On Disappointment

Every year, for at least the past three years, Russell T Davies has done this to me. Built up my hopes with a bold and ambitious lead-in episode... and then dashed them again with a crazy mess of a finale. The Sound of Drums effectively redefined the Master for the 21st century; this fact is drowned out by the memories of Dobby!Doctor and Jesus!Doctor in Last of the Time Lords. The Stolen Earth was a strong episode with perhaps the best cliffhanger in all of New Who; I find it physically painful to revisit Journey's End. Same deal with The End of Time Parts 1 and 2.

Let's go back to that cliffhanger at the end of The Stolen Earth. I think RTD's modus operandi is pretty clearly this: he thinks up a great scene that will make a fantastic centerpiece for a Doctor Who episode. A fake-out regeneration is an amazing idea, so much so that it's hard to believe no-one had ever done one before. Unfortunately, Davies is invariably then happy to resolve his incredible dramatic setpiece in a matter of seconds, with some preposterous handwave. The regeneration energy... was siphoned off into the Doctor's spare hand. Wha'?

The End of Time is full of patented RTD big ideas. A Master that can fly and shoot lightning bolts out of his fingers! The Master turning every human being on earth into clones of himself! The return of the Time Lords! Gallifrey appearing in the heavens to obliterate the Earth itself! A scene in which the "man who never would" MUST CHOOSE between shooting the Master or Rassilon! You could have sustained a two-parter on half of this stuff, and that's even before we factor in the Doctor having to regenerate and say all his goodbyes.

And of course none of it holds up to examination. It's all big stabbing crescendos that go nowhere. I still haven't heard an explanation for why the Master's skeleton keeps becoming visible, and where the superpowers came from. I liked the idea of the Master Race, but Rassilon just waves his omnipotent glove in its direction and the entire plotline is cheaply, lazily unwritten. The Time Lords and Gallifrey could have been something big... but no, it turns out they were just invoked because of the need for THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE UNIVERSE EVER and the Daleks have already been used, reused and then overused.

The gun scene was the worst of all. To set it up in the first place RTD needs Wilf to press his antique service revolver on the Doctor. But he wouldn't, really, would he? Aha, enter a mysterious woman in white who puts Wilf up to it. But who the hell is she, how did she know the gun would be an effective solution, and if she's a Time Lady how did she escape the Time Lock to repeatedly contact Wilf (and perhaps advance the civilization of the Ood on the way)? Apparently it's anybody's guess. Why can't Rassilon's glove atomize the Doctor's elderly weapon the same instantaneous way as it took out nearly seven billion Masters? Why is anyone worried about the Doctor shooting them when there was a non-sentient component of the link sitting there being the obvious target all along? Why is it only a gun that can destroy the link anyway (apart from it making the scene look more dramatic)? And so on, and so on.

Of course a smart viewer can construct their own moderately plausible explanations for most of the things that happen in The End of Time. But, you know, I like to think that Russell T Davies was being paid big bucks to be the chief writer on Doctor Who so we didn't have to. Just because he saw himself as a visionary, conjuring up titanic predicaments for the Doctor to find himself in, doesn't mean he should have been allowed to count himself above the chores of logic and linking narrative.

I've loved the RTD era, and I guess the man knows what he's doing in a way: when all that's left of Who are our memories, we're going to remember the big scenes and the powerful images, not the lines of explanatory dialogue. But not being given any kind of rhyme or reason leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, and I'm worried that in the end that nasty taste is all I'm going to remember now.

Goodbye RTD, you did fantastic things for the show and I'll miss you for sure. But I can't say I'm sorry that your replacement is a man who seems to see the point in consequential plotting. Roll on the Moffat era!