Who Reviews Stolen Earth and Journey's End by Kellie Shuttleworth

 

Starring David Tennant as The Doctor, Catherine Tate as Donna, Freema Ayeman as Martha, John Barrowman as Captain Jack, Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones, Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper, Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Bernerd Cribbins as Wilf Mott, Jacqueline King as Sylvia Noble, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler.

 

Stolen Earth, continued from the preview episode, Turn Left.

Donna: “So I just met Rose Tyler?”
Doctor: “Yeah”
Donna: “But she’s locked away in a parallel world.”
Doctor: “Exactly. If she can cross from her world, to your parallel world that means the walls of the universe are breaking down. Which puts everything in danger, everything! But how?”

Starting with the Doctor and Donna landing back on Earth, on a Saturday, trying to work out what happened from the last episode to this one. They are inside the TARDIS as the Earth, and the TARDIS, starts to rumble. The Doctor opens the doors to the TARDIS, they are in space. They were fixed in time and space, but the Earth has somehow vanished!

FAR ACROSS THE UNIVERSE…

On Martha laying on the floor, in New York, everything has fallen. They assume it was an Earthquake – they being UNIT - until they open up the blinds, looking up at the sky. 

Jumping to Cardiff, Torchwood Hub - Jack, Ianto and Gwen felt the rumble too, thinking it was the rift. Jack runs outside to find out exactly what it was. 

Jumping to Ealing, London, Sarah Jane and Luke felt it also. Suddenly it’s night time outside, even thought it was 8am seconds ago. Mr Smith informs her to look outside. 

Then, crossing over to Chiswick, London, Donna’s Grandad, Wilf and Mum are outside, looking up at the sky. All of them looking up at the sky, but the sky is gone. 

Next minute, Rose Tyler materialises, gun in hand, looks up at the sky. She knows there is trouble to come. As we see the sky, the sun has gone, the stars have gone… but planets are surrounding the Earth. 

Donna: “But if the Earth’s been moved, they’ve lost the sun! What about my Mum? and Grandad? They’re dead, aren’t they? Are they dead?”
Doctor: “I don’t know, Donna, I’m sorry, I don’t know… There’s no readings. Nothing” 

With all the Doctors friends left stranded on the Earth which has moved, the Doctor and Donna need to try and find out where it’s gone and try and get it back. He needs help, and fast, taking them to the Shadow Proclamation. Ianto, Jack and Gwen are together in the Torchwood base trying to find out what is going on, they have worked out that whoever has done it has kept the air and the heat inside the Earth’s atmosphere to keep the human race alive. Mr Smith with Sarah Jane has discovered not only that there are 26 planets including Earth, there is also something artificial in the centre of the planets. Something like a space station. Suddenly, there’s movement - space ships! Martha working in UNIT has discovered 200 objects heading for Earth. Martha was trying to call the Doctor, but there is no signal, there is NEVER no signal. 

Rose Tyler walking around the streets, everyone is going crazy not knowing what is going on, assuming it’s the end of the world breaking into shops trying to steal what they can. She comes across a computer and sees the spaceships heading towards Earth. Wilf is worrying trying to call Donna and no answer. Back to Jack, Martha is calling him trying to get hold of the Doctor. Martha and Jack are discussing something called ‘Project Indigo’ which is completely top secret.

Mr Smith has discovered a transmission coming through from the spaceships, putting it through to Sarah Jane and Luke, they instantly regret it when they heard the horrible voices of the Daleks… “Exterminate!” Sarah Jane instantly knows what’s wrong. Jack and Martha hear the same thing and start to panic. The look of sheer fear in their faces just gives you the indication of how much trouble they are all in. 

The Dalek spaceships cover the Earth, shooting down onto the planet, UNIT calling ultimate code red - War with the Daleks. Martha looks over New York as the Daleks shoot anything they can, everything in their way they are shooting. Daleks have taken Earth already and the Doctor knows nothing. 

The Doctor and Donna land at the Shadow Proclamation and is welcomed by the Judoon. Trying to get some help, he finds out that 24 planets have disappeared right across the universe, all difference sizes, some populated, some not. As they realise throughout the past episode of this series there has been mentions of other planets disappearing, including an Adipose breeding planet, they realise that they are not only being taken out space but also out of time as well. This makes them realise there were actually 27 planets missing. All the planets fitted together perfectly, creating a perfect pattern. The Doctor realised that a long time ago someone tried to move the Earth, but they couldn’t be the one to do it again, could they?

Jack: “The Valiant’s down…”

Ianto: “Airforce retreating over North Africa! Daleks landing in Japan.”

Gwen: “We’ve lost contact with the Prime Minister’s plane… Jack! Manhattan!” 

Daleks are hitting all the major places on planet Earth, including UNIT where Martha is stationed. Jack tells her to leave, but UNIT has other plans, whatever Project Indigo is that they mentioned earlier, it was time for them to put that into action, although it hadn’t yet been tested. Daleks invade UNIT straight away, exterminating most of the staff inside. Jack is trying to stop Martha using Project Indigo but is going to use it regardless. She works for UNIT and they need her to find The Doctor. If Martha can’t find the Doctor and there is nothing they can do, Martha’s boss gives her ‘The Osterhagen Key’. From the look on Martha’s face, it isn’t something good. Martha just about gets away before the Daleks invade where she is. Jack informs his team at Torchwood that Project Indigo is teleportation device without co-ordinates, so Martha is down! 

The Dalek ship, showing Dalek Caan who used to be part of the Cult of Skaro, appears on the ship. Half of his body has been taken away, showing exactly what is inside a Dalek, elevated away from everyone else. Talking strangely, he explains that the Doctor is coming!

The Doctor and Donna are still on the Shadow Proclamation; one of the ladies is talking to Donna, giving her some water, scaring Donna. The girl apologies for the loss which is yet to come. The Doctor is trying to work out if something going on with Earth, freak weather patterns or anything, could have indicated that something was going wrong. Apart from bees disappearing Donna couldn’t think of anything, but that was all the Doctor needed. The bees are from another planet, migrating bees heading home using The Tandocca Scale.

Doctor: “It’s wavelengths used as a carrier signal. Infinitely small! It’s like looking for a speck of cinnamon in the Sahara, but look! There it is. The Tandocca trail. The transmit that moved the planets used the same wavelength, we can follow it!”

Donna: “And find the Earth?! Well, stop talking and do it!”
Doctor: “I am!”

Both the Doctor and Donna run off, following the wavelengths. The Shadow Proclamation tries to stop The Doctor from leaving, because of a war that is about to come. He pretends to get her a key to the TARDIS before flying off following the little blip which he has to follow the Earth. 

Daleks are now making all the humans leave their houses. Wilf and Sylvia are hiding, but Wilf has got his paint gun ready, he wants to use it to blind the Dalek. One of the human families refuses to go with them, returning to the house, trying to save him and his children. The Daleks attack the house killing the man and his family inside. Wilf and Sylvia decide to leave and run away down the alley to another street where another Dalek appears. Wilf uses his paint gun hitting the eye of the Dalek but it dissolves and doesn’t stop him. The Dalek nearly exterminates them until it explodes and behind it Rose Tyler appears needing Wilf’s help. All in Sylvia’s home, Rose is trying to help to find Donna and The Doctor. Sylvia didn’t know Donna was travelling with him and she denies it, but with everything in the sky can she real deny it? 

The TARDIS arrives at the Madusa Cascade. A centre of a rift in time and space, the trail they had been using has stopped dead there. There is nothing he can do; The Doctor has given up. Earth surrenders to the Daleks. All the Doctor’s past companions and helpers are sat defeated until they all hear a beeping noise. A woman’s voice slowly comes through. 

Harriet: “Can anyone hear me? The Subwave Network is open. You should be able to hear my voice… Is there anyone there?”
Rose: “I know that voice.”
Luke: “Who’s that?”
Sarah Jane: “Some poor soul calling for help There’s nothing we can do.”
Luke: “But look at Mr Smith.”
Harriet: “This message is of the utmost importance. We haven’t much time can anyone hear me?”
Jack: “The whole worlds crying out, just leave it”
Harriet: “Captain Jack Harkness, shame on you! Now stand to attention sir!”

As the picture becomes clear, it is Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister. Coming through to Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith, Rose can see her but cannot talk to her. The fourth contact has appeared. Rose thinks it hers, but instead Martha Jones appears on screen. She has been sent home with her Mum with the help of the Project Indigo device. Harriet had set up the Subwave network to help find anyone who can contact the Doctor and it was undetectable. Using the phone which Martha had left on the TARDIS, and using the Torchwood technology and Mr Smith to try and get every single phone on Earth to call the Doctor. Sadly, this lets the Daleks know exactly where Harriet is, putting her life at risk but to find the Doctor, she was going to sacrifice herself to find him. They all work together using the same number, using everything they can to get every single phone on Earth to call the Doctor. Sending a massive signal from the Rift in Cardiff. The Doctors phone rings on the TARDIS and the signal reaches him. The Doctor is ready to follow it, but the Daleks have found the signal too. It didn’t take them long to find Harriet. 

The Doctor follows the signal in the Tardis, and there they all are - the 27 planets which have gone missing. They were a second out of sync with the rest of the universe, and that phone call helped the Doctor pull him through. One the screen, the Doctor appears on the Subwave Network, with everyone else. But the Daleks manage to get access to the Subwave network; the Doctor thinks it’s Rose, but sadly not. It’s someone who is dead… DAVROS! He has returned, the creator of the Daleks. The Doctor tried to save him but he couldn’t, Dalek Caan did, making him insane, doing something which no one else could. Davros used his cells to create the new race of Daleks. The Doctor shuts down the video call and heads towards Earth, where they have found the Subwave network is heading towards Torchwood. Jack heads off, leaving Ianto and Gwen behind to find the Doctor, just as the Daleks decide to pay them a visit.

Sarah Jane managed to find the Doctor’s location, leaving Luke with Mr Smith she headed off to find him. Rose, at Donna’s house, also learns of the Doctor’s location, locking onto the TARDIS, she teleports out. The TARDIS arrives in the middle of a street on Earth, no people around. Rose appears, at the end of the street, the Doctor finds her and they both run towards each other ready for the reunion every fan wanted. Until the Dalek came creeping out from the corner and hits him. Jack arrives just in time to shoot the Dalek but it’s too late. Dragging him into the TARDIS, Donna doesn’t know about what the Doctor is about to do...

Sarah Jane runs into two Daleks who are going to Exterminate her… 

Daleks finally get into Torchwood ready to Exterminate them…. 

The Doctor…. He is regenerating. 

Journey’s End 

With the Doctor regenerating, everyone was shocked to see that he uses the hand (which is from previous episode The Christmas Invasion when his hand got cut off… in a later episode we discover that Jack has it in a jar as his ‘doctor detector’) to send all the regeneration energy into it, so that it stops him from regenerating. Jack, Donna and Rose stand watching in shock. 

Sarah Jane is sat in her car when two blue lights flash and come to her rescue - it’s Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler, shutting both the Daleks down and saving her. 

In the Torchwood hub, as Gwen and Ianto are shooting at the invading Dalek, their bullets stop in mid air, creating a wall of bullets, not letting the Dalek get in, or anything getting out.

Doctor: “Used the regeneration energy to heal myself, but soon as that was done, I didn’t need to change, why would I? Look at me! To stop the energy from going all the way, I siphoned off the rest into a bio-matching receptacle, namely, my hand, my hand there, my handy spare hand! Remember Christmas Day, Sycorax, lost my hand in a swordfight? That’s my hand!” 

And with that all sorted and done Rose and the Doctor finally got their reunion they wanted together. Daleks finally locate the TARDIS and used a temporal prison to lift the TARDIS straight onto the Dalek ships. Sarah Jane, Jackie and Mickey want to get to the same ship, so they put down their guns and walk up to the Daleks, surrendering to be taken away. Martha still has her teleporter, and the key, which she used to take herself to Gemany. 

The TARDIS arrives at the Dalek Crucible and with no power they cannot do anything but go out and face the Daleks. Donna stands on her own in the corner of the TARDIS, tears in her eyes, focused on something we don’t see. The Doctor is giving his end speech, to them all ready to hang up his coat and face the Daleks like he is going to die again, but for the final time. But that doesn’t happen. Donna stands in the TARDIS hearing a heartbeat, the door shuts, leaving her in there, the Daleks did not do it, no one knows what happened but the Daleks send the TARDIS off to be destroyed, Donna stuck inside. 

With the TARDIS is about to be torn apart, Donna is stuck inside on her own. The Doctor is begging the Daleks to get Donna out of the ship but they don’t do anything. Donna can see the Doctor’s hand glowing; something is calling her towards it. She leans over and touches the hand as the regeneration energy spreads around her and from that the jar explodes. From the hand, something starts to grow. The regeneration energy has grown another Doctor who used the TARDIS to disappear, just in time for it not to be destroyed.

The real Doctor is now stuck on a Dalek ship without his TARDIS, thinking Donna is dead. Jack tries to shoot the Daleks, but they end up exterminating him. Or so Rose thinks, she doesn’t know that Jack can’t die. The Doctor and Rose get sent to Darvos. 

With the TARDIS now flown away silently so the Daleks don’t know, the second Doctor and Donna seem to realise that something more has happened. 

Doctor 2: “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.”
Donna: “Oi! Watch it, space man!”
Doctor 2: “Oi! Watch it, Earth Girl!... Oh… I sound like you. I sound all sort of… rough. 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!” 

The second Doctor was now, part Time Lord, part human thanks to Donna. It all becomes a realisation that they were always heading towards this moment. The Doctor, Donna. The whole series, how they crossed paths so many times, all the coincidences throughout the series, they weren’t coincidences at all - they were all meant to be leading up to this point. Something drawing them together. 

Back to Germany to find Martha Jones, to find the base completely empty apart from one lady. Martha is ready to use the key, without us knowing what it does, you can tell it something MASSIVE, as the lady tries to shoot Martha to stop her from actually using the key, but she can’t. On the Dalek ship, they send Jack to be disposed off but of course he will not be easy to get rid of. He breaks out. Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie are now on the Dalek ship ready for testing. 

The Doctor and Rose are now with Davros, locked up in the holding cells, in the vault, more like a prison. Davros isn’t in charge of the Daleks anymore, he’s like a ‘pet’. He is keeping Rose alive, because of what Dalek Caan has seen. Dalek Caan saw time, the whole thing driving him crazy, foreseeing the future. Davros is getting ready to test something called ‘the reality bomb’. 

Sarah Jane and Mickey get sent to a testing room and find a way out as Jackie gets left behind, standing underneath the testing of the reality bomb. The planets start to illuminate. Jackie is standing below some green light and seems like there is no way out, until Mickey hears a beeping in his pocket. He realised that their transporters have started to recharge and she can get out of there just in time for everyone else to turn into green dust as part of the test. It dissolved every form of matter; all the planets became a transmitter blasting it across the universe. 

Davros: “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 wil become… nothing. And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the Rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, and every single corner of creation! This is my ultimate victory, Doctor! The distraction of reality itself!” 

The Daleks are going to wipe out every single life form and be the last ever race in existence. As Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie stand and watch what had happened, something metal crashes to the floor and out rolls Captain Jack following the life signs. Sarah Jane pulls out a necklace containing a Warp Star, to be used for the end of days. Martha is sat with her three other keepers of the Osterhargen key, they only need three to use the key but of course Martha wants to try one more thing. She patches herself through to the Daleks for Davros and the Doctor to see just as Dalek Caan predicted. He always keeps repeating one of the Children of Time will die. They patch the Doctor through to Martha, the Doctor has no idea what the key does until Martha explains that the Earth gets ripped apart and it’ sonly to be used if nothing can be done, the final option. Just as Martha explains to the Daleks what could happen, another internal video feed comes up - it’s Captain Jack Harkness and his gang, with the warp star attached into the mainframe ready to blow up the ship. 

Davros: “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!”

Davros is beginning to show the Doctor that so, so many people have died because of him. To help and to save him. The Supreme Daleks who aren’t with Davros decide to take matters into their own hands by transporting Martha, Jack, Mickey, Sarah Jane and Jackie into the vault alongside the rest of them. Once all the children of time are secure Davros gets ready to release the reality bomb. 

On the TARDIS the Doctor and Donna have found a way to solve the problem, booting the TARDIS up and flying it straight to the vaults, an impossible thing. The second Doctor comes running in with the gun they have made to stop what was about to happen. Davros quickly shoots him and stops him until Donna comes running out and is ready to do what he couldn’t, until Davros shoots her too sending her flying across the machine. Davros continues to use the reality bomb. The countdown has begun. 

Until Donna stands up, and nothing happens. She has shut down the system, stopping Davros and stopping the Daleks, blocking their weaponry.  The metacrisis happened both ways, The DoctorDonna! Just like the Ood predicted. She quickly let the Doctors out, getting to work! 

Donna: “Because you two where just Time Lords, you dumbos, lacking that little bit of human, that gut instinct that comes with Planet Earth. I can think of ideas you wouldn’t dream of in a million years! The universe has been waiting for me! Now, let’s send that trip-stitch all over the ship! Did I ever tell you? Best temp in Chiswick, 100 word per minute!”

Donna interferes with all the Daleks so they cannot do anything. Then they all start to send all of the planets back to where they belong. Reversing everything that the Daleks had put into place. But it seems that even the Daleks have been lying to Davros. Dalek Caan had been hiding some of the things which he had seen, to help the Doctor bringing everything together to stop the Daleks from winning.  

The Dalek supreme isn’t happy about what has happened, descending to the Vaults breaking the machine and leaving one planet behind… Earth. With the Doctor in the TARDIS trying to find a way to put the Earth back, the Doctor from the hand has found a way to kill every Dalek in the fleet, to stop them from ever trying to do anything else again. 

Using the TARDIS, all of the Doctor’s companions inside, and using the Torchwood rift, and Luke and Mr Smith looping it around the TARDIS, but with the help of K9. Each person on the TARDIS now has a job, flying the TARDIS like it was meant to be flown, with 6 pilots. And with the help of Torchwood and Mr Smith, they are able to loop the TARDIS around the Earth flying them back home where they belong. As a Doctor Who fan this scene is one of the most satisfying, and emotional scenes seeing all of the Doctor’s companions (from David Tennants era) together helping him do what he does best, saving the day. 

The TARDIS lands back on Earth, celebrating returning to where it belongs and dropping off his companions, saying goodbye once again. Sarah Jane leaves, going back to her son Luke. Martha goes back to UNIT, Jack back to his Torchwood team. Mickey Smith leaves the TARDIS instead of going back to his parallel world, but since his Gran passed away there isn’t anything there for him anymore, so he’s back, with Martha and Jack to stay on Earth. But that leaves one last thing to do. Take Rose and Jackie home, Bad Wolf Bay. But there was one more person to deal with, the Doctor from the hand. He killed all of the Daleks; he needs looking after by someone. A Doctor with one heart, who is part human, who can live with her and grow old with her, getting what she has always wanted. With the reality sealing itself off again, she wouldn’t be able to travel with the Doctor anymore. 

The Doctor and Donna return to the TARDIS, leaving Rose, Jackie & the Doctor from the hand behind on the world they belong on. Donna is ready to fly off in the TARDIS with the Doctor forever, until something happens. 

Donna: “Nah, never mind Felspoon. Know who I’d like to meet? Charlie Chaplin! Shall we do that? Shall we go see Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester? Charlie Brown, no he’s fiction, friction, fixing, mixing, Rickston, Brixton….Oh My God” 

Donna can’t deal with the pain inside her head, her brain can’t cope with the Time Lord’s knowledge. And there was only one thing which the Doctor can do to stop it from burning her up inside… 

He returns Donna home, to her family… (and I won’t say no more… SPOILERS!) 

Wilf: “I’ll watch out for you Sir. But every night, Doctor, when it gets dark, and the stars come out, I’ll look up… on her behalf. I’ll look up at the sky… and think of you.”

The Doctor leaves, on his own. Setting up the final episodes of David Tennant’s time as the Doctor. 

This episode is one of my all-time favourites, I’m a sucker for someone giving the fans what they want, and with this episode Russell T Davies gave the fans EXACTLY what they wanted. All of the TARDIS team back together! Seeing all of them fly the TARDIS together brings a tear to my eye every single time.

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.