Mad world

Well, that turned out a bit limp. The least of the DW finales to my mind, and not even especially good by the standards of this series. I'm leaning towards giving The Stolen Earth and Journey's End 5 out of 10 - the only thing that might persuade me to rate it higher than the Sontaran two-parter is that this one had more redeeming scenes and lines of dialogue. 5.5 would put it on a par with Partners in Crime, which is probably about right... but which story would I sooner rewatch?

(2010 edit: Partners in Crime, no question. I retrospectively demote this two-parter to a 3 out of 10. Bah, humbug.)

Now, I don't honestly mind all that much if a story doesn't make absolute scientific sense, provided it makes some kind of sense. See, for example, Tim McInnerny's transformation at the end of Planet of the Ood - seems a bit implausible, but it makes a kind of aesthetic sense. And I could possibly have let pass the crimes of last year's Evolution of the Daleks if they'd been in any way consistent within the story. That's the least I ask of a DW story, coherence. Here are some of the major areas in which I felt Journey's End failed to provide even that.

1. Dalek Caan's secret plan. Why did he bother to rescue Davros at all if he wanted to see the Daleks wiped out? No Davros, no new Daleks, it's very simple. Ah, say some, but he is barking mad. Now there, I reply, you have it - an adventure story's failed outright if you point out holes in its plot and the best cover it can muster is that the chief plotter is mad. And how the hell is he supposed to have manipulated events across space and time throughout the rest of this series, orchestrating this final showdown, if he's mad and incapacitated? And if he can do that, then - being generous for a moment and assuming that he didn't undergo his revelation until some considerable time after he'd freed Davros - why didn't he just use his magic manipulatory powers to crush Davros like a bug?

2. Davros' much less secret plan. Speaking of mad. So Davros doesn't want to destroy absolutely everything, he wants to leave the Daleks' time-shifted 27-planet empire intact - that's fine. And he plans to destroy everything else with a weapon that cancels out the electrical bonds of matter itself, however one might achieve that - that's fine too. For some reason he thinks this will also break open the barriers between parallel dimensions and destroy all of those too, which makes less sense, except that Rose claims she's seen the process start in her own dimension ("the darkness", if you remember). Which makes bugger all sense when you consider that a) this would require that Davros' matter-dissolving weapon somehow works backwards in time, and b) it wasn't actually fired in the end.
So the obvious conclusion is that there are parallel universe Davroses and Daleks doing the same thing at nearly the same time. But this just opens up a raft of new problems. For a start, the wave of destruction is supposed to be unstoppable once started, so Rose and her personal pet Doctor are going to be pretty screwed before long. So's everything else, if the weapon does work across universes. And surely it must be so, because Rose is able to take advantage of the big holes it's already left (although those magically heal themselves up when the story requires it). All that hard work for nothing, eh? Let's face it, the whole issue was only raised as a flimsy pretext to get Rose into the story, and forgotten as soon as its work was done, but I think we all knew that anyway.
The other big problem is that this idea allows us to compare notes between parallel Davroses, and the first thing we notice is that the Davros in Donna's little pocket universe in Turn Left, and apparently the Davros in Rose's universe, didn't need to steal the Earth to use as part of the death ray's engine. So presumably any other planet of the same proportions could be used interchangeably, which seems a fair conclusion, and you'd expect to be able to find a few dozen alternative planets lying around the cosmos without looking too hard. So why did Davros draw attention to himself by stealing 27 planets everyone would miss (or if the choice of planets was part of Dalek Caan's supposed manipulations, why didn't Davros notice and intervene) when he could have stolen 27 insignificant balls of rock no one would have cared about? The really stupid thing is that he stole three planets from other time periods, thus drawing even more attention to himself, when he must have been able to find any number of alternatives on his chronological doorstep. It's all right though, he's mad, and that apparently explains everything. Yeah, clinically insane like a fox. A very, very stupid fox.

Isn't it funny how insane villains always want to behave just like sane villains, only on a larger scale and with less planning? You never see a villain with an insane plan to make everyone wear purple hats when there's a Y in the month, or an insane plan to make potato salad out of mashed-up cuckoo clocks, or an insane plan to sit in a corner dribbling, muttering to himself and furiously pumping his fist. Not that I'm suggesting that sort of thing should appear on DW, but it's just funny how insanity never seems to mean actual insanity, just a lack of forethought.

3. The Haagen-Dasz key, or whatever it was called. Someone's given the Earth a self-destruct mechanism? That's a f***ing stupid idea even before the Doctor points out how stupid it is. It's marginally convenient for this particular story, although it's brushed aside almost immediately, but under what realistic circumstances could that possibly be of any use? "In order to save the planet it was necessary to destroy it"?! The real clincher, or whatever the equivalent of "clincher" is when you're talking about something that makes the complete opposite of sense, is that this system was apparently intended for use "if the suffering of the human race ever got too much" - what?! "What shall we do about Darfur?" "Well, our hands are tied, we can't send in the peacekeepers." "Tell you what, we could blow up the whole planet..." "Yeah, that'll solve it!" Stupiddy, stupiddy, stupid. I suppose we should just be grateful it turned out not to be a plot reset after all.

4. Towing the Earth home. Come on. Come the hell on. So we'll take a rift through space and time that happens to run through Cardiff - and apparently still does even after the planet's been moved across the universe - and we'll literally use it as a literal towrope to, if you will, literally tow the Earth back across space. Literally. I'm not even going to discuss this.

Other disappointing things:

• Last week we had talk of the Time War being "time locked", which sounded mysterious and impressive, and not at all the sort of thing a twenty-first century human scientist with issues ought to be able to knock up on the fly, posthumously I might add.
• After a brief set-up appearance last week, the Shadow Proclamation and their Judoon footsoldiers play no part in this episode whatsoever, even as an aside. I thought I'd heard the leisure centre's lead Goth declare universal war in a way that spoke of further developments to come, but I expect that was just my ears playing tricks.
• "A Dalek empire at the height of its power" is defeated in about ten seconds with a few flicks of a keyboard. A keyboard, moreover, that finds itself in the Daleks' dungeon, yet is bizarrely connected to the entire Dalek fleet. Cue embarrassing scenes of companions flinging Daleks about like they used to in the days when the Daleks were even more rubbish than they are now.
• Echoes of the first series as an entire Dalek fleet vanishes into dust at a protagonist's mere gesture.
• In fact, far too much plot convenience altogether. I don't think I could really describe any one thing as a deus ex machina this time round, but there was plenty of pulling stuff out of thin air. I've seen someone describe this sort of thing as "rabbitus ex hatta", which is a phrase I quite like and intend to steal for future use.
• And finally, and predictably, the story just couldn't sustain the sheer volume of returning characters RTD felt compelled to throw in. The evidence is plain: the Torchwood cast had nothing to do all episode, Jackie and Mickey were brought in especially to do nothing, even K-9 magically appeared for all of five seconds to provide one more rabbitus ex hatta. There wasn't all that much point in having Rose in the story, except that RTD clearly wanted to trash - sorry, sorry, revisit the (already perfectly good) second series finale and was prepared to bend this story over backwards in order to do it.
  

I've seen The Stolen Earth/Journey's End described as the most expensive bit of fan fiction ever made, and I find it hard to disagree with that sentiment.

You gotta say yes to another excess

Did the Earth move for you?

I'm still undecided about The Stolen Earth. On the one hand, RTD's just piled on as many returning characters as he can, together with the Daleks and Davros, and a handful of thrown-away references from earlier in the series, in the belief that this will magically resolve itself into a story. Perhaps next week it will. On the other hand, after four years' practice it'd be almost impossible for the Who team to get any of this wrong, mechanically speaking - the look is good, the directing is good, the Daleks are of course Daleky. But even after three viewings - one at a friend's birthday party, one late at night, and one to finally hear what was going on - I still haven't found enough of a story to really get my reviewing teeth into. So instead I present a series of impressions of bits of the episode - a string of loosely connected set pieces, if you will. Which is almost a comment on the episode in itself.

Dalek Caan - the best thing about the whole episode. How did we ever get by in the days when Dalek stories didn't include a raving, giggling lunatic Dalek? All this stuff about "the threefold man" and "the dark lord" seems quite promising, and even if it doesn't have any bearing on later developments, at least it makes for good solid gibbering. Still 'n' all, it's a bit of a shame when you bring back every companion, spin-off star and barely-cared-about character you can think of and they're all upstaged by a static, helpless prop.

Harriet Jones, one-note joke - speaking of barely-cared-about characters. Here she is again, now doing her Margaret Thatcher impersonation - at least, that's what I took it for, because I choose not to believe that Penelope Wilton could ever speak that flatly and woodenly without trying. "I've asked my conscience whether I was right to sink the Belgrano, and funnily enough my conscience said not to worry about it." All this business about following her name with her profession was fine back in 2005, because you could accept that an aspiring MP might do that in the hope that the Prime Minister would remember her later. As soon as she became Prime Minister it became ridiculous, but the "Yes, we know who you are" response gave it a new comic twist - the first time, anyway. Now it's all just plain tiresome. When even the Daleks yes, know who she is, you know it's gone too far. And what's that ID she keeps flashing? Is there a Former PMs Club that she's joined that she wants everyone to know about?

The Shadow Proclamation - sounded pretty impressive at first, didn't it? Mysterious and that. Who could've guessed it'd turn out to be two albino goths in a leisure centre? And the Judoon, of course, because this is transparently RTD's Greatest Hits and there wasn't any easy way of using any of his other animal-aliens. I expect they'll show up again next week, but here it seems their sole purpose is to remind us of the gag that they only speak in monosyllables ending in "o", so that the Doctor can amusingly respond in kind. Ho, ho.

Davros - kudos to RTD for resisting bringing him back until now. The old schtick, wheeled out again in this week's DW Confidential, is that the Daleks need a spokesman because they can't hold a conversation themselves. Which just shows how little attention people pay to the '60s Dalek stories - or to their four previous appearances in New Who, for that matter. Ironic too, considering how he usually just ends up ranting. Still, here he is again, yer old mate Dave Ross. He's looking good, the mask looks less rubbery on a second viewing. He's a strange mixture of continuity and fresh start, though - they've given him a robot hand in deference to the fact that the real one got shot off in 1985, but they've ignored the loss of most of the rest of him in 1988, and by going back to the original look of 1975 they've thrown out all subsequent development of the mask. Bonus points to actor Julian Bleach for not saying "Doc-tor", to my surprise and delight.
One thought - why has he picked his own chest clean to clone a new Dalek army when he's got Dalek Caan? The wriggly little feller's obviously too dangerously mad to be trusted with a working Dalek casing, and even if Davros likes listening to his conversation (and we sure do), well... he's got a few tentacles to spare. It'd even save time mutating the new Daleks once they've started growing.
I could digress into a couple of paragraphs on what's wrong about Davros at this point, but the mighty Ben Jeapes has already done that.

Rose - she's still back. Seems to have got those teeth a bit more under control. Nice touch that she isn't invited into the Old Companions Club - she is supposed to be locked away in a parallel universe after all (or officially, dead). Heigh-ho, she's got a big gun - I wonder if the Doctor will comment this time on how all his ex-companions seem to end up carrying guns. Also a slightly dubious message in that looting scene that the best way to deal with troublemakers is to flash your gun at them. (Still, there's the American sales to think of.) It is kind of nice to see her back, although I'm still waiting for a proper explanation of how she's able to come back at all - next week, presumably.

Playing pool with planets - come on, who else is thinking Red Dwarf? But here's the thing - the Shadow Proclamation's computer is primed to holographically rearrange the 27 planets of your choice into "the optimum arrangement" without prompting. I'd say that's a useful function to have on your computer, but it's hard to see what use it would actually be, beyond explaining the plot this one time. It's just a bit of hand-waving, an absurd convenience to move the episode along. But not as bad as...

The Archangel network - oops, sorry, the subwave network. I did say this was RTD's Greatest Hits, and oh look, there's a scene of people fervently praying to the Doctor through a global mobile phone network. Luckily no fairy dust or magic flying Doctors were involved this time. And if it's silly that the Shadow Proclamation's futuristic computer should spontaneously guess Davros' plan, it's a magnitude sillier that this "sentient software" should fall into the hands of Harriet Jones, Former Prime Minister. Retirement gift from UNIT? Apparently it's been developed using a trust fund set up by kindly old Mr Copper, the most robbed Companion Who Never Was since Will Chandler (The Awakening, 1984). What the hell's she doing with it? How the hell does she know how to use it? How can you wave away so much plot convenience with the mere claim that it's "sentient"? (The same, but less, applies to the allegation that Martha's transmat backpack "read her mind".)

The Time War - apparently the whole thing is time-locked. So who the hell did that? Did the Doctor do it after he'd finished burning the Daleks and the Time Lords? Did someone else come along and do it? What's the story there? Because if someone else has the means to do it - which seems the likelier explanation - then there's something more powerful and more interesting than the Daleks that we haven't seen yet. This mention of "the Nightmare Child" is pretty intriguing too. The Lovely Jo reckons the Daleks and Time Lords were fighting together against a third party, which seems plausible.

The darkness - is it still coming? I'm leaning now towards the belief that it wasn't some bit of foreshadowing in Turn Left for the finale, but just a way of representing all the off-Earth havoc that would have resulted if the Doctor hadn't been around to sort it out. But could it still be coming? It doesn't seem to be anything to do with Davros - his plan involves moving the Earth across space, quite specifically the Earth and 26 other planets, and since that didn't happen in Turn Left, the darkness can't be his doing. (I'll feel cheated if it is.) If we hear nothing about it next week, assume it was an episode-specific metaphor.

The reset button - you know it's coming. I'd like to give RTD the benefit of the doubt again, but he's set up his options already. (And besides, it's his Greatest Hits, so there'd have to be a deus ex machina or a reset - maybe both? We had both last year.) Will it be the Haagen-Dasz key that Martha's been entrusted with? Will it be another invisible time beetle? I'd've said this time last week that Dalek Caan might have one on his back, but it looks like they've discounted that and gone for a Double Beetle on Donna. Or maybe the Haagen-Dasz key opens a safe that contains UNIT's very own time beetle, for use in emergencies?

My overall thoughts on The Stolen Earth aren't too positive, looking back at what I've written. It's a watchable episode, with a couple of interesting moments and some nice performances - Dalek Caan's the stand-out - but none too solid if you start poking at it. It's all about the spectacle and not much about the story, which is at least something the three previous finales got right. It'll stand or fall on what happens next week.