Doctor Who: The End of Tennant

[Zeke]

Oh, I mean the End of Time, of course. Silly mistake.

So we're halfway into the final Tenth Doctor story, with the conclusion airing tomorrow. So far I have mixed feelings. It's an odd story, this one -- overdramatic and pretentious in some parts, genuinely impressive in others. We're expected to take a lot as given and go with it. The Doctor, for instance, is suddenly so overcome with a sense of his own doom that he actually sheds tears. (Has DW ever shown this before? We've seen Doctors get choked up...) Yet in that same scene, he gives an amazing description of what regeneration means for him, impressing on new viewers that it isn't just a matter of changing bodies. From the ridiculous to the sublime and vice versa.

I don't envy the position RTD was in when he wrote this. We all know going in that the Master will return and the Doctor will die -- he can't get any surprise out of those things, and yet they have to be the main dramatic points. His solution, it seems, is to not just concede but stress that it's all inevitable; he does this with the Doctor's fey mood and especially with the narration, which sets up a genuinely shocking revelation at the end of part one. RTD's script indulges in some of his bad habits, but there's enough good stuff to make it worthwhile; I'm eager to see where he's going with the whole thing.

As for acting, Tennant is his usual self, and you'll like that or not. I do. John Simm does a great job of getting across how different the Master is from the last time we saw him. He's still smug and confident, but no longer in control; if he was a rapier before, he's a meat cleaver now. This guy is dangerous. Bernard Cribbins is always a treat -- I'm glad old Wilf got to ride in the TARDIS, and I really hope he doesn't die in part two.

By the way... I know it's easy to make puns with the Master's name, but I still have to wonder if the entire story was written around that joke at the end.

So! What did you all think?