Tenth Doctor Era
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Journey's End
Directed by Graeme Harper
Production code: 4.13
Air date: 5 July 2008
Part 2 of 2
The One With… the return of an overcookednote ham among Who villains, the birth of Handy, and the one where Rose finally gets her happy ending. But Donna doesn't. And neither does the Doctor. Nor does her family. Not yet, anyways.
When we last left our heroes, things looked grim. Sarah Jane was about to get gunned down in her car, Gwen and Ianto's More Dakka was not going to cut it and the Doctor was regenerating. Now we're picking up where he left off. Torchwood gets protected by a nifty program Tosh designed, Mickey and Jackie materialise with their BFGs just in time to save Sarah Jane, and Ten regenerates... back into Ten. This display of "vanity issues" will prove to be a slight problem a ways down the line.
Anyway, Ten is still Ten. Wait, what? Apparently, since the Doctor's hand-in-a-jar is kept in the control room, he could use it to heal without changing. He simply directed the excess energy into the hand, instead of into a whole new body. Everyone is relieved that Ten is still Ten (especially Rose, since she came so far and all).
The Daleks surround the TARDIS, suck out its power and take them to the Crucible, the Daleks' base ship. Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie decide to go along, and some helpful Daleks take them there too.
Meanwhile, Commando Martha says goodbye to her mother and teleports to Germany, where we are treated to Daleks speaking German, Martha speaking German and an older woman speaking German — notice the running theme here? She avoids a prophetic woman babbling about nightmares and gets to the Osterhagen station with a mysterious device called the Osterhagen key.
The Doctor, Jack, Rose and Donna are surrounded by Daleks in the Crucible and step out of the TARDIS to face them. Donna is distracted by the sound of a heartbeat and gets stuck inside the TARDIS. The Daleks open up a trap door and the TARDIS gets flushed into the core of the Crucible. Donna is trapped in the burning TARDIS. She looks over at the hand and reaches out to touch it. The jar bursts, and the hand is enveloped in a golden light that seems to be forming... a new body! It's the Doctor!
Doctor Clone: Oh yes!
Donna: You're naked!
Doctor Clone: Oh yes!
The Doctor Clone dematerialises the TARDIS just in time, but everyone else thinks it has been destroyed. Jack lets himself get killed by a Dalek and plays possum, hoping to infiltrate the base. The Daleks take the Doctor and Rose to Davros and sweep Jack into the trash.
Back on the TARDIS, the Doctor Clone finds some clothes (specifically, the blue outfit), and tries to explain himself to Donna.
Apparently, when Donna touched Handy, there was a "instantaneous biological metacrisis" and the Doctor Clone grew out of Donna. As a result, he talks a bit like her too.
Doctor Clone: Oi! Watch it, Earth girl! Ooh... I sound like you!
More than that, New Ten has only got one heart. ("Oh, that's disgusting.") Apparently, he's part Time Lord, part human. He explains to Donna how special she is for being part of him now and she's finally starting to believe it a little.
Back on the Crucible, Davros gives the Doctor a briefing on their plan. Apparently all the 27 planets combined form a "reality bomb" that can dissolve every form of matter. Davros gets really excited and chews on every available piece of scenery. But the Doctor realises that Davros isn't remotely in charge of his creatures anymore. He was taken out of the Time War by Dalek Caan, who stared into Time itself, neatly mirroring the way Rose saved the Doctor from the Daleks once. However, Dalek Caan didn't have a Time Lord around to take Time itself away again, and he went completely mad in the process. Davros is now little more than the Daleks' "pet": a source of DNA cells to rebuild the Dalek race, and locked in the basement by his own offspring. Anyway, Davros explains that the 27 stolen planets form a compression field which can be released as a wave with the power to cancel out the electrical energy of atoms, reducing all matter into dust and then turning the dust into atoms and the atoms into nothing. The resulting "reality bomb" has the potential to keep travelling forever across all universes and even creep its way into parallel universes, destroying all life and matter in existence, until only the Daleks remain.
The Doctor's friends haven't given up yet. Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie will use Sarah Jane's Veran necklace (which contains a crystallised nova explosion) to blow up the Crucible (including themselves) if Davros doesn't stop. Similarly, Martha Jones will use the Osterhagen key to activate a doomsday device that will blow up the Earth (including herself) and put everyone out of their misery and leaving Davros stuck with just 26 planets: not enough to power up his reality bomb. Unfortunately, these threats work well with Davros's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, as Davros accuses the Doctor of being a Technical Pacifist while turning his friends into tools of violence. The Doctor remembers all the people who died to save his life during the New Series. Regardless of all that, the Doctor's friends' plans come to naught, as they are immediately zapped to the Vault by the Daleks.
Suddenly, the TARDIS materialises and the Doctor Clone runs forward with their new Dalek-killing gun. Then Davros, in true Emperor fashion, shoots lightning out of his hand, and zaps the Doctor Clone and Donna. The reality bomb goes into its final countdown and...
Nothing happens.
Donna stopped it! Even though she used to not even be able to change a plug, Davros's lightning triggered the other half of the metacrisis: when she activated the energy in the hand, part of her became filled with Time Lord essence. Now in possession of an active Time Lord mind, she's able to come up with Dalek-disabling solutions lightning fast with a huge surge of techno-babble. So that's what the Ood were talking about!
Held at gunpoint by Mickey, a completely astounded Davros demands to know why Dalek Caan didn't foresee this. To his horror, the Doctor and Caan reveal he did, given that someone has been manipulating events to bring him and Donna together; Caan admits it, but insists he only ensured what was meant to happen did. A furious Davros angrily accuses Caan of betraying the Daleks; Caan retorts he saw the Daleks for the monsters they are and moved to stop them once and for all. As they get into the TARDIS, the Doctor Clone decides that even without their reality bomb, the Dalek empire is still a monstrous threat against the universe, so he tampers with the Crucible's control's panel to unleash a lethal energy feedback that blows up all the Daleks, to the utter horror of the original Doctor, who really doesn't like to be reminded of what he did in the Time War. The Doctor offers Davros a chance to be saved, but Davros chooses to stay behind and die (though it doesn't last) on the exploding Crucible, bitterly cursing the Doctor and naming him "The destroyer of worlds!"
All the planets are sent home, but Earth just doesn't make it before the teleportation device gets blasted by the Supreme Dalek. So, they decide to turn the TARDIS into an Earth tow boat. In Cardiff, Torchwood Three uses the Cardiff Rift to provide massive amounts of energy. The Doctor properly introduces himself to Ianto and Gwen through their video connection, and he and Rose are happy to see that Gwyneth has a 21st century relative. In Ealing, K9 and Luke provide the supercomputer Mr. Smith with all the TARDIS data needed to get the Earth back home. Everyone gathers around the TARDIS core to help fly the Earth back home. (All except Jackie, who isn't allowed near the controls.) Everyone hugs everyone. Donna especially hugs Jack a lot.
Sarah Jane heads back home to Luke. The Doctor deactivates Jack's vortex manipulator again. ("I told you: no teleport.") Martha promises to destroy the Ostenhagen key and walks off with Jack (whose story continues in Torchwood, "Day One"). Mickey realises that he's finally done following Rose around and... starts following Martha around. The TARDIS heads back to alternate dimension Norway to drop off Rose and Jackie.
Rose doesn't want to leave the Doctor, but the Doctor offers her a nice consolation prize of the Doctor Clone, because the Doctor feels that this version of himself is a bit too genocide-happy (much like he himself used to be) and needs a Rose in his life to cure that. The Doctor Clone is also part human, able to age, and willing to spend his life with Rose from now on. This doesn't sit quite right with Rose yet, so she begs the two Doctors to finally tell her what he wanted to say to her last time, after she said "I love you" to him. The Doctor still Cannot Spit It Out.note The Doctor Clone whispers it into her ear, and although we can't hear it, she's happy enough and responds by snogging him.
In the TARDIS, Doctor-Donna is starting to exhibit some problems, as her behaviour becomes hyperactive, and she literally can't stop talking or focus on a single matter. This leads to the most Sadistic Choice the Doctor's ever had to make. Donna's Time Lord brain is overloading her human body, which, as the Doctor solemnly explains, is the reason why there never has been a human/Time Lord fusion before. Either her head asplode, or the Doctor wipes her memories of everything she's done with him going back to her first appearance. The Doctor knows there's only one option to save Donna's life. She begs and pleads, but the Doctor takes her into his arms and gently wipes her memories. She can never remember who she was, or anything about the Doctor, or she'll burn up. She goes back to the way she used to be, and she can never know about how much she saved the universe or how amazing she was. The Doctor takes her home, where she turns into her old self... her old old self, loud and crass... And someone's going to have to tell her that she's missed two full years, and that her fiancée and her father are dead, that is, if the memory-wiping was thorough enough to blank out that much. The Doctor tells Donna's mother to be nice to her for a change, bids Wilf farewell and steps out of their lives. (For now.)
The Doctor goes off, once again on his own. He takes off his suit jacket, soaked to the brim in rain... just like his morale.
Tropes featured in Journey's End include:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The Doctor offers to do anything to save Donna.The Doctor: Put me in her place! You can do anything to me, I don't care, just let her go!
- Air-Vent Passageway: Captain Jack crawls through miles of ducts tracking three lifeforms, only to discover they're Mickey, Sarah Jane and Jackie.
- Almighty Janitor: The Doctor mocks Davros as the Daleks' "pet", and he is actually a prisoner, kept alive only to help them construct the Reality Bomb and will likely be exterminated once the plan is complete.
- And Starring: Elisabeth Sladen again.
- Apocalypse How: The Daleks aim to cause a Class Z-1 using their Reality Bomb. The device essentially dismantles the electrical field holding atoms together, and if it's successfully fired at full power in the Medusa Cascade then it will leak through the Cascade's rift into all parallel universes and alternate dimensions, so the sheltered Dalek fleet will be the only things left intact anywhere the whole of reality. It's revealed that the Reality Bomb's existence has already been causing a Timey-Wimey Ball sort of World-Wrecking Wave to negatively affect multiple universes and has even wiped out the Daleks and Cybermen inside the Void, although said wave's effects are stopped at the end.
- Ask a Stupid Question...:
- Martha: If I use [the Osterhagen Key], they detonate, and Earth gets ripped apart.
The Doctor: What?! Who invented that?! Well, someone called Osterhagen, I suppose. - Jackie: I was pregnant, do you remember? Had a baby boy.
Metacrisis Doctor: Ah! Brilliant. What'd you call him?
Jackie: Doctor.
Metacrisis Doctor: Really?
Jackie: No, you plum. He's called Tony.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign:
- A couple of grammar mistakes in the German, and while "Exterminieren" is a German word, it's rarely used in that language. If you consider the in-universe perspective then they're technically not grammar mistakes; the Daleks are aliens and have, according to the series at least, never spoken German before. A few errors can be allowed. Especially when the "correct" translation ("vernichten") was unacceptable for real world reasons: it would be meaningless to listeners who don't speak German, and for German speakers it's associated with the Nazis and using it in this context would be extremely dark for a family show.
- "Dårlig Ulv Stranden" still doesn't make much sense in Norwegian.
- Back for the Finale: The episode sees the return of every former companion from the previous four series and many recurring characters. The opening credits list David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, Elisabeth Sladen and Billie Piper — everyone who has ever been credited in the opening since the revival first began, with the exception of Christopher Eccleston and the addition of Sladen. Also back are Mickey, Jackie, Wilf and basically every recurring character in the revival, plus Gwen and Ianto from Torchwood and Luke, K9 and Mr. Smith from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Whew!
- Bathos: Amid the drama surrounding the potential use of the Osterhagen Key, The Doctor wonders aloud who invented it, only to Verbal Backspace.Martha: There's a chain of twenty five nuclear warheads placed in strategic points beneath the Earth's crust. If I use the key, they detonate and the Earth gets ripped apart.
The Doctor: WHAT?! Who invented that? Well...someone called Osterhagen, I suppose - Martha, are you insane? - BFG: Mickey and Jackie turn up toting the same kind of gun that Rose had in the previous episode.
- Big Bad: Davros is the one who has the personal confrontation with the Doctor, outlines the Daleks' plan to him and gives the order to activate the Reality Bomb, with both ordinary Daleks and the Supreme Dalek apparently obeying him. Despite this, the Doctor accuses him of being the Daleks' "pet", suggesting he considers the Supreme Dalek to be the real Big Bad.
- Big Damn Heroes: Mickey and Jackie saving Sarah Jane Smith from a pair of Daleks early on.
- Big "NO!": Martha shouts one when she is transported to the Crucible right before she can use the Osterhagen Key to activate the nuclear warheads, moments after she intended to do so when she heard the Supreme Dalek activate the plan to send her to the Vault to be with Davros and the Doctor.
- Bilingual Bonus: The German dialogue. Translation available on the BBC website.
- Bittersweet Ending: Rose and the Doctor are finally reunited, but he has to watch her fall in the arms of another man (his clone no less!) and leave her behind forever. Donna saved not only the entire Earth (and the other 26 planets) but all of creation, but she can't retain the memories or else she'll burn up. So, she has no idea how important she is, and the Doctor's on his own again. Sarah Jane points out to the Doctor that he has many friends who love him, quite a few of whom remain on Earth, in the main universe, and with their memories intact. The Doctor then goes to travel alone.
- Break the Cutie: The Universe really hates Ten. Davros's Breaking Speech was bordering on Mind Rape, reminding the Doctor of all the people who have died for him and accusing him of creating soldiers out of his companions.Davros: How many more? Just think, how many have died in your name? The Doctor, the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself.
- Broken Record: The Doctor already knows what's about to happen to Donna. The audience realises something's very wrong when Donna gets stuck on the word "binary".
- Call-Back:
- The Reality Bomb annihilates humans with the same effect that Bad Wolf!Rose annihilated Daleks with.
- The BFG that Jack uses is the old Defabricator he turned into a gun and used on one Dalek in "The Parting of the Ways".
- A very small one: Sarah Jane and Rose are happy to see each other, having become friends back in "School Reunion".
- Calling the Old Woman Out: The Doctor lets Sylvia have it for her awful treatment of Donna.
- Cannot Spit It Out: The Doctor can't complete the sentence "Rose Tyler..." from "Doomsday" — but Handy can. It's implied that Ten deliberately didn't spit it out to make sure Rose went with and accepted Handy.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: The show finally gets its last bit of mileage out of the Doctor's lost hand. It's now turned into a full-sized copy of himself and so it absolutely cannot turn up again.
- Continuity Porn: So much, so much, so much!
- Flashbacks to (almost) everyone who sacrificed themselves for the Doctor in the new series.
- Davros recognizes Sarah Jane from "Genesis of the Daleks".
- The return to Bad Wolf Bay.
- A nod to "The Unquiet Dead"; Gwen is a spatial genetic multiplicity of Gwyneth. (Basically, Uncanny Family Resemblance, except, according to Word of God, "It's not familial as we understand it. There's no blood tie. Spatial genetic multiplicity means an echo and repetition of physical traits across a Time Rift.")
- Doctor-Donna remembers how to fix the TARDIS' chameleon circuit, like the Sixth incarnation. Since she has the Doctor's mind it's implied that he can fix the chameleon circuit, he just doesn't want to as he likes the police box shape.
- Doctor-Donna's fate is sealed, as her mind has absorbed too much information to possibly contain. It's a very similar fate to Bad Wolf!Rose, though the solution is different.
- Sarah Jane was given the warp necklace thingy by a "Veran soothsayer"; the same one who gave her the puzzle box in The Sarah Jane Adventures's "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?"
- Luke mentions that "Maria and her dad" are safe "in Cornwall".
- Ten asks Rose what happened in the Alternate Universe since they run a few years ahead of the prime universe. He previously used this knowledge to save the Earth from man-made catastrophic volcanic eruptions many incarnations ago.
- Couch Gag: The previous episode's use of multiple names in the opening credits, with additional actors receiving credit over the first post-credits scene, is repeated. As of 2019, these two episodes are the only ones to do this.
- Crew of One: The Doctor explains that the TARDIS flies so shakily most of the time because it's meant to have at least six pilots. With a full team of companions and two Doctors, it flies perfectly smoothly despite towing the Earth.
- Crisis Crossover: Ianto, Jack and Gwen from Torchwood, Sarah Jane, Luke and Mr. Smith from The Sarah Jane Adventures and Rose, Martha, Mickey and basically everyone connected to the show since RTD got hold of it all turn up. Even K9 gets to appear.
- Darkest Hour: Every major character is captured. Martha's Thanatos Gambit with the Osterhagen Key goes nowhere. There's a short Hope Spot where Metacrisis!Ten and Donna try to capture Davros's genetic signature, only to be blasted with his Palpatine-esque hand lightning, and they too are captured. Everything seems to be lost as Davros gives the signal to detonate the Reality Bomb. Then Metacrisis!Donna is awakened, and the gloves come the hell off.
- Death by Cameo: Gita Kapoor is one of the victims of the Reality Bomb test.
- Death Montage: A VERY dramatic example when Davros reminds the Doctor of the number of people who have died helping him. It's a lengthy montage even though it only includes deaths in New Who.
- Demoted to Dragon: Davros. Despite being the original master of the Daleks and the Doctor's Arch-Enemy, it's made clear that the Supreme Dalek is the one who's calling the shots, and Davros is in fact his minion, with the Doctor rubbing salt in the wound by denouncing Davros as the Daleks' "pet".
- Deus ex Machina:
- K9 being called out at exactly the moment he's needed. Good dog!
- The hand becoming another Doctor just in time to save the TARDIS, although technically that would be a Deus ex Manu. Also, the Ood and Caan knew it was coming all along.
- Didn't See That Coming: Davros certainly didn't know that the Doctor had dumped regeneration energy into the hand. Only the Doctor clone and Donna knew that it had set the hand up to instantly grow a new Doctor through spontaneous metacrisis (he only knew after the fact, and only Donna knew when she was told). NOBODY knew that zapping Donna after all of that happened would trigger the Time Lord brain in Donna.
- Discontinuity Nod:
- There has never been a half-human/half-Time Lord before, and the Doctor certainly isn't one.
- Although even if he was telling the truth there (and the canonicity and accuracy of that statement have been hotly debated), he isn't the same kind of fusion Handy is.
- Davros being little more than a slave to the Daleks, and in fact being taken for a ride by Caan, could also be a similar nod to the post-Davros Dalek situation. Many fans lamented that after "Genesis", the Daleks had become nothing more than thugs for Davros himself, although this was rectified in "Revelation" and "Remembrance" with the Renegade Daleks.
- There has never been a half-human/half-Time Lord before, and the Doctor certainly isn't one.
- Disney Death: The Doctor was mortally wounded in the last episode, and not only did he regenerate, but he also didn't have to change his appearance.
- Doomsday Device:
- UNIT's Osterhagen Key is designed to destroy the Earth as a Mercy Kill. Martha considers setting it off to deprive the Daleks of one of the 27 planets they need for their plan.
- The Reality Bomb makes it small potatoes, however, as it's intended to destroy everything, and requires several solar systems' worth of stolen planets to amplify.
- Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: The Doctor sends Rose back to her parallel universe with an identical clone of himself.
- Earth Is the Centre of the Universe: "Only one planet left! Oh... guess which one." A literal example too, as the Medusa Cascade is at the centre of all creation.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Daleks prevent Martha Jones from using the Osterhagen Key doomsday device. Just as well. Martha even emits a Big "NO!" when she realizes they are transporting her to the Crucible the split-second before she can carry out her threat.
- Easy Amnesia: Inverted. Donna's memory isn't wiped that easily, but anything that reminds her of her travels with the Doctor will restore it and kill her.
- Euphemism Buster: Davros tries dancing around the exact details of what's going on with him and the Daleks, but the Doctor gleefully shoots him down.Davros: We have... an understanding.Doctor: Nah, I've got the word for it: You're the Dalek's pet!
- Evil Sounds Deep: The Supreme Dalek has one of the deepest Dalek voices yet.
- Explosive Overclocking: Donna nearly suffers from a biological version of this, with her body unable to contain the Doctor's intellect.
- Fanservice: Naked Doctor clone.
- "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Yet another trope that applies to Donna's metacrisis. A Time Lord's vast intelligence is killing her via overloading her human body, so the Doctor erases her mind and returns her to her previous shrilly self.
- Gambit Roulette: Dalek Caan's scheme to wipe out all the Daleks by creating a new Dalek empire has been in the works for ages. Being a prophet definitely helped.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Dalek Caan is a downplayed version. He's a little wonky, but he knows exactly what he's doing.
- Good All Along: Dalek Caan, who, while crossing through the Time Lock and losing his mind, came to a Heel Realization and decided to destroy the Daleks. Although he mentions that even without his help, the good guys would have still won.
- Gratuitous German: The Daleks in Germany are speaking in German. It doesn't make much sense other than an excuse to have the Daleks speak the language of a certain regime they share similarities with. "Exterminieren! Halt! Sonst werden wir Sie exterminieren! Sie sind jetzt ein Gefangener der Daleks!"
- The Greatest Story Never Told: Donna saved all of reality, but can never know it, not ever, because then she'll die. However, the Ood will make sure that Doctor-Donna is never forgotten.
- Half-Human Hybrid: The Doctor Clone and Doctor-Donna are a Time Lord/human and a human/Time Lord, respectively.
- Ham-to-Ham Combat: Possibly one of the most glorious examples in the series' history, with Doctor-Donna, Davros, the Daleks and the Doctor himself engaging in epic hammy warfare.
- Heel Realization: Dalek Caan is essentially the first Dalek to realize that his race are evil bastards of his own free will, not involving genetic mumbo-jumbo. This after killing his former superior, Dalek Sec, for basically the same thing.Davros: [shocked] You betrayed the Daleks?
Dalek Caan: I saw the Daleks. What we have done throughout time and space. I saw the truth of us, creator, and I decreed: No more! - Heroic Sacrifice: Davros pulls a Breaking Speech on the Doctor, its central theme being turning his companions into people who either do this, killing themselves on his behalf, or become ruthless killers in their own right. He even outright compares them to the Daleks, calling them the Doctor's creation.
- Hope Spot: The Metacrisis!Doctor and Donna appearing with the gizmo to steal Davros's genetic signature is this, cut short when Davros zaps the Metacrisis!Doctor with his hand lightning. Then there's another one when Donna picks the device and tries again. She is also zapped. This, however, actually works out in Donna's favour.
- Hybrid Power: The Doctor undergoes a "biological meta-crisis" in which he uses regeneration energy to form a clone which has some of Donna's personality. More importantly, the same process gives Donna the Doctor's mental prowess, which, combined with her "gut instinct" as a human, makes her a hypergenius capable of things even the Doctor would never think to do. Unfortunately, the human-Time Lord meta-crisis proves to be unstable and would kill her if she didn't have her memory erased.
- Hypocrite:
- Davros has the gall to use his parting words to call the Doctor THE DESTROYER! OF! WORLDS! when he was about to wipe out every universe ever just minutes earlier.
- The Doctor sees his clone as a monster for destroying the Dalek, yet the Dalek were a non-negotiable, genocidal race that needed to be stop. Or at least that's his excuse to hand his metacrisis self to Rose so that she never puts the multiverse in danger again — or so his clone, which he might well see as a neo-War Doctor, stays out of trouble.
- Ironic Echo: "I was going to be with you, forever."
- Jerk Ass Has A Point: Davros accuses the Doctor of pretending he never sheds blood but actually employing his companions to do his killing for him, turning them into his weapons. There is a degree of truth to this, especially the 7th Doctor with Ace in stories such a 'Silver Nemesis' and 'Remembrance of the Daleks' (the last time we see them face off).
- Large Ham: Even discounting the usual suspects, Doctor-Donna and Davros could have stocked a deli section all by themselves. She has the high energy technobabble and he's got the evil gloating.
- Lampshade Hanging: The fact that, from their second appearance onwards, the Daleks are blatant Nazi stand-ins is cheekily addressed when Martha goes to Germany and they're speaking in German.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Played With. The Doctor can't just wipe Donna's memories of his consciousness; he has to wipe all of her memories of him and their travels together. If she ever remembers anything about him, she will end up remembering everything and would die.
- Left for Dead: Davros and Dalek Caan are last seen in the exploding Crucible. The Doctor offers to save Davros but he refuses. Caan seems totally unfazed by it.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: In this case, provide the jolt to activate the Time Lord mind inside Donna.
- Mad Oracle: Dalek Caan is an oracle and may be mad, but he is both much more coherent and much more in control of events than anyone expects.
- Mama Bear: Jackie goes into a Dalek battlefield with a large gun to try and find Rose.
- Mercy Kill: What the Osterhagen key is intended to do to Earth and humanity; blow them all up if their suffering becomes too great.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Dalek Caan. The good guys think he's both evil and crazy and the Daleks shun him as an abomination, but he helps save the universe in the end.
- Mix-and-Match Man: The Doctor + Donna clone.
- Mood Whiplash: This is averted in the final moments, with the Doctor still looking rather glum over Donna's Laser-Guided Amnesia. He pulls the lever on the TARDIS to leave, then the credits roll, and that's it. Unlike the last three series finales, the somber mood is not suddenly swept away by bizarre hijinks.
- Specifically: After the Ninth Doctor's heartfelt goodbye and regeneration, the very first thing the Tenth Doctor does is puzzle over his new teeth. After saying goodbye to Rose for what he believes to be the last time, the Doctor turns around to find a certain angry bride in the TARDIS. And after they defeat the Master, but Martha walks away, he sets the TARDIS in flight again — only to smash into the Titanic.
- Murder by Cremation: The Daleks attempt to dispose of Captain Jack's body in an incinerator. Of course, he's not actually dead at the time...
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Everybody can help with the TARDIS... except Jackie. She should just stand over there... thanks.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The Doctor has this after he hears what happens to Harriet Jones (former Prime Minister), given that he deposed her.
- My Skull Runneth Over: Donna is burning up from all the information inside her head. Over nine hundred years of Time Lord education and adventure is too much for a human brain.
- Mythology Gag: Even though in this phrase it is technically referring to the same incarnation of the Doctor, the line "Three Doctors?" evokes the old crossover episodes.
- Naked on Arrival: The Doctor Clone is born naked, "oh yes".
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: The Doctor's ability to cancel a regeneration in progress by siphoning his energy into a receptacle is seen for the first time.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Had Davros not fired at Donna, his victory would have been assured because it activated the Time Lord knowledge inside her. It worked well on the Doctor Clone so he figured it would work on her.
- No Endor Holocaust: Dragging the Earth at super-light speeds across half the Universe would cause more trouble than a mild earthquake. Just dragging it out of the Moon's influence would cause endless disasters. Presumably the TARDIS extended its Inertial Dampening, but even with the dampening, the same global earthquake that knocked potted plants off shelves in London probably set off massive avalanches and landslides in other regions.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Davros tries to pull this one on the Doctor; he makes Daleks, and the Doctor makes Companions. Both of them are soldiers.
- Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: Davros shouts this when the Reality Bomb is ready, and all of his enemies are defeated."NOTHING can stop the detonation! Nothing! And NO ONE!"
- Obfuscating Insanity: Dalek Caan may well be completely crazy (the script never really says one way or the other — but it's notable that as soon as the truth is revealed, the mad giggling stops, and Caan's voice becomes much clearer and more concise), but he is also way, way more functional and in control of events than anyone thinks it's possible for him to be until it's too late for Davros or the Daleks to stop him — which is the only reason the universe gets out alive.
- Omnicidal Maniac: "The DESTRUCTION! OF REALITY! ITSEEEELLLLLFFF!!!" Davros has been one for quite some time. Now that he's capable of destroying the subatomic makeup of every universe, he's overjoyed.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The Doctor after three years of impeccable Estuary, as David Tennant's Scottish accent begins to show through (listen carefully at the very end when he says "Still, that's fine.").
- Our Clones Are Different: The Tenth Doctor redirects his aborted regeneration's energy into his preserved severed hand, and Donna later comes into contact with the energized hand, resulting in a "biological meta-crisis" where the hand both literally and figuratively regenerates the rest of its missing body, now spliced with human DNA donated from Donna. The result is a physically-identical clone of the Tenth Doctor who has part-human DNA from Donna — the effects of which include a more human-like internal biology, lacking a regeneration cycle, and having a mix of Donna's and the original Tenth Doctor's personality quirks — and the new Meta-Crisis Doctor has the same thoughts and memories as the original Tenth Doctor up to the aborted regeneration, but with a more ruthless and aggressive streak due to the clone being "born in blood and battle and revenge".
- Out-Gambitted: Both Sarah Jane and UNIT have gotten their hands on two devastating superweapons, the Warpstar that will destroy the Dalek mother ship and the Osterhagen Key that will destroy the Earth (thus ruining the Daleks' plans), respectively; Sarah Jane allied with Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler to infiltrate the ship and Martha Jones risked capture and death in Dalek-occupied Germany to be in position to activate the Key. Much of the episode focuses on the efforts of several characters to get in the right position to use them, and when the moment comes many of them contact the Daleks via video link to warn them to back off or die. It seems that the Daleks' Evil Plan is finished... except that Davros just transports everyone to his vault, capturing them and rendering both weapons useless. Then Donna and Doctor Clone show up with their Dalek-destroying weapon... only to get zapped and the weapon destroyed.
- Plot Tailored to the Party: The episode is carefully designed so that the resolution requires the TARDIS to be linked to the Cardiff Rift via Mr Smith, using base codes provided by K-9.
- The Power of Friendship: All of the Doctor's previous companions have shown that they're quite willing to die (in some cases, repeatedly) to protect him. This episode puts a dark twist on this with the claim by Davros that the Doctor basically turns everyone who loves him into living weapons for his cause.Davros: You take ordinary people, and you fashion them into weapons... behold your Children of Time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor, you made this.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: Same as the last episode, with Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri added post-titles.
- Prophecy Twist:
- "That version of Donna is dead." "The end of everything (Dalek)".
- Threefold Man... and all this time people thought a previous Doctor was coming back.
- Same for Doctor-Donna, which about everyone assumed was the Ood being incapable of telling the two apart.
- "Most faithful companion". The TARDIS "died" (or was declared so); his human version went to Pete's World (when Rose did, she was considered "dead"); the Donna that travelled with the Doctor, who vanished along with Doctor-Donna. Which is, as the name says, partly the Doctor himself.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
- "The DESTRUCTION! OF REALITY! ITSEEEELLLLLFFF!!!"
- "DETONATE! THE REALITY! BOMB!"
- Put on a Bus: Everyone bar the Doctor goes back to their pre-crisis lives; Torchwood, investigations, the alternate universe, UNIT, etc.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Davros howls one at the Doctor in the moments before the Crucible self-destructs.The Doctor: Davros! Come with me! I promise I can save you!
Davros: [berserk with fury] Never forget, Doctor... YOU DID THIS! [gestures at the destruction around them] I name you forever; YOU are the Destroyer of Worlds! - Reset Button: The Doctor has to reset Donna back to the way she was when she first appeared to save her life.
- Rule of Three:
- It only takes three Osterhagen Stations to activate the Osterhagen Key failsafe.
- We have three instances of the Tenth Doctor.
- The Daleks are using 27 = 3³ planets to power their reality bomb.
- This episode is the third in a row that the track The Rueful Fate of Donna Noble is played. This time it sticks.
- Running Gag Stumbles: Played for Drama. The Tenth Doctor's previous series each ended with him bidding farewell to his companion and getting back to business in the TARDIS, only for an unexpected and comical cliffhanger to ensue. In this finale, however, he parts ways with Donna, somberly returns to the TARDIS, and then... episode's over.
- Secret Message Wink: Captain Jack Harkness intentionally gets himself shot by a Dalek, as he possesses Resurrective Immortality that they don't know about. As the Doctor and Rose are being escorted out of the room, Jack, Playing Possum, gives a discreet wink to the Doctor to let him know that he's going to use the opportunity to sneak around.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Earth has 26 strategically placed nukes that will tear it apart. This is the Osterhagen Key.
- Shout-Out:
- Davros is basically Emperor Palpatine in a hover-chair. The melted face, the constant talk of fulfilling destiny, and he even shoots lightning! (However, it should be noted that most of these elements date back to when Davros was introduced in 1975 — eight years before Palpatine was first seen on screen.)
- Jack calls Mickey "Mickey Mouse" when the two meet up again.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!:Davros: It is time we talked, Doctor, after so very long...
The Doctor: No no no no no, we're not doing the nostalgia tour! I want to know what's happening right here, right now. - Significant Anagram: "Osterhagen", as in the Osterhagen Key, is an anagram of "Earth's Gone".
- Some Kind of Force Field: Davros traps the Doctor, Rose and the Metacrisis Doctor in containment cells that look like spotlights.
- Spoiler Opening: Averted. Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri's guest-star credits don't appear on screen until the characters make their surprise reappearance.
- Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Martha succeeds in getting two other Osterhagen stations online (at least three were needed), and threatens the Daleks with blowing up the Earth. She realizes that they need all twenty-seven planets to power something big (The Reality Bomb). Earth would be destroyed but the plan would fail.
- Stunned Silence: The reaction of Donna, Rose and Captain Jack when the Doctor regenerates into... himself.
- Suicide by Cop: Dalek Caan's prophecies were just a ruse to create a situation where his entire race (and Davros) was completely exterminated as he had finally realized that the universe would be a much better place without them around.
- Take a Third Option:
- The Doctor "bailing out" of a regeneration by siphoning the energy off into his severed hand instead.
- The Doctor's method of resolving his relationship with Rose; clone!
- The Daleks pull one when the Doctor's friends threaten to blow up either the Earth or the Crucible. Instead, the Daleks transmat all of them into the Vault, thwarting both plans.
- Take Me Instead: When the TARDIS is dropped into the core of the Crucible with Donna inside, the Doctor tries to save her by insisting the Daleks put him in her place.
- Technobabble: Doctor-Donna fires techno terms like a machine gun as she stops the Reality Bomb, frees everyone and then disables the Daleks.
- Tempting Fate: Davros: "AND NOTHING CAN STOP THE DETONATION! NOTHING! AND NO ONE!" Honestly, he was begging for it.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Gwen and Ianto taking on the Dalek with G36s.
- This entire episode goes out of its way to establish the position of ex-companion as a badass prestige class, even giving them a cool collective name as "The Children of Time".
- Donna had already taken a level in badass during her time with the Doctor, but she takes another level when she becomes imbued with his consciousness. Doctor-Donna is a glorious thing to see. Too bad it has to result in a Reset Button for her personality.
- Translation Convention: Averted with the German-speaking Daleks. The TARDIS's Universal Translator only works when the Doctor is present.
- True Companions: The "Children of Time" are all ex-companions and very good friends.
- Twin Threesome Fantasy: Three Doctors (two of whom are David Tennant)?Jack: I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now.
- This also serves as a Brick Joke because the Doctor speculated to Clone Martha in "The Poison Sky" that Jack would be interested in one of these. He was right.
- Two-Keyed Lock: It takes three Osterhagen Stations to activate the Osterhagen Key failsafe.
- The Unreveal: We never do find out what it was that Ten wanted to say to Rose in "Doomsday", but we can guess. Whatever it is, it makes Rose kiss him.
- Unwitting Pawn:
- The Dalek Supreme does know better than to trust the wild prophecies of a madman and initially dismisses Caan... but also underestimates him in the process, which is a very bad idea. Davros, however, claims that Caan "only speaks the truth", and doesn't underestimate his prophetic abilities... but can't imagine that one of his creations would betray him. Again.
- Davros is outsmarted by his own creation in the most thorough way since the character's introduction.
- [Verb] This!: After the Supreme Dalek tries gloating at the Doctor about how he's feeling the TARDIS die, Jack declares "feel this!" and tries shooting it.
- Victory-Guided Amnesia: After saving all of creation, Donna's memories are erased so she can continue to live.
- Villain Has a Point: Davros's scathing observation about how the Doctor forges his Companions into weapons to do the dirty work for him. Even more scathing and Fridge Brilliance when you remember the Doctor's Companion the last time Davros encountered him on-screen was Ace, she of "Dalek meets baseball bat" fame.Davros: The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor. You take ordinary people, and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers! I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Captain Jack and Mickey give off this vibe.Jack: Just my luck. I crawl through two miles of ventilation shafts, chasing life signs on this thing, and who do I find?! Mickey Mouse!
Mickey: You can talk, Captain Cheesecake! [they abruptly laugh and hug]
Jack: Good to see you! And that's Beefcake!
Mickey: And that's enough hugging. - Wham Episode:
- Ten uses his regenerative energies to create the Metacrisis Doctor.
- Davros is seemingly killed again, not that anyone expects him to stay dead.
- Rose is convinced by the Metacrisis Doctor to spend her life with him.
- Donna's brain is wiped of ever knowing the Doctor. Due to the human brain not being big enough to store the knowledge of a Time Lord, if she somehow remembers him, she will die.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Of the Doctor's companions on Earth at this time who have faced the Daleks, we know that Sarah Jane, Rose, Jack and Martha survived — and Donna too (minus her memories). What were the other 20th century Earth companions (many of whom were confirmed to be active as of the fourth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures) doing? Although Harriet Jones's subwave network only sought out people who had the means to help contact the Doctor; presumably none of them did.
- We never exactly find what happened on the other planets the Daleks stole. However, a comic later that year, The Forgotten, gave some information about what happened on one of the worlds.
- Where's the Kaboom?:
- Jack and Rose's confused "huh?" after the Doctor apparently cancels out his regeneration counts, especially for Rose as she's seen it happen before. (Donna, meanwhile, has no idea what was supposed to happen in the first place.)
- The Doctor and his companions helplessly watch in horror while Davros laughs in glee as the reality bomb painstakingly ticks down to 1. Then... nothing happens.
- World-Wrecking Wave: Exaggerated by the Reality Bomb's threat level: if activated at full power, the Bomb will unleash a wavelength that will dismantle everything within range down to a subatomic level. And the wavelength will continue until it's wiped out everything within the observable universe except for everything onboard the Dalek Crucible, then it will break through a space-time rift into every parallel universe and alternate dimension until the Crucible's contents are all that's left in ANY reality.
- You Are Not Alone: Sarah Jane reminds the Doctor:Sarah Jane: You know, you act like such a lonely man, but look at you! You've got the biggest family on Earth!
