SPOILER WARNING!!!
You’ve been warned!
There was blubbering. I’m not afraid to admit it.
They really pulled out all the stops in the episode and it really was worth all the hype. I loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
I just wish David Tennant didn’t have to go.
Sigh.
In my review last week I said that it wasn’t really fair to judge part 1 until we’d seen part 2 and now that we’ve seen The End of Time Part 2, it’s safe to say that Part 1 was the weakest of the two specials.
I still think that the Master turning everyone on Earth into himself was slightly absurd – possibly the most absurd thing we’ve seen during the David Tennant Doctor Who years. I was glad when that it was undone when the Time Lords showed up.
Yeah, so the Time Lords came back. But as the Doctor says, “They’re not as I choose to remember them.” These Time Lords are the ones from the end of the Time War – they’re twisted and don’t want to die. They want to live forever at any costs.
And that was why the Doctor stopped them the first time and has to do so again.
Timothy Dalton as the Time Lord Rassillon was awesome. He managed to convey the desperation of the Time Lords and still seem like a bad ass. I wish we’d got to see more of him! The Time Lords came and went. They were a great plot device it’s just a shame we’ll never get to see them again.
Besides the typical manic moments that are the hallmark of Doctor Who – there were some very touching moments. Several between the Master and the Doctor, between the Doctor and Wilf and at the end when he gives his final gift to all those he’s travelled with. I was blubbering at each one.
By far the most powerful moment was when the Master realized what a tool he was, turned on the Time Lords and saved his arch nemesis, the Doctor. It was fitting and moving.
It’s a shame that we’ll never see the two traveling through time and space together. They could have had some great stories.
My favorite moment?
When the Doctor went back to before he’d met Rose Tyler and had a brief conversation with her. It was touching. It was a great reminder of the love story that they told.
When it came time for the Doctor to regenerate – neither my wife or I didn’t want it to happen and neither did the Doctor! It was so sad that he was alone when it happened but he was ready.
David Tennant is leaving the show on quite a high note.
I just hope Matt Smith can fill his shoes. I’m optimistic about the new direction they’ll take the show and I hope they jettison a lot of the baggage from the Tennant years and start afresh with new and interesting characters – and creatures.
The Doctor returns played by Matt Smith in Spring 2010. Obviously, we will keep you updated all along the way.
Happy New Year!!!
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Anglotopia was founded by Jonathan and Jackie Thomas for people who love Britain - whether it's British TV, Culture, History or Travel - we cover it all. Anglotopia was started to get us back to the UK for a trip and it did that in 2009. Now, the goal is for Anglotopia to make our dreams of traveling to the UK whenever we want a reality.
For me the best part was the twist, where you finally realise what the 4 knocks are. Very sad moment.
Yes, a fine moment when the master realises how he’s been ‘played’ by the Time Lords, and saves the Doctor by blasting the chief Time Lord, who was convincingly scary in his ‘twisted version of the Time Lords’ role.
Slightly surprised Donna didn’t have more of a role but that’s not a complaint.
Very moving and sad stuff as the Doctor takes his final tour…from a point of view of how the episode hung together, the only slightly odd thing was the way, after all the excitement and drama with Tennant, followed by the more sad/elegaic bit of him ‘winding down’ his life before regeneration time, we got a complete shift of gear at the end, when we not only see the Doctor regenerating but the arrival of his replacement (who’s this guy?!) for a couple of minutes, taking control of the tardis which has gone in to crash mode with the Regeneration.
It kind of ‘stopped the flow’ of all that had gone before in the programme. The new doctor after all that, could only face a ‘challenge’ of acceptance from the viewer (who has been bound up in the sadness of tennant dying) and…it was just a complete gear shift and flow-stopper.
In previous regenerations, I think sometimes the show has stopped with the regeneration going on – or just completed, but the viewer not knowing who the Doctor has turned in to. Really can’t help thinking that would have been the much better way to do it. We could have seen a figure getting up from the floor, eg, with his back to the camera, and even a triumphal air-punch, without knowing who it was, before the credits rolled, that would have been one better way.
Still want to rewatch the episode tho…
I really wanted this to be great, david tenant is without doubt the greatest doctor who ever and RTD deserves all the credit in the world for reinventing the series. However we’ve clearly run out of ideas, this was dull dull dull, 2 hours of john simm running around cackling is head off and 10 minutes saying good bye to former colleagues. When the bar has been set so high (blink, the library, etc) this was a desperately disappointing end to david tennats regin. Role on Steven Moffat, things can only get better.
So, are we to assume then that the female Time Lord was supposed to be Susan?
My wife and I think it was his mother.
yh i agree i thought it was his mother just by the look they gave each other!
The female TimeLord that uncovered her face near the end was “Doctor Donna” Don’t forget she is now part Time lord, whether it is an older Donna or a Regenerated Donna is yet to be disclosed.
I thought it was an older Donna, since she’s technically half Time Lord.
I thought it was an older Donna. She’s half Time Lord, isn’t she?
Donna isn’t half Time Lord, she can’t regenerate. During the meta-crisis she “took the Doctor’s mind inside her own head.” Her biology didn’t change.
Did anyone else think Donna and Wilf were secretly Time Lords? RTD misses en epic plot twist there.
If you look back at Series 4, they left all these clues (and then continued them in End of Time Part One) that lead a lot of fans to the conclusion that Donna and Wilf were Time Lords who had taken human form, and that the fob watches would make an appearance. Too bad they didn’t, it would’ve explained a lot and added a whole new dimension to the story.
Donna “Nobel.” Need I say more?
i thought doctor donna, am intrigued would like to know more, sussed what the oods ment by doctor donna when it was first shown sussed his hand had something to do with it, the doctor gave donna protection, there is apparently three versions of thetenth dpctor oo it could go on forever, i tink michael moorcock should write a story about the last time war!!
1) the episode was not “lame, lame, lame” so much as it was great. I cried at the end. I haven’t seen an actor bring such life to a character as had David Tennant with The Doctor.
2) Bringing closure to all the Doctor’s relationships in the Tennant era was cool – especially the ones I wasn’t expecting. It also allows the franchise to reboot and go again
3) I think the old lady was supposed to the Doctor’s rumored Mother
4) Timothy Dalton wasn’t that cool when he was James Bond
5) Nobody really dies in Doctor Who, especially if they appear in more than 2 episodes. The Master could come back. And since there’s an alternative half-Doctor floating around with Rose Tyler, Tennant’s got a loophole to come back to do movies – with Rose, with Martha, and with even The Master.
I was sad when Christopher Eccleston left, and I’ve cried now that Tennant’s left (still doesn’t seem real). I’m betting Matt Smith can pick up the slack
I had also contemplated that it may be Romana.
FanDocTastick!!
Simply Whoonderful!!!
I was Time-Portalled to my Ecstatic Inner Tardis.
And I cried, I whailed, didn’t want David to go.
Bwahahaha!!!!
Next spring?
That long?
Well, I guess maybe I’ll go out & get a few box sets to commemorate my love of Who?, you ask; a sort of Rustled Tennet of sci fi history.
THat’s ok; I’M moaning too…
Tears flowing down this cheek of time’s slender curve…
i hope john simm returns as the master somehow
The woman… am I the only one that noticed the reference to them by Dalton as “The weeping angels of old”?
I heard the allusion to the weeping angels but didn’t really understand it. Whoever the woman was (and I like having this loose end left to be tied up in the future) she must be a Time Lord. Donna is not really a Time Lord and I dimly remember from somewhere (I think) that the doctor’s mother was human, hence his love for the human race. Could be wrong about that. The music played when she uncovered her face is known, I believe, as ‘Flavia’s theme’, although its been used for other things, such as the song of the Ood. Flavia was a Time Lord who the doctor left in charge of the council once. Other candidates would be Romana, the Rani (if a little unlikely) and, of course, the Doctor’s daughter, Jenny. But I would really like it to be Susan. I’ve dipped in and out of Dr Who all my life and vividly remember being totally caught up in the very first episode, where Susan was about the same age as I was then. Now she would still be the same age, of course (although Claire Bloom is a bit older than me – but looks better!).
But who was the other one? Man or woman?
If any of you are familiar with the famous scene from Hamlet, the woman could be no one else but the Doctor’s mother.
Okay, I’m going insane, where can I find theysic playing when the doctor says his goodbyes? Like, when he just looked at Wilf and Wilf saluted? I need that darn song…
In THe 8th Doctor TV movie, he says he’s half-human, but in a comic, it says that he used the chameleon arch to fake that.
And it IS supposed to be The Doctor’s mother.
The female time lord cannot be Donna. Remember the Doctor said if she’d ever remember she’d die. He also said their cannot be a half human /half time lord. That it was never meant to be. So its not Donna. And his Mother cannot be human because then the Doctor would not be a time lord. Remember he said their cannot be a half human half time lord. So no his mother was not human. I believe the woman was Susan his grand daughter. That makes more since to me. I was hoping they’d release that bit of information.
A great set up in Part one but this was a really disappointing story that dragged when it should have soared. Why Bring Donna back for nothing else than to get married? I wanted her to be a pivitol part of the episode and she was an after-thought. And 10 minutes going back to say goodbye to everyone…Before…he regenerated? Those scenes were dreadful.
Ok, let’s make the association…
The woman who uncovered her face and made eye contact with the Doctor was Susan, and i’ll tell you why…
1. Susan was a Time Lord from Gallifrey
2. When Wilf asked who the woman was, the Doctor paused, then looked at Donna.
3. Donna is Wilf’s Granddaughter. (This is part 1 to the logic…)
4. Susan was the Doctor’s Granddaughter. (This was part 2, see the relation?)
5. The two that went against the vote to proceed to destroy the Vortex would be….. (The only 2 covering their faces mind you.)
(Drumroll)
None other than: Romana (yes, some were correct) and the Doctor’s Granddaughter, Susan. (What 2 Time Lords would would NEVER go against everything good? Not these two!)
This is a speculation, but it makes sense.
The mysterious Time Lady was most likely the Doctor’s daughter, Jenny.
Do you remember how the episode “The Doctor’s Daughter” centered around Doc 10′s nonviolence and Jenny learning that lesson?
Well, when the mysterious Time Lady gave Doc 10 that meaningful stare, what was he about to do?
Shoot someone.
Not a difficult connection to make.
Look up actress Claire Bloom who played part it. Back in April 2009 her agent states she was hired to play Doctor’s mother.
Claire Bloom was hired to play the Doctor’s mother. Her agent stated this to the Telegraph in April of 09. You can look up this article by putting in her name and Doctor Who in google.
I was sobbing like a baby when the Doctor stumbled back to the TARDIS, and was right mess when David Tennant delivered his last line. This was probably aided by the large sonic screwdriver that I mixed up for the occasion…
I honestly don’t think the story gave Tennant a proper sendoff. Sure, the Timelords finding him resolved the whole “brooding last of the Time Lords” bit and clears the way for the new Doctor to follow a new story line, but it was too short, and they didn’t even do anything while they were there on Earth. They didn’t even move from that spot. Past season finales have been epic. RTD couldn’t scrap together something more awesome for the Time Lords to do?
I just don’t WANT to like Matt Smith! They seriously didn’t give him a lame catchphrase like “Geronimo!” did they? I like my Doctors thoroughly British, thanks! But he will get a chance to bust heads and take names, I see from the Season 5 trailer. A guy in suspenders should be prepared to put up his dukes.
Did anyone else find it odd that the dr wasn’t more upset when Gallifry left.
I know they were technically already dead and they turned bad in the end but a few words would have been good to acknowledge them. Instead he has a moment of glee at still being alive.
He’s been more emotional when companions leave, but coming face to face with his own people… nothing.
Also why didn’t “hell” come through when Dalek Khan broke the time lock.
Hmmm, how can one of the “weeping angels of old” be the Doctor’s mother? The Doctor was born after the Pythia’s curse, wasn’t he? That would mean that he was created via a loom.
My guess is that the woman was Susan. Susan is supposed to be the last natural born Gallifreyan; which would classify her as a classic Gallifreyan of old.
The Doctor has a navel so must have originally been born naturally. Perhaps the First Doctor was created from the loom (or made it seem so) and his previous incarnations (those whose images appear in Brain Of Morbius) were natural born, making it possible that the Doctor had a natural mother.
However, I would love her to be Susan, presumably in another incarnation from the one played by Carole Ann Ford so many years ago, after all, despite that idiotic radio play (claiming Susan fell in love with a Menoptera, a species she never met) we never really found out what happened to her.
The Doctor has a navel because he is an incarnation of the Other. In ‘Lungbarrow’ (where the “Genetic Loom” idea is from) it is one of the main points. The Doctor’s cousins call him “Wormhole” because of his belly button that other Gallifreyans don’t have.
In ‘Cold Fusion’ by Lance Parkin, due originally to a discrepancy, it is implied that “The Doctor” wasn’t the first form of the Other to come from the Loom but that he was another Time Lord, called by many “The Morbius Doctor” due to his now accounting for the incarnations of the Doctor seen in ‘Brain of Morbius’.
‘Cold Fusion’ is reasonably good and ‘Lungbarrow’ is brilliant and can be viewed on the BBC with notes by Marc Platt that explain certain points that are more ambiguous in the book.
Probably not his mother. He is 1/2 human on his mother’s side; per the movie. My guess is the white guardian.
The actor (yes, Male!) also covering his face alongside the Doctor’s Mother (I originally thought Susan…) was actually Matt Smith! If you look closely you can tell it’s him…
It was Doctor’s Granddaugther Susan or his mother. Cause;
1- Doctor can shoot Rassilon or Master but when he saw the woman he didn’t. And at one of the old episoides Doctor promised to Susan, he’ll never shoot someone. He remembered.
2- When Wilfred asked who the woman was, the Doctor paused, then looked at Donna. Donna is Wilfred’s Granddaughter. And Susan was the Doctor’s Granddaughter.
3- She can’t be Donna or Doctor’s Daugther Jenny. Cause Time Lords came beginning of the war. And Susan and his mother was there at beginning of the war too. But Jenny and Donna meet with the Doctor after the war.
4-When the wmoan and Wlifred talking, the woman said; “I was lost, so very long ago…” And when Susan travelled with Doctor, she was lost and dead. She can know she was lost cause they break the time vortex, so they can know Doctor will be the Gallifrey and Time War’s end. (By the predictor. Cause the predictor looked at the time vortex longer then everyone)
So, they r my causes…
And I saw the agent says she’s mother of him but i always gonna think it’s Susan…
We know this is extremely late, seeing as this was posted now two years ago, but we both think that the Master turned everyone into himself because it took away their humanity. Thus destroying the Doctor. Knowing that all his friends and new family were down there. That and the Master is completely insane in the beginning of the story.