NuWho Review: Series 2 Episodes 12/13 “Army of Ghosts/Doomsday”

By: Russell T. Davies

**Spoilers**

If you have not yet watched these episodes, please go and do so before proceeding.

  

 

            So this episode starts out with a big dose of spoilers. No, seriously; it starts with Rose giving us a bland monologue that basically spells out how the story is going to go. For some this will only give a sense of heightened tension as the events count down to that ultimate doom, but I don’t really give a hoot about Rose Tyler so for me it just made the episode a chore to watch because I never got a chance to get invested in the mystery. I’m only a minute in and already this episode is becoming dull beyond belief. Between Rose’s uninspired speech and The Doctor asking the bewildering question of “How long are you going to stay with me?” (Has he so soon forgotten his lines from School Reunion?) I find myself struggling to continue watching.

            Rose’s departure has been foreshadowed for a while now. The Beast gave a prophecy that ‘the valiant child’ would ‘die in battle’ and just last episode Rose herself remarked rather flippantly of how things keep trying to split her and The Doctor apart, but keep on failing. A statement like that is practically begging the fates that be to work ever harder against you and…oooo! Jackie giving the disgusted Doctor a friendly kiss and a big hug? Suddenly this episode is looking up a bit!



Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- Much as I am annoyed and put-off by the pre-credits sequence (not to mention Rose’s attitude…though that’s nothing new) I have to admit that there is some measure of innovation in the whole idea of the ghosts. It makes sense that Jackie would be so excited to get to talk to her long-dead father, just as it makes sense that both Rose and The Doctor would be slightly disturbed by this new development. We all have a great longing to spend just that one more hour with someone we’ve loved who is gone. It is also interesting that Jackie tells The Doctor that even she wasn’t too sure about her ‘dad’s’ ghost at first, but the more she thought about it and hoped that is was him, the more she could feel that it was.

- “But a footprint doesn’t look like a boot.” *shudder* Somehow that one little phrase just gives me chills, and provided a nice segue into our first proper look at this mysterious Torchwood that has become the arc word for Series 2. Apparently they are the ones responsible for the ghost shifts.

- Also ‘Martha Jones’ is hanging out in the Canary Wharf tower, using the inter-Torchwood messaging system to flirt with a co-worker. Somehow that doesn’t seem very wise…isn’t that sort of thing monitored? But it's all good because this scene goes nowhere and literally contributes nothing to the plot beyond showing Torchwood's incompetency and introducing a Cyberman (thus ruining any mystery or suspense) that is a plot hole all of its own. 

- So I get that the ghosts are Cybermen and I think that having them cross over from Pete's World in this way was actually quite an interesting concept, but I'm a little bit mystified whenever a Cyberman is hanging out in a cheapo plastic lair whenever all of its buddies are still stuck playing at ghosts. It doesn't make any sense. Was it there for reconnaissance? Did it somehow get lost on their flight south? Did it crash land from their tomb and simply (and improbably) evolve so that it looked just like the alternate universe ones? Well, these problems will probably never be answered because RTD was too busy making references to Ghostbusters.

- Can I just stop right now and say a huge thank-you to Russell T. Davies for having Jackie come along for the ride right now? I can’t quite forgive him for the Slitheen (or Rose) but I certainly am feeling a bit more charitable towards the man at the moment. Not only will this little shake-up make things more interesting, it was also wonderful to see Jackie talk to Rose and express some of her fears about what travelling with The Doctor would do to her daughter. Not that Rose really listened or empathised/comforted her mother...but it was still a nice little moment from Jackie's end.

- I also liked The Doctor’s comment about how Torchwood and their guns: “They have guns and I haven’t...that makes me the better man. They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine.”

- I like that The Doctor caused all of his problems. I like that the gratingly juvenile attitude that he and Rose displayed all through the otherwise excellent episode Tooth and Claw has finally come back to bite him (no pun intended). It reminds me of an episode from Batman: The Animated Series where all of the greatest Gotham villains get together and put Batman on trial, citing that he is the one responsible for making them the way that they are. By becoming such a dynamic Dark Knight, he has inadvertently created Supervillains to challenge him. It’s such an interesting and mature concept to introduce and is one that we will see explored further in later series’ of Doctor Who; but this is the episode that you can pinpoint where it all started. I love it! It is nice that The Doctor isn't always one-hundred percent the good guy, even whenever things go his way. We saw a bit of this back during Series 1 with the whole The Long Game/Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways tie-in, but here it is much more obvious and is directly affecting The Doctor rather than just some random point in Earth history.

- And then Rose had to go and ruin it by poking around Torchwood with the psychic paper, taking the episode right back to the unbearable feel of the beginning and loosing my interest in the process. I mean seriously; am I supposed to believe that the psychic paper works on electronic scanners…especially if you don’t know exactly what the proper cards look like or if there’s some special kind of chip needed for access? And people talk about the sonic screwdriver becoming ridiculous!

- Whoa. Mickey the Idiot, where did you come from? And why isn't Rose surprised to see you? Did I miss a minisode? Did you text her and inform her of your miraculous arrival or something? I HATE it when an episode does this. Just whenever I begin to enjoy myself something happens to knock it from the 'good' category into 'annoyingly mediocre'. Amazingly there isn't a whole lot of Davies Forced Exposition in this episode, but in the case of the return of Mickey Smith I would say that there isn't enough. Maybe there's a little throwaway line that explains all, but I've watched this episode several times (Save me!) and read transcripts and scanned reviews and I still can't find it! The only thing redeemable about this entire portion of the episode is The Doctor's reaction when Yvonne shows him the footage of the recently caught Rose and asks if the blond is with him:

- I did enjoy the bit of reverse psychology The Doctor used on Yvonne too, though the results were circumvented by possessed!Martha Jones and her boyfriend. (Yes, I know it’s not really Martha…but my spellchecker hates Adeola.) It was nice to see The Doctor actually use that amazing brain of his again for something other than vague technobabble.


- Unfortunately  that moment doesn’t last as the Cybermen come through the Void and the Daleks emerge from the Voidship.

- Now this was the point where I sat up and took notice. I enjoyed some of the jokes before and I certainly liked the Dark Knight Conundrum direction the story seemed to take, but this was the move that actually reached out and grabbed me. Suddenly there was hope for Doomsday. Army of Ghosts might have been mediocre and an inconsistent roller-coaster of quality and ‘should I care?’ moments; but now we have the two most iconic villains in the long history of Doctor Who on screen together at last! 

- So now that I've said all that, I’m going to nitpick about the Daleks. They’re just not scary! Remember the Series 1 story Dalek? Remember how I praised it for making the Daleks into a frightening force? Remember how I said that it should have been the last Dalek episode because it would have allowed the iconic monsters to go out on a high note? Well, if this is what we have to look forward to then I hold fast to that judgement. Let the Zygons be the villains for the Series 1 finale if it means that the poor Daleks won’t loose their effectiveness!

- The Daleks have gone from menacing, unstoppable forces of deceptively-goofy-looking evil to annoying mosquitoes that are pulled out as a convenient plot device. They were amazing in Dalek and quite menacing in Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways but here, merely a series later; I feel an overwhelming urge to laugh as they extract the information from that scientist’s brain. That’s bad. A scene that should have been Moffatesque Nightmare Fuel made me laugh and I think I know why.

- Everything about the Daleks hinges on atmosphere. Let’s face it: they’re screechy, xenophobic pepperpots that wag toilet plungers at you – not exactly the stuff of nightmares. What made them so excellent in those earlier episodes I mentioned (and in the Classic Series) was the reactions of the characters around them. They can croak out all of the villainous, badass threats they like – but if those they are threatening don’t seem actually…y’know…threatened then the Daleks just look like bags of hot air. That is what happens in this episode. Rose tries to put up a show of being terrified, but that is quickly ruined when she scolds the aliens and tells them that she destroyed their god. 

- Wait would Rose even remember melting the Emperor Dalek? I thought the stuff she did while under the influence of the Time Vortex had been wiped from her memory. Plot hole, Davies – for shame!

              

- "Daleks have no concept of elegance." "That is obvious." "You are better in only one regard. You are better at dying."

- And, of course, it is Jackie Tyler and her concern for her daughter that sells the scene for me. Much as I complain about how bad in the long run this battle was for the monsters...it remains one of my favourite Davies scenes. You’ve got Daleks and Cybermen bickering, Torchwood wondering what is going on, and Jackie pressing The Doctor for answers and fretting about how terrified Rose is of the Daleks.

- “This is not war...this is pest control!” I don’t care if it stole their dignity; I love these snarking Daleks! 

- Oh, and it was also a nice touch that when Rose identified The Doctor by invoking his name, all four Daleks moved involuntarily back by a good four inches. Nice to see that they're still scared of The Oncoming Storm.

- Unfortunately The Oncoming Storm doesn’t reciprocate that fear. One of the things that struck me the most about Eccleston’s performance in the Dalek episodes was the fact that, as much as he burned with rage and hatred towards them, their was an element of respectful fear about his interactions with the killing machines. You got the feeling that they were a legitimate threat, even as he made jokes about ‘meeting the neighbours’, simply because you could see that he feared them. The fact that The Doctor was afraid spoke volumes about what the Daleks are capable of without anyone ever having to say even one line. That was genius, effective, and rather unnerving. Poor Tennant, on the other hand…well, let’s just say that I don’t know if it was bad direction, bad script instructions, or just a bad choice on his part but I got more of the feeling that it was a dweeby kid facing down the suddenly spineless class bully than I did of two mortal enemies meeting eye-to-eyestalk. Everyone always talks about how badass and intense The Doctor is in this scene. Uh-huh. With all due respect to Tennant, it just doesn’t work for me.

- Anyway, at last we get to find out what the dorky 3D glasses our Time Lord has been donning all throughout this story are all about. It would seem that everyone who has been through the Void (or, in the case of the Daleks, hidden out in the Void) is covered with Voidstuff that magnetically connects them with the space of nothingness between dimensions that some people call Hell. (So that’s where the black hole in The Satan Pit leads…)

- As corny and painful to watch as this episode is at times, I have to give it credit for three things:

1. Yvonne, for all that she was a smug, unbearable person, went to her death with dignity and proved to us that, however she may have been misguided, she was truly trying to ‘do her duty for queen and country’. (This ending is only slightly lessened by the ridiculous oil-crying Cyberman she becomes…but it is still a fine moment for Yvonne.)
2. The Doctor attempts to set Pete from the alternate universe up with our Jackie. To RTD and the show’s credit, this whole scenario is treated with quite a bit of sensitivity and realism. Just whenever it seems that Pete Tyler is doomed to be our deus ex machina/forced exposition fellow for the week he once again solidifies himself as a real person when he ‘reunites’ with Jackie. It is a scene that to this day makes me tear up a bit as both of these two widowed people see each other for the first time and a dozen different emotions pass over their faces; fear, hope, disbelief, uncertainty, rejection, and finally joy as they embrace. But it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows because Pete, while he is overjoyed to have his beloved wife back again, doesn’t adjust so well to having Rose for a daughter. I love the way this situation was handled because not only will Pete and Jackie have to work at their relationship, but Pete will have to adjust to having a daughter like Rose.
3. The Daleks shooting out of the Genesis Arc did look pretty amazing, as did their picture-perfect formation flying over London. The look on The Doctor's face when he realised that the arc was bigger on the inside (Time Lord technology) and was a prison ship for millions of his hated enemy was quite appropriate as well.

- I still don’t understand why Pete’s World has Torchwood, but at this point I doubt that it will ever be explained.

- Because everyone at this point has traveled through the Void in some shape or form, The Doctor decides to use the Voidstuff to suck the millions of Daleks and Cybermen back from whence they came. To save his friends from being sucked in too he sends them all into Pete’s World…including Miss Rose Tyler in an attempt to fulfill his biggest promise to Jackie. But Rose doesn’t agree with his choices and comes back, abandoning her crying mother and new-found father to be sealed off in a parallel world without a second thought. I get that this is supposed to be a declaration of her devotion to The Doctor and his fight for the greater good…but I just see it as a bit of a nasty move. But no matter because Rose is soon to meet her own fate.

- The irony of it is that in a way it is as much an accident as Gollum destroying The Ring was. Rose and The Doctor open the breach using the Torchwood equipment and all of the Daleks and Cybermen are sucked into the Void, screaming all the way. I must confess that I giggled my way through some of these scenes as well, just because the Cybermen looked like a hoard of moths being sucked into a vacuum and, well, the Daleks’ screams are rather comical when paired with a couple of the pepperpots pinweeling through the air.

- All sense of mirth quickly faded from me, though, whenever that one Dalek hit Rose’s lever. At that point I could pretty much predict how she would go and it was just one long countdown until her grip finally could withstand the pull of the Void no longer. Much as I don’t like Rose, I was glad (for both her sake and his) that Pete popped in at the last moment and caught her before she was sent to hell. Annoying and over-glorified she may be, but no one deserves that fate!

- I just have to stop here and give a shout-out to the direction of Graeme Harper. I know I’ve moaned and complained about the mediocre and sometimes boring or cheesy writing in this two-part finale, but I really should give a bit of credit to the director. Once Rose is taken away we are treated to the famous scene were our two separated fighters stand on either side of the wall.

- It is a powerful image. I think it is a combination of the way The Doctor gently touches the wall and then leans his face against it with such a look of bleak despair and then Rose, crying on the other side of the Void, laying her head against the wall as if she is desperately listening for his voice. Everything about this scene from the acting to the lack of dialogue to the editing to the angles to the music is just perfection! 

- In fact, I wish that it had ended here – really I do. Yeah it would have sent us out on a low note…but at the same time this moment was so beautiful, so perfect, that I think if the episode had ended with Rose finally turning to her family and The Doctor slowly walking away all alone I could have given a higher rating to this story.

- But, of course, Davies goes and ruins all of my warm, fuzzy depression by giving Rose yet another monologue and stretching the ending of Doomsday out for what seems to be longer than The Return of the King…only with less purpose. After all, we have the romance to tie up!

- I’m sorry...I have been extremely harsh on this relationship, so I just want to take a moment to stop and say that I do understand where this all came from. Imagine you’re The Doctor. You’ve just fought in the biggest war in all of time and space. You’ve seen horrors and been through Hell. You’ve had to commit double genocide and seal your own people (your family and friends) off behind a timelock to continue fighting this hellish war for all of eternity. You are traumatised, grief-stricken, and weighed down by grief and anger. Then one day you decide to stop by your favourite planet for a while, noticing some psychic anomalies while you are there and tracking a rogue Nestene Consciousness. And then you bump into a human girl – a girl who hasn’t seen mass exterminations or dipped her hands in the blood of a billion galaxies. She helps you save the humans (again) and, on a whim and because you are oh so lonely, you invite her to travel with you and she accepts with a smile. Wouldn’t it make sense that, after all of the pain and suffering and evil you’ve seen that you would latch onto that girl like a lifeline?

- So yes, I do see where this relationship came from. And if it had stayed within the boundaries of the dynamic set up in Series 1 I would be happy. The Ninth Doctor and Rose didn’t really have a whole lot of romantic tension in their relationship, at least not from his end. Even the writers didn’t really push it much (except for Moffat…but then he just likes to slip in innuendoes for the sake of innuendoes and a few witty quips about ‘dancing’). I always got the feeling that he (The Doctor) became sort of a surrogate father figure to her. It wasn’t until that deadly kiss in The Parting of the Ways that I realised the direction this was going. Maybe I was just really thick about the whole thing...but I’ve gone back and watched all of the episodes now and I still stand by my earlier judgement. 

- Yet no sooner did Series 2 start than Rose was making comments about their ‘first date’ and flirting unashamedly at this new, ‘sexy’ Doctor. I guess I just take issue with our Time Lord being in a relationship with his companions at all. It was one thing when he on-the-spur-of-the-moment kissed Grace Holloway, but all of the lovey-dovey nonsense and teenybopper attitudes just grate after a while. I also object to the implication that The Doctor and Rose might have been sleeping together. Them in an innocent crushy-type romance I might be able to stomach, after a few tranquillisers, but that was just taking it too far!

- Oh thank God, Donna's here!

- Okay...one last thing to complain about. Much as I love Donna (and I will probably write a post on just what makes her the best companion 10 had) I have to say that I wish they had not made the choice to include her here. It breaks the mood and the atmosphere. Oh well, at least she jolted The Doctor out of his depression for a while. 

               I have to say that I am surprised by how popular Army of Ghosts/Doomsday is. Not being a particularly compelling, consistent, or well-written story, it is forced to rely on the whole premise of the overall plot and, while the Cybermen-Dalek battle held some promise, I would think that fans of Rose Tyler would hate the episode she leaves in and non-fans would hate that it’s ultimately all about her…again. When reviewing this episode I found little to like. There were some funny moments (usually courtesy of the two iconic monsters) and some scenes that made me genuinely smile or tear up – but it was all so inconsistent. Rose was annoying, The Doctor wasn’t always on top of his game, Mickey was horribly underused and actually regressed as a character a bit (when he falls on the Genesis Arc) and so I really can’t give this episode a ton of points. Were it not for the long, painfully drawn out ending complete with monologue and then jarring mood change I would probably have given Army of Ghosts/Doomsday a 4/5. As it stands I rank it as a 3/5 and say that, despite its numerous problems, it would have been a beautiful way for Rose Marion Tyler to go out.

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?