"Doctor Who" Finale Part 2: “The Stolen Earth”

Inside a Dalek ship, we see a group of Daleks talking about “battle formation” and how the “human harvest” can commence.

A Supreme Dalek in red comes in and gloats about how “the Crucible will be complete” and the Daleks will soon be “masters of Earth.” We see tons of Daleks floating around, all chanting, “Masters of Earth!”

Here’s the thing about Daleks (which, I understand, have a lot more cultural resonance in the UK than in the US) — it’s tempting, given that they look like cuisinarts on wheels and move about as quickly as a zamboni, to dismiss of them as harmless, even campy robo-props. But they’ve done a terrific job on this show of making them legitimately scary, so much so that I find myself occasionally having Dalekmares after a night of watching too many back-to-back episodes.

The Doctor and Donna travel to the space station that houses the Shadow Proclamation, who the Doctor explains are akin to posh space police. Inside, they are greeted by armed guards, the rhino-like Judoon. The Doctor grunts a few words to them in their native Judoon and gets them to ease up.

I’m happy to report that I’m fluent in Judoon and can translate this exchange for you …

The Doctor: Goodness, you Judoon are as horny as I’ve heard. Fortunately, my red-headed companion has a major rhino fetish and is willing to serve as your personal concubine after you escort us to your leader.
Judoon: This pleases us. We are indeed horny. Prepare the red-head for immediate mating.

The Judoon escort them into Shadow Proclamation Central. I have a friend who says that the biggest disappointment of The Phantom Menace wasn’t Jar Jar Binks but what we finally saw of the Jedi Council, which looked like an airport lounge and was populated by a bunch of oddball losers with weird heads.

The Shadow Proclamation has a similarly anti-climactic feel, resembling the lobby of a formerly hip boutique hotel designed in the 1980s by somebody way too into lucite. And it’s run by a woman who looks for all the world like a grown-up, goth version of Little Orphan Annie.

Goth Annie, upon meeting the Doctor, skeptically says Time Lords are about as real as the Easter Bunny. The Doctor doesn’t really care, and insists the more relevant point is the missing Earth. Goth Annie says he doesn’t see the big picture, and proceeds to list several other missing planets, including “Clom.” “Clom?” the Doctor snarks. “Who’d want Clom?” like it’s the Cleveland of the universe.

Donna remembers that back in Pompeii, they’d heard Pyrovilia had also gone missing. The Judoon and Goth Annie snicker at this suggestion, since that happened thousands of years ago.

But the Doctor thinks Donna’s on to something, that it’s possible planets were stolen going back in time as well as space. Adding a few well-known missing planets of yore to the current ones, he comes up with a total of 27. He puts them all on a holographic map, and they watch as the planets rearrange themselves into perfect alignment.

The Doctor: All those worlds fit together like pieces of an engine. It's like a power house. But what for?

They wonder who could design something like this. The Doctor remembers someone long ago who tried to move the Earth. And he doesn’t exactly like what that implies.