9.13: The Parting of the Ways

In which the god comes, quite literally, out of the machine.

Broadcast: June 2005

Watched: July 2021

I watched this days ago and it’s taken me all week to get around to writing anything down about it. Maybe because I don’t love it the way I’m supposed to? After Bad Wolf I always found this a bit of a disappointment, to be honest. Anyway, onwards.

“You have predicted correctly.” I do, I think, like the way this immediately blows up all our expectations. You assume it’s going to be hard to rescue Rose: it doesn’t take the first act, it’s the first two minutes. “Bad Wolf” doesn’t have any meaning beyond itself (is that clever? Still not sure). Rose isn’t involved in the final battle, her story is something else.

In fact, most of the story is delaying tactics isn’t it: it’s about giving the Doctor time to build his weapon, holding back the moment when he realises he can’t use it... then solving it with a Rosa ex machina. In some ways the whole episode is a fake out.

But it’s a fake out that gives us the massive Dalek battle the old show never could, and gives us loads of great moments. Lynda refusing to join the evacuation, and her braveness immediately undercut by the female producer saying there wasn’t enough room anyway. The two moments – the first to the Daleks, the second to Rose – when you see that the Doctor’s bravado is entirely fake and he just crumples the moment it’s not needed any more. The emergency hologram, and the way it looks at Rose. 

And then the battle itself, with every death made painful, every one different. Rodrick snivelling like a coward. The floor manager dying furious that she was persuaded to fight on false pretences. The female producer shot without warning, the male producer going out trying to take his revenge. Lynda’s death, genuinely shocking and painful (again: was RTD running through all his ideas for things to do with companions in one season, just in case?). RTD is very good at highlighting those characters enough that we notice their deaths.

But then again... I’m not sure it’s entirely coherent. The moral message is confused: those who don’t volunteer are punished for their cowardice, but Jack was lying to them because he needs cannon fodder: the floor manager is right to be angry. 

Actually, why is Jack in this, and the other episodes? Is it entirely so there’s someone we actually care about involved in that battle, while the main characters do something else entirely? (The first of his many deaths is by far the coolest by the way.)

I’m not sure the other plot entirely coheres either. Mickey (who doesn’t have a job, by the way) shows his dedication to Rose even after she’s said, basically explicitly, that he’s worthless (“Cos there’s nothing left for me here”). Rose says the Doctor is fighting for us, one scene after we learn he’s considering killing the entire population of the Earth.

Maybe this fits into the corrupted religion angle – the Dalek emperor’s belief it’s a god, compared to the Doctor showing Rose (and Mickey) a better way of living? Or maybe it’s just another early example of RTD Protagonist Syndrome, in which the world slightly rearranges itself to give his leads what they want. “Rose, you are worth fighting for,” Jack says – maybe he’s just flirting, maybe this is the writer speaking. (Billie, to be fair, clearly has a more nuanced view of quite how shitty Rose can be – she makes no attempt to soften her treatment of Mickey, and the jealous look she gives Lynda is outstanding.)

Anyway. It’s good. Really good. If it had been the last ever episode it wouldn’t have disgraced the show. But it annoys me because the previous episode is note perfect, and then this just doesn’t quite click.

And sorry, but I don’t think putting a device in the TARDIS that can turn you into a god actually works as a dramatic device. “The Time War ends” bit needs the Lance Parkin retcon in which Rose is actually the Moment (“I want you safe, my Doctor” – Rose, TARDIS or Moment?)...

...because otherwise, it turns out, the Time Lords could have just won all along.

Hang on... is this the Death Comes To Time version of the Time Lords? OMG.

Buy me a coffee

Okay, other stray thoughts I can’t be arsed to turn into prose:

• The Doctor addresses Jack as “Captain”. Weird.

• The idea the post-Time War Daleks are made from bits of human goes nowhere.

• The fact the producers warn the Earth, and the response is to revoke their broadcasting licence, is hilarious.

• The bit where the continents melt on the scanner, like it’s a ZX Spectrum game, is also hilarious, though not in a good way.

• The Doctor only decides to send Rose away when he realises the Delta wave will take too long. Funny/presumably deliberate how it’s the same Maguffin as the Moment – “press this button and end the war, but your side die, too”.

• I love that the Anne Droid gets to kill Daleks.

• Also that Pete is present in the finale, and it’s his name that changes Jackie’s mind.

• What the hell are Jackie and Mickey thinking after they get Rose into the TARDIS? They don’t know how the story ends for months.

• It’s weird how Jack (does RTD not have enough names?) is immediately brought back to life and then misses his ride. How early was Torchwood conceived?

• Lot of kissing in this episode. Although even if the Doctor wasn’t 900 years old, the age gap is problematic and you wouldn’t do it now. 

• Weirdly enough, it didn’t hit me until the end that Eccleston was about to go. His story is *perfect* but it’s a shame we only got him for one year. Oh well, there’s always Big Finish.

• “Hello. I’m Ca-” Funny to think Tennant wasn’t famous. Yet.