Well, series 4 of Dr Who has now finished, the Earth has been restored to its rightful place in the cosmos and Rose has been sent back to her parallel universe with a sort-of duplicate Doctor for company. All enjoyable enough but am I alone in feeling a little disappointed by the series finale stories this year (Davros) and last (The Master)? They have been exciting roller-coaster rides, yes, pleasing in a superficial sort of way but with no great depth to them when compared to most of the other stories in their respective series.
Last year we had John Simm as The Master, brilliant, psychotic and sympathetic in turns. However we also lumbered with daft a plot involving his total take-over of the planet being undone by some rolling back of time and resetting reality shenanigans (if it is possible here, why not in every story when something goes wrong?), the doctor getting reduced to a goblin in a birdcage (but then restored by some some intricate but not-particularly-believable-if-you-thought-about-it-for-more-than-a-few-seconds plot device), and Martha morphing from an interesting and intelligent - if slightly lovelorn - companion into some sort of super freedom fighter simply to serve that self-same not-particularly-believable plot device. We are left with this two-dimensional Martha in series 4 working for UNIT. Now, as I remember it (and I may be wrong as I have not seen the stories since they were originally broadcast) the UNIT of the 1970's took on the enemies of Earth armed with nothing more than the Brigadier's pistol and stiff upper lip, certainly not doomsday devices and a teleports. And don't even get me started on the flying aircraft carrier thing lifted straight out of Captain Scarlet. Flying, I might add, without any resort to the laws of physics or indeed actual necessity to the plot.
This time around we had an enjoyably deranged Davros with aspirations not for the conquest of the cosmos, but its complete destruction. Why the Supreme Dalek, who seems to be sufficiently in charge to keep Davros locked in the basement, would want to go along with a plan which would deprive the Dalek race of anything to conquer and feel superior to is not explored. Nor, for that matter, is the Torchwood time bubble which conveniently saves Gwen and Ianto, or why Jackie (who has a new baby let us not forget) should decide to accompany Rose on a near suicide mission, or how Rose can jump between the parallel universes at will for three episodes when we were previously told this could on no account happen, or indeed why Rose gets sent back to the parallel universe but Mickey gets to stay in ours? Yes I know Russell T Davies wanted to pack in as many characters as possible into his last Dr Who story, that he has left a set-up for a possible Sarah-Jane style reappearance of Rose and the copy Doctor in, say, ten years time, that Micky might end up joining Torchwood, but these things had no proper logic within the story as presented to us on screen.
At its best, Doctor Who can provide intelligent, thought provoking entertainment and I suppose that some of the stories which I grew up with may well have seemed as daft to an adult then as some of today's do to me. My children have now watched the finale three times without once complaining about holes in the plot big enough to drive a stolen planet through. To them, it's just about the best thing on the telly. Mostly, they're right, but I just wish the finales could be add a little more substance to their undoubted style.
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