Review: Doctor Who 1.12-13: Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways

Nine faces the last adventure.

The finale rolls in, and we're presented with a story that not only concludes Nine's era, but also very much reflects the end of an era in how the show was produced. Series One was an experimental phase for the show to really dig its heels into the social landscape once more, and it wouldn't really fully enter the public consciouceness until Series Two. The Bad Wolf two parter takes the early 2000s art-deco aesthetic and popular culture, and really gives it a final sendoff.
     The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack arrive after being picked up by a transmat beam. They find themselves in futuristic versions of 2005 TV shows - The Doctor is in a cruel version of Big Brother where eviction means death, Rose is in a cruel version of The Weakest Link run by an android where eviction means death, and Captain Jack is nearly vivisected by Trinny and Susanna robots. These I feel makes the story incredibly dated from the off and don't help future generations of viewers. The Doctor breaks out of the house (with Lynda, played by Eastenders actress Jo Joyner), and realises that he is on Satellite Five (from The Long Game) 100 years since the downfall of the Jagrafess. In a commentary of modern culture, the lazy approach of the people from the earlier story has evolved into a society where people are teleported to the Satellite (now called the Game Station) at random, and placed in one thousands of games where only one person will survive. These games are broadcast around the world 24/7, and the Human Race has been reduced to a slave-like civilisation. The station is run by the mysterious Bad Wolf corporation, a name that Rose and The Doctor recognise.
     He immediately turns his attention to Rose, who's trapped inside The Weakest Link and is very close to being sent off. She is constantly jeered by Rodrick (a pre-survivors Paterson Joseph) who is desperate for his life. There's also a sneaky reference to Torchwood, which will be next year's arc word. Jack manages to escape the droids planning to kill him and arrives to The Doctor with heavy artillery, as the two stage a break-in of the Anne-Droid facility. As Rose runs to join them, she is seemingly vapourised, and the look on Ecclestone's face is enough to convey the grief and sorrow the character feels.

Lynda with a Y.

     The Controller of the Games is a human girl, wired into the system. She answers to other masters, and during a solar flare she is able to speak normally. The Doctor and Jack storm in, finding the TARDIS - The Doctor demands answers as to why Rose was killed. The girl tells him to beware her masters before becoming sedate again. Jack soon realises that the beam used to kill contestants is in fact a teleporter, and that Rose is still alive. When they track the signal, however, they find that the endpoint of the teleporter is the mothership of a Dalek fleet hovering behind the moon. For the last hundred years, the Daleks have been controlling everything, playing the Long Game as implied by that episode. Rose is revealed as being held captive by the Daleks and Nine gets a brilliant monologue where he quietly defies the Daleks' appeals to his humanity and tells them that he will save Rose regardless of anything they can do.
     The Doctor and Jack use the force field from Boom Town to fly onto the Dalek ship unharmed, where they rescue Rose and discover that these Daleks were created from the losers of the Games - mutated humans. The Emperor Dalek survived the Time War and created these Daleks, and now they follow him and believe him to a God. Heading back to the Game Station, Jack helps prepare the station occupants to act as the lines of defence while The Doctor prepares a superweapon on Floor 500. He sends Rose home in the Tardis, stranding himself in 200,100. Rose tries to return to the Future to the chagrin of a relieved Mickey and Jackie, while The Doctor works on the weapon and is taunted by the Emperor Dalek, who points out that the superweapon will kill everyone on Earth as well.

Bad Wolf.

     Ignoring the fact that messing with time nearly killed everyone in Fathers' Day and that even The Doctor was unsure what would happen in Boom Town, Rose decides that she needs to open the heart of the TARDIS to tell it to return to 200,100. While initally against the idea, Jackie and Mickey eventually decide to help her, and apparently a big yellow truck is enough to open the Tardis console. The heart of the Tardis enters Rose and she becomes a superpowered entity, capable of resurrecting the dead (Jack, who becomes immortal here) and turning the whole Dalek fleet to dust. She spreads the words Bad Wolf through time to lead her there, creating an ontological paradox. Nine, realising that she will die, absorbs the Heart from her and saves her, taking her into the Tardis and heading back to London. As she recovers, he apologises and says goodbye, turning into David Tennant. Boo hoo.
     The second half of this story is where the majority of the problems with RTD's characterisation come into play. Rose becomes a whiney, selfish little girl, throwing a tantrum and going against common sense because of her discontent with what most would consider to be a decent life. The whole script for The Parting of the Ways is written as a buildup to her return to 200,100 - a literal and metaphorical deus ex machina of the most magnificent kind. It isn't well written, but it is well performed and certainly has spectacle. On repeat viewings, the Bad Wolf entity is a huge cop-out that stems from a characterisation problem and for me that isn't a good ending for the Ninth Doctor.
     The first half does have its problems, though. While shows like Big Brother and The Weakest Link still fill our television screens, who's to say that the same will be able to be said in ten years, or twenty? It also didn't help that the continuing themes of information manipulation and satire were completely dropped when the pepper pots made their appearance.

Eugh. Who's this bloke?

     And before I conclude, I'd just like to talk about David Tennant. At the time he was great, but as his years wore on I began to recognise that the character brought across during his era wasn't one that I particularly liked. Tennant was the cornerstone of RTD's Who, and as an old friend of RTD Tennant had the scope to explore his scripts in more ways. I won't be reviewing any of Tennant's stories, for I fear that they would be too full of vitrol and boredom.
     Christopher Ecclestone's painfully short tenure ended on a two-parter made up of strange bedfellows; the first a piece of satire and brilliant dramatic buildup while the second a deus ex machina waiting to be sprung. It relied on flawed characterisation and bad dialogue to force a conclusion onto the series, but it was a fitting end for one of the best of the Doctors in this premier year for Doctor Who's return.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Misfits returns!