Who Reviews Bad Wolf/ Parting of the Ways by Matt Rabjohns

 

When it comes to reviewing the Christopher Eccleston era of the show, and era that was sadly all too brief on screen, I find myself in something of a quandary.  Now I will stress that I think Chris was the absolute perfect choice of talented and brilliant actor to bring back the show to a modern audience in 2005. Honestly Chris was absolutely incredible in the role right from the first minute of Rose. I loved his wounded soldier Doctor, the broken man in recovery after the time war. He perfectly gave the performance of a shattered man, seeking for hope. But what I sadly never took to was Billie Piper as Rose. To me she was far too common, antagonistic and just not my cup of tea as a character. Therefore, the entirety of Chris's era for me is seldom a place I return to, to watch because I just have no time for Rose at all. 

But I don't want to spend an entire review being negative. I will just also add that I am not the world's biggest fan of Captain Jack as played by John Barrowman either. I could do without his character easily too. 

But let’s move onto the story itself. Bad Wolf begins with a flourish. As the Doctor finds he's been separated from his companions and he stirs to find he is in the Big Brother House of the future. There he meets Lynda Moss, Lynda with a Y. Played absolutely brilliantly by Jo Joyner. Honestly, I would love to have seen far more from Jo Joyner. For me as a one-time companion for Chris's Doctor she succeeds in all the ways that Billie fails for me. I love her character, she is kind, decent, asks relevant questions and for a while is totally loyal to the Doctor, which for me is so wonderful to see. Jo and Chris share some beautiful scenes together that when it came to her extermination by the Daleks I was totally gutted. Lynda with a Y could have done with a lot more time to get to know her. But instead, she joins the pantheon of "could have been a companion" actors and actresses, and I for one am chagrined by that no end. 

Martha Cope is also an absolute revelation as the poor wired up Controller of Satellite 5. She is absolutely superb in her channelling of an enslaved human being on the edge of insanity. You instantly feel sorry for her and her performance is riveting in the extreme. I absolutely love how she gives her life in betrayal of the Daleks and dies a hero. Her death scene marks one of the highlights of the Eccleston era. But even saying my love for this character again, I still have some annoyance that again she meets with death when we could have seen so much more from her. Mind you I should be glad that in a series that would go on to be obsessed with characters never truly dying then a few characters actually properly dying is a breath of fresh air. 

It is also highly amusing to have both Davina McCall and Anne Robinson, contributing voices to the Davina droid and Anne Droid. Anne particularly is still the same old battle-axe made to be rude character she always was on the Weakest Link. Although to be true they could have done with making her a bit ruder. She does seem a bit tame in terms of her insults in this two-part epic. But the murderous way it appears she kills contestants is stark and well directed. And as the realisation of the deadly edge to the game dawns on Rose, then these scenes are superb and very tension packed. Rose must play for her life and I will admit Billie gives some good fearful acting when she realises, she is the weakest link in the final round. That she must have a showdown with Paterson Joseph's character of Rodrick is a good point to mention too in that Rodrick is a totally self-centred and loathsome human being. The way he dismisses Rose as a non-contender and delights in his win marks him as a nasty little piece of work. That he doesn't get his prize is amusing! 

I can't really say much about the involvement of Trinee and Suzannah bots too as I don't know a great deal about the pair or their own programme. but just in Doctor Who story terms they are characterised with a good dose of macabre humour. But I am sure the scene of John Barrowman nude before a defabricater is totally unnecessary and not needed. I don't get anything from it except I don't like this tasteless scene at all. 

The Daleks of this story are totally ruthless and black hearted though. This is one thing I will give this story credit for. The Daleks here are not to be trifled with at all. There is no comedy as the Dalek army boards the satellite. These daleks are truly a force to be reckoned with. However, I am not sure if the realisation of the Emperor Dalek here works. Nick Brigg's voice is superb for the master of all Dalek Mutants. But the prop itself looks more cute than ugly and thus really doesn't engender much fear in me at all. But the bloodthirsty way the Daleks kill in The Parting of the Ways has an epic feel of dread and doom that the new era has actually seldom ever done before or since. There is a total atmosphere of oppressive claustrophobia that makes the story far more interesting than it otherwise would have been. The faction of gameplayers stranded in outer space in the satellite is incredibly done. You truly feel so very stressed with them. The CGI in this story for once also is not too bad. The scenes of thousands of daleks spilling from their war ships is a scene we could never have had in the classic era. 

There is also a bucketload of emotion in store as Rose is sent back to earth to save her from the Doctor's final showdown with the Daleks. That she tries so doggedly to re-join him must be counted in her characters credit here. Though I still find it hard to like her, here she does act more like a decent person and not just a common idiot so I would say this is one of her best moments because just for a few minutes she is not annoying and even I hope she does get back to the Doctor. Although the final climax of her ripping open the TARDIS console and the vortex energy filling her is a bit akin to waving a magic wand. How easily then the Emperor and his minions are dealt with by dispersal feels like a damp squib ending to what was before then a gripping yarn indeed. 

Chris is also at his absolute apex in this story. Particular the scene of when he informs the Daleks that he has no plan, but simply states "Yeah, and doesn't that just scare you to death!?" is an absolute die-hard classic Doctor Who moment. I was absolutely sold on his Doctor already, but here was the scene when I said oh I wish this man would stay for far longer than the time he did. Then there is a second superb scene, where the Doctor before the Emperor states he'd rather be a coward any day than a butcher. These are absolutely defining moments of his Doctor's moral strength. It is so brilliant to see the war wounded time lord show he is sick of killing and this gives Chris one heck of a swansong all in all. 

And then we come to the moment. The devastatingly short era of the Ninth Doctor is so bittersweet and Chris felt he could only commit to one season on screen. This for me was so sad because, excuse the pun, I thought his portrayal of the Doctor was fantastic. He brought back the Time Lord with such style and elan. He ensured the show could live in the modern era. And so, to see him depart from the role after just one season is so disheartening. Whilst I am delighted to see David Tennant come aboard for a new era, the shock at the too brief stint the Ninth Doctor had was memorable for his sublime display of acting. I was absolutely overjoyed when I heard Big Finish had finally persuaded Chris to come back to the role for their Ninth Doctor adventures. It rather begs that old time but assuredly true remark: He's back and it's about ruddy time! 

Bad Wolf/ Parting of the Ways is overall a very fitting tribute to Christopher Eccleston. Doctor Who was resurrected by Russell T Davies, but they had to get the right man for the role. Fortunately, they truly did. Chris was amazing, and he deserves to be remembered for the excellent new Doctor he brought to our screens so very well back in the mists of time in 2005. We fans should never do anything but offer him heartfelt gratitude and thanks. 

Who Reviews Rise of the Cybermen and the Age of Steel by Tony J Fyler

 

Tony’s getting the upgrade. 

When Doctor Who came back in 2005, it was keen to redevelop what had long been the show’s #1 monster in the public imagination – the Dalek – and make it a genuinely scary threat for the 21^st century. 

When the show got its second series confirmed, and with a brand new Doctor in David Tennant, it couldn’t really avoid bringing back the Cybermen (often thought of as the show’s #2 monster), and re-imagining them for the 21^st century too. 

But there was a line to be walked. With the Daleks, they were so very vivid in the general public consciousness that what you needed to do was address their perceived weaknesses – the inability to deal with stairs, their sink-plunger arm, etc – and turn them into strengths, to make the Skarosian tank-mutants into unstoppable killing machines again, and elevate them to such a position that they and the Time Lords had essentially wiped each other out, leaving only the Doctor in the universe who could stand up to them when they returned. 

With the Cybermen, there was a different problem. It wasn’t that the public was mostly aware of their weaknesses, but that they weren’t particularly aware of what made the Cybermen tick, where they were from, what made them want to convert or conquer the universe. 

So what you needed for the first Cyber-story of the 21^st century, was essentially an origin story that people could get hold of. 

Hardcore fans of course, knew the origin story. The people of Mondas, Earth’s original twin planet, had perfected cyber-surgery, replacing the organic parts of themselves over time, and eventually removing their capacity for emotions, leaving them entirely logical and bent on spreading the gift of Cyberization to the rest of the universe. 

That’s where the second balancing act came in. Without essentially re-telling The Tenth Planet with the Tenth Doctor, how did you give the Cybermen a backstory that new viewers could connect to, without ruining the ‘canon’ for the established fans by essentially retconning The Tenth Planet? 

The solution from writer Tom MacRae was more than a touch ingenious. In ‘our’ universe, Mondas was a twin planet of Earth. But perhaps in a parallel universe, it was right here on Earth that the Cybermen developed. A twin dimension, rather than a twin planet. And Rise of the Cybermen and The Age Of Steel was off to the races. 

There’s always talk of the similarities between Rise of the Cybermen and Spare Parts, the Big Finish story by Marc Platt which takes the Fifth Doctor to Mondas as the Cybermen are actually beginning to emerge as an entity, rather than a collection of upgrades. But MacRae rightly draws lines of separation between Platt’s masterpiece (Seriously, if you’ve never heard it, go now and listen, it’s absurdly good) and his own. Yes, technically, they document the same point in the evolution of the Cybermen – but that’s about all they have in common. 

For a large part of Rise of the Cybermen, in fact, we’re distracted by the potential of a parallel universe when the Doctor, Rose and Mickey more or less fall into one. While the only energy source that can recharge the Tardis is growing and getting power, the potential of that other universe is too strong for the two companions – Mickey goes to see if his nan, who raised him, is still alive there, given she had died in ‘our’ world, and Rose is brought up short by a billboard that shows her dad, dead in our universe, is not only alive in the parallel, but successful. 

In the parallel world, Jackie and Pete Tyler are still married, but they never had Rose. And Pete is connected to the activities of a mega-businessman called John Lumic. 

Lumic, we learn early, is dependent on a wheelchair and life-support systems, making him very much a re-envisaging of Davros, creator of the Daleks. But the interesting thing is that it technically makes more sense in Lumic’s case that a man who feels himself to be an almighty brain and will, almost mocked by a body decaying with age and atrophy, would focus on creating something like the Cybermen. While he wants to wait until the last possible moment, the Cybermen for him are a kind of fantasy wish-fulfilment, an immortal, undecaying body to carry around the human brain. The Cybermen have always been the ultimate fantasy of the old and the fearful – they’re a protection both from the physical decay of ageing and death, and from the mental pain of living a life with a brain that still thinks organic thoughts in a body no longer able to experience mortal pleasures in any meaningful way. 

The Cybermen have always represented this fear, but it has never been centred in a single individual’s drive to survive until the world met John Lumic (Roger Lloyd-Pack) in Rise of the Cybermen. 

At first experimenting with society’s unwanted, the homeless and hungry (literally the spare parts of the social pecking order), the Cybermen grow in number – though it’s worth pointing out that this gradual rise is somewhat counterintuitive at the end of the story, when it turns out Lumic has had hives of Cybermen stashed away for quite some time). Weirdly though, it’s almost coincidence that brings Rose and the Doctor to Pete and Jackie’s house the night they’re hosting the President of the UK. With whom, Lumic’s toy soldiers want a word. 

Graeme Harper was the only Classic Who director to get to direct in the New Who era too at the time, and what he gave us in The Rise of the Cybermen was a masterclass in angles and the delivery of menace through the choice of shots. He made the return of the Cybermen into something that had both power and a sense of size that was frightening as they crashed Jackie Tyler’s birthday party with mayhem on their minds. 

It’s possible to argue though that the new Cybermen lost some of their Classic era menace specifically in Rise of the Cybermen/The Age Of Steel, by virtue of having no weapon except a kind of electro-touch. They also gained an unfortunately undramatic catchphrase to mimic the Daleks – intoning “Delete, delete, delete” like walking incarnations of Grammarly. And for any long-term Cyber-fan, the question of how they would sound was a vexed one – the Cybermen have had a range of vocal tones throughout their on-screen lives, but for many people the best (if least logical) was that of the Eighties Cybermen voiced (and played) by David Banks and Mark Hardy, which had a deep electronic burr to it. Nick Briggs is a master in almost all things, but the monotone he gave the new Cyber-voices, while logically in keeping with the like of Troughton-era Cybermen, felt a bit flat on screen. 

But for most viewers, that didn’t matter. Either the Cybermen were back, and looking bigger and stronger then ever if you were a hardcore Who-fan, or there was a new cool monster in Doctor Who if you weren’t. 

One of the neatest elements about the Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel is how plausible the creep of Cyber-technology is in it – people at first getting ‘earpods’ which feed chosen content directly into their ear canals and brains, and from there, the information-flow going both ways, facilitating mind-reading and mind-control as and when necessary. The Doctor’s lecture about the human race always needing the next upgrade was well observed based on a society in which technology is outdated within two years of its launch. And the universality of Lumic’s ‘earpod’ technology gets lots of people walking into Battersea Power Station early in The Age Of Steel, because if the Cybermen have always been about the fear of ageing and death, they’ve also always been about the body horror or a human brain in a metal body, the flesh having been cut away and discarded. 

The second episode of the Cyber-return to Doctor Who riffed heavily on this body horror and the emotional response to it. Where in Classic Who it was rarely made explicit how the emotions were removed, in The Age Of Steel it was given a conveniently vulnerable explanation. There was no Frankensteinian lobotomy action involved in creating a Cyberman, there was simply an emotional inhibitor, which, if you knew how, could be switched off. That would mean lots of Cybermen suddenly becoming self-aware inside their metal bodies and going stark, raving bonkers. 

The Doctor only discovers this through Mickey and his connection to a gang of anti-Lumic activists, the Preachers, who in this universe have a Ricky Smith among their number. Ricky is sadly killed along the way, giving Mickey an example to look up to (as well as a potential boyfriend in fellow Preacher, Jake). When Mrs Moore, a techie in the gang, teams up with the Doctor, there’s a touching scene where a dying Cyberman regains its humanity, and tells them it was getting married the next day. And while Mrs Moore too immediately pays the price, and the parallel Jackie Tyler is among the first batch of humans to be Cyber-converted at Battersea, the Doctor learns the way to defeat the Cybermen – find the code that controls the emotional inhibitor and broadcast it to all the Cybermen. 

This is both in the long tradition of Cyberman stories and yet somehow disappointing at the same time. While the Daleks have had issues that make them weak – stairs, plungers, etc – the list of things that, for no good reason whatsoever, allow you to destroy a lot of Cybermen in one go had grown ludicrous in Classic Who – from radiation to gravity to nail varnish remover to gold coins lodged in their chest. They have always had to be artificially limited in their power, and the emotional inhibitor, while it was a slightly more technical version of the trope, was the first 21^st century way to kill a lot of Cybermen in a hurry and so resolve a story. It was a trend which would probably reach its nadir in the Eleventh Doctor story Closing Time, when for all intents and purposes, ‘blowing them up with love’ became a thing you could do to Cybermen. 

While the ending is too easy, it leaves a lot of changes in the world of the Tardis crew. Rose reveals her identity to Pete Tyler, and he can’t especially handle it – especially not after losing his wife in the Cyber-factories. 

Mickey, meanwhile, decides to stay behind in the parallel universe and root out all the hives of hidden Cybermen, while also having some extra time with his nan. As he rightly says, in a world with Rose Tyler and the Doctor in it, “It’s never gonna be me, is it?”, so he decides to find his own destiny, free from the endless, hopeless hope of getting back a relationship with Rose. 

Rise of the Cybermen and the Age of Steel together are a fantastic spectacle of Cyber-reinvention, and they repay re-watching even today. The way the Cybermen are defeated may be little more than the 21^st century of the Classic show’s easy solutions to Cybermen, downgrading them as a threat, but the two-part reintroduction of Doctor Who’s silver medal monsters has a high bodycount, Cybermen marching en masse, a joyfully explicit explanation of how they came about (in at least one reality), and plenty of personal, emotional impact, both for the Tardis team and for us as viewers. This is an achievement underlined by quite how difficult it has proved to deliver an effective Cyber-story in the years that have followed. Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel – check them out again. 

They’re probably better than you remember.

Profiles The Tenth Doctor

 

Torchwood Archive Character Profile: “The Doctor”

 

**WARNING!**

 If you see this man, if he has come into your life, then your life is in danger! 

Known Aliases: The Doctor/ John Smith.

Species: Time Lord

Occupation: Alien Tech Operative U.N.I.T / Time Lord.

Abilities: Regeneration. Time Travel.

Crimes: Mass Genocide, Murder, Crimes against the crown. Bigamy. Theft. Deception.

Location: Time & Space

Bio: The alien known as “The Doctor” is a species called a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous located in a binary star system 250 million light years from Earth. He is approximately 900 years old and he has been recorded on Earth throughout history for many hundreds of years and we know that he has spent time in excess of our own and has occupied time and space in Earth’s past, present and future.

His first recorded appearance on Earth has not been documented but from testimonies and the personal experience of Torchwood Founder Captain Jack Harkness, he has also travelled from the day the Earth was created to the year 100 trillion where he witnessed the end of the universe. 

His home planet Gallifrey was destroyed by him during what he refers to as the time war, a crime he has admitted to and taken responsibility for and will stand trial for in front of his own species.  He is accused of ending his own civilisation as well as destroying another alien species known as the Daleks. He has also destroyed many other aliens that have come to invade our planet and whilst he has done so in our defence, he has also committed the act of murder against an unknown species of an unknown quantity, destroying the work of government to enact a peace treaty throughout the stars.

His motives and his actions alone are the main cause of Earth’s invasions as he is notorious throughout time and space as the undefeated champion of Earth, a reputation that invites alien attacks on the human race in a bid to defeat him, a self-imposed reputation and title not authorised by the human race. 

He is a trickster, a man who has lived many lives and can change his face using a Time Lord process known as regeneration which causes his whole physical appearance to change from one person to another giving him the perfect place to hide should he need it. We have on file every regeneration so far and believe him to be on his 10^th life cycle. 

IMPORTANT! The Doctor travels in a time machine he calls the T.A.R.D.I.S which stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. It is currently recognised as a 1950’s police box or sometimes called the blue box. Through an alien technical anomaly known as dimension transfer, the TARDIS is much bigger on the inside as it would appear to be on the outside, in fact, the outside of the ship is a facade for the inter dimensional interior which expands indefinitely to suit the needs of its passengers. 

Other Information:  There is a historical document on file dating back to1879 claiming the Doctor defended Queen Victoria from an alien werewolf attack which killed many members of her family and royal guards, highlighting her to the presence of aliens on Earth, an insight she said no human had the right to possess over another. This led to her majesty establishing the original foundations of the Torchwood Institute, to help defend Britain from further alien attacks whilst keeping her empire safe from the knowledge of their existence, and the Doctor’s banishment from the British empire declaring that, if he should return, he should beware, because Torchwood will be waiting, ready to deal with him. Many hubs and loyal followers continued her work throughout the years all over the world until the downfall of Torchwood London in The Battle of Canary Wharf in 2007 when the institute was used against Earth’s natural defence to open a rift in time and space which allowed two cyborg armies, the new Dalek empire and The Cybermen into our galaxy to wage war on each other for the Earth, killing thousands of humans before the rift in Torchwood was finally shut down by The Doctor and his then companion, Rose Tyler who died in the battle. 

We do not know if the law set by Queen Victoria still stands but Torchwood has been rebuilt from the ashes and redesigned by Captain Jack Harkness to help The Doctor defend Earth, not banish him from it as he believes The Doctor is our ally, not our enemy. 

There is a list of the dead following this man. He travels with human companions who rarely survive and are willing to die in his name and whilst he is guilty of all the crimes set before him and many more we do not know about, there is no one greater and no one more willing to defend Earth and the Human race. Does that make him friend, or foe? 

Torchwood honours him, Earth owes him a great debt, yet can he really be trusted when he is feared by many ancient alien races throughout time and space and across the galaxies where he is known as “The Oncoming Storm!” 

Some of the Doctor’s former companions:

 

Rose Tyler: Deceased. 

Martha Jones: Medical Doctor U.N.I.T

Donna Nobel: Temp from Chiswick.  

Captain Jack Harkness. Torchwood Operative

Sarah Jane Smith: Journalist.

Mickey Smith: Torchwood operative

Astrid Peth: Waitress.

Lady Christina de Souza: Jewel Thief

 

 

 

Who Reviews The End of Time Parts 1 & 2 by SF Cambridge

 

Starring:

The Doctor - David Tennant

The Master - John Simm

Donna Noble - Catherine Tate

Rose Tyler - Billie Piper

Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman

Martha Smith-Jones - Freema Agyeman

Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen

and introducing Matt Smith as the Doctor 

WARNING: IF YOU’VE NOT SEEN THE EPISODE, THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD! 

“It is said that in the final days of Planet Earth, everyone had bad dreams. To the west of the north of that world, the human race did gather. In celebration of a pagan rite to banish the cold and the dark. Each and every one of those people had dreamt of the terrible things to come. But they forgot. Because they must. They forgot their nightmares. Of fire and war and insanity. They forgot. Except for one…” 

The End of Time is a 2-part episode depicting the last story of the 10^th Doctor played by David Tennant. In these 2 episodes we see the return of some familiar faces of companions past and present, a glimpse into the Time War on Gallifrey and the much-awaited return of the Master played by John Simm. It’s an emotional journey of regret and refusal as the Doctor takes his TARDIS on one last trip as he travels back and forth through time saving lives and making amends before his impending regeneration.  His was probably the most emotional regeneration I think I’ve seen on Doctor Who and one that caused many a Whovian to break down all over social media as they mourned the loss of David Tennant whilst swearing, they would never watch newcomer Matt Smith step into his shoes and step in he did, gaining nearly as much popularity in the role as his predecessor. 

“He will knock 4 times”, the words of wisdom given to him by Carmen, a woman he met on a bus, the build-up and anticipation we were all waiting for that most of us had put down to something to do with the Master and his rhythm of 4 heartbeat was in fact just Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, trapped in a radiation chamber, tapping the door wanting to come out! It was a hilarious ending to the long-awaited mystery and Wilf’s own fault for going into the chamber in the first place, but it was all so lovingly done with the Doctor angry at Wilf for putting himself in that position in the first place and Wilf so remorseful that he begged the Doctor to leave him in there until in the end, both characters were willing to sacrifice themselves for each other, so very very sweet. 

Wilfred: “No really. Just leave me. I’m an old man, Doctor. I’ve had my time.”

The Doctor: “Well exactly! Look at you. Not remotely important! But me? I could do so much more! So much more! But this is what I get. My reward. Well, it’s not fair! ….. Oh… I’ve lived too long.”

Wilfred: “No. No no please don’t. No no! Please don’t! Please!”

The Doctor: “Wilfred. It’s my honour.” 

“And so, it came to pass that the players took their final places. Making ready the events that were to come. A madman sat in his empire of dust and ashes. Little knowing of the glory he would achieve. While his saviour looked upon the wilderness in the hope of changing his inevitable fate. Far away, the idiots and fools dreamt of a shining new future. A future now doomed to never happen. As Earth rolled onwards into night the people of that world did sleep. And shiver. Somehow knowing the dawn would bring only one thing. The Final Day.”

Even though Bernard Cribbins was undoubtedly the star of the show at that moment in time, it was in fact David Tennant’s show, and a fitting tribute to an actor who really pushed life, warmth and depth into an ancient alien. 

Not forgetting the newly restored Master brought back to life by his coven of wiccan disciples and the DNA stolen from Lucy Saxon’s lips, John Simm once more managed to portray the Master in such a broken way that you almost felt sorry for him as he gained the realisation that it was his much loved Time Lords who played the drumming in his head as a boy that sent him so insanely mad just as a way to locate him in the future in order to bring Gallifrey back from the clutches of the Time War to press on the surface of reality of Earth’s atmosphere. Knowing this would crush the earth and kill every human being on it the Doctor knew that it wasn’t just his time that was ending, it was all time. 

Timothy Dalton’s depiction of Rassillon was a welcome addition to the story and he played the part well, although I could have done without all the spitting he did, but the mystery woman who appeared to Wilf several times by way of visions, urging him to once more be a solider and help the Doctor was far too confusing because it left the viewers wondering who the hell she was without revealing an ounce of information about herself. Was she the Doctor’s mother perhaps? Who knows?! Certainly not us so what was the point to her character? It did however give us the explanation for Carmen’s prophesy at the end of Planet of the Dead. “It is returning. It is returning through the dark. And then Doctor— Oh but then… He will knock four times.” 

The Doctor: “Something is returning.” Don’t you ever listen? That was the prophecy. Not some “one,” some “thing”.

The Master: What is it?

The Doctor: They’re not just bringing back the species. It’s Gallifrey! Right here. Right now.

What I absolutely love about the episodes and in any film or program that I watch, is when they do or say something in a time before, when someone says something of seemingly little importance and then future episodes down the line suddenly bring that back into focus and you realise that it was part of the very fabric of the storyline woven in and out of each episode like a golden thread. Scenes like that, like the one where you suddenly realise that everything leading up to this point was prophesized by a side character in the past and it literally opens up the story to you in ways you couldn’t imagine. The same thing happens in a future episode of Doctor Who starring Matt Smith. It is brilliant writing at it’s best.  When you watch them back, even when you know what’s coming, you start seeing other things of similar importance that you had previously missed. It’s pure magic from the imaginations of magicians. 

I think personally I would have preferred both episodes to have been one long special episode rather than split in 2 parts. I think the story would have flowed better and our anticipation of wanting to know what was coming next would not have been diluted by a week wait and life filtering out part 1 from our minds so that we almost needed a re cap before watching part 2.

The master turning everyone into himself using the medical arch to create the master race seemed a bit insignificant to me and its something the story could have done without as were some of the sub characters brought into the show to give it that comedy edge “SHIMMER!” I get that the Master is deranged but what would remaking the world in his image have achieved in the long run? It just seemed like a sub plot that died before it really got a chance to take hold and develop. 

I did however enjoy Donna’s brief return and I was happy to see she had retained some of her Time Lord powers from her brief interaction with Time Lord DNA. I think her story ended far too soon, it was a sad day when he made her forget everything she had done and sent her back to living her normal boring life. Whilst it obviously saved her life, she was such a great addition to the show that I would have loved to have seen her interact with Missy in future episodes. 

We could have had more Gallifrey, more of an insight into the Time War and how the Time Lords became trapped in their bubble of time, more about where Gallifrey had been hidden, more about the Master and the Doctor as children, I think seeing as these 2 episodes were Doctor 10’s final farewell which is never seen on an impending regeneration, more of his history and the story which brought him to earth in the first place would have been better, but as we’re not saying goodbye to the Doctor only a version of himself, it was to say in all fairness a very good story, if not slightly tongue in cheek. 

My favourite part was towards the end when Donna got married and the Doctor gave her a winning lottery ticket which he brought when borrowing a pound off her father in the past before he died. It was a scene that made me tear up completely, watching the faces of Donna’s grandad and mother crumple when they realised what he had done and even more so when Wilf blew him a kiss goodbye, I had literally gone then. 

Saving Martha and Mickey from a Sontaran and finding out they were married was lovely to see, as was him saving the life of Luke smith, Sarah-Janes Smith’s adopted son and finding Jack Harkness in a space bar and introducing him to Alonzo but I was less than thrilled when he went back to visit Rose Tyler in the days before she first met the doctor in his 9^th regeneration, only because Billie Piper had aged too much to be so young and it showed on screen which kind of took the emphasis of that scene away from its meaning, however it redeemed itself with Odd Sigma singing the doctor to sleep as he took the TARDIS into space and openly declared… “I don’t want to go!”  breaking the hearts of Whovians throughout time and space as he became the long awaited, (my personal opinion) Matt Smith, a man far greater and as far better Doctor, going from the man who regrets, to the man who forgets and starting his journey with the immortal words…” And still not ginger!”

 

Who Reviews The Fires of Pompeii by S.F. Cambridge

 

Donna: “You’re kidding. Don’t tell me the TARDIS is gone!”

The Doctor: “Okay”

Donna: “Where is it?”

The Doctor: “You told me not to tell you.”

Donna: “OI! Don’t get clever in Latin.”

 "The Fires of Pompeii" is the second episode of the fourth series of Doctor Who starring my favourite companion, Donna Noble. It is set around the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, whilst The Doctor and Donna are on a trip to Pompeii, where they uncover an alien invasion. Throughout this particular episode we see Donna trying very hard to humanise The Doctor with her views on saving the people within the town as he tries to discourage her by saying it’s a fixed point in history and that nothing can be done. Donna as headstrong as always disagrees with him and is seen constantly trying to warn and save everyone from the impending doom. 

Donna Noble: “What time does Vesuvius erupt? When's it due?”

The Doctor: “It's 79 A.D. 23rd of August; which makes Volcano day-tomorrow.”

Donna Noble: “Plenty of time. We can get everyone out, easy.”

The Doctor: “Yeah, except we're not going to.”

Donna Noble: “But that's what you do. You're the Doctor. You save people.”

The Doctor: “Not this time. Pompeii is a fixed point in history. What happens, happens. There's no stopping it.”

Donna Noble: “Says who?”

The Doctor: “Says me.”

Donna Noble: “What, and you're in charge?”

The Doctor: “TARDIS, Time Lord-yeah!”

Donna Noble: “Donna, Human-no! I don't need your permission. I'll tell them myself.” 

It seems a very political episode centring around family values, friendships and moral dilemmas as the friendship between The Doctor and Donna although still fairly new, is tested to its limits because of Donna's insistence that he save everyone. This episode reveals Donna’s true nature, of her independence and stubbornness and her unwillingness not to be bullied into things she doesn’t agree with, proving she is more than a match for The Doctor when it comes to saving the Earth.

The Doctor and Donna arrive in Pompeii the day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. The TARDIS gets sold by accident to a sculptor called Lobus Caecilius who is played by Peter Capaldi – The 12th Doctor although he isn’t portraying that character in this episode. The Doctor and Donna go to Caecilius' house to find the TARDIS and are followed by a soothsayer, played by Karen Gillan, who reports to the Sibylline Sisterhood which is a kind of religious order, that the prophesied man in the blue box has arrived, meaning his arrival brings fire and death. 

Caecilius has a son and daughter. His daughter Evelina is considered a prophet and due to join the religious order of the sister hood. She inhales vapours that come from the earth into her home by way of an open grate in the ground and they help her to see into the future. The Doctor discovers that the vapours are created by an alien race living underground called Pyroviles who are going to use the volcano to convert the human race and conquer Earth.

The family are joined by another prophet called Lucius who has commissioned Caecilius to create stones of artwork for him which turn out to be circuit boards for an energy converter which the Pyroviles have forced him to acquire as they seem to be able to control him via the vapours. 

As usual, The Doctor discovers the Pyroviles plan and aims to stop them and with Donna’s help they “Journey to the centre of the Earth” armed with water pistols as the Pyroviles are mainly made of fire and they make the heart-breaking realisation  that the volcanic eruption is a fixed point in time and must always happen. They manage to get into an escape pod and make the decision together to overload the converter and trigger the eruption, The Doctor tells Donna that he has had to make this decision before and had to kill his own people in order to save them which is why she tells him they will do this together, killing the Pyroviles and launching the pod clear of the blast.  

The Doctor: “But… that’s the choice, Donna. It’s Pompeii or the world.”

Donna: “Oh, my God.”

The Doctor: “If Pompeii is destroyed then it’s not just history. It’s me. I make it happen.” 

The Doctor and Donna run for the TARDIS, leaving Caecilius and his family behind in their home. Donna begs the Doctor to go back and at least save one person from the volcano. The Doctor is adamant he cannot save anyone and if he could go back, he would save his own family but he can’t. Eventually he relents and goes back for Caecilius and his family as a reminder to himself to always be kind. It is pointed out at a later date that this is why he chose Caecilius’ face as his 12th regeneration, as a reminder. 

Six months later, Caecilius's family are living happily away from Pompeii. Caecilius's son, now training to be a Doctor, gives his thanks to the household gods by throwing blessed water on a stone tablet on the wall in the image of the Doctor and Donna, standing next to the TARDIS. 

It’s always good when the writers of Doctor Who created a storyline around an actual historical event and whilst writing this review I have discovered that The characters of Caecilius, his wife Metella and their son Quintus refer to a family featured in the Cambridge Latin Course textbooks, who in turn were based on a real citizen of Pompeii and his family. For those of us who write fan fiction of any kind, episodes like this inspire us to be creative with real life events and enable us to put our own spin on things. Why shouldn’t the volcanic eruption that destroyed an entire city be down to an alien invasion? We can only hope that if aliens do actually exist and are among us, that there is a real life Doctor out there trying to save us from them.

Who Reviews Fear Her by S.F. Cambridge

“Fear. Loneliness. They're the big ones, Rose. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them. We're not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy. There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive... wormhole refractors... You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold”.

Set during the 2012 London Olympics, this episode is very much a dive into the importance of people, of friendships, love, community, sacrifice and hope, all linked together (Much like the rings on the Olympic flag) to highlight the basic needs of human kind and any other species that happens to be out there. Maybe this episode was written to coincide with the games as it features quite prominently throughout with the final scenes showing how the Olympic torch, a beacon of love and hope, was used to launch the tiny alien spaceship back into space giving it love and hope on the way.

Chloe Webber is a 12-year-old girl possessed by an alien known as Isolus. A creature estranged by accident from it’s billions of brothers and sisters, who sought out a lonely child to play with until it could find its way home. The creature knew Chloe was lonely and had felt her pain and isolation that the years of abuse from her now deceased father had caused her and it wanted to help her by giving her as many friends as it could. This was done by way of drawings Chloe made of the children she saw playing in the street, that some how captured them onto the paper and held them prisoner in an ionic cell.

The Doctor and Rose arrive just as another 2 children had been taken, taking the numbers to 3 within that same week. The residents had no idea who or what was taking their children except for Chloe’s mother who had an idea that Chloe was probably to blame as she had become more withdrawn since her father’s death a year before.

The Doctor and Rose try to help Chloe and her mother but are stopped in their attempts by the Isolus who threatens to unleash a particularly scary drawing of Chloe’s father it has drawn in her wardrobe which promises to “Get her!” causing her to have the same nightmares she used to have when he was alive, if they don’t leave Chloe alone and let them play together because they are lonely.

The drawings keep complaining that they want to go home and so the Isolus takes this to mean that they are lonely too and need more friends so with Chloe’s help, they draw all the people attending the Olympic games as they watch it on T.V and everyone in the stadium disappears.

Through some form of Gallifreyan hypnosis, The Doctor discovers that the Isolus tiny spaceship was thrown off course by a solar flare from the sun and it crashed on Earth, it is later found buried in the fresh hot tarmac that had recently been laid in the street by a council worker who then gives it to Rose for her to throw into the Olympic flame, giving it a power boost which sends it back home. The Isolus says goodbye to Chloe and all the people they have taken reappear and are safe and happy.

The drawing of Chloe’s father is still in the wardrobe and feeding off of her fears and escapes from her room to find her. As she becomes more scared, it grows in strength until The Doctor tells her that her fear is keeping it alive, so she and her mum sing the kookaburra song which usually calms Chloe down and her dad fades away and is gone for good.

The Doctor points out, the Isolus wasn’t looking to harm anyone, nor to scare anyone, it was scared and lonely just like Chloe and at the time they both needed a friend.

I think for me this episode is one of the few where the alien is not a direct threat to the world nor wants to be but a frightened child who acts out of fear and loneliness like a lot of children do. The episode also touches upon emotional and mental child abuse and highlights the importance of not only getting help, but that everyone needs a hand to hold when things get tough. The Doctor amplifies this by taking Rose’s hand and telling her that a storm is coming.

It also touches upon The Doctor’s past as he accidentally lets it slip that he used to be a father, giving Rose something to think about as she often struggles with the fact that he never reveals much of himself to her and carries the burden of a lot of secrets that she cannot help him with.

Who Reviews The Idiot's Lantern by S.F. Cambridge

The Doctor: “In the street. They left her in the street. They took her face and just chucked her out and left her in the street. And as a result, that makes things simple. Very, very simple”

Set in North London in 1953 this is another iconic episode which happens around a real-life event mainly the Coronation of Elizabeth II

Mr Magpie, a shop owner selling mainly radio’s and a few TV’s which were still considered rare at this time, is contacted by an alien force through the T.V known as “The Wire” It takes on the physical appearance of a T.V presenter and manipulates Magpie into doing her dirty work for her which is mainly installing cheap TVs into the surrounding houses so that when they are switched on, The Wire can suck the life force out of those gathered round to watch by means of removing their faces, leaving a faceless empty shell behind.

When The Doctor and Rose land in 1953, it’s by mistake as they were supposed to be in Vegas and are suitably dressed for that era, but when they witness someone being taken from their home with a sheet over their head and driven away by the police, they then start to notice the other strange things going on within the street itself, i.e., everyone seems to have a T.V when the reality was that only one or two people within a street community had one and everyone used to gather round it to watch important events. The Doctor and Rose decide to question the Connolly’s, a local family who appear to be behaving suspiciously. The son, Tommy, introduces them to his to Grandma whose entire face is missing. His mother wants to get her help but the father has become aggressive and is refusing to let her bring shame on his family because she is nothing more than a monster in his eyes. Before the Doctor can even offer to help or ask how it happened, the police burst in and remove Tommy’s Grandma in the same way they removed their neighbour with a sheet over her head. The Doctor decides to follow them and Rose decides to investigate Magpie’s shop, where she discovers "The Wire", and learns it is an alien that managed to escape execution by its people by turning itself into an electrical form. The Wire seeks to consume enough minds to recreate a body (also stealing the face of the victim in the process) and plans on using the broadcast of the Coronation to do so. Rose is unable to flee before falling victim to the Wire and loses her face.

Without wishing to force spoilers onto those who have not yet seen this episode, it is fair to say that The Doctor saves the day as he usually does even with the usual near miss disasters as he scales the telephone tower determined to catch Magpie who is trying to hook “The “Wire” up so it can broadcast across the nation, dropping his equipment on the way which brought about memories of Back to the future when Doc Brown was trying to attach his wire to the town clock before lightening could strike.

This episode also reminded me of a quote from “The Unicorn and The Wasp” in which Lady Edison says…” We’re British, we carry on” …The Connolly family had been the victim of an alien attack. They might not have known it at the time but although something horrible had happened to one of their family, it was their determination to carry on and watch the Coronation no matter what, even if that meant locking Grandma away so no one could see her.  I could deduce that having only just come out of the 2^nd world war 20 years earlier that those fighting in it had seen and been through worse and faced difficulties that had to be dealt with without the help of outside forces. As usual, if it hadn’t have been for Tommy’s determination to stand up to his dad and help his grandma and The Doctor’s help in solving the mystery, this perhaps would have been just another thing that happened during that time that was never investigated which could lead views to question, just how many other incidences like this went on during a time when people were hellbent on celebrating anything good that was happening, whilst ignoring everything that went on behind closed doors including as this episode also touches lightly upon, domestic abuse.

Who Reviews School Reunion by Tony J Fyler

Tony’s going back to school.

School Reunion was the first televised episode to star the Tenth Doctor that wasn’t written by showrunner Russell T Davies. That’s important, because the relationship between David Tennant’s Doctor and Billie Piper’s Rose had developed an infantilism in the first two episodes of the series, the two of them acting like giggling children who wouldn’t shut up. In Toby Whithouse’s script, they’re both brought literally back down to Earth, working in the modern world after Rose’s boyfriend-maybe-ex-whatever, Mickey, calls them home to investigate lights in the sky and sudden school transformations. They’re immediately more grounded than they have been when they were popping in like space-time tourists on other people’s reality – an irony, given that they both take positions of some responsibility in a school, he as a stand-in physics teacher, she a replacement dinner lady.

The point being they’re much wore watchable without their silly grins and doe-eyes and banter. If you watch Tennant’s performance in School Reunion, there’s much less in the way of flippant comedy, and much more in the way of drama, and while he’s already proved by this point that he can do the drama sometimes required in Doctor Who, it’s actually Whithouse’s script that first gives him the chance to be properly heroic without the crutch of the long chatterbox speeches, and that forces the Tenth Doctor to confront a dramatic reality without being able to bounce his way through it by running and quipping and giving a speech. Tennant is especially impressive in the scenes with Brother Lassa (played by Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Head), both in terms of their silent Full Noon stare-off, and their quiet verbal duel that has both power and menace in it. In fact, while his rage in New Earth showed the power this new Doctor was capable of mustering, it’s here, almost whispering with Lassa, that the Tenth Doctor revisits his scowling cowboy moment that took the audience’s breath away in The Christmas Invasion. Having defeated the double-crossing Sycorax leader with a satsuma, ‘No second chances,’ he declared, walking towards us. ‘I’m that sort of a man.’ That’s the sense that’s alive and well and bristling through his words to Lassa in this episode – ‘If I don’t like it, it will end. You get one warning. That was it.’ It’s a scene that allows Tennant to bring out a side of his Doctor that he would re-use on occasion, and which would be inverted for a new dimension when he eventually met River Song for the first time. He might look like a young stripling, but as he says here, he’s ‘so old now,’ that he’s gone beyond the time in his life when his mercy was an ever-renewing thing, when he had that wide-eyed optimism about the universe. Now, you get one chance to prove you’re worthy of staying alive. And this Doctor can be merciless – ask the Sycorax. In a way, this scene reveals a ripple of extreme danger in the Tenth Doctor’s make-up that would eventually reveal itself as the Time Lord Victorious. He may bounce and grin and giggle his way through the universe these days, but Whithouse makes that feel like a survival mechanism, as much as the Ninth Doctor’s policy of not getting involved with people was.

You get a sense that this Doctor’s one warning policy is his way of keeping one hair’s breadth of contact with the Doctor he used to be before the Time War, when he was still comparatively innocent, but that, as much as he’s relieved on days when everybody lives, there’s a part of him - the part that still burns with grief and guilt for his part in that war - that needs people, or species, to disappoint him, to not take the warning, because then they give him a vent for all his pain, emerging as a terrible vengeance from which he can excuse himself because he gave them their chance. As Donna would later tell him, ‘sometimes, you need someone to stop you.’ You can see the seeds of that Time Lord in School Reunion.

But School Reunion is by no means all doom and gloom. In fact, the main thrust of School Reunion has nothing to do with the alien threat at all – it’s half a love song to the companion, and half a consideration of the consequences of being one. When the Doctor first sees Sarah-Jane, Tennant’s smile would shame the sun, and it’s three smiles in one: it’s the smile of the Doctor finding one of his favourites again; it’s the smile of David Tennant, who became a Who-fan watching Elisabeth Sladen in action, and can’t quite believe he gets to be the Doctor to her Sarah-Jane, and through Tennant, it’s the smile of every fan, who loves particular companions, and Sarah-Jane especially, and who punches the air to see her back in Doctor Who.

The episode explores what the Doctor calls ‘the curse of the Time Lord’ – having to separate from people or watch them wither and die while you go on. It explores how companions pick up their lives again after traveling with the Doctor – and if they ever really do. It confronts the Doctor with the reality of the damage he did by the peremptory way he parted from Sarah-Jane, and it forces Rose to give her relationship with the Doctor a reality check, confronted as she is with Sarah-Jane, who her Doctors have never even mentioned. There are lessons to be learned from every perspective – Sarah-Jane learns why the Doctor could never bring himself to come back for her; the Doctor learns the cost of his actions; Rose learns the scale of the Time Lord life, and how inevitably short a part in it she will be able to play. Mickey learns that he’s the tin dog.

As the Krillitanes force the children of Deffry Vale School to crack the Skasis Paradigm, the Godmaker Equation that will give them unlimited power over time, space and matter, and Brother Lassa, masquerading as Headmaster Mr Finch, offers ultimate power to the Doctor, to save all the species he cannot save, including the Time Lords, these lessons hit home. In a glorious nod to Genesis of the Daleks, the Doctor, faced with the ultimate moral temptation, listens to Sarah-Jane, who tells him everything has its time, and everything ends. No-one should have the power of a god – perhaps especially not a good man who has lost so much.

School Reunion is by no means a perfect Doctor Who episode – the idea that creatures who produce an oil that makes children super-smart are somehow rabidly allergic to their own oil is intensely ludicrous, and the CG bat-form Krillitanes were naff even at the time of broadcast. Ten years on, they’re ten years more naff, surpassed only in terms of deeply dodgy CG monsters in 21^st century Who by the Lazarus creature in Series 3. But Anthony Head is supremely effective as Mr Finch, bringing the ‘man in the black hat’ role a supressed snarl and a polite spitefulness that it’s delicious to watch. And his bizarre wide-mouthed scream – apparently just ‘a thing’ that Head can do – is unnerving in the extreme, adding layers to his menace by seeming to physically ‘scratch the surface of the morphic projection’ to show the Krillitane emerging through his human form.

Really though, School Reunion is a feast for fans, making us punch the air at Sarah-Jane’s return, and then do it all over again when K9 is revealed. It resolves the bitter taste left in our mouths by the end of The Hand of Fear and makes everything alright again between the Doctor and Sarah-Jane, while making Rose re-examine her life-choices, and significantly, proving to Mickey that he doesn’t want to be the comedy relief in anyone’s drama – he wants to be effective, reliable, the best Mickey he can be, so he signs on to the Tardis at the end of the story, finally ready to take on the journey into time and space, with all its temptations and perils. As she struggles to come to terms with the Doctor’s long life and the fact that she’s one of many companions he’s had and will have, Mickey joining the crew makes Rose feel that little bit less special again, meaning there will have to be a readjustment of her world going forward.

School Reunion is a fan favourite because it fulfils dreams that we’ve had since the 1970s, of Sarah-Jane returning to the Doctor’s life. But it also uses that opportunity to right wrongs, and examine the realities of a life travelling with the Doctor, for better and worse. With allowances made for the naff CGI, School Reunion is still head and shoulders above some other Tennant stories, and it allowed the Tenth Doctor to be the hero he had the potential to be, beyond the chatterbox character that had personified him up in his early stories.

Who Reviews Planet of the Dead by S. F. Cambridge

As a long standing "Whovian", this is one of my favourite later "Who" episodes coming a very close second to The Unicorn and The Wasp!  It’s probably more of a surprise for me as at the time, I did not like David Tennant's take on The Doctor initially, but in later years, I’ve come to view his time in a different light and appreciate him better especially when compared to more recent regenerations.

As a Facebook role player (A more conventional and acceptable way of writing "Out of character" fan fiction) I took on the role of  Christina de Souza before the episode aired back in 2009 and by the time I had seen it, I had already carved out a fictional past, present and future for "Lady C” which I am proud to say, is still going strong today.

Lady Christina de Souza, a member of the aristocracy who was initially forced into stealing anything of value in the vain attempt to recover the losses her father made on the Icelandic market. It is hinted throughout the episode that she now steals purely for the thrill and adventure which leads us to assume that her father's losses were recuperated a long time ago and now she is an adrenaline junkie, trying to find some sort of excitement in an otherwise boring life. 

Evading the police, being on their hit list or maybe even on London’s most wanted seeing as the long suffering DI McMillan knew who she was and had been trying but failing to catch her red handed, was much more exciting than the possible dull alternative the aristocracy had to offer.

Hers was a life to be lived to the extreme, not wasted at parties, forever the social butterfly who needed to spread her wings. Meeting The Doctor on the number 200 bus which was a nod in the direction of David Tennant's 200th episode, going to another planet though a worm hole and discovering an alien race of metal armoured sting-ray had destroyed it, not only added to the excitement she so often sought out, but made her realise that there was more to life than having to live the nobility of her birth right!

However, from start to finish she is nothing but noble. A true Lady, not only in speech, stature and sarcasm, but she showed that her upbringing was a direct result of the British "stiff upper lip" which enabled her to take charge of the situation she was in, The Doctor and the other passengers without so much as batting an eye-lid to the fact that she was not only falling for an alien, but she could be stranded with him on an alien planet that had died, that would leave her dead if she couldn’t get back to earth and that’s to her was more thrilling than being born into a life of entitlement!

The Doctor in this episode in my opinion, was far more humanised than in any other. He seemed more relaxed in his environment, as though he knew it would all turn out OK in the end. A relaxed persona which helped those stranded on the planet with him to relax, to trust him even though they didn't know him but knew he would keep them safe. Even when he spoke to the stranded Tritovore race who had also crash landed on what we now know to be San Helios, in their native tongue, he was to Christina not an alien to be feared, but an ally, the only hope and only one who could save them.

I don’t think at this time that she cared about what happened to her, but she was as concerned as he was that the others should get home safely.

Lee Evans as the character of Malcolm provided some comic relief to the episode, but not one that could only be filled by him. I felt Malcolm could have been played by anyone, but I think that’s true for most guest appearances. If there's a role a certain celebrity wants to fulfil, it doesn't necessarily have to fit them in order to play them. However, he was as funny as usual but still just in the usual Lee Evans style and the entire episode with the rescue and closing of the worm hole could have happened without him in my opinion.

All the characters on the bus though were valid in their reasons to be. I liked how the younger characters protected and cared for the older ones, how they put themselves forward and at risk in order to save everyone and not just themselves, not a trait we see today.  It also welcomes the cameo by U.N.I.T who have obviously been a staple through the "Whoniverse" and how they still value The Doctor's help many years after their first encounter with him.

I felt the ending was probably for the best, that denying Christina the chance to travel with him showed how much he had grown as The Doctor but that he was also ready to leave and regenerate when he had been denying it for so long. She of course would never have fitted in with his ideal of a companion as she was too headstrong and far too independent to be told what to do and how to do it!  It would of led to her untimely death on a distant planet with no name with no one ever knowing where she was and I think she was too important for that.

She knew by the end of the episode that the human race had a value and it was considerably more than anything she could steal, which is why she gave The Doctor King Athelstan’s golden chalice which she had stolen at the beginning of the episode with the sole purpose of selling it on to the highest bidder and kept hidden in her rucksack, to use in aid of their escape. Selling it for profit became paled in comparison when faced with saving Earth.

As my fan fiction depicts, I like to think that after flying off in the bus, she went her own way and carried on doing what she did best. Stealing anything and everything just for the thrill. Always un-captured and always eluding the police at every turn.

All In all, a great episode but it would of been nice if she could have made a comeback in a later episode, perhaps another one off where she meets a different incarnation or even been the one to have stolen the Van Gogh painting at the beginning of "The Pandorica Opens" instead of River Song doing it.

 A safe and somewhat predictable episode but it introduced the impact that The Doctor had on other people, in how their lives changed for the better after meeting him.