Previously: Crybermen invaded. And Daleks too. And this is the story of how Rose dies.
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Doomsday
Marines: Granted, this rating is happening from fuzzy memory, but I feel good about giving it anyway:
Kirsti: Good call, friend. Good call.
Mari: I told this story in a vlog recently, but I watched this episode for the first time the same weekend I saw The Body for the first time. It was emotionally taxing, to say the least.
After the previouslies, capped with Rose’s “this is the story of how I die” voice over, we head straight to the credits.
We start the episode proper with Rose, Mickey and Purple Tie facing the screeching Daleks. Rose yells, “Daleks!” and they stop their advance. She says (while sassily removing her lab coat) that yeah, she totally knows their name and all about the Time War. If they want to know how she knows, they have to keep her and her friends alive. Mickey and Purple Tie chime in with, “YEAH! DALEKS.” The Lead Dalek tells Rose that she will be necessary.
It then turns around to another Dalek, a copper colored one, and asks for the status of the Genesis Ark. The Genesis Ark is hibernating and. Dalek says it must be protected above all else. Copper Dalek turns and attaches its plunger to a sphere on the Ark. I was cracked up at the plunger latching on. Good to get a giggle in, in case this episode really turns out to be as feelsy as I remember.
K: Truth. The plunger attaching is freaking hilarious.
Mari: Mickey thought all the Daleks were dead. Rose says to never mind that because what the heck is a Genesis Ark?
Upstairs, Jackie is worried about Rose and what could be happening in the room with the sphere. The Doctor tersely says he doesn’t know. Jackie starts to sob so the Doctor gets closer to her and promises to find Rose and get them both out of there.
K: Oh, Doctor. It’s the season finale. Don’t make promises you can’t keep…
Mari: A Cyberman finds Boss Lady Yvonne and demands to be put in contact with the world authority. Yvonne sasses that the Cyberman should’ve done some research; There is no single world power. The Cyberman says there is now and starts broadcasting a message to everyone, everywhere. The Cyberman are in control and they are going to make everyone identical to them.
The streets are chaos as the armed forces try to make a stand against the Cybermen to not-that-much success. The Doctor, Yvonne, Jackie and Broadcast Cyberman are watching this from the Torchwood Tower. Broadcast Cyberman doesn’t really get the whole fighting back thing, since he ordered surrender. The Doctor yells that of course people are going to fight when the Cybermen are on every street and have taken their homes and children.
Down with the others, the Lead Dalek asks which one of them is least important but Rose says that’s not how they operate.
K: I love this show most of the time, but this scene? HILARIOUSLY AWFUL.
Mari: Upstairs, the Cybermen have gotten wind of another species that has invaded. Downstairs, Purple Tie’s face has been plunged to death. RIP, man. I’m sorry I missed your real name. Rose shouts that they didn’t need to kill him, but Copper Dalek says they didn’t need him alive either. Rough. From Purple Tie they learned that another species has invaded.
We get a series of shots intercut with Broadcast Cybermen sending two other Cybermen to investigate and Lead Dalek sending Dalek Thay to do the same. Visual links are established and the Cybermen and Dalek encounter each other. The Doctor’s face when he sees the Daleks is like, “wuuuuh?”
The Cybermen and Thay have a little stand-off where neither wants to be the total loser who identifies first. Thay loses, though, because he says, “Daleks do not follow orders.” HAHAHA. LOSER.
K: The Dalek/Cyberman sass-off is one of my favourite things about either Daleks or Cybermen. That, and Mickey’s line about how it’s like listening to Stephen Hawking argue with the Speaking Clock. Amazing.
Mari: They keep bickering and in the background, Jackie leans in and tells the Doctor that Rose mentioned the Daleks. She was terrified of them. Jackie worries that Rose is dead. The Doctor demands her cell phone and uses it to dial Rose. She answers quickly, so the Doctor knows she’s alive, which means they need her for something. He listens in and hears the Dalek mention the Genesis Ark. He puts his cheap 3D glasses on to better assess the situation.
Meanwhile, the Cybermen have proposed an alliance with the Daleks. Thay is like, LOL. NO. The two Cybermen fire at Thay but he’s got some forcefield defenses and then uses that badass whisk to kill them each with one shot. Broadcast Cyberman now broadcasts to the other Daleks to say that this is war. The Daleks are not even worried.
Broadcast Cyberman order the quarantine of the room Rose is in and emergency upgrading, starting with the captured Torchwood workers. A Cyberman takes Jackie away and she starts yelling, telling the Doctor that he promised her. He promised her safety. The Doctor is trying to tell her that she’ll find a way out, but he’s being pulled away too, because apparently his increased adrenaline suggests that he has vital Dalek information. LOL. Okay, Cybermen. If you say so.
One of the Daleks says the Cyber Threat is irrelevant and they should concentrate on the Genesis Ark. It plunger-plugs-in again. These close-ups on the plungers are fantastic every time. Mickey wonders why they are being kept alive and Rose thinks they might need her, but won’t say why. She just gives us a long stare into a scene cut.
The Cybermen are stomping around in the under construction portion of the office, with all the scary plastic sheeting. Yvonne and Jackie are waiting in line to be upgraded. Jackie asks what upgrading means and Yvonne, chocked up on the reality of it all, explains that they remove your brain and put it in a suit of armor. It’s Yvonne’s turn now and Jackie yells at her that this is all her fault. This was the fault of Torchwood meddling. Yvonne walks to her doom, head held high as she says that she did her duty for Queen and Country. She disappears behind plastic sheeting and we hear her scream.
K: That “I did my duty for Queen and country” line always gives me feels. Which is weird, because Yvonne’s essentially a bad guy. We’re not supposed to have feels for her. But she knows she screwed up majorly, and she doesn’t back down from it. That takes guts.
Mari: Additionally, and as I’ve mentioned before, the Cybermen upgrades are creepy as hell. I would feel bad for most any character walking up to face that.
Broadcast Cyberman stomps over to the Doctor and throws shade on his emotions.
A Cyberman is leading Jackie to her death when he receives the news that Broadcast Cyberman is dead. It decides that it’s going to become the leader, but this involves some file downloading, which means that Jackie is conveniently released. She hauls ass out of there and down some stairs.
Jake orders his soldiers to defend the room they are in. The Doctor is still very concerned. He says that people can’t just jump from one universe to another. Jake is all, “sure we can!” because they’ve got this cheap looking yellow button on a fake chain that allows them to do so. The Doctor says they can’t have that technology, but as it turns out, the parallel universe has a Torchwood that developed it. Jake asks if the Doctor wants to see. He yells, “NO!” but it’s too late. The cheap yellow button is pressed.
K: I kind of love how irate the Doctor gets about being wrong.
Mari: Jake and the Doctor materialize in the Alterna-Torchwood and this one is all dismantled and abandoned. Jake explains that they discovered Torchwood and took over it. The Doctor wants to get back because Rose and Jackie are in trouble. A Pete enters the room saying that at least he knows who the Doctor is now. The Doctor is not impressed because they have to get back ASAP. A Pete says the Doctor isn’t in charge and for once, he’s going to stay and listen.
Mickey says he can transport out of there, but the cheap yellow button only carries one and he’s not leaving Rose. She calls him the bravest human (not man, because duh, Doctor) she’s ever met. (K: FEELS) Mickey is worried because he’s nothing useful to the Daleks. Rose says he could be though. In flashbacks and voice overs, we revisit the first time Rose encountered a Dalek (with NINE!) and her touch brought it back to life. See, the Doctor told her that when you travel in time you soak up all this background radiation. So, both Mickey and Rose have traveled in time and can be useful to waking up whatever is in the Genesis Ark. Mickey wonders why they have something they can’t wake up and a nearby Dalek has been eavesdropping and helpfully offers that this technology is stolen. It’s Time Lord technology and all that’s left of their world. Rose asks what’s inside and the Dalek unhelpfully answers, “the future.”
Parallel Universe. The Doctor has his face pressed up against a wall as A Pete explains that they locked up all the Cybermen in this universe, but people argued. They said the Cybermen were living and needed help. I can 100% see that happening. Anyway, as the debate went on, the Cybermen made their plans and eventually vanished. It took them 3 years to cross the void because there are so many of them. A Pete mentions Mickey and the Doctor asks where Mickey-boy is. A Pete explains that he went ahead for Rose. The Doctor says Rose is his daughter, which is very different from when he was telling Rose A Pete is not her father. A Pete says Rose isn’t his. She’s the daughter of a dead man.
A Pete and the Doctor have made it over to a window. A Pete says people are calling this the Golden Age. Harriet Jones is president. The Doctor scoffs and says to watch out for her. YOU STOP IT, TEN. RUDE. (K: Agreed. But YAY HARRIET.) The point is that everything is not golden, temperatures are wonky, ice caps are melting and it’s not just global warming. All this traveling between universes is ripping holes and both universes are in trouble. A Pete is confident the Doctor can fix it, but it would leave 5 million Cybermen stranded in Rose’s world. A Pete is basically like, “oh well.” The Doctor smirks and says he knew Pete Tyler when he was dead. Damn. That’s a pretty crap thing to say. The Doctor is being feisty.
A Pete insists that Jackie isn’t his wife and there are more important things at stake. The Doctor asks if A Pete really believes that the Doctor can close the breach and defeat the Cybermen and Daleks. A Pete does and after a beat, the Doctor smiles wide and says maybe that’s all he needs.
K: He also mentions that A Pete got Jackie’s name wrong at their wedding, and it’s smugly adorable.
Mari: Big Yellow Button and we’re back in Rose’s world. The first thing the Doctor does is call Jackie to make sure she’s okay and get a location from her.
We next see the Doctor waving a sheet of paper, surrendering to a few Cybermen.
The Daleks are done plunging the Genesis Ark. They demand that Rose touch it and when she refuses, they threaten to kill Mickey. Rose gives in but she wants some last words first. She gets all up in the Dalek’s eyepiece and says she met the Emperor. It survived until it met her. She took the time vortex and poured it into the Emperor’s head, turning him into dust. She asks the Dalek if it gets that and gives a half adorable, half crazy, “HA!” to punctuate this whole speech.
The Dalek didn’t like it at all and says Rose will be exterminated, but here is the Doctor!
K: I really love the way that Rose says “Emperor”. There’s something very little kid endearing about it.
Mari: The Doctor strolls in wearing the 3D glasses. The Daleks start sounding alerts and Mickey and Rose smile so big it hurts. The Daleks say the Doctor is unarmed and he confirms that that’s always him. Unarmed but never powerless. He greets Rose and Mickey and the Daleks tell them to cut it out. They want to know how the Doctor survived the Time War. He says he fought in the front lines and was there during the fall of Arcadia. Some day, he’ll even come to terms with that.
K: Look, I know we’re firmly into Ten territory here. But that one little throwaway line? That explains so much about Nine. FEELS.
Mari: These Daleks, though, they ran away. Rose tells the Doctor that they have names, which is weird. They all list off their names: Thay, Sec, Jast and Caan. The names gives them away as some sort of order of Daleks, tasked with imaginative enemy killing.
Mickey asks about the Genesis Ark, but the Doctor has never seen it and doesn’t know what it does. He asks the Daleks and they say that Time Lord science will restore Dalek supremacy. Rose explains about how a time traveler has to touch it to wake it up. The Doctor speeches about how the Daleks can’t touch or feel, which is probably why they are always screaming. The Dalek demands that the Doctor touch the capsule and he laughs because no. (K: The amount of sass he packs into four words – “The Doctor will not!” – is amazing.) He pulls out his sonic screwdriver and the Dalek says it’s harmless. The Doctor says that it is, but it is very good at opening doors.
He presses the button and all the doors in the room explode in. Jake, his soldiers and a few Cybermen come in, guns blasting. Everyone manages to escape, except the Cybermen who the Daleks easily kill. On his way out, Mickey accidentally touches the Genesis Ark. (K: Dammit, Mickey…) The Daleks are pretty stoked that the Cybermen are dead and the Genesis Ark is on. Now, they just have to get it to a bigger space.
The Doctor, Mickey, Rose and A Pete are running. Mickey feels bad about accidentally touching the Genesis Ark, but the Doctor tells him not to sweat it. The Daleks would’ve tried to open it by force, which would’ve been worse.
Jackie is still running but she’s cornered by some Cybermen. Thankfully, the others have found her and A Pete blasts them away. Jackie believed there were ghosts but says this isn’t fair. A Pete assures her he isn’t a ghost. The Doctor tries to jump in with an explanation of parallel universes, but Jackie tells him to shut up. Jackie says A Pete looks old but he says she doesn’t. A Pete got to live his life and he asks if she never got married again. There was never anyone else for Jackie, though she says that she never left the flat either. She never did anything. A Pete says she brought up Rose Tyler and that’s not bad. Next, A Pete says all his crazy schemes paid off in the alternate world and he’s rich. Jackie says that doesn’t matter but then asks “how rich?” Everyone kind of laughs a bit, but A Pete says the thing is that Jackie isn’t his wife. She nods sadly but after a moment more, A Pete’s just like, “AH SCREW IT.”
The Cybermen are facing off against the Daleks and losing badly. The Daleks keep rolling on with the Genesis Ark. The Cybermen call the rest of their numbers into Torchwood.
The Doctor sneaks into the room where all the fighting is happening and takes the two doohickeys that allow you to lift insane amounts of weight. Yvonne showed them to him during the initial tour last episode. The Doctor gets them out and peeks back in. The Daleks open the roof and elevate themselves and the Genesis Ark. The Doctor is very confused.
He wants to see what’s going on so he tells everyone to run for the top floor. Jake, bless him, shows up to be all, “elevator, yo.”
They make up to the top floor just as the Genesis Ark opens up and tons of Daleks comes flying out. “Time Lord science. It’s bigger on the inside.” I bet he feels so dumb for missing that one. The Genesis Ark is a prison ship.
K: Goodness, Time Lords are one trick ponies…
Mari: It’s a really good trick, though.
The Daleks are flying over London and on the ground, the Cybermen start shooting up. Lead Dalek gives the order to kill all life forms below. Cybermen and people start going down.
In the Torchwood Tower, A Pete is over this and wants to go back to his safe universe, with Jackie. All the Doctor needs to do is close the breach. The Doctor turns around, cheap 3D glasses on and smiles big. He says he’s ready. He excitedly jumps around because he’s going to seal off both universes. He asks if anyone is going to ask him about the 3D glasses. Rose is always game and she asks what’s with the glasses. He says he can see, that’s what! He puts them on Rose and she can see weird floaty stuff around the Doctor. It’s “void stuff,” like background radiation. Everyone who has been through the void has got it. He can open the void and it’ll pull them right in.
Rose is so happy that the Doctor has figured it out, up until she realizes that they’ve all got void stuff. They’ll all be pulled in. The Doctor says that’s why she has to go to A Pete’s World, where she’ll be safe. He’s only going to open the void on this side and then he’ll close it for good. What about the Doctor? That’s what the doohickeys are for. He’s going to hold on tight.
K: Okay, but like surely the TARDIS can help in some way?!?! Like, close void, run to TARDIS, vworp vworp away?
Mari: I can’t actually think of why this isn’t an option.
Rose is kind of in shock as she asks if she’s just supposed to go to another world. The Doctor is giving her short, overly even answers. Rose says this isn’t going to happen. A Pete is over this and tells everyone to start moving, including Jackie and Rose. Rose says she isn’t going. Jackie says she isn’t going without Rose. She tells A Pete to button it because she’s had a whole life without him.
But Rose tells her to go. She’s had a whole 19 years with Jackie but then she met the Doctor. He goes out there and saves this stupid planet and every planet out there, and he does it alone, but not anymore. The Doctor and A Pete look at each other and each take out a cheap yellow button from their jackets. The Doctor quickly slips it onto Rose and A Pete slams his button. They all disappear and leave the Doctor alone.
On the other side, Rose says the Doctor isn’t going to do this to her again and just slams the button again. A Pete rips off Jackie’s and Mickey’s buttons, saying they aren’t going back through and that’s an order.
The Doctor tells Rose that once the void closes, there is no going back. Rose will never see her mom again. Rose says she made her choice long ago. (K: OH GOD WHY.) So how can she help? The Doctor points her to a computer where she can enter some coordinates and yells at her to hurry up. In A Pete’s World, Jackie is bawling and pushing A Pete away from her.
Rose alerts the Doctor to Cybermen on their way up. We cut there where the Cybermen are planning to cut their losses and head back to Ap Pete’s world. CyberYvonne stops them though saying they will not pass.
CyberYvonne repeats that she did her duty for Queen and country and she cries grease tears.
K: Let’s just go ahead and file “having feels for a cyberman” under the list of things I never expected to do.
Mari: Rose and the Doctor attach their doohickeys to the walls, ready to hold on for dear life. They throw the levers that open the breach and grab on. Daleks and Cybermen alike are pulled into it, hurtling into Torchwood from all over the world. The Lead Dalek disappears though because Daleks shall live forever.
The lever on Rose’s side starts to go down because of reasons and Rose lets go of the doohickey to right the lever. She does, and does her best to hold onto the lever but she can’t. The pull of the void is too strong. She loses her grip and gets pulled toward the void. The Doctor loses his shit as he sees her, getting closer and closer to Hell.
Suddenly, though, A Pete shows up. He catches Rose and quickly hits his cheap, yellow button. Rose gets one last look at the Doctor before she goes. The void seals itself off.
On the other side, Rose is banging on the wall, begging to be taken back. Tears start immediately.
K: Tears from Rose and also from me. Just, you know, FYI.
Mari: Oh, I was totally talking about my tears. Rose is definitely crying, but I spoke only about my own feels.
A Pete looks down at his cheap, yellow button and sees that it isn’t working anymore. The Doctor did it. He sealed off the breach.
The Doctor presses his face and hand against the wall as well and it’s like Rose can sense it. They stay that way for a while and when the Doctor pulls away, Rose lets out another sob.
Mari: A Pete, Jackie and Mickey hold hands as they look at Rose, her heart breaking and world ending.
After a fade to black, we hear the Doctor whispering to Rose. She’s in bed, asleep. Her voice over tells us that last night she had a dream. She heard a voice and it was calling her name. She wakes up but the voice keeps calling. Later, she tells the dream to A Pete, Jackie and Mickey. That night, they all jump into A Pete’s old jeep and take off, just like the dream told her to. They drive hundreds and hundreds of miles until they arrive at a beach. This is where we saw Rose at the beginning of last episode, as she said that this is the story of how she died.
We hear the noise of the TARDIS whooshing and the Doctor appears, looking incorporeal though. She asks where he is. He’s inside the TARDIS,
Mari: That is one smooth line.
Rose says he looks like a ghost so the Doctor adjusts something with the sonic screwdriver and becomes a little less transparent. He’s not corporeal, though. She can’t touch him. Rose asks if he can come through, but he can’t. Both universes would fracture and collapse. “So?” she says and he smiles at her.
He asks where they are. It’s Norway, in a place called Dårlig Ulv Stranden. They smile some at each other again as she says that it translates to Bad Wolf Bay.
They only have two minutes left and Rose can’t think of what to say. The Doctor says she still has Mickey, though. Rose says there are five of them now, with a baby on the way. The Doctor asks if she’s… but she’s not.
K: Look, I know I’m a deranged shipper where these two are concerned but no power in the ‘verse can convince me that for a split second there he didn’t think that the love of his life is in another universe and pregnant with his child.
Mari: That actually makes so much sense I can’t even. I LOVE THIS HEADCANON.
But it’s Jackie who is three months pregnant. Rose is working for Torchwood on this side, since she knows a thing or two about aliens. The Doctor beams at her, proud, as he calls her, “Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth.”
Over on the other world, Rose is officially dead. Since she went missing, they declared her dead, but here she is, living a life day after day. “The one adventure I can never have.” Rose breaks down again as she asks if she’s ever going to see him again. She can’t. She asks what he’ll do. He still has the TARDIS. He’ll keep living the life of that last of the Time Lords. “Alone?” Rose asks and he nods.
Rose chokes up a bit but manages to get out what she wants to say: I love you.
Mari: NOPE. The Doctor disappears. Rose cries more. She turns around and her mother comes running toward her, embracing her as she keeps sobbing.
On the TARDIS, the Doctor cries alone.
He sadly starts circling the console, clicking the buttons that will take him away when he notices that there is a woman in a bridal dress on board. “What?” he asks. The woman demands to know where she is and what the hell this place is but all the Doctor can offer is, “what?”
I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT THIS HAPPENED and that Runaway Bride was a pre-season 3 thing. Can I just say that I was SO PISSED when I saw her, whoever she was, on first view? I still had tears in my eyes from Rose and all I could do was say, “BOOOO.”
Now, though, SQUEE.
K: Agreed.
Mari: This episode still got me, which is amazing because I think it works the best on first watch and given that you like Rose. I know lots of people in comments don’t and have been waiting for this moment. I saw more of Rose’s faults this time around, but I still love her. Right across these last few episodes she’s been wonderful and a badass and always up to saving the day. She endangered her life in this episode to make sure the portal stayed open because while she’s young and a little naive, here she was also selfless and brave. She’s so human. She isn’t the perfect character but there is something about her loneliness, her bland life when we meet her, her attachment to the Doctor and adventure, her addiction to being part of something that really, really speaks to me. I’m sad to lose Rose.
I don’t know much about Classic Who, though we got a glimpse of what it means to be a companion when Sarah Jane reappeared, still carrying around the heartbreak of the Doctor leaving her. Abandoning her. The Doctor promised Rose that she wouldn’t be that way, but he tried it. He tried to leave her without her permission and that sucked. However, when she was hurtling toward the void, the show tried to make you understand why he did it. It was too big a risk to put Rose in front of Hell.
Still, that sucked on his part. He made the decision so matter-of-factly. That was heart breaking in and of itself. Sure, he loves Rose (probably) and he was trying to protect her, but it just seemed like he wasn’t as attached to her. And how could he be? He’s known this moment of parting would come eventually. We see that here in the big plot points and in the little things: Rose cries at the wall and after just a moment, he turns and walks away.
There were lots of silly kinds of things in this episode, because Doctor Who, but the goodbye scene in Bad Wolf Bay helped me forget them.
K: One of the things I love most about David Tennant as The Doctor are these occasional moments where his face is just blank, and you know, you just KNOW that it’s because the emotions are too much for him. It hurts too much to show the truth, and so he wipes the slate clean. We get a couple of these moments in this episode, and it just makes the feels that much stronger for me. I think I’ve seen this episode four times now, and it absolutely breaks my heart each and every time. Rose has had a rocky road as far as her character goes. But in the second half of this season? She was fucking fabulous. And frankly, the only thing that stopped the feels from totally overwhelming me was the appearance of a certain ginger woman in a wedding dress at the end. So yeah. FEELS.
Next time: We rank things! Find out our feelings about series 2 in our Doctor Who Series 2 Wrap Up.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.