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

From the Hub, Gwen warns Harriet that the Daleks have fixed on her location. Transferring control of the network over to Jack, Harriet tells him he’s in charge now. “Tell the Doctor from me,” she says, “he chose his companions well.” (Right about now is when I get the first of many lumps in my throat this episode.)

Then the Daleks blast into her home. Even though it’s scary, it’s also funny, because she shows them her ID, and they drone, “We know who you are.” But she gets in the last word, saying their lack of knowledge of humanity will be their ultimate downfall. They fire away, and her spot on the Hub’s computer screen suddenly goes blank.

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor and Donna follow the signal and enjoy a rocky theme-park ride. For no discernible reason, we see lots of explosions and flames erupting at Sarah Jane’s, and in the Hub, and on the TARDIS, but it’s all satisfyingly exciting so why quibble.

The TARDIS eventually comes to a stop, and Donna and the Doctor are all giddy to see the missing planets on their monitor, even Earth. Even Clom! The Doctor explains that the reason they couldn’t see them before was because the entire Medusa Cascade had been put one second out of sync with the rest of the universe — the “perfect hiding place, a tiny little pocket of time.” When they traveled in the TARDIS, they traveled one second forward in time to find the missing planets.

The Doctor realizes there’s a subwave network coming in on his monitor and messes around with it until he and Donna appear, visible now to the others. Jack is thrilled to see him … a bit too thrilled for Ianto’s liking.

Gwen: Ooo, he’s a bit nice. I thought he’d be older.
Ianto: He’s not that young.

The Doctor starts happily greeting everybody. Donna gets an eyeful of Captain Jack and excitedly leers, “Mmm. Who’s he?” The Doctor shakes a finger at her and warns, “Don’t. Just don’t.” Heh.

With all the meeting and greeting going on, Donna declares it “an outer-space Facebook.” Which means any second they’ll be inundated with pokes and plants and vampire bites and Scrabulous games and myriad other ways to avoid work and pretend they’re networking.

I do feel terrible for Rose through all this, as she sadly looks at the Doctor on screen and is unable to communicate with him. But the Doctor is definitely thinking of her, remarking to himself how everyone’s there except Rose. Those lumps in my throat are starting to multiply now, and I might be feeling something moist at the corners of my eyes. But if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it.

Another transmission starts breaking through the network. The Doctor perks up, thinking it might be Rose. But it is most definitely not Rose. In fact, in the looks department, it’s about as un-Rose as you can get. It’s Davros, who we now see in full, and from the looks of him, he hasn’t moisturized in millennia. He’s basically a big, bald, wrinkly head on wheels.

It’s interesting that he’s played by the same guy who was the creepy ringmaster on Torchwood in “From Out of the Rain.” Because IMHO it means he went from the worst episode of Torchwood to one of the best on Doctor Who — not bad.

Seeing who it is, the Doctor is clearly terrified, especially since he thought Davros died during the first Time War, even though he’d tried to save him himself. Davros boasts that it took one stronger than the Doctor to save him — Squidface a.ka. Dalek Caan, who defied a time-lock on the Time War and figured out a way to go back and save Davros. Only problem is it destroyed his mind and left him kookier than cocoa puffs.