The End of Time, Part Two - For those who HAVE seen it!

Christian wrote:

Maybe Sea Devils, the cousins of the Silurians? I'd love to see a story where they mix the two. (they didn't do that in Warriors of the Deep, did they?)

YEP, and God forgive them for doing it! It wasnt the worst idea in the world, it was just rushed. Thank you Margaret Thatcher

The Tenth's last words were too 4th wall breaking since the chaacter is renewing himself.I think it would've worked better if Doctor 11 did favors to all the ex-companions to show the show's legacy continuing instead of Mr. Morose.
I was very pleased that BBCA played the episodes so soon after BBC. I hope this means there won't be any more 3 month delays when the new series starts.

Just listened to the commentary. Julie Gardner called the woman the Doctor's mother. Russell just said "are you sure? what gave you that idea?" sort of sarcastically.

So why is it...of all the things Wilf could have done to get the Doctor's attention once the Time Lords had gone...and knowing full well how much the whole death prophecy spooked the Doctor...why is it Wilf knocked on the glass...not once...not twice or thrice...but FOUR times?!

And then he did it AGAIN!

Wilf, you sick old bastard.

The 2nd Doctor Roberts wrote:

So why is it...of all the things Wilf could have done to get the Doctor's attention once the Time Lords had gone...and knowing full well how much the whole death prophecy spooked the Doctor...why is it Wilf knocked on the glass...not once...not twice or thrice...but FOUR times?!

And then he did it AGAIN!

Wilf, you sick old bastard.

Hahaha!

The 2nd Doctor Roberts wrote:

Wilf, you sick old bastard.

Somewhere, on the side of a police box, the words BAD WILF are scrawled in spray paint.

rdks wrote:

Just listened to the commentary. Julie Gardner called the woman the Doctor's mother. Russell just said "are you sure? what gave you that idea?" sort of sarcastically.

Why would she be on Gallifrey, though? I thought the Doctor was half-human on his mother's side.

* ducks quickly before the firefight starts *

The books cleared that up as nice as they could. For a long time the writer's guidelines stated no one could touch that topic as it was considered a continuity nightmare along with the Valeyard but like that ever stopped anyone?

The 2nd Doctor Roberts wrote:

So why is it...of all the things Wilf could have done to get the Doctor's attention once the Time Lords had gone...and knowing full well how much the whole death prophecy spooked the Doctor...why is it Wilf knocked on the glass...not once...not twice or thrice...but FOUR times?!

And then he did it AGAIN!

Wilf, you sick old bastard.

Poor Wilf, so jolly and innocent, he was completely unaware. He thought the heartbeat was the four knocks. He thought they had beat fate. He had no idea.

I loved that scene so much.

Christian wrote:

Not the best in all of Who's 40-some-odd year run...

Crap... utter crap. The whole plot by the Master is utterly pointless and used to serve as just a method to meet a plot device, mind you a weak method... but it serves to wonder.... why?

Donna might as well have not been in it. Sort of pointless again to center some advertising points around a 2 minutes cameo? For as long as Rose was in the episode I'm surprised we didn't see her in the trailer.

The Time Lords were an awesome plot device that lasted a whole other two minutes.

The whole 'This is Your Life' ending with all the closure of the RTD supporting characters was fun. Once again proving that RTD can write some kick ass scenes but can't really write altogether.

The regeneration, that was fun, Matt ushered in the series with a laugh. The end of an era, the TARDIS is destroyed very symbolic.

But watching 60 minutes for a 12 minute payoff doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Here's hoping that Steven Moffat can breath some much needed life into this stagnant series.

AND... the Dalton Time Lord is Rassilon? What's up with that?

Agreed with the whole of that. What was the point in bringing the Timelords & Gallifrey back - which is a really big thing - just to last for two minutes?

Another point; there was only one plot twist which was Wilf being behind the knocking. Really disappointing,

I got all excited when they said if the Timelords and Gallifrey came back then the Daleks, the Nightmare Child etc, would come back, I thought there was gonna be an all out war!!

All-in-all it wasn't a terrible episode but Tennant could have had a better send off.

Wilf knocked 16 times in total.

Evil Monkey Pope wrote:

Wilf knocked 16 times in total.

Which is divisable by 4 and gives us 4...

He wanted to kill the Doctor 4 times over.

It could have been so much better...

...at the risk of repeating those who also felt let down and upsetting those of you who loved it (remember this is just my opionion)...but I thought EOT was THE most disppointing episode of of the RTD era...it just didnt live up to its own hype. RTD is clearly a talented writer but I think DW is too personal for him now. He seemed so intent on writing in every character he has brought us over the last five years he seemed to lose his way on the plot...my personal opinon is that EOT was written for his own satisfaction (and DT) and not for the show.

RTDs strength is his imagination and ideas, the brillaint way he creates story arcs and can back reference something that happened at the start of the series and make it into something so pivitol....but I think he really struggled holding together the end to end story of these two episodes...it was so cluttered and could have been so so much better...he should have taken his ideas to someone else and let them write it so they were not clouded by the personal emotion.

The bits that I found most disappionting were:


Donna: she had no part to play at all. A visit to her wedding day at the end would have been enough.

The Master: his "master race" ploy was silly and added nothing to the overall plot. Only his link between earth and the Time Lords was relevant...but that link could have been wrtten in without completely wasting our time with the awful EOT Part One

The Timelords: this was such a massive thing for fans, yet they were only in it for 10 mins.....what a waste of a great idea, not to mention Timothy Dalton - he was fantastic

Mysterious Time Lady: Why wasn't her identity (and the other Time Lord made to cover his face in disgrace for voting against the President) revealed? I say this not becuase I feel everything needs to be spelt out to us, but becuase this could have been made so much better. RTD could have delved and even added to the DW mythology - it was just such a cop out.

Wilf: the implied "special connection" between Wilf and the Doctor that was touched on in Part One - it had me thinking he was a Time Lord who had become human (as in Human Nature) or someone else from the Doctors past. Alas it just seems like RTD ran out of ideas and put it all down to co-incidence.

The 4 knocks: great idea it being Wilf (even though most people on this forum guessed it would be) and superb scene but then it was spoilt by the fact the Doctor took so long to regenerate (never known a regeneration to take so long), it made it anti climatic.

Last Line: I hated the "I dont want to go" line...that was clearly a personal line for DT. I also hated the 9th Doctors "...[Rose] you were fantastic...absolutely fantastic...and d'you know what? So was I!" line....dont get me started on this but I'll just say....he is the same man as he was when he had a walking stick and travelled with Susan...

I cant wait for Steven Moffat and Matt Smith to strut their stuff. As a true DW fan I have to hail RTD for bringing our show back with such style but I think the time is right for him and DT to move on and fresh blood to come in and take the show to the next stage. BTW...no one should really complain that Matt Smith's intro was silly after David Tennants newly generated dialogue "...mmm, new teeth thats weird..." Besides, you have to remember that the Doctor is not quite right in the head in the early stages of a new incarnation...so what we saw of Matt in the EOT should not be seen as what he will be like all of the time.

The third Doctor got lost in the Vortex for a while on his way back to Earth before he regenerated. The episode, planet of the Spiders said it was weeks our time yet for him in the books, he wandered around for almost 10 years with a cellular decaying body.

Christian wrote:

The third Doctor got lost in the Vortex for a while on his way back to Earth before he regenerated. The episode, planet of the Spiders said it was weeks our time yet for him in the books, he wandered around for almost 10 years with a cellular decaying body.

Fair point...at least we didnt have to endure that 10 years on screen....

"Ah but Doctor, he will knock 4 (x4) times and then you will die....eventually...kind of..."

rooners wrote:

It could have been so much better...
The 4 knocks: great idea it being Wilf (even though most people on this forum guessed it would be) and superb scene but then it was spoilt by the fact the Doctor took so long to regenerate (never known a regeneration to take so long), it made it anti climatic.

Have to disagree there, we have never seen a slow death for the Doctor before so I found this to be a very interesting take on a death of a Doctor.

Hasn't it been said in books before, and again by RTD answering the question on the Official DW site, that the Doctor is half-human on his mother's side? So this would mean that the character of 'the woman' could not have been his mother. (I'm not saying I agree with this, but it seems to be somewhat 'official')
And the other time lord covering their face is male? I watched it six times, and it always looked like a chunkier female to me.
Rassilon has always been a bit of a baddie, right? That's why the time lords 'locked him up in his tower for eternal sleep'. But, I also think they shouldn't have named him in the ep. Just RTD trying to be too flashy.
I have mixed feelings about Donna getting the lottery ticket. I mean, if she's gone back to being old Donna, being trivial and kind of greedy, wouldn't giving her all that money just make her worse off? It might make her life easier, but not bring out the better person that we saw when she was with the Doctor.
I think we'll see the time lords again, good or bad.

I have a question regarding Captain Jack's appearance in this episode.

To date, I've only seen a handful of episodes from season 1 of Torchwood, I've been meaning to catch up, but just haven't gotten around to it.

Is there a reason Jack's hanging out in a crazy space bar sipping a pan-galactic gargle blaster looking all sad? Or was it just RTD creating a device to get all his creations together in one place?

The cantina was goofy, but I kinda liked it.

Clavius, you should watch Torchwood season 3, Children of Earth. 5 episodes of some fantastic stuff. That will get you up to speed on Jack and keep you entertained for a good 4 and half hours.

Clavius wrote:

Is there a reason Jack's hanging out in a crazy space bar sipping a pan-galactic gargle blaster looking all sad? Or was it just RTD creating a device to get all his creations together in one place?

The cantina was goofy, but I kinda liked it.

Yeah you need to see Children of the Earth to understand it.

rdks wrote:

Just listened to the commentary. Julie Gardner called the woman the Doctor's mother. Russell just said "are you sure? what gave you that idea?" sort of sarcastically.

Here's my thoughts...I don't think she is his mother (it would fit and you could argue the other "disgraced" Timelord could be his farther) but as it has been mentioned, there has been enough doubt scribed into DW mythology over the race of the Doctor's mother to rule this out.

When Wilf ask's the Doctor who the woman was...the Doctor simply looks over at Donna...this to me implies he is looking at "a bride" or "a grandaughter" (as in Wilf's grandaughter).....but as I understand it, the Doctor's grandaugther is (a) not a time lady (she is merely a Galifreyan) and (b) is believed to be living on Earth with a son (Refer the the new 8th Doctors audio play "Earthly Child") then I conclude that the woman is the Doctor's wife.

All of what I have said is open to interpretation (after all this is SciFi) but those are my thoughts. As for the other disgraced Time Lord....I think he is nothing more than a random TL who must have voted against the Lord President....at first I thought it might have been Matt Smith playing a Watcher type Time Lord....but I saw the actor's face in Confidential and he is just an average Joe extra

Personally I don't think the Doctor looking at Donna at that moment was anything more than avoidance to Wilf's question. The Doctor wasn't there to tell his life story, he was there to say good bye to his friends. He came to see Wilf and Donna. So when Wilf asked the Doctor politely reminded him of why he was there.

The Doctor held in his regeneration too long and the orgasm blew up the tardis.

terrasolo wrote:

Personally I don't think the Doctor looking at Donna at that moment was anything more than avoidance to Wilf's question. The Doctor wasn't there to tell his life story, he was there to say good bye to his friends. He came to see Wilf and Donna. So when Wilf asked the Doctor politely reminded him of why he was there.

Good observations! Thats the wonderful thing about DW (and Sci-Fi in general), you can pretty much twist things to make it fit into what ever you want....and I do like that the BBC Producers such as RTD and many before him, choose not to tie up every loose end...otherwise what would we have to talk about

I agree, I find that often the "answers" are there if you look for them. Loose ends can have so many fixes and most of the time many solutions will fit the bill. Then one day another writer comes along and fixes it canon style and no worries. But unless and until then, we have these great fan minds to come up with good theories.

I've heard many over the years and some I have adopted myself. Others I prefer my own, but you are right, it is great to read others thoughts. I love this show and love to chat about it, so this is perfect for us. Our interpretations.