YMMV / Doctor Who S27 E13 "The Parting of the Ways"

• Alternative Character Interpretation: This review argues that Jack knew his defence against the Daleks was futile and that he knowingly sent people to their deaths in order to buy the Doctor a few minutes, lying that Bastic Bullets would works against the Daleks to give them false hope. Given what we see in Torchwood (and the fact that he did start out as a conman), this doesn't seem Out of Character. On the other hand, it wouldn't be at all surprising if post-Time War Daleks had patched that particular weakness (as Jack is explicitly only familiar with pre-war Daleks).
• Franchise Original Sin: Rose becomes a Physical God through looking into the heart of the TARDIS with The Reveal that she sent the "Bad Wolf" message back through time to remind her she could do this, which is still well-regarded. However, after Rose nearly all the main companions up until the Thirteenth Doctor's era had a large Story Arc built around them turning into someone else except for Martha, whose awesome moment only comes from actions she performed in the two-part finale. With both River Song in Series 6 and Clara Oswald in 7B, lots of people claimed that they were just plot devices disguised as characters. Again, Clara was fleshed out in her later seasons... but then viewers complained for other reasons, as described above, and her arc was still about her becoming the Doctor's Distaff Counterpart and half of the Hybrid, according to Word of God.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The Doctor ultimately refuses to commit genocide. When asked if he's a killer or a coward, the Doctor replies, "Coward, any day". This becomes even more heartbreaking when you learn that Christopher Eccleston revealed that he contemplated suicide due to depression. He didn't go through with it because of his children, but he did admit that "Cowardice played a part, too".
  • Jack tells the Doctor that he was better off as a coward, before he met him. Given all that happens to him in Doctor Who and Torchwood, maybe he has a point...
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Rodrick getting exterminated by the Daleks after thinking he'd won his game can come across this way, considering that in 2009, Paterson Joseph was considered the overwhelming favourite to succeed David Tennant as the Doctor and apparently did audition for the role, only to lose out to the then-mostly unknown Matt Smith.
  • Immediately before this, David Tennant appeared in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The last chapter of said book is called "The Parting of the Ways."
• Special Effects Failure: The Dalek Emperor is very obviously green screened in the wide-shots when Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper and John Barrowman are in the same shot as him.
• Strawman Has a Point: The Doctor declines from destroying Earth with the Daleks, claiming it's the morally better choice to not wipe out humanity. However the episode had just a moment before shown the Daleks attacking Earth so heavily they have probably wiped out at least nearly all of humanity. By the time the Daleks confront the Doctor he is quite possibly the only non-Dalek in range of the Delta Wave and the Daleks will exterminate him anyway. The Doctor even points out earlier that the human race has travelled to other worlds and will survive. The Daleks surviving means they'll attack more worlds and give humanity much less chance of surviving, and it's only a literal Deus ex Machina that saves possibly the Universe from the Daleks. On the other hand, given the Doctor's PTSD from the last time he destroyed his home world in order to wipe out all the Daleks, it's pretty understandable he doesn't want to go through that again.
• Tear Dryer: The Ninth Doctor saying goodbye to Rose and reassuring her (and us) that everything will be okay is followed by Ten cheerfully making his mark.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The Emperor Dalek mutant creature himself looks pretty impressive however. As do the saucer shots in space.
  • Bad Wolf with her eyes alight, dissolving the Daleks.
  • This episode is also the first time we get the standard revival version of the regeneration effect, albeit not quite as grand as every other time we've seen it.

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