Monday, 30 November 2015

Articles Episode Breakdown: The Stolen Earth & Journey's End


It’s business as usual in the Hub for Ianto Jones, Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper, when the ground beneath their feet or indeed the Hub is wrenched from under them. Masonry bricks and loose bits of metal come crashing down, the jolt rendering all three off their feet. Across the world others feel the tremor, the damage to their offices, homes and indeed to some of their workforce, neighbours, teams are evident. But what could have caused it. In London, collecting and putting out milk bottles, the milkman notices a shift in the light, from early morning to dead of night.

   ‘Nothing broken, a slight loss of dignity, no change there then.’

Jack takes to the roof to get a closer view of what has happened outside in the world above them, while Ianto and Gwen take to the computers and realise that whatever has happened is a ‘bit bigger than Cardiff’. To Jack’s horror, the Earth’s skies are frighteningly different.

When the Doctor arrives on Earth in the early hours he’s surprised to see that everything is as it should be, but hastening back to his ship, the earth jolts the TARDIS and he’s thrown sideways. A quick glance outside tells him why, but it’s impossible. They’re still fixed yet the Earth has vanished. Who would take Planet Earth and more to the point, why?

With a rattling of keyboards, Torchwood seek to locate the cause, and are surprised by a moving red flashing light that definitely does not resemble a planet. It’s moving closer to Earth, with a vast number of ships in its wake.

Right across planet Earth, the powers that be, and those of the ‘Children of Time’ bear witness to what is coming. The all too familiar mantra that is picked up on the satellite signal shakes our heroes to the core.

   ‘Exterminate’

Sarah Jane Smith is distraught. Captain Jack Harkness kisses his team, knowing that even he, who can come back from the dead, cannot save his team from death. Martha Jones knows only too well the might of the Dalek army, but there’s hope that maybe she can save planet Earth, by escaping UNIT stronghold in Manhattan, New York using the Project Indigo teleport harness, scavenged from a Sontaran ship, carrying with her the Osterhagen Key.

   ‘Guard it with your life, Martha Jones.’

Captain Jack Harkness is only too aware of Project Indigo, but as it’s never been fully tested, there’s no telling the fate of anyone who uses it. Angered that Martha has used it, he can only surmise that she is now atoms scattered through space.

   ‘Martha is down.’

But there is another hero that we haven’t mentioned. A hero that has travelled across worlds to find her Doctor, and moments after the day shifts to night, she arrives by using a dimension cannon that’s a teleport from one dimension to another. She carries a large gun cannon over her shoulder. She locates Wilfred Mott, grandfather of Donna Noble, and saves his life and that of Donna’s mother from extermination at the hands of a Dalek that is quite well equipped at removing paint from its eye socket, but is not equipped at dealing with a powerful laser blast in the back!!!

Finding Donna’s family will help her find her Doctor.

All hope is now lost across the planet when the protectors of Earth admit defeat and surrender. The new rulers of Earth stamp out their demands. All humans will obey the Daleks.
Sarah Jane Smith can only comfort her son in the attic of their home in Bannerman Road. Wilfred Mott and his daughter listen to the radio with Rose Tyler. Captain Jack Harkness sits on the steps of the Cold Storage room while Gwen sits on the sofa and Ianto shakily collapses into a chair, too distressed to carry coffee to the others.

How can anyone defeat the Daleks?

The Doctor has his own problems. After introducing Donna Noble to the Shadow Proclamation, he discovers that 27 planets have disappeared from time and space, from Callufrax Minor, Clom, Adipose 3, The Lost Moon of Poosh and Pyrovillia as well as Earth. The Doctor remembers in years gone by that someone else had tried to steal the planets once before, but it couldn’t be them again, could it???

Donna informs him that the ‘bees are disappearing’ which at first seems a little random to mention, but after a few moments the Doctor realises that this could mean something really important and dashes over to the computer system. He discovers that the bees are using the same wavelength as the Tandocca Scale, which is a faint dust like trail through time and space. Realising he can track this, the Doctor races back to his ship and sets a course for the Medusa Cascade. Of course, the Shadow Proclamation, determined to enact vengeance against the perpetrator of the stolen planets insist on seizing the TARDIS in an act of war, and that the Doctor will lead them forth into battle.
The Doctor quickly steps into his ship and escapes before any such plans are put in motion.

However, the Doctor soon finds himself in a pickle of his own when after tracking the planets, is shocked when the Tardis engines stop working and the ship floats helplessly into an area of blue and gold gas clouds which form the Medusa Cascade.

   ‘End of the line.’

A signal on a sub-wave network on Earth begins to bleep. Jack insists they leave it; it’s just another lost soul. Sarah Jane feels the same. Rose Tyler is curious and switches on the computer to see a fuzzy screen breaking into a picture revealing an old familiar face. Yet she is unable to make contact, as Donna’s mum dislikes web cams.

Ex-Prime Minister Harriet Jones raises her ID credentials.

   ‘Yes, we know who you are.’

In order to speak to everyone and for everyone to get acquainted, she brings up the three other people she’s managed to locate, Torchwood Three, Sarah Jane and Martha Jones. Sadly Rose Tyler can only hear but cannot speak to any of them. She’s mightily curious as to who Martha Jones is.
There’s no time to waste however, it’s imperative that the Doctor must be contacted.
Harriet informs the Children of Time that the subwave network was devised by the Copper Foundation. It was undetectable sentient software that she was able to develop in order find everyone who knew the Doctor, who could contact him whenever there was an emergency such as this.

Martha Jones was the sole person who had been given the number to the Doctor, and when this was given to the team, they boosted the signal using the National Grid, the Rift Manipulator at the Hub, every telephone exchange right across the world and Mr Smith, Sarah Jane’s computer boosting the signal 200%.

Harriet, aware of the risks that she is taking, boosts the subwave signal from her own address, allowing the Daleks to locate her position
.
The Doctor leaps into action, locking onto the telephone signal and pulls the TARDIS out of the Medusa Cascade and back to Earth.

With the aid of the Subwave network the Doctor is able to communicate with Jack, Martha and Sarah Jane. Donna is surprised to see so many faces.

   ‘It’s like an outer space Facebook!’

When the connection breaks on the Tardis and reconnects, the Doctor hopes that he’ll finally see Rose, but is sadly disappointed and just a little horrified to discover that his old adversary Davros has a few words of warning to impart. When the Doctor cuts short a ‘reunion’ with the old Dalek creator, Davros is only too aware that the Doctor will head back to Earth to join his children, and sends out a welcoming party.

After the Daleks gatecrash Harriet’s and exterminate her, its all go for the Children of Earth. With the knowledge of seeing her Doctor, Rose teleports from the Noble house, Martha takes to the air again wearing her harness and heads to Germany where she meets two other UNIT members, who will if necessary, detonate the 26 nuclear warheads just below the surface of the earth’s crust if all hope is well and truly lost..

Jack using the basecode from Project Indigo, is able to reactivate the teleportation function on his vortex manipulator, and carrying the Defrabricator weapon that he procured from the Game Station in the year 200,100 promises Gwen and Ianto that he will return.

As Jack leaves, the sounds of a Dalek breaking through to the Hub comes over the airwaves. Gwen and Ianto prepare for what could be their final battle.

And Sarah Jane, desperate to see the Doctor again, leaves her son instructions to NOT leave the attic and to stay with Mr Smith. Still distressed over the Daleks, she tells Luke that she loves him, before jumping in her car and heading off, only to find two Daleks in the road with their backs to her.

Personally I’d have driven straight through them like a bowling ball through Skittles!

She slams the brakes on, raises her arms in surrender and apologises. Just as the Daleks are about to open fire on her, two friendly and familiar faces appear out of nowhere and blast the two Daleks to smithereens.

Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler with their gun cannons arrive on the scene just in time.

The Doctor and Donna step out of the Tardis onto a deserted street somewhere in London. He’s still disappointed that he hasn’t seen Rose, but is soon reunited with her when Donna’s subtle hints force him to spot her at the bottom of the street. Haring off at speed the Doctor fails to notice a Dalek appear from a side street. It fires a laser blast at the Doctor, catching him in the chest, stopping at least one of his hearts. He collapses on the ground, dying. Rose can’t believe it and as the Dalek advances, Jack Harkness obliterates it with his defabricator gun just as he teleports.

There’s no time to lose, they must get the Doctor back aboard the TARDIS.  Aware of the situation, Jack insists that Rose and Donna come away from the Time Lord, but what is equally surprising for all of them, is when the Doctor begins to regenerate he then transfers the extra regenerative power to the hand in the jar, refusing to fully regenerate, he only heals what has been damaged. 
The companions are stunned by the Doctor’s actions.

   ‘I siphoned off the rest into a handy bio-matching receptacle, namely, my hand, my hand there, my handy spare hand!'

As Gwen and Ianto fired a volley of shots at the advancing Dalek something amazing happened.

   ‘It's a Time Lock! The ultimate defence programme. Tosh was working on it, never thought she finished it, but she did! The Hub's sealed in a time bubble, nothing can get in.’
   ‘But that means we can't get out.’
   ‘Nope. Not without unlocking that Dalek. We're trapped inside. It's all up to Jack now.’

The Daleks aboard the Crucible have located the TARDIS and place it in a temporal prison. The power is drained from the ship. The console goes dark. The Doctor realises that it wouldn’t have taken long for the Daleks to locate his position. With a jerk the ship is lifted into the air, destination, the Dalek Crucible.

When Sarah Jane Smith with Mickey and Jackie, see this, SJ knows there’s no time to lose. In order to help the Doctor, they need to get aboard the Crucible. Ditching their weapons reluctantly, Mickey and Jackie follow SJ and surrender themselves to the Daleks. It’ll be some time before their Dimension Jump is fully charged.

Martha prepares to leave. Understanding the basecode thanks to Jack, she has the knowledge to work the teleport and sets her destination for Nuremberg, Germany.

Landing outside of the castle, she hears German speaking Daleks hovering through the trees shouting instructions to the humans below. Thankfully, they’ve not seen her. Hurrying into the building, she makes her way towards the secret UNIT chamber in order to use the Osterhagen Key.

Jack notices that the destination is the large Dalek spaceship at the centre of the cluster of planets. Donna questioned the Doctor’s idea that the planets were some form of engine that he’d talked about while with the Shadow Proclamation. When the Doctor turned to Rose, it all became clear. In her parallel world, her world was running a little ahead of this universe.

   ‘It’s the darkness.’
   ‘The stars were going out.’ Donna remembered.
   ‘One by one. We looked up at the sky and they were just dying.’

Rose informed the Doctor that she had been building a time machine, a Dimension Cannon.

   ‘Suddenly, it started to work and the dimensions started to collapse. Not just in our world, not just in yours, but the whole of reality. Even the Void was dead. Something was destroying everything.’
   ‘In the parallel world…you said something about me.’
   ‘The Dimension Cannon could measure time lines, and it’s weird Donna, but they all seemed to converge on you.’

Donna had never believed she was anything special, just a temp from Chiswick with a typing speed of 100 wpm.

Suddenly the TARDIS landed. The Supreme Dalek ordered the Doctor to exit the TARDIS or die, and given that the TARDIS doors were no more than wood, since its defences were down, and no amount of shielding would protect it since the power had been switched off, they were now at the mercy of the Dalek Empire.

The Doctor looked back at his companions who had travelled with him to the ends of the universe and faced the Daleks more than once in some cases.

   ‘It’s been good though, hasn’t it? All of us. All of it. Everything we did.’

He looks back at his faithful companions and commends them on their loyalty before facing the door and the immensity of what lay ahead.

   ‘Blimey.’

Stepping out of the door to face the army the Doctor and his companions can only gaze in horror at the size of it. Donna, caught up in the heartbeat she has felt since visiting the Shadow Proclamation is halted. As the Doctor informs her that she’s no safer inside the ship, the doors slam shut securing her inside.

The Doctor is horrified and tries to open the door, but the lock is stuck fast. Donna is equally distraught and struggles with the lock to no avail.

The Doctor demands that the Daleks release his companion, but it’s not something that the Dalek Supreme feels is important, and releases the TARDIS and Donna into the heart of the Z-Neutrino Energy at the core of the ship, where it will be torn apart.

As the Daleks post up the image of the TARDIS in the bowl of fiery energy, the Doctor can only watch, completely helpless.

The console room of the TARDIS is on fire. The hexagonal lights around the walls pops and explodes bleeding flames into the room. Donna makes her way back towards the console as the heartbeat begins to pound louder and louder. She’s distraught, coughing at the smoke. On her hands and knees she hears the pounding grow louder and louder, and as if in a trancelike state  reaches out her hand to the jar that glows a golden hue.

The regeneration powers from the Doctor’s hand grasps hold of her, wrapping around her hand, until it engulfs her. The jar explodes.
Sitting up on the floor Donna watches the hand from the jar grow into a fully grown man, wrapped in the golden yellow energy of the regeneration process. Suddenly, the grown man sits up, fully formed, and naked.  Donna is stunned.

   ‘It’s you…’
   ‘Oh yes.’
   ‘You’re naked.’
   ‘Oh yes.’

Aboard the Crucible, Rose steps towards the Doctor slipping her hand into his as the Daleks count down the TARDIS’ destruction.

Unaware of the events in the TARDIS, the Doctor doesn’t see the new version of himself fiddle with a few buttons on the console and escape the fiery tombs of hell.
Captain Jack Harkness, aware that without the TARDIS they were sitting ducks, devised a plan. He opened fire on the Supreme Dalek and was promptly exterminated for his troubles. It worked to plan. The Doctor might have been in on the idea but Rose was distraught that once again, Jack had died. Pulling her away, the Doctor nodded lightly at the Captain, winking for one second before closing his eyes, assuming the dead position. He hadn’t banked on the incinerator that the Daleks had sent him to.

Inside the TARDIS the new Doctor tidied up the walls of the console room. Everything looked clean and refurbished.

   ‘All repaired, lovely! Ssh! No-one knows we're here. Gotta keep quiet. Silent running, like on submarines when you can't even drop a spanner. Don't drop a spanner! I like blue, what do you think?’
   ‘You. Are. Bonkers!’
   ‘Why?! What's wrong with blue?’
   ‘Is that what Time Lords do? Lop a bit off, grow another one? You're like worms!’
   ‘No no no no no, I'm unique. Never been another like me. Cos all that regeneration energy went into the hand. Look at my hand! I love that hand! But then you touched it, WHAM! Ssh! Instantaneous biological metacrisis. I grew... out of you! Still, could be worse.’
   ‘Oi! Watch it, Spaceman.’
   ‘Oi! Watch it, Earthgirl! Oh…I sound like you. I sound all…all sort of…rough.’
   ‘Oi!’
   ‘Oi!’
   ‘Oi!’
   ‘Spanners, shh! I must’ve picked up a bit of your voice, that’s all. Is it? Did I? No! Oh you are kidding me, no way.  One heart.  I’ve got one heart! This body has got only one heart.’
   ‘What? What, like you’re human?’
   ‘Oh that’s disgusting.’
   ‘Oi.’
   ‘Oi’
   ‘Stop it.’
   ‘No, wait, I’m…part Time Lord, part human. Well isn’t that wizard?’
   ‘I kept hearing that noise, that heartbeat.’
   ‘Oh, that was me. My single heart. Cos I’m a complicated event in time and space, must have rippled back. Converging on you.’
   ‘But why me?’
   ‘Cos you’re special’
   ‘Oh, I keep telling you, I’m not.’
   ‘No but you are. Oh, you really don’t believe that do you? I can see, Donna…what you’re thinking. All that attitude. All that lip. Cos all this time…you think you’re not worth it.’
   ‘Stop it!’
   ‘Shouting at the world cos no-one’s listening. Well…why should they?’
   ‘Doctor, stop it.’

With pride the new Doctor explains that the world had always been converging on her, from the moment she landed in the ship in her wedding dress, to her grandfather saluting at the Titanic sailing over Buckingham Palace, to the time atop the Adipose building, to the time Donna opened the boot of her car parked where the TARDIS would land.

   ‘That’s not coincidence at all. We’ve been blind. Something’s been drawing us together for such a long time.’
   ‘But you’re talking, like…destiny.  There’s no such thing, is there?’
   ‘It’s still not finished. It’s like…the pattern’s not complete, the strands are still drawing together. But heading for what?’

In Nuremberg, Martha meets an old German woman at the castle who wishes her to leave and not come back. Aware of the Osterhagen Key from her early days, she hoped that London had changed, but as Martha places her hand over the palm scanner to enter the room, the old woman fears not. She raises her pistol and cocks the hammer.

   ‘Sie sind der Albtraum, nicht die anderen, Sie! Ich sollte Sie umbringen, am besten gleich jetzt!’ (You are the nightmare, it’s not them, it’s you! I should kill you right now!)
   ‘Then do it.’
   ‘Martha…Zur Hoelle mit Dir!’ (Go to hell!)

Jack crawls out of the incinerator room, coughing and alive. His coat still in immaculate condition, must get the name of his tailor!

Martha settles into the chamber where a row of buttons, screens and controls face her. She presses a button and addresses herself at Osterhagen Station One, and awaits contact.

Aboard the Crucible, Sarah Jane, Mickey, Jackie and the prisoners from Earth are taken for testing, herded like cattle along the corridors till they are gathered in the centre of the floor where high above them generates the Reality Bomb tester.

Securing the Doctor and Rose in holding cells, Davros has the Time Lord just where he needs him.

   ‘Excellent. Even when powerless, a Time Lord is best contained.’
   ‘Still scared of me, then?’
   ‘It is time we talked Doctor, after so very long.’
   ‘No, no no no no, we’re not doing the nostalgia tour. I want to know what’s happening here, right now, cos the Supreme Dalek said Vault, yeah? As in dungeon? Cellar? Prison? You’re not in charge of the Daleks are you? They’ve got you locked away down here in the basement like, what, a servant? Slave? Court jester?’
   ‘We have an agreement’
   ‘You’re the Dalek’s pet.’
   ‘So very full of fire is he not.’ Davros moves towards Rose ‘And to think you crossed entire universes, striding parallel to parallel to find him again.’
   ‘Leave her alone.’
   ‘She is mine to do as I please.’
   ‘Then why am I still alive?’
   ‘You must be here. It was foretold. Even the Surpreme Dalek would not dare to contradict the prophecies of Dalek Caan.’

Davros turned his attention to the shattered body of the demented Dalek Caan, driven insane after flying into the Time War unprotected. It told the gathered group of the prophecy that saw one of the Children of Time dying at the very end, when the endless flames burned. Enraged the Doctor shouted at Caan, accusing him of being responsible for the death of his companion and his ship. A rage that was picked up by Davros, who smiled, justified that he’d seen the rage of the Time Lord who was happy to butcher millions. And called for him to show Rose his true self.
Dalek Caan announced that the Doctor would reveal his soul at the time of ending. Again further riddles that made no sense to the Doctor.

   ‘We will discover it together. Our final journey. Because the ending approaches, the testing begins.’
   ‘Testing of what?’
   ‘The Reality Bomb’

Frightened, the prisoners wondered what lay in store for them as they were moved to their designated area, ready for the testing. Jackie, SJ and Mickey could only imagine the horrors. Locating a door unmanned by Daleks, SJ used her sonic lipstick to open it and escape. Once through she called to Mickey who followed. It left Jackie to the fate of the Dalek’s master plan. Determined to help Jackie, Mickey heads to the door, as a Dalek glides past.
A scared woman prisoner who had fallen earlier wondered what the Daleks were going to do when Jackie’s eyes were drawn to the large green circular device high above their heads.
  
As the countdown to the Reality Bomb commenced, Mickey’s timer announced it was ready to teleport. He shouted from the protection of the room with the glass door, waving the Dimension Jump device at her. Jackie lifted it out of her pocket, apologised to her fellow human and teleported as the device activated, and turned the human prisoners to dust.

In the TARDIS the New Doctor and Donna witness the horrors from the safety of the ship. The 27 planets had become one large transmitter. The Doctor was speechless.
Aboard the Crucible, The Doctor was also horrified and appalled at the Dalek’s master plan. As Davros explained:

   ‘Every atom in existence is bound by an electrical field. The Reality Bomb cancels it out. Structure falls apart. That test was focused on the prisoners alone. Full transmission will dissolve every form of matter.’
   ‘The stars are going out.’ Rose exclaims.
   ‘The 27 planets. They become one vast transmitter, blasting that wavelength…’
   ‘Across the entire universe. Never stopping, never faltering, never fading. People and planets and stars will become dust, and the dust will become atoms, and the atoms will become…nothing.  And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the Rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every corner of creation! This is my ultimate victory, Doctor! The destruction of reality itself!’

Dalek Supreme recalled the Dalek Fleet back to the Crucible as the final plan was put into action.

   ‘We will become the only life forms in existence.’

On Earth the Daleks retreat, clearing the skies of ships and Daleks. People run out onto the street and are cheerful that they’ve seen the last of them, but Wilf is sceptical. There’s no sign of Donna. It’s far from over.

A panel is thrown open and Jack rolls out, quickly scrambling to his feet when he sees three faces, one of which he’s fully knowledgeable of.

   ‘Just my luck. I climb through two miles of ventilation shafts, chasing life signs on this thing, and who do I find? Mickey Mouse.’

He embraces Mickey Smith and salutes Sarah Jane, who presents him with a Warp Star, given to her from a Verron Soothsayer. Jack is in awe of it, having read of them before. He tells Mickey that they are a warpfold conjugation trapped in a carbonised shell. In other words, it’s an explosive.

Making contact with two other UNIT people at the Osterhagen Station, Martha enquires of their names. Only one wishes to engage in friendly conversation knowing the job they have to do.

Aboard the TARDIS the new Doctor puts together a device that will destroy the Daleks once and for all.

   ‘It’s our only hope, a Z-Neutrino biological inversion catalyser. Davros said he built those Daleks out of himself. His genetic code runs through the entire race. If I can use this to lock the Crucible’s transmission onto Davros himself… biggest backfire in history.’

Martha makes contact with the Crucible. Stating her demands if the Daleks refuse to leave Earth and its people. Holding up the Osterhagen Key she threatens to use it if the Daleks refuse. Unsure what the Osterhagen key is, the Doctor soon discovers that a chain of 25 nuclear warheads are placed in strategic points beneath the Earth’s crust. If the key is used they will detonate ripping the planet apart.

   ‘The Osterhagen Key is to be used, if the suffering of the human race is so great, so without hope... that this becomes the final option.’

In another part of the ship, Captain Jack Harkness surprises the Dalek Fleet and Rose at his resilience. He holds up a wired Warped Star and also threatens to blow up the entire Crucible.
The Children of Time who would do anything for their Doctor have revealed to the Time Lord just what he’s created. Children of War, reduced to protect their planet at the risk of killing themselves.

   ‘And the Prophecy unfolds.’
   ‘The Doctor’s soul is revealed. See him! See the heart of him!’
   ‘The man who abhors violence. Never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor. You take ordinary people and you fashion THEM into weapons. Behold your Children of Time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this.’

The Doctor learns of another who gave her life to find the Doctor. Harriet Jones, a woman he despised after shooting down the Sycorax space ship. As Davros points out those who have died in his name, the Doctor remembers, and reveals his soul.

Tired of the stroll down memory lane, Supreme Dalek engages the transmat to draw Martha, Jack, Mickey, SJ and Jackie into the Crucible to face the might of the Dalek army. Holding cells drop down to secure them all. All they can do now is watch as they activate the planetary alignment field, forcing the planets to begin glowing with energy.

   ‘Universal Reality Detonation in 200 rels.’

Desperate the Doctor pleads with Davros to stop this madness but nothing can stop the man now. Nothing that is until the TARDIS materialises inside the basement onboard the Crucible and a familiar face in a blue suit stands in the doorway. Dashing across the floor, the New Doctor heads in Davros’ direction but is blasted in the chest preventing any further attack. He drops the device.
Donna runs out of the ship and picks it up, but has no idea how to operate it and is also blown off her feet by the electrical current fired from Davros’ finger. It’s just enough to kickstart her Doctor Donna awareness.
The new cobbled together device is destroyed.

The delay put to one side, the Daleks resume with their plan to destroy the universe when Donna, the temp from Chiswick with 100 wpm stops the countdown. All aboard are confused. Suddenly Donna is in control. Her typing experience allows her to operate the keyboard and twist the dials, lowering Dalek weapons and disabling force shields. The Daleks are unable to operate.
The Doctor finds it unbelievable considering Donna can’t even wire a plug.

   ‘Part Time Lord.’
   ‘Part Human. Oh yes. That was a two-way biological metacrisis. Half Doctor, half Donna!’
   ‘The DoctorDonna! Just like the Ood said, remember? They saw it coming! The DoctorDonna!’
   ‘Holding cells deactivated. And seal the Vault. Well, don't just stand there, you skinny boys in suits! Get to work!’

Disgusted at his lack of triumph over the universe, Davros looks back at Dalek Caan, questioning him as to why he didn’t foresee it. Only Caan had seen it. And because of this, he had manipulated the time lines for a very long time.

   ‘I saw the Daleks. What we have done, throughout time and space, I saw the truth of us, Creator, and I decreed "No more!"

It was time to send the lost planets back to their rightful places in the universe, and with three Doctor’s at the helm it left the companions the delightful role of sending the Daleks all over the ship and away from the controls. Davros included. Even the Supreme Dalek was unable to stop progress despite knocking out the Magnetron.

Earth was going to have to be manually returned with a little help from the TARDIS.

The Doctor dashes inside the TARDIS to set things up for the passage home, while the New Doctor realises that Dalek Caan is right, about the prophecy. The Daleks were capable of creating a Reality Bomb that would ultimately destroy the Universe. They had to be stopped. Without waiting for The Doctor, the New Doctor maximised the Dalekanium power feeds, blasting them back. One by one the Daleks explode in a mass genocide. The Doctor is horrified, but the New Doctor sees it as fulfilling the Prophecy.

   ‘There goes the time lock’ Gwen announces at the Hub.

The Doctor instructs everyone get in the Tardis, he offers to take Davros to safety, but the old man refuses to leave, casting the Doctor as the Destroyer of Worlds. As the Crucible crumbles, Dalek Caan still stands by the prophecy. One will still die.

As the TARDIS leaves the Crucible, the ship explodes behind them, wiping out the Dalek fleet. As we know, Davros will always find a way to escape.

Towing the Earth back will require a lot more power than just the Tardis. It will require a bit of help from those on Earth too. The Doctor calls up some familiar faces. Torchwood Hub, Luke and Mr Smith.

   ‘Now Torchwood, I want you to open up that Rift Manipulator. Send all the power to me. It’s a tow rope. Now Mr Smith, I want you to harness the rift power and loop it around the TARDIS, you got that?’

With the base code for the TARDIS transferred by K-9, all hands were definitely on deck and the Earth was brought home.

The world was jubilant at the Earth’s safe return.

Soon it was time to say farewell to the companions. Jack saluted the Doctor and walked hand in hand with Martha, and soon Mickey Smith, who felt it was time to return now that his grandmother no longer needed him. Sarah Jane was happy to be back and hurried home to meet her son, which left Rose and her Mum Jackie to be returned to the parallel Universe, much to Rose’s disgust.

After searching for the Doctor it felt a little unfair that she would now lose him all over again. With the walls closing, she would once again lose him forever. As a parting gift, the Doctor left her the Part Time Lord, Part Human Doctor, who would be everything he was, but would grow old with her. Only having one heart, he was as human as he could be. When asked what the Doctor was going to say the last time they met on the beach, it wrenched at the Doctor’s heart to repeat those words that broke his heart.
Instead, the words were whispered by her new Doctor, and planting a hard kiss upon his lips, The Doctor left with Donna back to the TARDIS and back to real Earth.

On the journey he was silent. Heartbroken again, he wondered how long he would continue to hurt himself or be hurt by others. Donna adjusted the controls, setting a new course to somewhere new. Chattering to lift his spirits.

   ‘I thought we could try the planet Felspoon. Just cos. What a good name! Felspoon! Apparently, it's got mountains that sway in the breeze. Mountains that move, can you imagine?’
   ‘And how do you know that?’
   ‘Because it’s in your head. And if it’s in your head, it’s in mine.’
   ‘And how does that feel?’
Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene! Great big universe, packed into my brain! You know you could fix that chameleon circuit if you just tried hotbinding the fragment-links and superseding the binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary. I'm fine!

Nah, never mind Felspoon. Know who I'd like to meet? Charlie Chaplin! I bet he's great, Charlie Chaplin. Shall we do that? Shall we go and see Charlie Chaplin? Shall we? Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester, Charlie Brown, no, he's fiction, friction, fiction, fixing, mixing, Rickston, Brixton...Oh my God!’

Donna knew what was happening to her. She knew because The Doctor knew. And because of this knowledge, she knew that the Doctor would do the one and only thing that would save her.

   ‘I was going to be with you forever. Rest of my life. Travelling. In the TARDIS. The Doctor Donna. No! Oh my god... I can't go back. Don't make me go back. Doctor, please, please don't make me go back!’

Carefully placing his fingers at the sides of her head, he closed his eyes and removed the pain and her memories of everything they had done together. Of the places they had visited, of the aliens they had met, until only the Donna everyone knew, who missed everything, had returned.
When he left her at home with her grandfather and mother it was on the strictest of instructions that Donna never remembered.

   ‘She took my mind into her own head. But that's a Time Lord consciousness. All that knowledge, it was killing her. I had to wipe her mind completely. Every trace of me, or the TARDIS, anything we did together, anywhere we went... had to go. Cos if she remembers, just for a second, she'll burn up. You can never tell her! You can't mention me or any of it... for the rest of her life…

I just want you to know there are worlds out there, safe in the sky, because of her. That there are people living in the light, and singing songs of Donna Noble, a thousand million light years away. They will never forget her... while she can never remember. And for one moment... one shining moment... she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe.’


With a heavy heart, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS alone….


 Next month - Children of Earth - Day One. 




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