Journey's end indeed

SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FINALE OF DOCTOR WHO, DO NOT PROCEED!

(to prevent unintentional spoilerage, here's a picture of David Tennant, copyright BBC)

Right....

The title Journey's End resonates in a lot of ways. It of, of course, marks the end of the fourth season of the revised Doctor Who. It also is the end for the current production team, with showrunner Russell T. Davies stepping aside (he will craft several specials over the next year, but this is his last series) and both BBC producers leaving the program. The behind-the-scenes work of Phil Collinson, Julie Gardner and Davies cannot be underestimated. They took a moribund franchise and turned it into a commercial success (Journey's End has an excellent chance of ending the week at the top of the British TV charts -- something that has never happened in the 45-year history of the show) and more importantly, an excellent piece of TV.

The episode is action-packed from the first moments and doesn't let up until it ends and hour later (though that action is of a different nature, but see below for that). Along the way, we have a parcel of companions (basically all of them from the current series, along with cameos from the Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures sets), a vast army of Daleks, the return of Davros (an absolutely lovely and barking mad Julian Bleach in the latest incarnation) and absolute peril to the whole of blasted creation. It's more than over the top -- I don't know if words can describe how over the top it all is -- but that's really just the action-y overlay to the story. Inside, there is something darker, heavier and far more human.

At the end of episode 12 (a cliffhanger that caused me to grab the edges of my chair and scream "you fuckers!" at the screen) we left the Doctor in mid-regeneration. Thanks to his ever-bubbling extra hand, he didn't turn into a new actor. Instead, the extra energy went there -- and a few minutes later, we had a second Doctor. And because it was Donna's touch that sparked the regeneration, he's a human/Time Lord hybrid (shades of the Fox movie!) and, now, so is Donna.

Plot-wise, this becomes important, as it takes the efforts of all three (with nifty assists from Torchwood, Mr. Smith and -- good dog -- K-9) to finally (finally? it is Doctor Who) to crush the Dalek threat.

Yet the real moment -- the throbbing heart of the episode -- comes as the Doctor is confronted by his companions, all who have plots to eliminate the Daleks. Martha Jones is on Earth, prepared to destroy the planet, while Sarah Jane, Captain Jack, Mickey and Jackie have their own device, one that would kill all of the principals, but leave the universe intact. At this point, Davros -- you know, the one who created the Daleks and gave them the drive to destroy all that is different and is about to annihilate all of creation -- lectures the Doctor about his influence on people, noting that he takes ordinary folks and turns them into "weapons." 

A running theme through all of Davies' series has been how the companions "humanize" the Doctor. In fact, that's a key moment in Turn Left -- because Donna is not there on Christmas Day to shock the Doctor out of his reign of destruction, he gets caught and killed by the flooding Thames. Yet here, we come face to face with the flipside of that equation. What good has the Doctor done, really?

Well, let's look at the people we are talking about. Captain Jack was a liar, thief and coward. Rose and Mickey had little to look forward to than life on a council estate. Jackie was trapped i the same flat she'd lived for decades. Sarah Jane certainly had a life ahead, but her time with the Doctor transformed her existence. The same for Martha, who unlocked the heart of a true bona fide hero who saved the Earth through her own determination and unrequited love for the Doctor.

And let's not forget Donna, a go-nowhere temp who cluelessly glided through life without noticing anything before she met the Doctor. So, weapons, yes, but also heroes; people will to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

Of course, they're not called on to do this (it would be a nasty, Blake's 7 kind of ending to the series) and instead it is the ingenuity of the three "Doctors" who save the day. It does, however, come at a cost. For the human Doctor (who has one heart and no regenerative abilities), it's a positive cost -- he is left on the alternative Earth with Rose, allowed to finally "spend the rest of his life" with a companion. For Jack, Martha and Mickey (who wisely stays on the main Earth, as he knows he has no chance against two Doctors for Rose's heart) it may be the start of a new friendship (perhaps to be played out in Season 3 of Torchwood). But for Donna and the Doctor (the proper Doctor) there is only heartbreak.

The Time Lord "brain" Donna absorbed is going to kill her and there is only one way the Doctor sees to save her -- by erasing all knowledge of her time on the Tardis. In an instant, Donna is "reset," forgetting the stronger, wiser and heroic soul she has become. Her mother and grandfather know the truth, but cannot say anything; and the Doctor can never again be with his friend. For him, Donna has died as if she had stopped breathing.

The question is left whether or not Donna is better for the experience. Certainly she'll get a good push from Mom and Granddad, and we saw her bravery in Turn Left when she sacrificed herself (there's that theme again) for the greater good. On the other hand, her chatting on the phone at episode's end doesn't portend for good things; just another temp from Chiswick, moving from day to day but not really living.

And that leaves the Doctor. Near the end of the episode, he has a Tardis packed with his friends, all joining together to fly the old beast as it saves the Earth. Yet in a very short time, they are all gone, leaving him alone, drenched in rain and unsure of where to go next with his eternal ramble through space and time. That's the essence for the show for me -- the reason it has lived on in my imagination in the 30 years since I first saw an episode -- of a man, surrounded by humor and love and adventure, but also so, so alone. It cuts into the loneliness we all have to survive with every day.

Doctor Who has always been at its best in these moments, from the beginning the Doctor was an exile, unexplained, accompanied only by his granddaughter and a couple of school teachers who were dragged into the adventure. It doesn't surprise me that I find his interactions with other Time Lords to be the weakest parts of the show. Like any mystery, the more you explain, the less interesting it becomes, and the Doctor is about the darkness that can envelop us all -- and how important it is to fight it at every turn; to not give into loneliness or despair or evil.

So there's an ironic meaning of Journey's End. Sure it marks the close of several eras (though not Tennant's, he'll be around at least for the specials, including the Christmas episode -- which promises Cybermen in Victorian England), but the Doctor's journey never really ends. He'll be out there, rickety Tardis careening around the Universe, looking for adventure and new friends to ease the pain.

Doctor Who vs. Star Trek in a tag-team battle to the death

Er, maybe not, but snarky SF site io9 has an interesting survey of the differing occupations of Who and Trek fans. What the rather non-scientific study (though scientific enough that if it had some kind of health benefit, it would be heralded by the major media as "important new findings" that would have, say, everyone eating jelly at each meal each day) found is that fans of both shows follow fairly similar paths -- both in dreams and realities. I'm not surprised by that, no matter the posturing from the different fan bases, the shows attract the same kind of fans. (Personally, I see no reason to separate them, then again I've watched Doctor Who since 1980 -- actually earlier, as a local TV station broadcast it after school for a few months around 1978 -- and Trek literally from the time I was born, as my parents and older siblings were avid watchers, even in the show's death knell in 1969).

What's really great is the jolly time line of the two shows that's about half-way down the page. While Trek gets standard icons, each Doctor gets an adorable avatar to represent his era -- the BBC could market those as some kind of "Baby Docs..." er wait, maybe we should rethink that name.

Moffat is in!

It's not really surprising news, considering how closely associated he's been with the revival of Doctor Who, but the news that Steven Moffat will take over as the show's "showrunner" for the show's fifth season in 2010 is still great to hear. Moffat is both a phenomenal writer (not just for Doctor Who, but also other British shows) and a lifelong fan of the program. And going by his episodes for the show -- the original Captain Jack two-parter, The Girl in the Fireplace and Blink -- (and his BBC miniseries, Jekyll), the show may be headed for a darker place.

It's also good that Russell T. Davies is getting out before the show claims another burned-out producer. If there's one word I would use for the fourth season of the show, it would be tired. It all feels a bit exhausted, and considering Davies has spent at least the last five years breathing Doctor Who almost every moment of the day that shouldn't be a surprise. It's happened before on the show. John Nathan Turner led a renaissance for the show at the end of Tom Baker's era and into the rather jolly Peter Davison years. The problem is that he then stayed, and stayed (there are stories that the BBC wouldn't let him leave the show, so this may not be all of his own making). The show's budget got squashed, the number of episodes were cut and the program limped along in the end, fueled mainly by Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred. It seems that they've learned from past mistakes (that Doctor Who is one of the most popular BBC programs doesn't hurt when it comes to leverage) and want to keep the show fresh and successful.

Just a note on my music project. I don't want it to seem like that all I listen to is 1970s hard rock, but the latest major block of music I'm dealing with is Alice Cooper. Alice and the boys were a better group than often given credit for, more glam than metal, and they put a jolly series of albums in the middle 1970s, even if the pot is so soaked into the recordings that you can practically smell it through the computer. Upcoming acts include Alison Krauss and British crust legends Amebix. Oddly enough, there's no Allman Brothers. I may have to make a trip to the record store to rectify that...

Childhood's End

Returning from the grave... well, a rather intense temp assignment, with  a few thoughts and stuff:

Arthur C. Clarke has died. I devoured his books as a teenager and they helped to lay the foundation for what science fiction should be in my young mind. I may have turned aside a lot of those assumptions over the years, but like the works of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, Clarke's works were -- and still are -- essential for anyone who really wants to understand the genre.

After reading a number of accounts from last week's South by Southwest music whatever it was (conference, convention, excuse to party for a week?), I realize that the whole affair sounds like hell to me: long lines, crowded venues, tons of people trying to act cool, all for a lot of bands that no one will remember in a couple of months.

Lost continues on its merry way, with a pair of recent peaks surrounding a deep valley in the last three episodes. I don't think it's a surprise that the valley was one that advanced the underlying mythology more than characters. Yes, the backstory to Lost is intriguing, but it's not what makes the show so enticing -- it's the bevy of interesting characters who are constantly forced to make difficult decisions, and often make the wrong ones.

There was a bit of a discussion on spoilers on io9, a supremely geeky science fiction site. For those of you visiting here -- once a show has aired on television, book has been issued or movie has been in the theaters, it's fair game. It's not a spoiler anymore after its escaped from captivity, so don't pretend people are causing you grief because they have the audacity to talk about a movie from two years ago you haven't gotten around to watching yet. By the way, Rosebud was his sled.

Speaking of spoilers -- word is that Captain Jack and Ianto will be seen in bed together on the next BBC-broadcast Torchwood (whoo hoo!) and that the Daleks will be back in season 4 of Doctor Who. Now, does either of these facts surprise anyone?

"Information: You are all going to die"

Doctor Who Christmas Special 2007: Voyage of the Damned

In what is quickly becoming a holiday tradition, the British (and, ahem, well-connected Americans) spend part of their Christmas evening watching the latest Doctor Who special. The episodes tend to be oddities, made with a bit of a lighter touch (well, still with threatened destruction) and an even goofier tone. Voyage of the Damned, which is long enough (71 minutes) to qualify as a short movie doesn't change this, but somehow isn't nearly as fun as show's past.

Essentially a disaster movie set in space, complete with a variety of cliches from the genre added in for fun (the couple who won a trip of a lifetime; the rich jerk; the man -- alien in this case -- hiding a deep secret), Voyage of the Damned finds the now companionless Doctor aboard the Titanic -- not the one that sunk in 1912, but a spacegoing vessel in orbit around Earth. Of course disaster strikes, and it is up to our hero, and a feisty bunch of survivors, to make things right and hopefully save the Earth from utter destruction.

The episode has its moments. The angelic robotic helpers that turn deadly are a nice twist on the deadly Christmas trees and ornaments from the past two specials; guest star Kyle Minogue isn't much of an actor, but doesn't do a horrible job here as the young waitress who gets sucked into the Doctor's usual hectic life. And you do get Geoffrey Palmer (and his distinct jowels) and the guy who played Richard on Keeping Up Appearances (er, Clive Swift) in featured roles, if you have a thing for British comedies.

On the other hand, Russell T. Davis' script is pretty weak (and while his vision for the show is fantastic as the producer; his scripts tend to be the worst of the rest of the series regulars), with a thoroughly unconvincing underlying reason for all the mayhem and a villain that seems to have been dragged out of the less-than fondly remembered Colin Baker years. 

Still, it's important to remember that this is supposed to be a Christmas treat, and it fits that pretty well. Just a bit of fluff without nutrition, and something you enjoy at the time but don't need to have again for another year. I guess that makes it the Doctor Who equivalent of eggnog.

Bonus bit: Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

OK, this came out over the summer, but it kind of slipped through the cracks until it appeared under the Christmas tree. It turned out to be a rather satisfying continuation of the series, almost like a pair of stand alone episodes from a fictional "season 15" of the series. Series creator J. Michael Stracznski pens (and directs) explores a number of common themes from the show, including the nature of faith in a technologically advanced world where we have gone to the heavens and have not found any pearly gates; and how single decisions can have a profound impact on the future. Though thoroughly low budget (lots of green screen, dark spaces and a handful of characters in each one) the stories here are a reminder of why Babylon 5 was such a remarkable show.