Journey's End (TV story)

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People and planets and stars will become dust. And the dust will become atoms, and the atoms will become... nothing. This is my ultimate victory! The destruction of reality itself!!Davros


This is the 13th and final episode of Series 4 and featured 7 companions of the Doctor. It is a continued on a cliffhanger from Episode 12.

Synopsis

The entire universe is in danger as the Daleks activate their master plan, and enslave 21st century Earth. The Doctor is helpless, and even the TARDIS faces destruction. The only hope lies with the Doctor's secret army of companions– but as they join forces to battle Davros himself, the prophecy declares that one of them will die.

Plot

File:A Dalek and the TARDIS.jpg
The TARDIS is captured

Following on immediately from the end of "The Stolen Earth", The Doctor is regenerating inside the TARDIS while Donna Noble, Captain Jack Harkness and Rose Tyler watch in horror. However, the Doctor transfers his regenerative energy into the container which carries his severed hand. He has healed himself, but chosen not to change his appearance. The TARDIS is transported by the Daleks to the Crucible and rendered powerless. The Doctor, Jack, and Rose leave it, but Donna is distracted because she is hearing the sound of a heartbeat and while looking back, the TARDIS door slams closed. Before the Doctor can free her, the Daleks dump the TARDIS into a waste chute where it will be destroyed in the centre-core of the Crucible. As the TARDIS interior explodes around her, Donna collapses near the severed hand, she hears the heartbeat again and while touching the container energy flows between it and her. The hand bursts out of the container, and forms as a new Doctor, although this Doctor has only one heart and has picked up some of Donna's mannerisms. With his help, the TARDIS escapes destruction and gives the new Doctor and Donna time to come with a plan.

In Torchwood Three, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones find themselves safely in a time lock created by Toshiko Sato, preventing the Dalek from entering but also preventing them leaving. Sarah Jane Smith is saved from two Daleks by Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler, but in order to follow the Doctor, lay down their guns and allow themselves to be captured, taken to the Crucible. Martha Jones says her goodbyes to her mother and makes for an abandoned castle in Germany where one of five Osterhagen stations is hidden, and waits for contact from the other bases.

Aboard the Crucible, Jack creates a distraction by shooting the Supreme Dalek (Red Dalek) with his revolver, but is shot by the Daleks; as the Doctor and Rose are taken to the Vault where Davros is held, Jack's immortality allows him to escape. With the Doctor and Rose contained, Davros explains that the 27 planets form an energy pattern that is then amplified into a "reality bomb", able to break apart the forces holding everything together. Mickey, Jackie, and Sarah Jane escape a test chamber where this effect is shown to the Doctor just in time. Jack finds his way to the three, and with a locket from Sarah Jane, creates a device that will implode the Crucible. Meanwhile, Martha makes contact with two other bases in China and Liberia. The Chinese counterpart wants to get it over and done with, but Martha, knowing the Doctor, first broadcasts a signal to the Crucible to give them (probably both Earth and the Daleks) a second chance, promising to use the Ostenhagen key to detonate 25 nuclear warheads under the Earth's crust to destroy it and disable the reality bomb. However, the Daleks manage to lock onto their positions and beam Martha, Jack, Mickey, Jackie, and Sarah Jane, with the Transmat to the Vault where the Doctor and Rose are too being held captive.

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the TARDIS pulling the Earth through space

The Daleks prepare to activate the reality bomb that will wipe out all matter in this and every parallel universe through the rifts in the Medusa Cascade, but the new Doctor and Donna arrive in the TARDIS. Both, however, are stunned by shots from Davros. The reality bomb countdown reaches zero, but nothing happens; Donna has manipulated the controls to disable it. The Doctor recognises that the creation of the new Doctor has had an unintended side effect: Donna is now half Time Lord herself, sharing the Doctor's intellect. Donna and the new Doctor free the others, and with the help of the original Doctor, disable the Daleks and start to send the planets back to their proper time and space. Before Earth can be sent, the machinery is destroyed by the Supreme Dalek, who is then destroyed by Captain Jack. The original Doctor races into the TARDIS to replace the functionality of the broken machine. Realising that Dalek Caan has seen the end of the Dalek race and has been manipulating time to achieve this, the new Doctor (probably not kept back by guilt due to the influence of Donna's personality) uses the remaining machinery to destroy all of the Daleks and their fleet. The rest of the companions flee to the TARDIS, and while the Doctor offers to save Davros, but he refuses, calling the Doctor the "Destroyer of Worlds". The Crucible is destroyed.

The Doctor enlists the help of the other companions, making contact with the base Torchwood and with Luke Smith, Mr. Smith and K-9, to help use the TARDIS return the Earth to its proper place. Sarah Jane says her goodbyes, as well as Jack, Martha, and Mickey, who has decided to stay in this universe. Using a retroactively closing rift, the Doctor returns Rose and Jackie to the alternate dimension and leaves the new Doctor with her, as he will now grow old with Rose, no longer able to regenerate due to the human influence, the human doctor, having the same memories and feeling as the proper Doctor, tells Rose he loves her and they kiss.

Returning to their universe, Donna finds she begins to have trouble thinking; the Doctor explains that the human mind cannot take in the Time Lord mental abilities. To save her, he wipes her mind of all her encounters with the Doctor, returning her home and explaining to her family, Sylvia Noble and Wilfred Mott, that she must never be reminded of her time with the Doctor or else she will die. As Donna recovers consciousness, she shows no interest in the Doctor; he leaves, though Wilfred promises he will look out for the Doctor every night while he looks at the sky. The Doctor then returns to the TARDIS, alone once again.

Cast

Production crew

References

Individuals

TARDISes

  • This is the first episode where the TARDIS is fully-staffed with six pilots, and the first time it is noted definitively that it was designed for six, after various mentions about it being made for more than a single Time Lord.

Technology

Story notes

  • According to Doctor Who Magazine this is the biggest finale of Doctor Who ever.
  • Blue Peter presenter Gethin Jones operates a Dalek in this episode, returning to Doctor Who since his brief appearance as a Cybus Cyberman in The Age of Steel.
  • This was be the longest series finale at 65 minutes long, longer even than most of the Christmas specials, except for Voyage of the Damned, which was 71 minutes.
  • Dalek Caan refers to the Doctor as a 'threefold man'. The meaning becomes clear in this episode with both the copy of the Doctor and 'Doctor-Donna'.
  • This episode marks the first series finale to show a preview of the upcoming Christmas Special (2008). After the credits the Cybermen are said to return in the episode.
  • This episode tells us that Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister, actually died in the previous episode.
  • Davros named the Doctor 'The Destroyer of Worlds' and maybe a reference to Fires of Pompeii when it was said the Doctors name was sealed in the Cascade of Medusa herself or to the Doctor being the Ka Faraq Gatri.
  • The Osterhagen key would destroy the Earth. The word, Osterhagen, is an anagram of the phrase, Earth's gone.
  • This story augments the notion that Time Lords have some measure of control over the regenerative process. as seen in Last of the Time Lords. In truth, most regenerations have added at least a little to the general mythos about the process. From the notion that a particular physiognomy could be imposed upon the Second Doctor in The War Games, details have been added about how the process works almost every time one has been depicted. In this case, writer Russell T Davies builds upon his earlier idea that a Time Lord can re-grow whole body parts during "the first 15 hours" following a regeneration (The Christmas Invasion) Here he suggests that a Time Lord can stop the process prior to entering the final stage, provided that he has a matching genetic receptacle into which he can store the energy.
  • When the newly created Doctor discovers he's "part Time Lord, part human" he is shocked and refuses to admit it. This is likely a reference to the 1996 movie and fan outrage at it. - This also suggets that the Doctor was never half-human
  • The scene where the Daleks are speaking German is possibly a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that Terry Nation based the Daleks on the Nazis.
  • The Daleks tried to move the Earth before, during the events of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth.
  • This marks the departure of Catherine Tate (Donna Noble) and Billie Piper (Rose Tyler).
  • The story is very similar to that of previous Doctor Who writer, Douglas Adams' story Life, The Universe and Everything, which was in itself based on an abandoned Doctor Who story Adams had written.
  • The recap of the previous episode uses different footage of Jack stating "you know what happens next" in the leadup to the regeneration. In The Stolen Earth he utters the line off-camera, but in the recap he is seen saying it.
  • The Doctor and Mickey perform a "fist bump" in lieu of a handshake when Mickey departs; although the scene was filmed long prior, by the time the episode aired the "fist bump" had become a recognized signature of US presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Ratings

to be added

Myths and rumours

  • The week between the cliffhanger ending of The Stolen Earth and the broadcast of Journey's End included some of the most intense fan speculation and media attention in franchise history. The significance of the cliffhanger, which appeared to show the Doctor regenerating, along with previously reported speculation regarding Donna and other characters led to many speculations being circulated on fan discussion boards and the media. Among some of the most notable:
  • That David Tennant was in fact leaving the series, and that leaked photos and other information regarding him being in the 2008 Christmas special (as well as media reports the preceding week that he was negotiating to return in 2010) were either a "red herring" or that the Christmas special was to include a flashback.
  • The true nature of Donna was the subject of much speculation, with some fans suggesting her to actually be The Rani or Romana living under the influence of a Chameleon Arch, or a manifestation of the Master.
  • Concerning Donna's ring, at the end of the season 4 finale, when the Doctor says good-bye to her it glimmers briefly into the camera. Some fans theorise that the ring is a possible Chamelon Arch containing Donna's memories of her time with the Doctor. Others theorise that the ring is large, black, and very shiny.
  • And the prediction that a companion would die led some to believe Donna, Martha or Rose would be the ones destined to die (since it had already been reported that John Barrowman would be returning to Torchwood and Elisabeth Sladen to The Sarah Jane Adventures, ruling out their characters' demise.
  • The appearance of K-9 was a surprise to many as it had been previously reported that the character would not be appearing in the episode, given the fact the rights to the character are currently held by another party for the planned K-9 television series.
  • After Eve Myles, who had played Gwyneth in The Unquiet Dead was cast as Gwen Cooper in Torchwood, Russell T Davies stated in an interview in Doctor Who Magazine that the characters were unrelated. In this episode, however, Davies reversed this opinion by inserting dialogue strongly implying the two shared common ancestry.
  • There is a possibility that either The Doctor or his twin left behind on Pete's World will eventually manfiest into The Valeyard due to the escalation of pain and abandoment felt each by the other for different reasons

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • With her demise, Harriet Jones' three successive terms as Prime Minister are now no longer able to happen creating a possible paradox, especially if the Doctor knew from a visit to the future that it was supposed to happen. Her stint in office could also have been an example of time being in flux, and not a fixed event.
  • How could the Doctor have remembered it happening, when it didn't? He remembered it from before it was changed
  • If the TARDIS's power has gone, how does the monitor screen work? The heart of the TARDIS was still beating, which could have supplied some power.
  • When the Doctor wiped Donna's mind, it looked like he only wiped the memories of her time with the Doctor. Couldn't he have just wiped the Time Lord stuff that was overloading her brain? However, if she remembers the 'Time Lord stuff' she will burn up, and it would be easy to remember if you're traveling around with one.
  • Wouldn't the nuclear warheads placed under the crust have melted? UNIT would most likely have thought about this, and provided some sort of way to protect them.
  • If Donna, a human, can't live with a Time Lord's mind, doesn't that mean neither can the human Doctor? Donna had a human brain containing a Time Lord mind. The "part human" Doctor had one heart and cannot regenerate, but he has a Time Lord brain (with some of Donna's consciousness) and so can, unlike Donna, maintain a Time Lord consciousness.
  • Why did Martha have to travel to Germany to activate the Osterhagen key when the other soldiers were in pods in their home countries? The main pod was in Germany - Martha states that she is in Osterhagen 1.

There are 5 Osterhagen stations so presumably there will be one in each continent, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America, therefore, Germany would be the site of the european station, while the other two stations being used would have been african and asian.

  • The moon remained in position when the Earth had moved. The moon should have locked onto the strongest gravitational force (the Sun) and been pulled towards it. If left alone the moon's orbit would adjust to the change in mass eventually. But this process would take decades, if not centuries. There is no indication that the Earth was gone that long. The moon would have stayed in general orbit around the Sun, but without the Earth's gravitational field it would have drifted from orbit rather quickly, due to momentum. If we assume the Earth was gone for 24 hours, then the Moon should be well on its way to a destabilized orbit. However, the Tardis pulled the Earth home so maybe no time passed since the earth left But, in the previous episode, the Doctor stated that the planets had been removed from time as well as their position, so wouldn't the moon have never been there?
  • The Earth was never brought back in time the one second that Davros had rushed it forward to keep it out of sync with the rest of the universe. Therefore it shouldn't be moved back with the moon or the solar system, as the Earth is still ahead in time. History would also be changed as humans from Earth would never be able to react with any other alien species. Seeing as this problem would also occur for the other 26 planets, one can assume that the Doctor put every planet back into sync with their original time periods when he removed them from the Medusa Cascade. Also, it was the Medusa Cascade that was out of sync, not the planets.
  • If the act of temporal shifting back to the Time War showed Dalek Caan the entire history of the Dalek race and led him to conclude the Daleks should be destroyed, why didn't he just let Davros die in the war and then kill himself? Caan was driven insane after saving Davros, therefore he had only seen the whole of time after Davros was already safe. He then began setting the course of events that would lead to the fall of the New Dalek Empire.
  • If any mention of the Doctor or the TARDIS would cause the Time Lord consciousness within Donna to reawaken and burn up her mind, isn't the Doctor taking a tremendous risk by letting Donna see him in the Nobles' house? The Doctor wishes to test the effectiveness of the memory wipe and also determine whether there are any negative effects on her. The real risk to Donna is if she starts to remember when the Doctor is absent and unable to intervene before she suffers a complete neurological collapse.
  • Why would the Daleks place the mother of all control panels capable of destroying the Daleks in the dungeon of Davros, knowing full well he's betrayed them before and that the Doctor is likely to be locked up in there. Perhaps it was just a normal control panel - even one with limited or no access to the rest of the ship - and Donna was able to hack her way into the main system. Also there were ordinary Daleks watching the control panels.
  • Why didn't the Daleks activate an Emergency Temporal Shift to escape the control of Donna, and how did the Dalek Supreme manage to avoid being controlled? The Emergency Temporal Shift may have been an innovation of the Cult of Skaro, the secret of which Caan did not share with Davros or the new Daleks. And the Dalek Supreme was seen under the same loss-of-control effect as the rest of the Daleks, but not to such a high degree. It could also be assumed that along with a limited range of emotions, Davros also imbued the Dalek Supreme with a few other special abilities, which may include all his functions not being looped in to the main control panel in the vault.
  • Why were the controls put in the Vault where Davros could access them and destroy the Daleks as the Doctor's meta-crisis form did? Perhaps part of their "arrangement", so that if the Daleks chose to pursue another form of universal conquest, Davros could stop them. This would also explain why the Dalek Supreme's controls are separate; he is the most loyal (to a certain extent) to Davros and therefore wouldn't go against his wishes.
  • The second humanoid woman aboard the Shadow Proclamation ship/station told Donna there was "something on your back", repeating the prediction of Lucius in The Fires of Pompeii. We know the Time Beetle is gone, but there was no explanation concerning the cryptic phrase by the climax of Journey's End. The albino woman spoke in the past tense saying there "was something on your back", the other temporal aberration she noticed was the time fields converging on Donna, the same phenomenon Rose spoke of, which we learn was a product of Dalek Caan's secret temporal manipulations which he implemented in order to hasten the destruction of the Daleks.
  • If Mickey Smith was allowed to stay on the normal Earth, why did Rose and Jackie have to go back? After all, the Doctor could have brought Pete back as well, and their child. Pete would have probably been reluctant to leave his own universe, as he runs a successful business. Also, the Doctor states that his hybrid clone is a liability after committing mass genocide on board the Crucible, and gives him to Rose. He probably doesn't want to be in the same universe with him. It seems that the Doctor was only able to get to Bad Wolf Bay and stay there for a few minutes, so there was no chance of getting someone else back to the normal Earth.
  • If the New Dalek Empire was grown from cells taken from Davros, how would the new Daleks know that Davros shouldn't be trusted and so decide to lock him up? It's not that he wasn't trusted, Davros was just not in control. It was most likely the Daleks took over authority naturally, and decided to keep Davros imprisoned so he would not compromise it. Remember, the Daleks see Davros as inferior because he is not a Dalek.
  • When the Doctor sees Gwen Cooper for the first time, he asks if she came from an old Cardiff family. She replies yes, but this cannot be true as in Something Borrowed, Gwen's parents come from Swansea. Obviously, they could have moved there from Cardiff; the two cities are not far apart and her parents could not possibly has been born in the 19th century anyway.
  • Related to the above, Gwyneth appeared to have no family in The Unquiet Dead so how could Gwen be her descendant? Dialogue never indicates the nature of their relationship; Army of Ghosts featured Martha Jones's cousin who was a lookalike for Martha. Victorian families had many children and Gwen could be descended from any of Gwyneth's relations.
  • When Davros brings up the screen to view the testing, the image shows the human test subjects just entering. On TV, not all events are straight after each other. Most events are at the same time as another, but for obvious reasons, they are placed next to each other.
  • When the Doctor sends every planet back to when and where it was taken, doesn't this negate Partners in Crime, Fires of Pompeii, and the conversation about Poosh in Midnight since those events were caused by lost planets? No because he didn't send them back in time. he just sent them back to the right place in space. But the Lost Moon of Poosh is from the future, so putting it back in its proper place but without the proper time gives you the mother of all paradoxes; he might have sent it in time. In which case the paradox is in Midnight, because it's been gone a long time in that episode. If he sent it back to where it came from, that couldn't happen. Maybe the Doctor sent the Moon forward in time where it reapears AFTER the events in the episode in question so as to not create a paradox.
  • Why did Rose need to be sent back to the parallel world? It wasn't her original universe anyway, and if the Doctor truly loved her, wouldn't he find a way to let her be with him again, and not the Other Doctor? Or was this just a writing ploy to get rid of the other Doctor? Rose's place was in the parallel earth. Her work, her family, her baby brother, her parallel father all were there. Also, she had been recorded as 'dead' on the original Earth. With such a stake in her new life (including a lack of one with Mickey who went back) she had nothing to go back for. As for the (real) Doctor, he knew he could never give her what she wanted; a normal life. He could give her the semi-human Doctor, who could be a part of her life for good. Let's not forget the semi-human Doctor was capable of genocide; a sobering reminder of what would happen if the Doctor became too human. Leaving them behind allowed the Doctor to keep running - and, for once, have no need to look back.
  • With all of her memories since The Runaway Bride erased, wouldn't Donna realise that she has lost about a year and a half of of her life, and shouldn't she think it's her wedding day. It is possible that the Doctor replicated the Chameleon Arch's effects and implanted new memories
  • Jack last encountered Mickey in Boom Town when Mickey was insecure, a bit inept and unimpressive. Aside from tongue-in-cheek joking around with him, Jack doesn't display any doubts about Mickey's abilities or any shock that he is involved in fighting the Daleks. As a member of Torchwood, Jack may be aware of Mickey's role in the events of Army of Ghosts and Doomsday.
  • Why did the Doctor park the Tardis right outside Donna's house? If she had looked out of the window/heard the noise when he was leaving then this could have caused her to 'burn out' and die. Not necessarily, no more so than actually meeting the Doctor (as John Smith) made her burn up. The danger would come from extensively reminding her of the events of her travels.
  • The Earth was moved and then returned to its rightful place, however no "reset button" was pressed in the story, indicating that the move is now a part of history. As such, wouldn't the Doctor have heard of this incident during his many visits to future Earth. The are several possibilities, ranging from past Doctors experiencing alternate timelines without realizing it, to the fact that even such a major event like this is bound to be absorbed into history. People in 2008 don't continuously refer to the events of 9/11 or Pearl Harbour while it's possible the Doctor should have heard of the event, there's no reason why he HAD to. Similarly, when he visits the Earth of the far future (such as witnessing its ultimate destruction in The End of the World), we don't hear references to its other relocation, either (see Ravolox).
  • Why didn't the Doctor land the Tardis close enough to Davros in the vault so that he wouldn't have to make a mad dash and so avoid giving Davros time to cut him down?

Continuity

  • When the Doctor sees Gwen Cooper for the first time, he asks if she comes from a long line of family from Cardiff. This is because of the similarity between Gwen and Gwyneth (DW: The Unquiet Dead), both of whom are played by Eve Myles. The Doctor and Rose both recognise the uncanny family resemblance.
  • This is the first occurrence of the Doctor's TARDIS being piloted by six people, that number first being specified in NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible.
  • This episode marks the last appearance of the Tenth Doctor's severed hand which first appeared in DW: The Christmas Invasion and throughout the first season of Torchwood.
  • Davros mentions meeting Sarah at the birth of his creations; this happened in DW: Genesis of the Daleks.
  • Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler last appeared in DW: Doomsday.
  • Donna tells the Doctor how to fix the Chameleon Circuit which has been broken since DW: An Unearthly Child. The Sixth Doctor had previously attempted this in DW: Attack of the Cybermen, as had the Fourth Doctor in DW: Logopolis.
  • This is the second time a Doctor has been depicted in a way to suggest he is naked. The first time was in Spearhead from Space in which a newly regenerated Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) takes a shower. The Ninth Doctor was seen shirtless in a torture scene in Dalek.

DVD and Other releases

See also

to be added

External links

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