Twenty-five episodes and 5,055,636,281 points and counting on the most forced running joke that isn't actually a joke, and we've finally come to it. At last, the time is finally here. The build up throughout all of Series 2 - the Army of Ghosts, Torchwood, and the War. The day where it all ends - the story of how Rose Tyler died.
I know it's not. It's never going to be the end. It's 2019 and people will still not accept that Rose Tyler is an awful pile of hot garbage. You poor fools!
But yes, after so many episodes we are finally treated to a cold open of Rose Tyler narrating about her life with the Doctor. How the Doctor is so amazing and showed her so many things across the cosmos. It all ends with her on a rocky beach looking forlorn as her voice over talks about the day it all ended. She, herself, declaring it the story of how she died.
...and yet, as we'll see through most of Series 3 and 4...it's like she never actually left at all.
Even if we really, really want her to.
After the title sequence, we pop in on Jackie Tyler, being visited by the Doctor and Rose. Jackie overlooks Rose bringing her a weather-based mood ring and tells her some surprising news - Rose's grandfather is coming to visit! As she heads off cheerfully, Rose tells the Doctor that her grandfather died ten years ago. Rose, thinking her mother has gone insane, tries to gently bring her back to reality only for Jackie to be checking the clock...and, right on cue, a ghost walks right in through the wall to the absolute shock of Rose and the Doctor.
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| "No, Rose! Don't kill my fangirls!" "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" |
Outside, they find the people of the Powell Estate...acting perfectly normally as though nothing strange is going on. The Doctor even notes this, Jackie getting a jab in about him not knowing everything. Intercut with the end of the "ghost shift" are shots of a man pulling down a massive lever. A lever in a place called the Torchwood Institute.
As the people of Torchwood congratulate themselves on another successful Ghost Shift, egged on by their boss Yvonne Hartman, the Doctor takes a page from the Sliders handbook of exposition and locates the television of exposition as he did way back in Aliens of London and point against this episode for reminding me of that episode. It seems that the ghosts have become a sensation not only in the UK, but all over the world. France, India, and even Japan have fallen to the craze. Products are being sold that are ghost-related, daytime talk shows feature segments on them, and even some soap operas have started featuring them in their plots.
EastEnders, in particular, is featured...and I only know of EastEnders through its ill-advised connection with Doctor Who for the 30th anniversary special Dimensions in Time, and I'm fairly certain that nobody wants to remember that, so let's just move right along.
The Doctor questions Jackie about what happened since he and Rose had been gone, learning about when the ghosts came around. Jackie believes the ghost is her father because she smells the old cigarettes her father smoked...something that the Doctor claims is a psychic link that the ghosts are using to pull themselves through into this reality. It's not real, just the ghosts using the memories.
Considering what the ghosts actually are, this is weird for a multitude of reasons and doesn't really get brought up again. I'd give Russell credit for giving us a red herring here, but I'm almost certain this is something he left in the script and then completely forgot about. It's fortunate for us that it's never brought up after this scene concludes. The Doctor dismisses the notion that the ghosts are human - "a footprint doesn't look like a boot".
Back at Torchwood, Yvonne talks to one of her employees that is observing a massive golden sphere. A sphere that is undetectable by any means, something that shouldn't exist...and yet it's right there before them. It unnerves him and he climbs up the steps to go and touch it...but stops himself at the last second. It, as we'll find out later, also came through as the ghosts did.
Martha, from Series 3, flirts with her...boyfriend?...Gareth and they sneak off for a nooner only to be snatched up by Cybermen.
...yeah, the ghosts are Cybermen as we'll find out at the end of the episode. Way to ruin the surprise there, Russell. Also, that isn't Martha. Just her cousin that looks identical to her. Because that, you see dear readers, is how genetics works.
See also Peter Capaldi showing up in Torchwood and Karen Gillian showing up in Fires of Pompeii...and actually, now I think about it, Peter Capaldi showing up in Fires of Pompeii.
The point is, that's just a little bit ridiculous is all.
Back at the TARDIS, the Doctor makes a Ghostbusters reference (back when that was still something that didn't cause pain in the hearts of everyone to do) before actually bothering to get to work. He plans to use his technobabble devices to triangulate the point of origin for the ghosts. Jackie berates him for causing trouble, asking him why he has to poke at things. It's a beautiful thing, their families coming back home to them, and asks him "Don't you think that's beautiful?"
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| "Put down the chainsaw and listen to me! It's time for us to join in the fight!" |
His response? "I think that's horrific".
...keep this in mind for my eventual The End of Time review.
The Doctor sets Rose up at the console to monitor things. Torchwood preps for another Ghost Shift with their returned two employees. As the Doctor prepares to forward the plot, Russell has decided that it's drama time and has Jackie tear into Rose about travelling with the Doctor. She tells her daughter how much she's changed and how she's honestly rather frightened as to what she's become, and wonders what Rose will do when she's gone. When Rose says she'll keep traveling because the Doctor won't ever stop, Jackie declares that she'll just keep changing until she's not Rose Tyler anymore...and not even human.
One of the few, honest to God times I will ever say, stop hating on Rose!
And, yes, I lost quite a few brain cells in order to type that sentence. I do actually like the character of Jackie, but this is one of the very few times where she's clearly being irredeemable. As much as I really don't want to be one to defend Rose, her travelling with the Doctor is not why she's a bad character...but I'll get into that with Doomsday next week.
Luckily, the Doctor cuts the tension with the plot and we get back into things. The Ghost Shift goes as planned and the Doctor traps him a ghost. The Doctor puts on some 3-D glasses that will become important later and fiddles with some equipment that causes the ghost to lose its cookies and for Torchwood to shut down the shift early when they detect something is amiss. The Doctor heads back into the TARDIS and Torchwood catches the TARDIS on the closed circuit monitors. Rather than Queen Victoria's wish to see the Doctor exiled from the United Kingdom never to return, they treat the appearance of the Doctor with awe and reverence.
The Doctor takes Rose and (unwillingly) Jackie as well on a trip to follow the signal. They materialize in a warehouse and the Doctor heads out to face a firing squad...who, when joined by Yvonne, all begin to clap for him. Needless to say, he's a bit taken aback by all of this. Torchwood had, in between the time of Queen Victoria and the present of 2006/2007, become a hub of Doctor Who fans. Yvonne questions the Doctor about his companion and he pulls her from the TARDIS, naming her as Rose Tyler...only he grabbed Jackie.
A quick cover up and an aged joke here, and they're off.
This kind of leads into a weird space with me where Torchwood is concerned. They know enough about the Doctor to know about him and his TARDIS as well as his companions, which implies that they know of other incarnations of him. Because, if they don't, they only companion they should know is Rose because she was with him when they met Queen Victoria. So they clearly do know other versions of him, but this is never really brought up. It also doesn't explain how they've never shown up in the (at the time of this episode airing) 28 years of television we've had with the Doctor before this point.
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| "You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good." |
Ignoring the fact that he could outfox them in just about any incarnation, I'm fairly certain that Torchwood wouldn't give a toss about temporal paradoxes that would result in them capturing the Doctor earlier on. Say, when he was working for UNIT in the 1970s/1980s or so on. Any of the times he might have popped onto Earth. And before you get in touch, I'm aware that Torchwood didn't exist before 2006, but that is an out of universe explanation - not an in-universe one.
Maybe you could say Jack was keeping them from polluting the timeline, but how the hell would he know?
But back to the plot, Yvonne takes the Doctor and "Rose" further into the warehouse where a bunch of fun alien technology is kept. Tools, Yvonne claims, to defend the British Empire against alien menaces. When Jackie tells her that there's no such thing, Yvonne gives a pat declaration of "Not yet". After a bit of dazzling with the tech, they realize that the TARDIS is being taken, the Doctor telling Yvonne that they'll never get inside of it. She responds to this with predictable smugness. Rose shares a meaningful look with the Doctor through the totally not at all closed TARDIS doors and goes to fetch the psychic paper.
...and Torchwood doesn't notice the doors of the TARDIS wide open because sure.
Next scene is Not-Martha leading another employee to be Cyber-Converted.
Yvonne makes plain what we already knew because we were paying attention - Queen Victoria founded the Torchwood Institute to protect England and fight aliens. She brings the Doctor and Jackie to the room with the sphere. The Doctor once more puts on his 3-D glasses and then comes to a terrifying conclusion - it's a void ship. A craft that should be impossible, but is theoretically able to exist outside of time and space in the Void between dimensions. From the descriptions that the Doctor gives, this sphere basically came out of Hell.
Learning that the Sphere came through and started the Ghost thing, the Doctor gets ready with some great vengeance and furious anger.
Rose sneaks around with the psychic paper, passing a sarcophagus that serves as a reference to The Pyramid of Mars (Russell has confirmed this) instead of the massive reference they could have had, and dons a lab coat before going off to cause more trouble.
Yvonne shows the Doctor the breach, a white wall several hundred feet in the air. Jackie identifies the place they're in as Canary Wharf - a skyscraper in London. The Doctor berates Yvonne for poking at the breach when they don't know what it does, showing her an example by destroying the glass wall of her office with the sonic screwdriver. A basic demonstration of the universe being split apart. When this doesn't work, the Doctor pulls up a chair to watch...and basically bluffs Yvonne into cancelling the shift with just the power of his David Tennant eyebrows.
Not-Martha and her two Cybergoons get back to work on opening the breach again.
Rose, meanwhile, uses the psychic paper to trick scanners (somehow) and gets into the Sphere room, where she gets quickly found out because all Torchwood employees have psychic training. When this happens, the doctor on duty asks "Samuel" to check the doors locks and he agrees, turning around and revealing himself to be...Mickey!
And it is good to see him, too!
The Doctor theorizes that the ghosts made the Sphere and is shown the captured Rose by Yvonne, and the truth follows. However, before Torchwood can put Rose out of my misery, the Ghost Shift resumes thanks to the Cyber Squad. The Doctor checks them all, finding that they're under some sort of influence.
Downstairs, the Sphere starts to react.
The Doctor uses his sonic to break the connection to the Cyber-converted, but it kills them in the process. When Jackie protests, he takes the route of "the needs of the many"...which is something he could have used multiple time in the Russell T. Davies era, but nevermind...and Yvonne pulls on one of the earpieces to find that it does, in fact, go into the brains of those wearing it. Unfortunately, the Doctor can't stop from there and so goes off to find the signal from nearby.
Back in the Sphere Room, it goes into quarantine as the Sphere goes haywire. Mickey tells Rose that he's here because the fight is going on. He believes something Cybermen related is within. Also, we get the ship teasing for Rose and Mickey that we already know is going to go nowhere.
The Doctor, Yvonne, and two red shirts go into the under construction area that Not-Martha has lured others to and find the Cybermen. They get dragged back into the main room and the Cybermen kill off the Torchwood employees trying to stop the Ghost Shift, allowing it to continue unimpeded. Here, we get the big reveal - the ghosts are all Cybermen...which you all already knew from several paragraphs ago.
Strangely, now the ghosts are making the Cybermen foot stomping noise.
Yvonne states the Cybermen are invading the planet, but the Doctor corrects her. It's not an invasion, it's a victory - they've already won. The Cybermen also impart to the Doctor the knowledge that they didn't create the void ship, they merely followed it.
Back in the Sphere Room (I know I've said that a lot, but bear with me), the sphere begins to pen and Mickey gets a BFG ready to go. Unfortunately for him, and to the shock of both he and Rose, what comes out of the Sphere is metallic and ready to fight...but isn't a Cyberman. Four Daleks emerge, declaring their intention to "EXTER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!" and we slam right into the closing credits.
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| "WE WANT-ED TOP BILL-ING! WE MUST RE-NE-GO-TIATE OUR CON-TRACTS! RE-NE-GO-TIATE! RE-NE-GO-TIATE! RE-NE-GO-TIATE!" |
Giving credit to Russell T. Davies for the writing (again, you won't hear me say that often)...Army of Ghosts is a good set up. Besides minor problems there, it is a good idea executed very well. The faux twist of the Cybermen being eclipsed by the surprise reveal of the Daleks (even if it was leaked beforehand, but I really don't much care for leaks myself, so I don't go looking for them and so was actually surprised by this on broadcast) was very well done indeed. And it makes Doomsday the first (and, to date, only) time that both the Daleks and the Cybermen have interacted in Doctor Who's televised history.
They'd appeared together in things like the Doctor's psychic projections in The War Games or during The Five Doctors, but never oncscreen and interacting off of one another, so we're due for a real treat come next episode.
I'm not kidding. It's actually one of the highlights of Doomsday.
But, as the lead up to the finale, it's not a bad one. Come back next week to see how Russell completely ruins all the good will he's fostered!
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