Right, let's get this rotten, horrible season over with as quickly as possible.
Now, let me just start off by surprising you and saying that I actually thought that this two-parter was fairly good. Well, aside from the last 5 minutes. Yes, Daleks-versus-Cybermen is a stupid publicity stunt that Rusty had the the brains to never repeat again (Moff took it in the other direction, see "The Pandorica Opens").
In fact, rather than go through minute-by-minute, let's just jump right into this story's big thing. Other than Rose leaving, we've got Daleks-versus-Cybermen, as well as Pete.2 meeting Jackie.1 for the first time.
Guess which one got hyped more.
Guess which one was actually supremely well-done, and which one was a cringe-worthy insult-a-thon.
Daleks in particular have absolutely no reason to speak. They haven't needed a reason since, oh, Day of the Daleks. In the 60s stories, yes, they were evil genius schemers (unless their creator was writing them, in which case they were pathetic space Nazis). But from the 70s on, and especially once Davros showed up, they were just implacable exterminators. There was absolutely no need for them to say anything, because they ran out of interesting things to say in 1967.
Now, the Cybermen actually had a couple of good lines. Most notably, "You will become like us," which the younger people in the audience probably mistook for the biggest hint yet that the cybs are Borg knock-offs, but which the older fans who knew better recognized as a line from Tomb of the Cybermen. They now have lasers on their arms instead of the electro-hands they had back in "Rise," except that all it does is let them shoot at the Daleks, for all the good that does. Frankly, I liked the electro-hands better. It made the Cybermen pretty much what they were in their first appearance: cybernetic zombies. Yeah, yeah, the Borg did that whole shtick, which is probably the other reason (the first being they'd never get close enough to the Daleks otherwise) that the electro-hands got replaced by the wrist-lasers.
Now, here's the thing. The stakes were already high enough when the Cybermen showed up en masse at the end of "Army." I mean, let's face it, the Doctor's plan would have been exactly the same if it had just been the Cybermen as opposed to both the Cybermen and the Daleks. But the Daleks have to be shoehorned in here so next year the Doctor can have yet more catharsis with them: "They survive. They always survive, while I lose everything." For those of you keeping score at home, this is the second time in as many years that the Daleks have shown up and derailed an interesting plot during the season finale.
So anyway, monsters show up, cause carnage for 45 minutes, then the Doctor does something magical and sends them packing. Huzzah. It'd be nice to actually see him struggle for a moment or two... I suppose in a way this is one of the more gratifying season finales, because his magic fix ends up costing him dearly. I did like how the Doctor seemed to recover his confidence when Pete told him he could do it, but I guess I would have liked to see him actually lose it in the first place. Because as executed, it looks like he just forgot he had plot-relevant superpowers for a few minutes.
On the subject of Pete, let's talk about him for a moment. My favorite parts about "Doomsday" have to do with him and Jackie and Rose. Even though he's not Jackie's husband and Rose's father, in a way he still is. And everybody takes their time to accept that, but they eventually do. Except, apparently, Rose.
Rose, who was so desperate to have her father in her life that she tore open a hole in the Universe trying to save him. Rose, who blatantly defied the Doctor's wishes on parallel Earth and went off to see a version of reality where her parents were still together. Rose, who dropped what she was doing when her mother called her and told her than an annoying blogger was stalking her. Rose, who had not one but two adventures this year that should have been clear indications that her time with the Doctor was limited (and no, I don't mean the bloody Satan Pit, I mean "School Reunion" and "Girl in the Fireplace"). That same Rose Tyler is now perfectly content to lock both her parents away in a different Universe to keep tooling around with Mr. Immortal. It's like Twilight 3 years early.
No, seriously, when did this big shift in her character happen? Between "The Age of Steel" and now, she's gotten her face snatched off, been taunted by Satan and some Cthulhu knockoffs, and been forced to confront a terrible child actress. And only that last one happened after the incident with the annoying blogger. Yup, I can see what made her go stark raving bonkers here.
The fact of the matter is, when faced with an explicit choice between her family and the Doctor, the only time she ever chooses the Doctor is when it's the last episode of the season. What's more, he explicitly sends her away both times. Now, granted, if she'd stayed gone in "The Parting of the Ways," he would have been killed and that would have been game over. But here she accomplishes nothing except dragging the episode out for a few more minutes.
And I still haven't gotten started on the backdoor pilot for Torchwood, but honestly the pristine offices seen here are such a far cry from the sewer-lair the Cardiff team uses that there's not much of a point.
The final scene notwithstanding, "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday" get a 5 and a 6. A slightly above-average finish to a less-than-stellar season.
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