Army of Ghosts/Doomsday
Story 177, Episodes 722-723, Series 2 Episodes 12-13
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Donna Noble
The dramatic finale of Series 2 brings back the Cybermen and features the new series’ first true goodbye to a companion as the Doctor has to say goodbye to Rose.
The Review
At the beginning of Parts 1 and 2 of this story, Rose keeps telling the audience that she is going to die. She doesn’t, but suffers a fate almost as heartbreaking. For two months now, ghosts have been appearing at regular shifts across the globe, and as he researches it the Doctor flies straight to Torchwood, who we have been hearing about all season. We get the thrill of Jackie finally get upgraded to companion status as she and the Doctor get a tour of Torchwood from their charismatic and kind of nationalist leader Yvonne. The first half is all drama and suspense building, especially around a mysterious sphere. The Cybermen were advertised before this episode, and connecting them to the ghosts was not a stretch. It is still fun to see the Cybermen phasing in across the world, but the real shock is that the void ship sphere they followed to get this reality is filled with…Daleks. Bam. Daleks. Cybermen. Cliffhanger.
It is fun to see the Dalek and Cybermen finally meeting after forty years of separately fighting the Doctor, and it is does definitively prove that in a 1v1 fight the Daleks would wipe the floor with the Cybermen. The Daleks have a mysterious Time Lord device called the Genesis Ark, and Mickey (who has returned from Pete’s World) accidentally activates. Turns out it’s a Time Lord prison ships filled with millions of Daleks that begun spreading out over the globe. The Doctor is putting 3D glasses on all episode, and we finally find out that they allow him to see ‘void stuff’. But Torchwood’s technology in reverse, and boom, there go the Daleks and the Cybermen to hell. I’ve heard this called a deus ex machina, but it’s not entirely out of nowhere: the Doctor keeps wearing the glasses for a mysterious reason and the similar time travel background radiation concept is used to open the Genesis Ark. It’s a fun Doctor Who solution, but it is really powerful not for the plot stakes but for the emotional stakes.
Rose starts the episode saying that she is going to travel with the Doctor forever, but we all know that nothing will last forever. Early on, Jackie accuses her of changing unrecognizably during her time with the Doctor, something that we’ll see again with Clara later. Pete and Jackie have an emotional reunion together, with their respective Jackies and Petes already having died. Jackie is sent off to live with Pete in his world, but Rose determines that she would choose eternity with the Doctor over seeing Jackie and Mickey again. The Doctor doesn’t want to talk about that he is going to have to leave Rose behind, but he agrees to let her stay with him. When Rose is almost forced into the void, the Doctor screams in horror like we have never seen…but dear old Pete saves her. They’re separated, and the Doctor says one last goodbye to her at Bad Wolf Beach. It’s a crushing return to a reality for Rose. She chooses the Doctor, but is sent back to her family.
It’s got Cybermen, Daleks, Torchwood, Rose, and has everything you want and more. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty great.
8.5/10. The end of Rose…for now.
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 