And what a moment: just at the moment the Doctor thought he’d survived, that’s when Wilf knocked, and that’s when Tennant’s Doctor knew he was going to die.
Granted, it was a bit of an odd contrivance that saw Wilf running into said chamber in the first place.īut it was all so wonderfully small and poignant.
I loved the fact that the knocking four times we were waiting for all along was something as simple as Bernard Cribbins trapped in a chamber, tapping the door wanting to come out. Here, an outgoing Doctor got to face the ramifications of what was about to happen, and it was explored exceptionally well.Īnd how brilliantly the bell tolled. Usually, the emotions are dealt with afterwards, as the new Doctor gets used to his new body. This was the first outright emotional regeneration, and it deepened the process immensely. He called all this his reward, but really, it was ours. And we also got a point where he visited Rose before he met her. Or, in the case of Captain Jack, giving him a name of a potential date, in the form of Midshipman Frame (in a scene that looked like it was straight out of Star Wars’ Cantina Bar, not the only nod to George Lucas’ masterpiece that we picked up). Here though, we got Tennant visiting his former assistants, saving them one more time. Mind you, those Skaro Degradations sound fun! (Good name for a band too.We’ve never had this: 20 minutes or so for a Doctor to deal with his impending demise, with no threat to see off to get in the way. Their wish to become “creatures of consciousness” evokes The Eternals (another race of bored idiots) and quite chilling as the audience realises just why The Doctor had to finish the Time War in the way he did. The Time Lords themselves are a bad bunch, for sure, and their power, for the first time in the show’s history, is plain to see from reversing The Master’s template on the human race at the flick of a wrist (literally) to the recalling of their home planet into the Earth’s galaxy. The CG work throughout was excellent: from the beautiful realisations of Gallifrey and its citadel to the Star Wars~esque battle featuring Wilf as Luke Skywalker – truly cinematic visuals. I look forward greatly to seeing more of The Eleventh Doctor (and his trouser~tightening ‘companion’, *coughs*), but that’s a few months away yet – back to The End Of Time, Part Two. And he gets a catchphrase too, “Geronimo!” Nice. I cannot recall a more thrilling or better start for The Doctor in a story and he pitches it perfectly – all fingers and legs. To finish with the acting side of the production I have to talk about Matt Smith and his wonderful introduction to the series. The conversation with his fellow Time Lord at the beginning of the episode was a real with the renegade sneering “Where’s your TARDIS?” and ending with everyone’s favourite son of Gallifrey asking, “I wonder what I’d be without you?” – marvelous stuff. He goes from the gigantical (is that even a word?) menace we see at the start to a little boy (not unlike The Doctor) desperate to be on the winning side.
Not to be outdone, John Simm gets in on the actoring action too. Powerful stuff and a gold star goes to Davey T for always giving 100% to his role and saving the best ’til last. The Time Lord’s arrogant childishness comes to the fore again as he cries, “I could do so much more!” and “It’s not fair!” shortly before he resigns himself to death. Tennant also excels in the scene, again with Wilf, as he rails against the inevitable after hearing those four knocks (as a side~note, Bernard’s little wave and “They gone now? Good~o.” was superbly played). Particularly his scenes with Wilf, so heart~wrenchingly played by Bernard “Doctor Film~Flam” Cribbins, (most noticeably when he cries “I don’t want you to die”) where the two old men discuss the use of the gun – a brilliant and thoughtful message to portray for sure.īut this message of peace is broken by two things: firstly – The Doctor’s admission that he’d taken lives and then, chillingly, telling Wilf he “got clever” manipulating people into taking their own secondly, when The Doctor takes the gun on hearing about the return of the Time Lords – scary stuff. He has impressed in general over the past four~and~bit~years, and greatly in stories like Human Nature, Midnight and The Waters Of Mars, but Russell T Davies gives him some beautiful and painful moments to go out on. What’s most remarkable about the finale to The Tenth Doctor’s time in the TARDIS is that Tennant kept his most captivating performances until the very end.
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