If you hadn't guessed it was the end of an era beforehand, Russell T Davies and his team left you in no doubt by the time the credits rolled this time. There had been promises that there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house by the episode's end, and after an epic, breathtaking hour, they'd pretty much delivered on that promise.
What I loved about the episode is, it had everything that makes Dr Who great. We've never had this: 20 minutes for a Doctor to deal with his impending demise, here though we got him visiting his former assistants, essentially saying goodbye to the Davis's era, before Moffat revamps the entire show with the new production.
He called all this his reward, but really, it was our's. This was the first outright emotional regeneration, and it deepened the process immensely. Usually, the emotions are dealt with afterwards, as the new Doctor gets used to his new body. Here, an outgoing Doctor got to face the ramifications of what was about to happen, and it was explored exceptionally well. The fiery regeneration really hammered home the violence and terrifying nature of the process. As the Doctor said in part One, it is essentially a death and rebirth. Tennant really conveyed the character's vulnerability when undergoing this transformation. He's usually had people around him for his change, but this time he was alone, which only contributed to his fear.
I loved the fact the four knocks was something as simple as Wilf trapped in a chamber all along. But it was all so wonderfully small and poignant. And what a moment: just at the moment the Doctor thought he'd survived, Wilf knocks, and The Doctor knows he is doomed. It was goosebump good.
I'd argue Wilf is the best assistant that Tennant got to travel with, as when Cribbins' tears start to roll, it takes some resolve not to well up yourself (admission: I failed). When Wilf realised his part in the Doctor's demise, it was haunting, simply because it was so brilliantly underplayed. "You're the best man I've ever met and I don't want you to die!" Kudos.
But this was David Tennant's show, and a near-80 minute exercise in just how much he's going to be missed. Tennant was always at his best in these more sombre episodes and he was magnetically brilliant here. This was a character being slowly torn apart over the course of the episode, and Tennant's eyes alone told the story. It was an amazing performance. The Doctor was torn apart long before the regeneration started, and the broken Time Lord that we first got to see properly in The Waters Of Mars was fully exposed here. Credit too for the reappearance of the Ood to sing the Doctor out. "The universe will sing you to your sleep", they said. That's just great writing.
As brilliant as the back end of it was, the hour that preceded it was far from shabby itself. Here, The Master was a little bit more measured, and it helped enormously. "What would I be without you?", the Doctor asked him, and it really felt like a proper and welcome battle of minds.
Then there was Timothy Dalton's Lord President also thrown into the mix. It wasn't an episode for villains, but Dalton was doing perfectly well – even getting over how quickly he reversed a plan that had taken The Master an episode to put together - until he was rushed to his demise.
And this does hint at the flaws in the episode. It seems churlish to criticise a piece of television I enjoyed so much, but there were a couple of niggles. The Time War has been the unexplored part of the narrative that Davies has introduced and this is the closest we've got to it being addressed. Yet it was ultimately, a side attraction and for those of us who had wondering how the Time Lords got to this point, there's an element of opportunity lost there.
While the villains did ultimately take the back seat, we got the interesting shoot out sequence with the Doctor. It was a great scene - with the tension was brilliantly amplified from the director Euros Lyn but the torture on The Doctor's face as he battled his conundrum over which way to point, was once more a testament to Tennant's acting.
Part Two was a jam-packed testament to everything Davies has done with Who. It was pure blockbuster entertainment with a hell of an emotional wallop, and some inspired plotting that dug deeply into the stories of the past four years. The bar has been left high here, and Davies is damn sure going to be missed.
I did feel a bit for Matt Smith who had to pop up in the last few minutes and open up the story of a new Doctor, a minute after we've seen such a terrific closing of another Doctor's chapter. But I'm not going to judge him based on a minute of frantic footage - He's got 13 episodes coming up, when the whole process starts again.
Instead, I'm content to sit back and applaud what I thought was a terrific episode of Doctor Who, and the end of a major era in the show's history. It's a major achievement to build up expectation levels for an episode over the course of pretty much an entire year, and then exceed them with the end result. That's precisely what's happened here and both Tennant and Davies have left some very big shoes to fill.
Over to you then, Mr Moffat and Mr Smith. We'll see you in the Spring. In the interim, I suspect The End Of Time is going to be watched a few more times yet...
"This song is ending, but the story never ends".
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