Just watched the finale. So...

Well that was crap.

The begining: Wow, is there no limit to the deus ex machina?... Ok, that's unfair, the regeneration-hand thing made sense. Micky and Jackie didn't. At all. But that's just like the season 2 finale, so I can forgive at forget.

The middle: I actualy liked this part of it. It was intese. It was dramatic. It was fun. So, no complaints here. Yay!

The end: OH DEAR GOD HOW DID YOU SCREW THIS UP SO BADLY?!?!? Rose pretty much leaves the Doctor for Cloney McClone without a second thought after she fought her way through universes to get him back, and Donna's memories are erased. Wait, shouldn't the clone have the same problem Donna did? Hmm, maybe we're supposed to ignore that. Maybe it's a personal thing, but someone's memories are pretty much who they are, erasing them like that was esentialy killing her, which I get the feeling she would have prefered. And it still bugs me how sudden the whole problem she had cropped up. One second she was saving the universe, all fine and dandy, the next shes about to die. And so the doctor is left to wander the universe alone once again. At least they had the sense not to ruin the moment.

So yeah, I was not fond of this one. At all. Not a good note to end the seires on.

I have to disagree with Steel on this one; this entire episode was epic. Simply epic. The plotholes/deus' are minor, so I can happily ignore them. The story in itself was brilliant, and the ending, while immensely depressing (granted) still works out ok.

And as for the other Doctor not having Donas memory headsplosion problem is probably just down to the fact that he's still a timelord, with human mixed in, whilst Dona is the reverse. The 2nd Doctor is still mentally a timelord, with the biology of a human, Dona is still biologically human, with the mind of a timelord and so can't take all that mental capacity. And I don't think it was going to kill her right then, but it would have eventually, so it's not like "ok, now she has to die all of a sudden so we can wrap up the episode."

Steel's been reading too much tv.tropes though, so it's understandable.

Oh and did I sense a slight foreshadowing of Martha joining Torchwood next season at the end there? I think I did.

Eh, that was okay. 3/5

There were many brilliant ideas ( Donna becoming a Time Lord, everything with Dalek Caan, two Doctors, the TARDIS towing planet Earth, the potential for Mickey to return), yet also many stupid choices ( lame resolution of the cliffhanger, two Doctors, the potential for Mickey to appear in Torchwood). I really enjoyed it, but I also feel a bit hurt that the great finale series two had has been completely cheaped out by the lame cop-out: Rose had already served her purpose and grown to become a better person thanks to the Doctor. Having her return and have a happy life with Bonkers Doctor is of fanfiction level. There was no reason for her to not continue her life as she was before.

I'm a bit torn on what to think about Donna losing her memory. On one hand, it was a really sentimental bit and I liked it. On the other hand, Donna had become my favourite companion since series one, and this decision also eradicated all the character development she had gone through for the sake of fulfilling a contract. I'm glad RTD didn't use the reset button on the major plot, but its utilisation on the small details makes me glad he's not writing anything with this grandeur again.

To be fair, Bonkers Doctor was more human than Time Lord. Maybe that explains it.

It was epic and I liked the epicness, but the fact that RTD is once again pulling our strings to make us feel sad that the Doctor is all alone in the universe is now irritating. It was an awesome idea when Moffat did it in The Girl in the Fireplace, and it was so excellently done during Doomsday I could not complain at all. Same again with The Family of Blood, especially because it showed a side of the Doctor we had never seen before. However, the emo-angsty Doctor was on full-throttle this season. This was the emotional "plot twist" they used in The Doctor's Daughter and Forest of the Dead. The concept, while true and a very big part of the man, has become tired simply because of over-exposure (although not as much as the Daleks themselves).

Mickey doing that worries me more. :(

Damn, I'd say that was the best finale so far. Yeah, there was stuff that might be termed as deus ex machina, but really, there was no god being lowered on the ropes this time around. Deus ex machina is when you just wrap everything up with magic, like in season 1 and 3 (and I'm not even sure I'd say that of season 3). This had a lot of twists and turns, but the only thing that could potentially be called true deus ex machina, is how the Daleks were destroyed, and that was 100% purposeful and character driven, so it's cool.

One little thing that endeared this episode to me was that the Doctor Who movie has now been canonically ignored. The Doctor is 100% Time Lord.

I really liked how everything was wrapped up in the end. Donna's bit was tremendously sad. The line that really got me there was "it'll just be another thing that Donna missed. And seeing Dalek Caan come forward as the true puppet master was very interesting.

Is his character supposed to change from episode to episode so that it doesn't bore you? If the Ninth Doctor were still around, would you be complaining about his fatalism? About McCoy's (the seventh Doctor's) Machiavellian plots? The Doctors have all had defining character traits that have come up every episode. You need more reason to dislike it than it being used repeatedly. This Doctor seems manic/depressive with a bit of PTSD mixed in from committing multiple acts of genocide in a war that spanned god-only-knows how many years. He's not "emo" but he has some moments where he's depressed. It's not like he's sitting in an empty room with a shadow over his face, listening to.... whatever music emo kids are listening to these days; I wanna say SOAD, but that's probably just because I hate SOAD.

Honestly, I think in this case, it's more a matter of him coming down from a massive adrenaline rush. He was still pretty much drenched in sweat (Edit: I can't believe I forgot it was rain when I said this. Chalk it up to tiredness. Everything else stands though), and then he had to basically mind-rape Donna. Guy needs a nap. Anyway, there were glimpses of this when McCoy played the Doctor too, though it wasn't as big a part of the character. Moffat didn't come up with the idea himself, though he definitely made it awesome.

I think it summed up the season - hit and miss. Some amazing moments but at the same time some horribly weak ones. The ending was great though in terms of how it reminded me of the ending to The Incredible Hulk tv series episodes with Banner walking off alone while the theme tune plays.
God. Now I'm going to be going out to pubs instead of watching Dr Who on a Saturday night. >_>
EDIT: oh and things look good for Torchwood if he's on the team.

Nine's fatalism was always taken care of. This characteristic of Nine had a purpose, and it was to show how Rose, the most common woman in the universe, affected this mighty omnipotent being and perfected him. Nine's fatalism was very subdued, and every single time it was mentioned it didn't stop at him going all sobby about the Time War, save for the end of Dalek.

I cannot comment on Machiavellian Seven since the only episode I've watched from him was the first of The Curse of Fenrir and it bored me. Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker for the motherfucking win!

Here's the thing:

• The Doctor loses Madame de Pompadour, the most important woman in his life of the week™. He reads a letter and goes around the TARDIS, looking solemnly sad and trying to hold back his tears.
• The Doctor loses Rose, the most important woman in his life of the week™. He goes around the Tardis, looking solemnly sad and trying to hold back his tears.
• The Doctor loses Joan, the most important woman in his life of the week™. He goes outside of her home towards the TARDIS, looking solemnly sad and not saying a single word to her again.
• The Doctor loses Astrid, the most important woman in his life of the week™. He looks solemnly sad and goes towards the TARDIS, trying to hold back his tears when he tells random alien guy about her and how much she meant to him.
• The Doctor loses Jenny, the most important woman in his life of the week™. He looks solemnly sad, threates to kill a guy (but doesn't), says the stupidest shit ever ("make the foundation of this world a man who never would") while trying to hold back his tears.
• The Doctor loses River Song, the most important woman in his life of the week™. He looks solemnly sad, trying to hold back his tears.
• The Doctor loses Donna, the most important woman in his life of the week™. He looks solemnly sad, going around the TARDIS while trying to hold back his tears.

It's not that I'm against the Doctor being all gloomy because he lost someone. The Doctor crying over the Master's dead body was magnificent, because he finally broke into tears, accentuating just how much each man meant in the life of the other. But after so many times, there's only so much angst one can endure. I imagine the Doctor's loneliness, the way it is done, is only written in order to satisfy the fangirls (and believe me, there are tons). I'd prefer it if they actually went somewhere with this characteristic of him, but they won't. Whereas Nine's fatalism was a contrast to Rose's optimistic view of life and it eventually led to somewhere (Nine's last speech), the way Ten's loneliness is being portrayed seems like pure fanfiction garbage since it doesn't seem it will lead anywhere.

The Doctor is an icon, and his status as that ensures that some pieces of his character will never change. However, you should space the occurances of these defining traits if you don't want them to become tired. If Nine's fatalism appeared every other week, had Eccleston continued on the role, I would have complained too.

Well, it makes sense for the character to feel like that of course. The problem is that structuring every other story to end like that is going to, eventually, devalue the importance of the characters the Doctor meets in the eye of the viewer. The reason why Donna has to be separated from the Doctor and forget everything about him is just because RTD wrote it like that. He wanted and extra emotional punch to make for the drama. And, in this, I disagree with him. Sad stories are fine, but not every other story should be sad. I'm glad Moffat seems to agree with me.

Maybe I'm irked because of Donna going. It's just that I genuinely liked her. Of course, Doctor Who wouldn't be worth the time if it didn't alienate the fanbase everywhere. :p

Should I watch more of McCoy's Doctor? Because it wasn't really his Doctor what bored me, but rather the pacing of the episode.

I'm just gonna drop this link here 'cos it has some of my favorite reviews of New Who in possibly ever. I like a lot of what he has to say--but then, I'm a nasty crotchety old thing when it comes to Doctor Who...

The season ending? I didn't like it.

It seems like the episode goes out of its way to give every companion a really great ending, except Donna who really gets the shaft. And why keep everyone in the dark like that? What if Martha, or any of the others run into Donna? How are you going to keep the secret then?

You couldn't even shack her up w/ her dream husband (the one who couldn't talk). Just a lousy way of dealing with the character.

SWB

New RTD interview:

Not even a small episode? Fuck. :(

The guy's awesome and I've been reading him for years now, but he seriously has an issue with his jealousy for Moffat. :p

Also interesting: he likes the earlier RTD episodes, ie, the ones you hate. I don't know how you cope with that.