, Camille Coduri and Julian Bleach. Previously on Doctor Who: Daleks, led by Davros, moved the Earth and a couple dozen other planets to a new zipcode/pocket in time for reasons as yet adequately explained. The major characters of both spin offs were brought in as well as every companion the Doctor has had since Russell T Davis launched this reboot and their assorted family members but so far all they’ve managed to do is kill off Penelope Wilton and half of them were left in mortal danger at the last minute. In all the chaotic bullshit, the Doctor was shot and is currently in the process of regenerating while Jack, Donna and Rose cower in a corner of the TARDIS. Chrissy and I finished our woefully inadequate supply of beer and now I’m waiting for her to get back from the liquor store so we can get back to this nonsense and hoping she didn’t fall off the bike in the middle of the road somewhere because she’s drunker than me. Chrissy: Actually, I think I sobered up after that. Diandra: Oh. I didn’t hear you come in. Is that schnapps? Chrissy: I don’t know which was more terrifying: the college jocks ripping down the street in what looked like a modified golf cart or the coyotes howling from the woods. What the hell kind of neighborhood do you LIVE in? Diandra: A neighborhood with two bars that are open late. Between the coyotes and the drunk drivers knocking down mailboxes we basically don’t go out at night. Ahem. We begin right where we left off, with the Doctor emitting regeneration glow all over the TARDIS. He suddenly turns and directs all the streams of light at the hand in the jar still under the console. The light disappears and he staggers back, panting and still looking like David Tennant. “Now then, where were we,” he asks the dumbfounded collected companions. He skips off while Donna looks confused and Jack and Rose stare into space like ‘what the fuck just happened?’ Chrissy: Oh, good. So it’s not just me. Sarah Jane is still cowering in fear as a couple Daleks take aim at her when, in a total Deus Ex Machina, Rose’s mom and friend Mickey suddenly appear beside the car armed with their own ginormous guns and blast the Daleks. Sarah Jane stumbles from the car to greet Mickey and I realize I don’t know if she recognizes him from the one episode of “Doctor Who” she was on a couple years before this or because he’s been on her spin off show. Rose’s mom – Jackie – introduces herself and asks where the hell her daughter is. Torchwood. Gwen and Ianto stop shooting as they realize that the Dalek is not moving and the bullets they’ve firing are hovering mid-air. Gwen tentatively taps one of the suspended bullets and the air around it ripples. “What the hell,” she asks out loud. TARDIS. The Doctor leans his face beside the hand in the jar, which is glowing yellow. The glow fades and he grins and explains that he used the regeneration energy to heal himself, but it turns out he didn’t really HAVE to change bodies which...I mean...why would he want to since this is quite possibly the prettiest face he’ll ever have? So he siphoned the rest of the energy into this little bio-matching receptacle. Chrissy: I’m sorry, I think you made a mistake back there. He’s not “explaining” so much as he is vomiting a stream of nonsense. Diandra: Oh, come on. You’ve seen four episodes of this show. You should know the drill by now. Now hand me that schnapps. He reminds Rose of the whole thing with the alien spaceship and the sword fight where he lost his hand and isn’t it convenient that we kept it for the past three years like we knew this exact scenario would require it? Rose is just thrilled that she doesn’t have to learn a whole new version of him again and hugs him. Donna and Jack laugh and Donna says Jack is welcome to hug her too if he wants. Jack keeps laughing. Donna stops and says no, really. She means it. Chrissy: You’re right: I love Donna. Diandra: Yep. She’s the best. Torchwood. Ianto, tapping away at a keyboard, announces that it’s a time lock. It’s some sort of defense thing Tosh was working on before she died and he didn’t realize she had actually finished it. The whole Hub is sealed off so nothing can get in. Gwen notes that they also can’t get OUT. Ianto says um...yeah. That would be the downside. Turning it off would unlock the Dalek. So it’s “up to Jack now.” Jack is, of course, in the TARDIS which is now being surrounded by Daleks. Dalek Supreme orders them to bring the TARDIS to him and “initiate temporal prison”. A lighted ring appears around the TARDIS and they announce that they have done that. Inside, the Doctor is futzing with levers when all the lights go out. He runs around the console frantically yelping that the power is gone and they’re in some sort of chrono loop. The ship jolts and everybody is knocked to the floor. Outside, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie arrive in time to see the Daleks transfer the TARDIS to the Crucible, which involves levitating it into a stream of light much like the one that pulled the Doctor to Earth except this time it rips the TARDIS out into space. Chrissy: Blech. Why did I get blueberry schnapps? Diandra: Because an hour of looking at the TARDIS gave you the subliminal suggestion that your liquor should be blue? Chrissy: Oh. Well, that explains why I also got Blue Curacao. Diandra: Yeah. Would you like to take over while I go get something else? Chrissy: Take over what? Diandra: Recapping. Chrissy: Oh, um...yeah, why not? Diandra: I can think of a few reasons, but let’s try it anyway. Chrissy: I left the keys on the entry table. Diandra: What keys? You took my bike. Chrissy: Oh. Then why did I have keys? Diandra: [sigh] This is Chris. Bear with me, because I’m not sure I can remember the names of all these characters. Okay, so Sarah Jane asks Rose’s mom and the black kid if they can use those “teleport things” because they’ve taken the Doctor to the Dalek spaceship and they should probably follow. What teleport things? The black kid pulls what looks like the bell ripped off some kid’s bike and says it’s also a “dimension jumper”. Oh, okay then. Oh, and it rips a hole in the fabric of time and space. So yeah, using it sounds like a great idea. He says they can’t use it yet because it takes a half an hour to charge back up between jumps. Sarah Jane says they should put their guns down then because if the Daleks see them with guns they’ll shoot. She steps out onto the street and surrenders to the Daleks. Because that worked so well last time, I guess. Except instead of just shooting her, one of the Daleks announces that all humans in this sector are to be taken to the Crucible as well. Hey, we’re not being inconsistent! We’re just following the script! Black guy says Sarah Jane is crazy. Rose’s mom says yeah, probably, but if they have the Doctor they have Rose so... She puts down her bag and steps out behind Sarah Jane, also surrendering. Martha is putting the Marvel backpack back on and explaining to her mother that once Jack explained that thing with the oscillating numbers it all made SENSE suddenly and she knows how to work the teleport. Sure. She tells her mom to stay inside and she should be fine in here because there are no Daleks on their street. Mom asks where she’s going. She bleats that she’s a member of UNIT and they gave her the Osterhaven key and she has a JOB to do. Which isn’t what she asked, but whatever. Mom asks – one more time for the audience – what that key is and what does it do. Martha just says “I love you” and pulls the ripcords, disappearing. Because fuck you, audience. Germany, 60 miles outside of Nuremberg. Martha lands just at the edge of the forest and peaks out as a squadron of Daleks float by shouting about extermination and racial superiority in German. Because the Nazi allusions weren’t bleeding obvious enough yet. I was wrong, it doesn’t sound better this way. On the TARDIS, Captain Pretty Boy explains that there is a Dalek ship at the center of the stolen planets and they’re calling it the “Crucible” for some reason. And that seems to be where they’re headed right now. Donna reminds the Doctor that he referred to the artificial arrangement of planets as an “engine” and asks what purpose that could serve. The Doctor exposits that the parallel world Rose comes from is “running ahead” of this universe, so she should know what happens in their future. Um...okay. Convenient plot device is convenient. Rose says it’s just darkness and all the stars in the sky dying. They built a “travel machine” that she calls a “Dimension Cannon” so she could come back and, I assume, kill Hitler. I mean...the Daleks. Sorry. Except when it started working the “dimensions started to collapse”. All of reality began to unravel. “Even the void was dead,” she finishes. Since Diandra isn’t here for me to ask, I had to consult Google to figure out what “the Void” is in this context. Google says it is the neutral space between universes where time ceases to have meaning and people who have been through it retain some sort of radiation from it. Sort of like people from the alternate universe on “Fringe” having that glow that only Olivia could see I guess. I don’t know. I’m not sure how a place where nothing can live including time itself can be considered “dead”, but then if I’ve learned anything in the course of these never-ending recaps it is that I shouldn’t ask questions. Donna says Rose mentioned something about HER while they were in the parallel universe. Rose says the Dimension Cannon measures timelines and they all seem to converge on Donna for some reason. Okay, they are still speaking English, right? Donna scoffs that she couldn’t possibly be that important because she’s just a temp from Chiswick. The Doctor is distracted as his monitor bleats and he realizes they’re approaching the Crucible. And then the Tardis is sucked into the Death Star. At least that’s what it looks like. Daleks surround the TARDIS once it lands and one commands the Doctor to emerge or die. Or emerge AND die. Whatever. I’m kind of alarmed by the fact that the Daleks seem to have “arms” made out of a hand mixer attachment and a toilet plunger. Seriously, how do these people not burst into hysterical laughter at least once per episode? Inside, the Doctor says they have to go out there before the Daleks figure out how to get in. Rose protests that he told her NOTHING could get through the TARDIS front doors. Jack adds, presumably for our benefit, that this is because they have “extrapolator shielding”. The Doctor turns to them both and says the last time they fought the Daleks they were just a plucky band of “scavengers” led by a wise-ass at the edge of the Alliance planets post-Unification War. Now they’re a full- fledged Galactic Empire at the height of power. You might call it a New Republic. And I can guarantee you if Diandra was here she would not have understood those references I just made. Jack asks about Rose’s dimension hopper thing like the one the black guy had. She says it needs another twenty minutes to recharge. The Doctor asks about Jack’s teleport thing. He says it stopped working when the power went out. Convenient. Meanwhile, Donna is standing off to the side staring into space, listening to her own heartbeat. The Doctor comes over to shake her from her trance. He says there’s nothing else they can do and he’s sorry. She says she knows. That was...weird. Outside, the Daleks continue to shout orders for them to surrender and meet their new masters. Not to be confused with THE Master, even though he apparently isn’t dead. Or a he. The Doctor blathers that they had some good times though...all of them...and it’s been real. He calls them all “brilliant” one by one and I would like to note that when he looks at Jack he is quite possibly not looking at his face. Or not ONLY his face anyway. I just went looking for evidence of Jack and The Doctor having any sort of unresolved sexual tension back when Jack was on this show and found this lovely little snippet of dialogue: Jack: Aww, sweet. Look at those two. How come I never get any of that? Doctor: Buy me a drink first. Jack: You’re such hard work. Doctor: But worth it. [grins] WHY HAS DIANDRA NEVER MENTIONED THIS BEFORE?! I mean, I’ll always have a soft (somewhat damp) spot for Jack/Ianto, but now I can’t get past the image of Jack bending the Doctor over that console. Except this was apparently back when the Doctor was played by a guy I only know as the non-Loki bad guy from the last Thor movie, so maybe that should be the other way around. Am I still recapping? God, I hope Diandra comes back soon. The Doctor leads everybody out of the TARDIS and the second the Daleks see him they start chanting their version of sieg heil again. Donna is the last one to the door and she hesitates before going through it while all the sound fades except her heartbeat again. This is a weird plot device that I hope is going to be explained soon. The Supreme Dalek gloats at the Doctor to behold “the might of the true Dalek race”. It’s...yeah, it’s a bunch of pepper shakers floating around in circles overhead armed with hand mixers and plungers. Not exactly an image that inspires terror, that. Even if they are little Space Nazis. The Doctor notices that Donna isn’t with them and calls her to come out because it isn’t any safer inside. She looks back at the console, blinks a couple times, then starts to turn back for the door just as it slams in her face. She starts banging on the door, demanding to know what the Doctor just did. He lunges at the door and yanks at it, yelping that he didn’t do ANYTHING. He turns to the Supreme Dalek, who says fuck if he knows because they’re not doing anything either. The Doctor doesn’t believe that and orders them to stop it and open the door so she can get out. The Dalek insists that this is Time Lord wizardry. Also, the TARDIS is a weapon, so they’re just going to destroy it. A trap door opens up and the TARDIS falls down a chute, Donna tumbling around inside. The Doctor impotently shrieks at the Dalek to bring it back or at least tell him what they’re doing with it. “The Crucible has a heart of Z-Neutrino energy,” the Dalek explains. Okay, “explains” might not be the right word. I’m not the writer here. Bite me. He says they’re going to drop the TARDIS into the core. The Doctor protests that with the defenses down, such an act would rip it apart entirely. Which...yeah, I’m sure that’s the idea, honey. Somewhere in the heart of the Death Star, the TARDIS falls into what looks like a miniature Sun. Lights start exploding and fires pop up around a frantic Donna. She runs to crouch under the console. Rose joins in the protest at the fate of the TARDIS because Donna is still inside. Supreme Dalek is like ‘eh. Whatever. Guess she’ll die then.’ A video screen pops up some sort of feed from a camera pointed at the firey death ball the TARDIS is bobbing in and the Supreme Dalek chortles that the “last child of Gallifrey” is now powerless. The Doctor starts pleading, begging the Dalek to let HIM switch places with her at least. “You can do anything to me, I don’t care!” I wouldn’t give an invitation like that to beings with tentacles. Anything, huh? This is Diandra. I just deleted an entire paragraph worth of tangent involving tentacles and, for some reason, Loki. This is why I don’t normally leave Chrissy alone with recaps. Chrissy: I worked hard on that, you know. Diandra: It was tentacle porn. With Daleks. Chrissy: Fine. I’m just so glad you’re back. Diandra: Oh, is that what you meant when you said “oh, THANK GOD, where’s the liquor?” Chrissy: Oh, you know I love you. What is this anyway? Diandra: I figured as long as you got the Curacao, I’d get something I could mix it with. In this case, vodka and grenadine. Depending on who you ask, that is either an American Flag or just a Red, White and Blue. Chrissy: It’s purple. Diandra: Yeah, it turns out I am shit at layering drinks. Chrissy: Oh, it’s supposed to...wait, wouldn’t that be an upside down Dutch Flag? Diandra: Yeah, because drunk people are great at knowing things like that. Just drink your Purple Pride Flag. Chrissy: As awesome as that name is...I think we should acknowledge that Prince died while you were in the process of writing this recap and call it a Purple Rain. Diandra: Actually, depending on the bartender, it IS a Purple Rain, minus the lemonade. Chrissy: Perfect. L’chaim! Diandra: Bless you. Chrissy: You really need to stop saying that. Okay, so...Crucible. In the TARDIS, Donna is crouched behind the console, choking on the smoke from the various fires everywhere. And suddenly she goes still and stares at the hand in a jar, which is glowing again. It’s also looking a little like it’s beginning to spoil. It’s seriously gross. She reaches for the case and the glow surrounds her and the glass explodes, knocking her backward. Dalek Supreme, who apparently is incapable of shutting up when he could be gloating like a Bond villain, reminds the Doctor that he is connected to the TARDIS, so he should be able to feel it die. Oh, right. Because the energy that took over Rose and left Bad Wolf messages everywhere is technically the TARDIS. Or something. Donna sits up and watches as the glowing hand on the floor twitches and suddenly grows a new body. The “body” sits up and a near-naked David Tennant blinks at her. They have the following exchange. Donna: It’s you! MiracleGro Doctor Clone: Oh, yes! Donna: [looking everywhere but at him] You’re naked. MiracleGro Doctor Clone: Oh, yes! Chrissy: No, really, I am SO GLAD you’re back. [Takes healthy slug of Purple Rain] Rose sidles up to the Doctor and holds his hand as the Supreme Dalek begins counting down from ten. As he gets to five, the naked Doctor Clone pushes a button and the TARDIS takes off just before he can get to “one”. The Daleks – not being the brightest bulbs – seem to think the sudden disappearance means it has been successfully destroyed. Dalek Blofield asks the Doctor what he’s feeling. Anger? Sorrow? Despair? The Doctor grumbles yes to all. Surpreme Dalek blithers something about emotions being so important. Jack decides to be a hotheaded idiot and pulls a gun on him. This, naturally, does nothing at all. Dalek Supreme blasts him and he falls over dead. Rose, apparently not realizing what he has become since she last saw him, throws herself at his body and makes distressed noises. The Doctor coaxes her away, saying there’s nothing they can do and totally letting her believe he’s been killed. Dalek Supreme orders somebody to take them away because “they are the playthings of Davros now.” Chrissy: Okay, there is literally no way to interpret that that isn’t dirty. Diandra: That’s just because your brain has permanent residence in the gutter. As they’re being escorted away, The Doctor looks back to find Jack winking at him. Out in the space between the Death Star (Chrissy was right, it really does look like that) and all the other planets, the TARDIS appears. Inside, Doctor Clone is polishing one of the lights... Chrissy: Is that what we’re calling it these days? Diandra: Really? Chrissy: What? ...and declaring everything all fixed now. He babbles that they need to keep quiet, like they’re on a submarine hiding from the enemy radar. He’s finishing putting on a bright blue suit and his monologue veers off into a note about how much he likes the color. He asks Donna what she thinks. She stops following him around the console and spits that this is BONKERS and she didn’t realize that Time Lords were like worms and you could grow a whole new one from a chopped-off body part. Chrissy: Let’s experiment. I want to see what other parts I can grow more David Tennants from. Diandra: You’re embarrassing. Chrissy: Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking that just now. Diandra: No, but then I’m not channeling Jack. Chrissy: There’s an idea for a fic. Jack makes several clones of David Tennant. Dies happy. Many times. Doctor Clone says no, this has never happened before. See, all the regeneration went into the hand earlier and when Donna touched it she caused an “instantaneous biological metacrisis”, so technically he’s part her. He notes that he could have done worse and this happens: Donna: Oi, watch it Space Man! Doctor Clone [in exactly the same tone]: Oi, watch it, Earth Girl! They back away from each other, startled. He babbles – as he has been basically since he was Miracle Grown into existence like an over-caffeinated child - that he must have picked up some of her voice patterns. “Oh, you are kidding me,” he finishes. “No way! One heart! I’ve got one heart!” She says what, like he’s human? He grumbles that that’s “disgusting”. “Oi,” she yelps and he echoes her again. She snaps at him to knock it off. He concludes that he is part Time Lord, part human and isn’t that just “wizard”? Congratulations, Donna. You managed to have a child with the Doctor without having to go through the actual pregnancy, birth OR raising it for twenty years. Chrissy: Well, that IS probably the best way to have one. Donna says she’s been hearing this heartbeat... Doctor Clone says yeah, that was him because blah blah time and space blee ripples converging. Donna asks why this keeps coming back to her. Doctor Clone says she’s special. She groans and says no, they keep saying that but it’s really not true. He blinks at her and says he can see now that she really doesn’t believe that. In fact, he can see everything a lot clearer now that he shares her genetic material. She acts like a smart ass because she thinks she isn’t “worth it”. No, she acts like a smart ass because she is awesome and so is her grandfather. Amid more protesting from Donna, he realizes that this isn’t quite the whole explanation. We get a bunch of flashbacks to various episodes from the time they first met (before Martha) and Doctor Clone says everything about their partnership has been leading to this, because something keeps pulling her back to him. She says what, like destiny? He babbles that the pattern isn’t finished and the strands are still pulling together. And with that we switch to the most annoying “thread”, wandering out of the woods in Germany. A woman asks what she’s doing and Martha gives her name, rank and serial number. At least I assume that’s what they’re saying because I don’t understand German. The German woman switches to English and notes that her accent is very London. Martha says “this place” is supposed to be guarded. German woman says she brought the soldiers food every day until the “Albtraume” came out of the sky and they went home to die with their families. Martha is like ‘yeah, that’s nice. Can I get through and do what I came here for then?’ Inside a castle that is well restored, but has enough spider webs hanging from the ceiling to suggest disuse. Martha shoves a draped sheet aside to reveal some sort of electronic panel with a handprint scanner. She presses her hand to it. While it’s working, the German woman wanders in babbling about that time she was in London long ago and it’s probably really different now and by the way, those soldiers mentioned something about an Osterhagen key? Martha slides back a panel in the wall and the woman suddenly pulls out a gun and announces that she will not go in there. Martha says she has no choice because she’s a good little soldier. German lady says she knows what the key does. Chrissy: Care to share it with the rest of us, then? Diandra: No, shh. Just accept that any answer to any questions is always going to be delayed on this show for no damn reason until the most dramatic moment. Chrissy: Oh, so like a JJ Abrams show. Diandra: Hey! The woman says something in German, which is unhelpfully not translated. Chrissy: Seriously? Fuck you, Davis. Diandra: Drama! Martha says yep, so go ahead and shoot then. The woman looks like she’s fighting with herself and finally lowers the gun. Damnit. I mean, uh... Chrissy: No, that’s what you meant. Martha steps into some sort of elevator and punches a button. The woman calls something after her and she says “I know.” Back on the Mother Ship, the Daleks shove Jack into an incinerator. Somehow he manages to open the door from the inside just after they glide away. He coughs like he’s escaping a burning building and not an oven and runs off. Martha enters some sort of stronghold and sits at a panel full of switches and buttons, half of them lit. She pushes a button and announces that she is at Osterhagen Station One and is anyone out there? Back at the Death Star. A group of people including Sarah Jane, Jackie and Mickey... Chrissy: Mickey! That was his name. ...is escorted somewhere for “testing”. Elsewhere on the ship, Davros orders the “holding cells” activated and circles of light appear around Rose and the Doctor. To illustrate that this is not just a low budget bullshit thing like pretending the floor is lava or something (“the spotlight is trapping us because magic!”), the Doctor flicks at the air in front of him and a blue column crackles around him. Chrissy: Oh, yeah, that’s much better. A low budget bullshit magic spotlight trap with the barest hint of special effects. Diandra: Welcome to the show. Rose slaps at her own “cell” and gets the same result. Chrissy: Okay, that’s enough playing! We’re going over budget! Davros thinks it’s time he and the Doctor had a talk. The Doctor says no, fuck that. They’re not catching up on old times until Davros explains what is going on here. The Supreme Dalek said something about a vault, which means they are currently in something like a prison. “You’re not in charge of the Daleks, are you?” What is Davros to them? A servant? A slave? Davros mutters that they have an “arrangement”. The Doctor says oh, wait, he knows what word he was looking for: “you’re the Daleks pet”. Davros decides to try getting through to Rose instead, noting that she spent all that time and effort crossing parallel universes to get back to this asshole. The Doctor, suddenly serious, orders Davros to leave her alone. Davros says nope, he can do whatever he wants with her. Chrissy: I am disturbed by the number of rape references on what is supposed to be a kid-friendly show. Diandra: It’s never too early to teach kids to recognize predators. Chrissy: That’s a sad statement on your American upbringing right there. Rose asks why she’s still alive. Davros says she has to be because the prophecies of Dalek Caan say she is supposed to be there. He turns on the light over Dalek Caan, who babbles about cold and dark and fire and bunny rabbits. Chrissy: Tell me about the rabbits, George! Diandra: Oh, good. You got the joke. Rose asks what the hell that thing is. The Doctor says she’s met him before. He’s the last of the Cult of Skaro, who flew into the Time War without proper protection. Chrissy: You should always use proper protection when entering the Time War. Davros says Caan saw all of time and it’s infinite complexities. Specifically, he saw them here now. “The Doctor will be here as witness at the end of everything,” Caan giggles. Chrissy: Isn’t that what happened in the last crossover? The Silo at the End of the Universe? Diandra: Basically, the universe ends at least once a season on this show. Caan adds that one of the Doctor’s precious “children of time” will die. The Doctor asks if it’s him that killed Donna then. Did he trap her in the TARDIS? Davros chortles that the Doctor is getting angry and THIS is the guy who murdered millions during the Time War. The Doctor glares at him and Davros goads him to not be shy: “show your companion your true self. Dalek Caan has promised me that, too.” Chrissy: Pervert. Dalek Caan burbles that at the Time of Ending the Doctor’s “soul” will be revealed. The Doctor is like ooooookaaaay, and that means what now? “We will discover it together,” Davros non-answers, adding that it will probably be the last thing they do because the end is nigh. They’ve begun testing the “reality bomb”. The Daleks march the prisoners/test subjects into what looks like the bowels of the ship and order them to stand in the “designated” area. One woman stumbles and while a Dalek is distracted ordering her to get back up, Sarah Jane runs and opens the nearest door with what looks like a variation of a sonic screwdriver. Instead of just quietly slipping through though, she takes the time to call Mickey and Jackie to come with her. Mickey follows, Jackie helps the woman who fell stand up again and doesn’t move toward them at all. Mickey stops when he realizes Jackie didn’t follow and mumbles that they can’t just leave her. Chrissy: Oh, but you can leave all those other people? Diandra: Eh. They’re just red shirts. Sarah Jane stops him from going back out there just as a Dalek moves in front of the door, its back turned to them. Outside, the Dalek who was barking orders announces “30 rels” and Jackie looks up at the giant glowing...thing over their heads. Supreme Dalek voice-overs that they are testing calibration of the “reality bomb” and that they will now fire in ten “rels”, which are exactly as long as a second. He counts down. In the holding cell, Davros turns on a screen so the Doctor can watch what’s happening. When the count reaches zero, Supreme Dalek orders the “planetary alignment field” activated. Out in space, the planets start giving off a weird glow. Chrissy: Oh, good, you see it too. I thought maybe I’d had too much Purple Rain. The Doctor says this is Z-neutrino energy being flattened into a single string by the collected planets. He starts yelping that no, Davros can’t DO THAT. On the TARDIS, the MiracleGro Doctor comes to the same realization looking at his own screen, but also fails to explain what’s going on because the writers of these episodes are delighting in annoying the shit out of us. The light over the “test subjects” glows and Mickey starts as some sort of alarm goes off. He says it means their jumper thing is recharged. He holds his up to the window so Jackie can see and shouts about it being recharged. She can’t hear anything, but she’s not an idiot. She pulls out her own device, apologizes to the woman she helped up, and pushes the button, disappearing and instantly reappearing beside Mickey, who she hugs. They watch from the safety of their little room while the rest of the people evaporate like they’re turning back into stardust. A Dalek announces that the test is complete. On the TARDIS, Donna asks MiracleGro what just happened. He stares into space blankly. In the holding cell, Rose asks the Doctor what just happened. He stares into space blankly. Chrissy: OH MY GOD, SOMEBODY SAY SOMETHING. Davros explains...sort of...that everything in the universe is bound by an electrical field and the Reality Bomb cancels it out. The test was to show what it can do to a small group of people. The full scale version will wipe out everything, everywhere. Chrissy: So...antimatter. And they just killed those people. Diandra: Yeah, I just realized where Torchwood gets their morbidness from. [drinks] Rose repeats the near future description of all the stars just going out. The Doctor confirms that the 27 planets are acting as a transmitter broadcasting the signal across the universe. Davros chortles yep, all the planets and all the beings on them will be atomized and snuffed entirely from existence. Oh, and this will continue into every parallel universe because he is nothing if not thorough. And the ultimate nonsensical supervillian because if everything is destroyed...um...wouldn’t that include you? He calls this his ultimate victory: “the destruction of reality itself”. Chrissy: Forget Davros, why are the rest of the Daleks going along with this? Does their species not have a sense of self preservation? Before I can answer Chrissy’s question there, the Daleks order the entire fleet to head for the Crucible, which will provide shelter from the coming apocalypse. Just in case this concept is too subtle, one of them adds “we will become the only life forms in existence!” Diandra: Would you like some more Purple Rain? I don’t think we’re nearly drunk enough yet. Chrissy: Really? The fact that Davros is like every James Bond, Marvel or DC villain ever is your line? Diandra: Oh, well. Never mind. Chrissy: That wasn’t a no to the liquor. Here, I’ll recap while you mix another round. This is Chris. Donna’s mom is excitedly declaring that the Daleks are leaving. Donna’s grandfather notes that this doesn’t mean it’s over yet because they’re still out there. Five bajillion saucers descend on the Death Star. Inside that little hallway where Sarah Jane and assorted members of Rose’s clan are hiding, Jack comes rolling out of a panel in the wall and staggers upright. He blinks at them and grumbles about having to crawl through two miles of ventilation shaft only to find Mickey Mouse. Mickey grumbles back and calls him “Captain Cheesecake”. No, honey, I think you mispronounced “fruitcake”. Diandra: Okay, NO! Give me that. Bad girl! Chrissy: Oh, you know I love him. And I love you. Diandra: You’re just saying that because I have a drink in my hand. Chrissy: No, but it does help. [Takes drink and moves back to her chair with a sweet smile] The boys hug and Jack corrects that it’s “beefcake” actually. Chrissy: Pffft, no. It really isn’t. Mickey says okay, that’s enough hugging now, and lets him go. Jack salutes Sarah Jane... Chrissy: With his hand. Minds out of the gutter. Diandra: Yes, I CAN actually do my own recap here, thanks. Sarah Jane gets right to business: they have to do something because her fourteen year old son is down there on Earth. Oh, and everyone else everywhere in the universe will also die, but let’s assume she doesn’t know that yet. Chrissy: Wouldn’t that be a total mom reaction though? Yeah, the whole universe is going to get snuffed out, but MY SON! Sarah Jane holds up what looks like a diamond and says she got it from a Verron soothsayer who told her it was for “the end of days”. Jack stares at it and asks if it’s a Warp Star. Sarah Jane nods. Mickey asks what the hell a Warp Star is (bless him). Jack explains “a warpfold conjugation trapped in a carbonized shell.” Chrissy: Yeah. “Explains”. He says basically it’s an explosive device that you can totally get past the TSA. Well, he doesn’t say that last part and you can get anything that isn’t liquid past the TSA these days, but whatever. In Martha’s bunker, a video link to China kicks in and a woman announces that she is with Osterhagen Station Five. Martha says that makes three stations, which is all they need. Diandra: Um...did I miss something? Chrissy: How the fuck should I know? Diandra: I mean while I was getting liquor. Chrissy: You were back before Martha got to the bunker. Diandra: I was? Chrissy: Pretty sure. Diandra: Oh. Chrissy: Alcohol kicking in then? Diandra: I guess. The Chinese lady introduces herself as Anna Zhou. Martha turns to the Station Four screen that says “Liberia” and asks what his name is because he never said. A light skinned black man grumbles that he doesn’t want his name on any of this. Martha stares at her key. Anna asks what they do now because UNIT instructions say... Martha says she has higher authority than UNIT. “And there’s one more thing the Doctor would do.” TARDIS. Clone Doctor grabs some sort of metal doohickey from Donna, who asks what it is again. He says it’s a “z-neutrino biological inversion catalyser”. Donna says uh-huh...once more in Earth English? Clone Doctor babbles that the Daleks were built from Davros so his genetic code is embedded in the whole race. Chrissy: So, like, a step above Icelanders. Diandra: Or people from West Virginia. Yes. He’s going to use that device to direct the Crucible transmission onto Davros, destroying the Daleks. On the mothership, the Daleks get an incoming transmission from Earth. It’s Martha, who claims to be representing UNIT on behalf of the entire human race. Chrissy: Well, that’s it. We’re fucked. The Daleks are like ‘eh...take a message.’ In the holding area, the Doctor yelps at Davros to put him through. Davros just chortles about the prophesy again and how this was all foretold. Dalek Caan babbles about the children of time gathering and one dying. The Doctor barks at him to quit saying that (bless him) and orders Davros to put him through. “Doctor,” Martha blurts. “I’m sorry. I had to.” Apparently Davros did patch them through because he tells her the Doctor is his prisoner now. See the magic spotlight? Martha says yeah, well, she has the Osterhagen key and she will use it if they don’t leave the planet and its people alone. The Doctor – for the eleventieth time this episode – asks just what the fuck an Osterhagen Key is. Martha FINALLY explains that there are 25 nuclear warheads buried beneath the surface of the Earth in strategic locations. The key detonates them. The Doctor splutters and asks what sort of crazy person invented THAT. “Well, someone named Osterhagen I suppose,” he amends before adding “Martha, are you INSANE?” Martha says the Osterhagen key is meant to be used as an absolute last resort if the alternative suffering of the entire human race is too great. The Doctor doesn’t think suicide on a planetary level should EVER be an option. Martha tells him to shut up and points out that the Daleks need all twenty-seven planets, so...what happens if they take Earth out of the equation? Would they risk it? Rose grins and says “she’s good”. Chrissy: No, not really, but I’m yet to be convinced that you are any better, so... Martha asks who she is. Rose introduces herself and Martha gasps “oh my god, he found you!” Well...something like that. A Dalek announces that they’re receiving a second transmission and this one is internal. A second screen pops up, featuring Jack et al. Jack is holding the Starkiller... Chrissy: I think it was a Warp Star. Diandra: Oh. What’s a Starkiller? Chrissy: The original name of Luke Skywalker? Diandra: Oh. [quietly sips at Purple Rain] ...attached to some wires and threatens to set it off. Rose excitedly notes that Jack is still alive and with her mom. And Mickey, but I guess she doesn’t care as much about him. Chrissy: Didn’t you say she’s the one who made Jack immortal? Why is she surprised he can’t die? Diandra: No, the TARDIS energy did it through her. And she might or might not remember any of it. I don’t know. Shut up. Jack says he has the Warp Star hooked into the mainframe, so if he breaks it the whole Death Star will blow. The Doctor, his voice getting increasingly high-pitch with hysteria, asks where the FUCK he got a Warp Star. Sarah Jane says she gave it to him and they had no choice after seeing what the Daleks did to the prisoners. Davros comes forward as he recognizes Sarah Jane from way back whenever the hell she was the Doctor’s companion. He chortles that this really was meant to be. “You were there on Skaro at the very beginning of my creation. She says yeah, well, she’s learned how to fight since then and if Davros doesn’t let the Doctor go they’ll open the Warp Star. Rose laughs and notices that the Doctor has stopped responding and is staring at a spot on the floor. Davros announces that the prophesy is unfolding: the man who abhors violence and won’t touch a gun has managed to turn his companions into weapons of mass destruction. “I made the Daleks, Doctor. But you made this.” The Doctor mutters that they’re trying to help. Yeah, well...the road to hell and all that. Davros says he’s already seen them sacrificed today including that one woman who opened the subwave network. The Doctor is like ‘who now?’ and Rose explains that Harriet sacrificed herself to “get [him] here.” The Doctor looks like he doesn’t quite know how to process that. Davros invites the Doctor to think of all the beings who have died for him up until now and how many more he’s willing to add to the tally. This prompts a series of flashes to all the various humans and non humans who have died since Russell rebooted the show. The total number shown is fifteen, but one is his daughter, who as I mentioned earlier is still alive. Chrissy: Also, Boe, who is apparently Jack so can’t die. Diandra: Oh, he did die. He was just millions if not billions of years old at the time. Chrissy: And transformed into a giant face in a tank. Diandra: On a planet of cat people. Chrissy: Right. So what sort of drugs do we think Russell T Davis is on then? Diandra: Oh, like “Star Wars” is any better? Chrissy: Oh, we KNOW George Lucas is insane. Davros theorizes that the Doctor keeps running because he’s trying to escape his own shame. “This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself.” Well, that was a highly elaborate plot if that was the ultimate goal. I don’t suppose that means you’ll cancel the destruction of the entire universe then? No? Okay. Supreme Dalek says enough of this shit, let’s get back to the plan. Martha says their choice is either the Crucible or the Earth. The Daleks are like yeah, whatever and do something that causes Martha, Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie to teleport from their current locations into the dungeon, the Osterhagen key and the Warp Star just falling to the ground where they used to be. Well, if they could do that before, why did they wait until now? The Daleks order them all to kneel and hover threateningly near the Doctor and Rose. Everyone slowly follows the order, teeth firmly clenched. Rose hisses that she told her mom to stay away. Jackie says yeah, like she was going to leave her. Davros starts babbling about the prophecy again, which is so Phillip Pullman of him. Chrissy: Yes, we know. You didn’t like The Golden Compass. Diandra: I had no problem with the story itself. It was the repetitive tediousness that this episode is TOTALLY DOING TOO. Davros orders Supreme Dalek to detonate the reality bomb. Out in space, a big green light is uncovered. I’m sure there’s a better way to describe that, but I’ve stopped caring about the technical bullshit here. Supreme Dalek orders the planetary alignment field activated again and all the planets glow. I think they might just be openly cutting and pasting things now. Except this time he announces that detonation will take 200 rels. The Doctor impotently begs Davros to stop. Davros laughs like the unsubtle supervillian he is and says nothing can stop him now. And then the TARDIS appears with a screech of piano wires. Chrissy: Well, nothing except that. The MiracleGro Doctor Clone appears in the doorway with the weapon he was working on to turn the blast inward on the Daleks. He runs at Davros like an avenging angel and Davros just sends a stream of electricity into his chest. He goes down like a sack of bricks and Davros puts another one of those magical spotlight cells around him. Chrissy: Oy vey. Diandra: Yeah, it sounded better in his head, I’m sure. Donna, even more inexplicably clueless, runs out after him and picks up the weapon, announcing that she has it but she has no idea what to do. Davros looks at her like ‘wow...he doesn’t pick ‘em for their brains, does he?’ and zaps her. She goes flying back into a piece of machinery and slumps to the ground. The Daleks blast the weapon before anyone else can get any “brilliant” ideas and Davros expresses his disappointment with the Doctor’s “warriors”. Rose finally asks what everybody is probably wondering by now: why are there two Doctors? One of them – it isn’t really clear which – says “human biological metacrisis” and the Doctor says whatever, the point is that they have no way to stop the bomb now. Davros pulls up a view screen of all the glowing planets and gloats while Supreme Dalek does the final countdown. At one, the screen fizzles and an alarm starts bleating. Everyone looks at each other in confusion except Donna, who announces that the “z-neutrino loops” are all closing “using an internalized synchronous back-feed reversal loop”. Which is this button on the machine she was knocked into in case anyone was curious. The Daleks start squawking about shutdown and demanding an explanation. The Doctor is just baffled that Donna, who has previously demonstrated a total inability to work electronics, was able to do something like that. Davros vows to make her pay for this and goes to zap her. She flips a switch and the charge goes right up his own arm. “Bio-electric dampening field with a retrogressive arc inversion,” she coos. Davros orders the Daleks to kill her. She taps a few more buttons and levers and all their weapons go limp. Chrissy: Wow. Normally it would take the presence of, say, Anne Coulter to cause that level of sudden impotence. Diandra: Or Ted Cruz? Chrissy: No, he would give them the sudden, overwhelming desire to kill themselves just so they could get away from him. Donna, really on a roll with this technical jargon, says that would be the “k-filter wavelength” blocking them “in a self replicating energy blindfold matrix”. While the Doctor is spluttering, his clone explains that she is now part Time Lord. She says yep, it was a two-way biological metacrisis! Because Russell is determined to try to tie absolutely every previous episode from the past four years into this, this prompts the Doctor to remember how the Ood kept mistakenly referring to “Doctor Donna” and decides they must have KNOWN this would happen. Yeah, and the fact that you were screaming “DOCTOR! DONNA! DOCTOR! DONNA!” at them at the time is, what, a coincidence? Chrissy: I have so many questions. Diandra: Ood are squid face aliens that communicate via little glowing balls that they hold in their hands. They’re friendly, but I think they were corrupted somehow and the Doctor was frantically trying to remind them that the “Doctor” and “Donna” were “friends”. Chrissy: Okay. One more thing: do all the aliens have tentacles on this show? Diandra: No. What is this sudden obsession with tentacles? Chrissy: I don’t know. You’re the one who keeps bringing it up. Diandra: I just said they had squid faces. Chrissy: Yeah. Squids have tentacles. Duh. Diandra: I’m...just going to move on now. Doctor Donna – because whatever, I guess we’re calling her that now – deactivates the cells, opens the vaults and snaps at the “skinny boys in suits” to get to work then. The Doctors start running and the Daleks frantically shout orders to stop them and get “her” away from the controls. Doctor Donna flips some more switches and turns a dial and all the Daleks start spinning in circles like demented teacup rides. The Doctors were apparently both headed toward her as they arrive at the machine she’s stationed behind. Clone Doctor asks what she did. “Trip stitch circuit breaker in the psycho-kinetic threshold manipulator,” she says. Chrissy: Fuck it. Russell is clearly just screwing with us now. Diandra: Eh, I suspect he’s also having way too much fun with throwing ALL the bullshit jargon at Catherine Tate that he can possibly work in because she is awesome enough to be able to say things like that perfectly on the first take. Actual Doctor wonders why THEY never thought of that. Doctor Donna says because they’re dumbos. Heh. And now that she’s fully channeling the part of the Doctor that loves showing off, she announces that she’s ready to end the trip stitch and oh, did she ever mention that she’s the best temp in Chiswick and can type 100 words a minute? She taps at keys and the Daleks all continue spinning and bleating frantically. “Come on then, boys,” she barks. “We’ve got twenty-seven planets to send home!” Jack disappears into the TARDIS and comes back out with a couple of those oversize guns. He hands one to Mickey, who uses it to hold off Davros. The female former companions all gleefully send Daleks shooting across the floor like air hockey pucks. Doctor Donna announces that they’re ready and she and both Doctors pull some levers, causing all the planets outside to start teleporting back to wherever they came from. Rose comes over to ask just what the hell is going on here. Donna – apparently understanding exactly what she meant - explains that the Doctor poured his regeneration energy into his sawed-off hand, which she touched and created the Miracle Glo Clone at which point some of the energy rebounded back onto her. It was dormant until Davros zapped her and the spark set off...something. Whatever. Science! Chrissy: Chemistry! [drinks] We get a shot of her after she hit the ground earlier – which we didn’t see then – and her eyes are glowing with regeneration light. She announces that she got the “best bit” of the Doctor and pauses long enough for the Clone Doctor to make an “oh, reaaaaally?” face before adding “his mind”. Chrissy: Suuuuuuure. Riiiiiiiight. Before we can wonder where Jack is and why he’s not commenting on this, Sarah Jane notes that there are now basically THREE Doctors. “I can’t tell you what I’m thinking right now,” he says. Chrissy: Partly because it’s a kid show, but mostly because anybody who has ever known you for any length of time can already guess. Diandra: Are you saying he’s predictable? Wait...don’t answer that. The Doctor exposits that the timelines really were converging on Donna because she is special. A human with a Time Lord brain. Elsewhere, Davros demands to know how Dalek Caan could not have forseen this. Dalek Caan giggles insanely. The Doctor says he probably did because SOMETHING has been manipulating the time lines for a while now: making sure Donna was exactly where she needed to be. “This would always have happened,” Dalek Caan chortles. “I only helped.” Davros accuses him of betraying his race. Dalek Caan says he saw what the Daleks have done to all of time and space. “I saw the truth of us, Creator, and I decreed no more!” Supreme Dalek blames Davros for all of this and announces that the entire vault will now be purged in mass extermination. Except his first shot misses and hits the machine the Doctor was working on instead of him. Jack shoots him with the ginormous gun. Except now, the Doctor says they’ve lost the machine before they could finish sending the planets back. Luckily there was only one left. Earth, of course. He says they can use the TARDIS and runs into it, running around the console flipping switches. Dalek Caan coos that the prophesy must be completed, which means the end of everything Dalek at the hands of the Doctor. Clone Doctor mutters that he’s right because even without the reality bomb the Dalek empire is big enough to take out everybody across the universe. Donna says okay, but maybe they should wait for the Doctor before they do anything. Doctor Clone says he IS the Doctor and flips a switch, reversing the power feeds or something. Chrissy: Reverse the polarity! Daleks everywhere just explode. The actual Doctor runs outside like THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?! Clone Doctor says he’s fulfilling the prophesy in a “don’t fuck with me because I will END you” tone. Outside, Dalek ships explode too. The Dalek that was frozen at the entrance of the Hub explodes and Gwen announces that the Time Lock has broken. The Doctor yelps at everyone to get in the TARDIS. All the “children of time” plus the clone run inside. Metal beams start falling and fires crop up everywhere. The Doctor tries to get Davros to come into the TARDIS. Davros is like ‘fuck you! You did this!’ “I name you forever The Destroyer of Worlds!” Chrissy: Cool. Awesome nickname. Although coming from a guy who tried to blow up the entire universe... Davros shrieks as flames lick up around him. Before the Doctor can retreat back into the TARDIS, Dalek Caan calmly says that “one” will still die, though. Everyone takes positions around the console as the Death Star explodes spectacularly. Again. Sarah Jane asks what they’re supposed to do about the Earth still being in the wrong spot. The Doctor says he’s working on it and calls Torchwood. Gwen picks up the transmission on a monitor and asks if Jack is there. The Doctor looks at him from the corner of his eye and mutters “can’t get rid of him.” Chrissy: Oh, you know you love him. Diandra: Not as much as he’d LIKE you to love him, but... And because Russell T. Davis just can’t leave ANYTHING to simple coincidence, the Doctor asks if Gwen is by any chance from an old Cardiff family. Gwen looks confused and says yes, her family has lived in Cardiff since the 1800s. The Doctor grins and says something to Rose about special genetic multiplicity. Basically, she looks exactly like her great great grandmother or something because Eve Myles guest starred in an episode in season one. Chrissy: Space pig? Diandra: No, ghosts. And Charles Dickens. Chrissy: Yeah, why not? I’m getting too drunk to care anymore. Diandra: Getting? Chrissy: [blows raspberry] Gwen is still frowning in confusion as the Doctor gets back to business and orders them to open the rift manipulator and direct the power to him. Ianto reaches over her and taps some keys, sticking his head in the frame to announce “doing it now, sir.” Chrissy: Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir. Diandra: Sigh. You’re going to make this dirty, aren’t you? Chrissy: New fic idea... Diandra: No! Chrissy: What? You don’t even want to hear it? Diandra: Does it involve Jack, Ianto, at least two David Tennant clones, Loki and tentacles? Chrissy: .............no? Diandra: Yeah, Jack isn’t the only one who’s predictable. Chrissy: Buzzkill. Rose, audience surrogate, asks what he’s doing. The Doctor says he’s making a tow rope and asks Sarah Jane what her son’s name is again. She says Luke and adds that the computer is “Mr. Smith”. The Doctor calls them. Luke asks if Mom is okay. The Doctor says yeah, she’s great, now if Mr. Smith could harness the power from the Rift and loop it around the TARDIS... Mr. Smith announces that he will need access to TARDIS basecodes for that. The Doctor moans that that will take a while. Sarah Jane yelps that she has an idea, runs around to face the monitor and calls K-9 because apparently there was one character Russell neglected to bring into this reunion show. The little robot dog appears in the room with Luke and Sarah Jane orders him to give Mr. Smith the basecodes. K-9 attaches a little suction cup to the computer console and says he’s transferring the TARDIS basecodes now. Chrissy: What is it with this show and plungers?! The Doctor runs around the console directing everybody where to put their hands. He says it was originally designed to have six pilots, which is both why he’s always running around the console like a lunatic and why he gives the impression of being the worst pilot in the world. He comes to Jackie and his face falls as he says nononono, not her. She should stand back and touch NOTHING. Which...I mean HA, but...didn’t she basically save him once? I mean, it was an accident, but... He announces that they’re going to fly Earth back to its correct location in the universe and takes his spot at the console, flipping the takeoff switch. And now we come to the most batshit crazy sequence of basically the entire series up to this point. The TARDIS flies away from the Earth and then tips sideways and strains until the Earth starts following it like a trailer hitched to a truck. Stars whiz past and all the assorted characters attached to the people in the TARDIS take cover as everything wobbles and crashes around them. Chrissy: Provided I don’t die of alcohol poisoning, remind me to thank you later for inviting me to help you recap this crazy ass show. Diandra: Hey, at least you can’t say it was boring. Donna and the Clone walk around the console making sure everybody is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Donna makes a point of praising Jack and possibly staring at his ass. The Earth comes to a stop and the TARDIS spins clear. Everybody inside starts cheering and hugging each other. Donna pries Sarah Jane from Jack so she can hug him herself. Everyone on Earth celebrates, which includes fireworks in a few cities where it’s the middle of the night. The TARDIS lands in the middle of a park. Sarah Jane and the Doctor step out first. “You know,” she says “you act like such a lonely man. But look at you. You’ve got the biggest family on Earth!” Chrissy: Splat. Diandra: Yeah, that could have gone better. They hug and she babbles that she has to go because her fourteen year old is still home all by himself. Long story. Chrissy: He’s a super-genius clone. Not that long a story. Inside, Mickey is telling Jackie he’ll miss her more than anybody. Wait...weren’t you dating ROSE when this show started? Jackie asks what he’s talking about because the Doctor is going to take them all home. He says yeah, hence what he said. Because I guess I forgot the part where Mickey is from this universe and Rose’s family joined her in the parallel, so...why were they acting like they’ve been working together for a while now? Chrissy: Shhhh...just finish your drink. Outside again, the Doctor “fixes” Jack’s wrist strap to limit his range again because “I told you. No teleport!” Chrissy: What’re you gonna do about it? Punish me? Diandra: Oh, God, here we go... Chrissy: How many spankings will that be, sir? Diandra: Notice I’m not participating here. You’re doing this on your own. Chrissy: I’ve been a BAAAAAAD boy! Diandra: Okay, we’re done drinking now. He tells Martha to get rid of that Osterhagen thing. Yeah, but wouldn’t there still be nuclear bombs buried all over the world that could potentially be detonated? Chrissy: Pffffttttt. We’ll worry about that later. Jack and Martha both salute the Doctor and walk off hand in hand, Jack wondering aloud if maybe Martha would like to do something other than work for UNIT. NO! Do NOT offer her a job! I don’t care if you have two openings and one of them is for a medic, just DON’T. Mickey comes out of the TARDIS and tries to slip past the Doctor with a half-ass wave. The Doctor asks where he thinks he’s going. He says he knows where this is headed and he had a nice time in that parallel universe, but his grandmother over there recently died so he doesn’t have anything keeping him there anymore. Rose obviously doesn’t count. Chrissy: Did he not have family on this side? Diandra: I don’t remember. I know Rose’s dad was dead on this side and not that one, which was part of why she wanted to stay so it makes sense. I honestly don’t remember a lot about Mickey. He runs after Jack and Martha, with Jack loudly protesting that he thought he’d gotten rid of him. Chrissy: Funny. We’ve been saying the same thing about Martha. Diandra: Don’t remind me. The Doctor goes back inside and sets the coordinates for “Bad Wolf Bay” in the parallel world. The TARDIS lands on a beach. Jackie emerges first, grumbling that they’re in the middle of freaking NORWAY (which...yeah, he said that’s where you were going) and she’s going to have to call Rose’s dad to come get them. She reminds the Doctor...actually the Clone Doctor that she was pregnant when he last saw them and she has a son now. The Clone Doctor asks what his name is. “Doctor.” The Clone Doctor stares and is like wait...really? She says no, you idiot, his name is Tony. This is why I always kind of liked Jackie. Chrissy: Why is she talking to the clone like he’s actually the Doctor? Diandra: Probably for the same reason I just got confused and thought maybe I had the color of their suits backward and she WAS talking to the actual Doctor? Chrissy: No, THAT can be explained by the fact that you’re drunk. Diandra: Good point. Rose says this is the parallel world, right? The Doctor and Donna confirm that she’s “home” and everything is righting itself as if the reality bomb thing never happened. Rose whimpers that she spent all that time trying to FIND the Doctor and she can’t go back now. The Doctor spews some bullshit about how she has to because they saved the universe at a cost: the miracle gro clone standing behind her. Seeing as how he just committed genocide by wiping out the Daleks, he cannot be trusted on his own. Doctor Clone says the what now? You made me, Frankenstein! Chrissy: I love how you can come up with perfectly apt references even when you’re nearly falling down drunk. Diandra: I am not. [hic] The Doctor says yes, he was born into a battle and is therefore full of anger and revenge. “Remind you of someone,” he asks Rose. He nods to the clone. “That’s me when we first met. And you made me better. Now you can do the same for him.” Rose whimpers that having him isn’t the same as having the real thing because apparently I forgot she’s just as annoying as Martha. Chrissy: See? That’s what I thought too. Donna pipes up that it’s better than she thinks and prompts the clone to explain it to her. Miracle Grow Clone says he looks like the Doctor, thinks like the Doctor, has all his memories and all that, but...he’s human. Mostly. He only has one heart anyway. He might be like River Song. Chrissy: You keep mentioning that name. Was she a companion? Diandra: Not exactly. She’s the daughter of a companion and, at one point, his wife. She’s basically human, but she regenerated a couple times. Chrissy: At one point? Diandra: She’s a time traveler too. They keep meeting randomly along different timelines. You know what? Let’s just leave it at “it’s complicated”. The Clone confirms that the human part of him will age and not regenerate. So he only has one life and he can spend all of it with her. Chrissy: Yeah, probably not. She’ll get bored and move on. Diandra: Yeah, probably. We are so unromantic, aren’t we? She touches his chest and a heartbeat comes over the soundtrack again, interrupted by the TARDIS piano wires screeching. The Doctor says that’s their cue to leave before this reality seals off from the other one forever. They start to go, but Rose cries that it still isn’t right and the Clone still isn’t HIM. Chrissy: Well, you just want everything without any consideration given to reason, don’t you? Pfffft. Millennial. The Doctor says HE is the CLONE though. Rose decides to settle this by asking them both a question. The last time she was on this beach – which she considers the worst day of her life – he said something to her. What was it? For the record: this was a particularly cruel moment from Russell. The Doctor appeared via some sort of hologram to say goodbye to her and, at the end of the conversation when they were both crying, said “Rose Tyler...” then opened his mouth and disappeared before he could finish because the hologram signal cut out. Chrissy: Yeah, that sounds about right. Because the audience probably spent the last couple seasons speculating about what he was GOING to say (almost all of them probably coming to the same conclusion), the fact that he answers now with “I said Rose Tyler” is just evil. Rose prompts him to continue that thought. What was the rest of that sentence? He asks if he really needs to say it. Chrissy: Yes! Moron. She turns to the Clone and asks what the end of that sentence was. He leans over and whispers it in her ear. She blinks and then practically launches into his arms. They’re so distracted kissing that they don’t notice the Doctor and Donna leaving until the TARDIS starts to take off. Inside, Donna checks the monitor and says they should try the planet Felspoon. You know, just because it has a fun sounding name. Also, the mountains that sway in the breeze sounds kinda neat. Chrissy: I hear the Hallelujah Mountains of Pandora are pretty awesome too. The Doctor asks how she knows about the mountains. She says because everything in his head is now in hers. He flatly asks how that feels. Chrissy: Well, other than a persistent urge to scratch a part of my anatomy that I don’t have... Diandra: Classy. She says “Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene!” Oh, and by the way, he could fix the Chameleon Circuit that’s keeping the TARDIS looking like a blue phone box by “hotbinding the fragment links and superseding the binary binary binary binary binary...” She continues like a record stuck in a groove for a moment, then gasps and insists she’s fine. Forget Felspoon. How about Earth past? They could meet Charlie Chaplin. Then she completely loses her thread: “Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester? Charlie Brown? No, he’s fiction. Friction. Fixing mixing Rixston Brixton.” She collapses on the console, grabbing her head. He approaches, looking for all the world like he’s preparing to tell someone their beloved pet was run over by a car, and asks if she knows what’s happening right now. She nods. This not being good enough for the audience, he explains that there’s never been a human/time lord metacrisis before. “Because there can’t be,” she says. She stubbornly fights not to cry and firmly says she wants to stay. Because she once swore she would stay with him forever. That being the rest of her life. He goes to take her by the shoulders and she yelps that she can’t go back. He can’t make her go back. Please! Chrissy: Isn’t she too old to be so desperate to escape what looks like a perfectly loving family? Diandra: I don’t know. If you had the opportunity to blow off your job and spend your days on adventures through time and space with a pretty British guy, wouldn’t you take it? Chrissy: As you’ve pointed out before, those “adventures” are often pants-shittingly dangerous. However...depending on which “pretty British guy” you’re talking about... Diandra: Tom Hiddleston. Chrissy: Sold. I’d be gone so fast I probably wouldn’t remember to say goodbye to you. I’d think about you though! Occasionally. Diandra: That’s...sweet, I guess. Thanks. He apologizes and says goodbye. She keeps protesting as he puts his hands to her temples. There’s a quick little flash of several moments throughout her season and she collapses in the Doctor’s arms. Donna’s family’s house. There’s a knock on the door. Wilfred runs to answer, excitedly shouting to his daughter that Donna is home. His mood deflates when he opens the door to find the Doctor sitting on the stoop with Donna sprawled unconscious in his lap. “Help me,” he says. They get her situated on her bed and the Doctor takes the time to sit down on the couch and explain to Wilfred and Sylvia what happened. Apparently a human taking on a Time Lord’s consciousness can lead to death. He had to wipe her memory of every trace of himself or the TARDIS and any mission they ever went on. This is the copout to the “one will die thing” because he stresses that the version of Donna that was a kick ass companion who saved him repeatedly is dead. If she ever remembers anything about it, her brain will go into catastrophic meltdown, though, so they must never tell her anything ever. Funny. This almost exactly mirrors a situation I had with an iPad recently. It wiped the contents and I got the distinct impression that it would melt down if I tried to put them back. Chrissy: Why are you still using iPads. Diandra: Well, this is why I’m not anymore. Sylvia points out that the whole WORLD is talking about how the planet travelled across space. How are they supposed to keep that from her? “It’ll just be a story,” he says unhelpfully. “One of those Donna Noble stories where she missed it all again.” Wilfred says she was “better” with the Doctor. Yeah? Well, he was better with her too. He says the most important thing for them to remember is that there are many...MANY worlds out there that are safe because of her. She literally saved the universe. Chrissy: Ha! Take that Martha “walked the Earth” Jones. You only saved one pathetic planet. Diandra: And then threatened to blow it up in this episode. Chrissy: Right. Sheesh. Diandra: Of course, it’s still in the way of the future Vogon bypass, so it could be only a temporary reprieve. Chrissy: Nerd. Diandra: Says the person who kept bringing up Star Wars. The Doctor says there are people across the universe who will be telling stories and singing songs of Donna Noble. They won’t forget her because for the one crucial moment she was the most important person in the universe. Sylvia says she still is. Chrissy: Aww...thanks mom. The Doctor suggests she actually tell her that to her face once in a while then. Chrissy: Um...never mind. The moment is broken when Donna comes in, raving that she just found herself asleep on her bed FULLY DRESSED “like a flipping kid”. She notices the “stranger” on the couch and distractedly introduces herself while checking her phone. He introduces himself as John Smith and shakes her hand. She chuckles that her phone is showing thirty-two text messages about planets in the sky. What the hell happened while she was sleeping anyway? Apparently not actually asking, she wanders away. The Doctor follows her into the kitchen because this episode is apparently going to be like “Lord of the Rings” with all it’s never ending goodbyes. JUST LEAVE GODDAMNIT. Donna is on the phone with a friend, accusing her of having a few too many and imagining crazy bullshit. He interrupts to say he was just leaving. She waves like ‘yeah, whatever, bye’ and continues talking with barely a pause. He hovers a bit still because he’s obviously going to miss her more than she would have missed him even if she did remember who the hell he is. At the door, the Doctor notes the fact that it’s pouring rain and tells Wilfred that they’re in for a LOT more where that came from thanks to all the atmospheric disturbance. He shakes Wilfred’s hand and starts heading for the TARDIS across the street. Wilfred stops him so he can stand in the rain getting soaking wet for the next few clunky lines. “What about you now? Who’ve you got? I mean...all those friends of yours.” “They’ve all got someone else,” the Doctor says. He says he’s fine. Really. Just fiiiiiine. Diandra: This is foreshadowing, in case you couldn’t tell. Chrissy: Yeah, I’m not THAT drunk. Wilfred says he’ll keep an eye out for him. The Doctor, misunderstanding this, stresses again that he can never tell Donna. Wilfred says no, but “every night. When it gets dark and the stars come out. I’ll look up. On her behalf. I’ll look up at the sky and think of you.” Chrissy: Aww. Diandra: Yeah, we love Wilfred. Inside, the Doctor takes off his now drenched coat and stares dejectedly at the console. And credits. And since I’m never recapping “Doctor Who” again, I’ll just explain what happened after this briefly. Chrissy: Oh, dear god. This is going to take another page, isn’t it? Diandra: Not if you don’t interrupt me. Chrissy: Fine. The Doctor travelled back to Victorian times and met The Governor from “The Walking Dead” who claimed to be some version of the Doctor. It turned out the guy had just download his memories or something. Then he went to a planet with giant fly- headed creatures and had a one-episode companion who was kind of awesome but was never seen again. Then he went to a future human base on Mars and everything went to hell. He tried to save an important woman in the history of Earth and space exploration because he decided that for once he could damn well USE these godlike powers he has. It backfired and he may have gone somewhat insane. Then the Master came back in the craziest fucking episodes ever and tied him to a bondage chair for, like, half an episode while he turned everyone in the world into a clone of him. Except Donna, who was somehow able to reverse the process via some sort of defense mechanism the Doctor implanted when he wiped her brain. Chrissy: Wait...can we go back to the bondage chair thing? Diandra: No. Thanks to some bullshit contrivance, after defeating Evil James Bond and sending him and the Master into some sort of time portal or something away from Earth, the Doctor had to discharge some sort of radiation thing to save Wilfred, who acted as his companion briefly in Donna’s stead. Instead of regenerating right away, he took enough time to do another reunion round and visit all of his previous companions (Rose before she met him the first time, Martha who was with Mickey, Jack who was in a bar looking like the world ended again for reasons we’ll get to in the next few episodes, etc.) to say goodbye. Then he turned into Matt Smith and Russell T. Davis turned into Stephen Moffat. Chrissy: Okay, so not a whole page then. Good job. Diandra: Thanks. Guess we’d better sober up before we start season three then. Chrissy: Why? Diandra: I have no idea. Chrissy: But seriously, can we go back to the bondage chair thing? Diandra: No.