20 GREATEST TV EPISODES (IN NO ORDER!):

DR.WHO
2.13: ‘Doomsday’ TV Review/Recap

​*****

A fitting denouement for TV’s most beautiful ‘beauty and the beast’ love story.

Has there ever been a better ending for a TV character than what Russell T.Davies gave Rose Tyler? While I’ve always felt ‘Dr.Who’ has been at its best in it’s quieter, creepier, behind-the-sofa moments (take ‘Weeping Angels’ scareshow ‘Blink’ as cream of that crop), it’s impossible not to be won over the sheer scope and size of this season finale. One which’s poignant mix of spectacle and tears truly lived up to the ostensibly overused term “cinematic”.


The spectacle, of course, arrived in the much-anticipated Dalek vs Cyberman showdown which could have easily fell into ‘Alien vs. Predator’ idiocy yet felt goosebump-inducingly loyal to fandom in its blasting banter (“this is not war! this is pest control!”) while delivering blockbuster entertainment on an unprecedented scale. The unforgettable imagery of Daleks emerging from an ark-like prison over Canary Wharf to exterminate the tin-hearted metalmen below was the kind of kid’s drawing that might have been sketched between school classes in the 70s. An impossible dream given the wobbly sets and bubble wraps that once substituted for “special effects” yet gorgeously realised here. A suggestion of how much CGI has worked wonders for this infamously cheap cult series.


Save for our own, the tears, meanwhile, belonged to Billie Piper; pouring pitifully as she beat the wall between worlds screaming “TAKE ME BACK!”. On the other side - having plunged millions of his two most famous foes into the void (“hell” in the words of Noel Clarke’s ridiculously redemptive Mickey) - David Tennant’s tragic Doctor delivered a more muted response; walking away in utterly defeated silence every bit as powerful.


When I first watched Rose - aged 9 back in 2006 - losing her grasp of that void-opening leaver and being sucked into “hell” against the Doctor’s Darth Vader-style “NOOOOO!”, I genuinely thought this might be it for the time-traveller’s favourite. We all knew Piper was leaving the show, not the means of doing so. Imagine if Davies had done the unthinkable - killing off a main character. Something which may be staple in ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Game of Thrones’, but far too dark for teatime family-friendly ‘Who’.


The last time ‘Dr.Who’ did such was when bratty, baby-faced Adric crashed into prehistoric Earth in the 80s, but Writer Davies - being the sentimental soul he is - certainly wasn’t going to let that happen to the show’s best loved companion since Sarah Jane Smith.


And yet having Rose saved last minute by her alternate universe dad and sealed-off in a parallel world remained utterly fitting. The Doctor - a God-like figure capable of saving entire civilisations - couldn’t do the same for the one he loved most; moreover he essentially imprisoned her.


Rose too bore the brunt of her own naivity; her schoolgirl-like dreams of travelling “forever” with the love of her life were ignorant of the Doctor’s pleas that his near-thousand year lifespan couldn’t provide the same longevity for her limited and eventually ageing human existence. It was inevitable that “forever” could never be...that’s the curs of the Time Lord.


Over the years, the ‘Beauty and the Beast’-like ballad of the Doctor and his Rose has been polarising to say the least; branded by many Whovians as hormonal hodegepodge.


For myself, however, this heart-wrenching romance between a 900 year old Time Lord and a 22 year old estate-bred eastender is what truly made the rebooted series and Tennant’s brooding alien loner quite so human.


However much Steven Moffat attempted to over-complicate yet ultimately stupify ‘Who’ as showrunner (his standalone episodes during the Davies era remain outstanding), he fell short of Davies because his stories lacked one vital organ - heart (two in the Doctor’s case!).


There’s nothing in the chemistry of Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond nor Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth and Jenna Coleman’s Clara Oswald to match what Tennant and Piper accomplished in their breathtakingly beautiful parting at “Bad Wolf Bay”.


The latter, in particular, slapped every snobby sceptic in the face when it came to proving pop stars can act!


Rose’s breakdown with the tear-flooded question “am I ever going to see you again?” always gets me; as does the Doctor’s uncomfortably calm “you can’t”; attempting to lighten the mood with stories of being last of the time lords and his TARDIS before quietly melting too upon Rose’s immortal revelation “I love you”. A response to which never materialises as the Doctor’s hologram vanishes into thin air...a single tear dripping back in the big blue box and the lip-reading beginnings of a sentence starting too with “I”. Ahhh the feels!


This was the first time a TV show truly moved me; having relived the moment a million times since. Spoilt only Russell T. Davies bringing Rose back in the end...


This is a tragedy and tragedies shouldn’t have happy endings!