Radio Free Tomorrow

I would love to be able to tell you that “The End of Time, Part 2″ redeemed the flaws of Part 1, not only pulling all the right rabbits out of the right hats but giving us a perfect send-off for an extremely popular and successful Doctor. Sadly, I can’t. On the other hand, I don’t have to say it was a steaming pile, either, because it wasn’t.

It was, in the end, the same sort of mixed bag Part 1 was. It was a little more solid, which continues RTD’s pattern of having shaky setups followed by better (but not always spectacular) pay-offs. But really, it was more of the same, for good and for ill, and overall, I think I’m disappointed.

RTD did succeed in handling two key parts in ways that completely surprised me. I’m still trying to decide if I like the surprises, but I like the fact that I was surprised.

I’ll get the good news out of the way first, because really, there were some very likable things about this story. For one thing, Bernard Cribbins has been absolutely awesome as Wilf and actually manages to ratchet that awesomeness up a notch. His scenes with the Doctor remain some of the most emotionally charged ¹ work ever seen on Doctor Who. Wilf doesn’t just want the Doctor to save the day, or to save his life. He really, honestly cares about the Doctor. He wants to understand, as best he can, what’s going on. He desperately wants to help. Which makes his role in the end game all the more poignant.

And that was surprise number one: that it’s Wilf who knocks four times. I always find it fitting, somehow, when the end of a Doctor’s life comes primarily from trying to save a single person (Peri, Rose, now Wilf).

For another thing, the Doctor’s own brooding reluctance to play his part. We’ve seen this before, in the classic series (“Planet of the Spiders” and “Logopolis”), where the Doctor has foreknowledge of his likely death and, on some level, resists that fate. This is one of the things that humanizes the Doctor, make him not just another noble hero. He’s willing to do many things, but he’s just slightly selfish about his own life. He’ll dive in without fear any time he doesn’t know he’s going to die, but make it a certainty and he fights it.

David Tennant’s performance through all of this is masterful, from his coaxing efforts to win the Master over to his thundering, desperate denunciations of what the Time Lords have become, to his agonized moments with gun in hand. Finally, his small rant as he realizes that his choices have come down to letting one old man die, or giving up his own life, is amazingly well done. It shows once again that, for all his faults, RTD really understands all the facets of his character, even the dark, ugly ones. We see again here echoes of the First Doctor’s self-centered arrogance, coupled with the Tenth Doctor’s manifest vanity.

So we come to the Master. How strange, and ironic, that the man who has spent all of his lives striving to be the ultimate master of the universe was just a pawn, driven mad in childhood by a Time Lord strategy to survive. It’s a massive retcon of what we know about the Master, on the surface. And yet, except for the detail of the drums, it fits. The Time Lords are not above creating paradoxes for their own purposes.

Again, we get a spot on performance by John Simm. At times he seems to almost come around to the Doctor’s persuasion, but in the end, as it always does, his obsessions reassert themselves. Simm balances the thoughtful intelligence and the manic madness of the character brilliantly.

Lastly, on the list of things I liked, while, I thought it went on too long, the montage of the Doctor visiting his various past associates and doing each of them one last good turn was a much better way to bring back all those characters than “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End” provided. Hardly any contrivance was necessary (except, perhaps, the timing of Luke walking out in front of that car) to explain what we were seeing, and each farewell was fitting for the people involved.

From all of this, one might conclude that this episode was nearly perfect, but of course, it wasn’t anywhere close. There’s a great deal that’s still clunky here, and some things that I’m just not sure worked as well as intended.

Surprise number two for me was the one I’m really not sure I like: that the Time Lords are not back to stay. I honestly expected this story to be the Reset Button for the Time War, and was actually sort of looking forward to a universe that had Time Lords in it again. It’s not that I dislike the plot device of the Time War–I’ve actually been pretty happy with it to date. It’s just that kind of liked the idea of bringing the Time Lords back, but making them a bit darker and meatier than they were by the time the classic series ended.

Instead, we see that the Time Lords are indeed much darker, possibly downright villainous, now, but when the day is over, they’re also gone again. Like the Daleks. Which of course also means that they can be brought back again. Like the Daleks. Just hopefully not quite as often, because the whole, “locked behind a Time Lock and about to burn” thing loses its sting if they keep sneaking out in the last picoseconds.

What I know I don’t like is that the Time Lords quickly devolve into one-dimensional baddies. Oh, we get a bit more detail out of the Doctor that puts some flesh on them, but really, Timothy Dalton is mostly reduced to scenery chewing. It was fantastic to see him in the role…right up until he actually had to start doing something with it, at which point it was clear that RTD had shortchanged him ².

Similarly flat are the Vinivocci, who appear to exist to provide a convenient spaceship for the Doctor and Wilf to retreat to, and provide a small measure of comic relief. Wasted opportunity. But then, very few alien races have really gotten solid treatment at RTD’s hands.

A lot of things were left open-ended by this story, which also surprised me a bit. I expected a nice cauterized wrap-up that would leave the field entirely open for the Moffat era. Instead, several threads are left dangling, and not just accidentally dangling, either. Most prominent is the mysterious identity of the woman who was warning Wilf, who turns out to be one of Rassilon’s retinue. Who is she? What is her relationship to the Doctor? How on Earth did she communicate with Wilf? ³

All in all, I did enjoy these stories, but they also disappointed me. Maybe nothing could have lived up to my expectations and hopes, but I don’t think I was hoping for all that much. Coherent plotting, well developed characters, and a poignant end for a beloved character are not too much to ask for in the same story. Full marks for the poignant ending; half marks for character development; but very low marks indeed for plotting, which was really just sloppy.

Farewell, David. Farewell, Russell.

Now, let’s see what Matt and Stephen can do…