The Parting Of The Ways
With the help of the terrified (and mostly unarmed) broadcasters and civilians of Satellite 5, the Doctor and Jack mount what appears to be a frontal attack on the Dalek command saucer via the TARDIS, but then the Doctor feigns the TARDIS’ destruction from a Dalek missile attack and materializes in the heart of the Daleks’ command center, saving Rose. With the TARDIS projecting a shield around him, the Doctor emerges and finds that the Daleks have recovered their Emperor – an enormous mastermind Dalek the Doctor thought he had destroyed in the final battle of the Time War. The damaged Emperor escaped the carnage, however, and rebuilt the Dalek race – using dead humans as a replacement for now-extinct Kaled mutants. The Emperor has also risen to prophetic heights of megalomania, declaring itself the god of the Daleks and vowing to attack Earth and turn its population into billions more Daleks. The Doctor vows to stop the Emperor at any cost, though he discovers that the cost is horrific: his own defense could destroy humanity as thoroughly as the Daleks will.
written by Russell T. Davies
directed by Joe Ahearne
music by Murray GoldGuest Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack), Jo Joyner (Lynda), Paterson Joseph (Rodrick), Nisha Nayar (Female Programmer), Noel Clarke (Mickey), Camille Coduri (Jackie), Anne Robinson (voice of Anne Droid), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voices), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek operator), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek operator), David Hankinson (Dalek operator), Alan Ruscoe (Android), David Tennant (The Doctor)
Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green
As the TARDIS is in mid-flight, Charley watches as C’rizz goes through his personal effects from the Divergent Universe, including an odd glowing vessel, which Charley insists on peering into – and something is released, at about the same time the time machine comes grinding to a halt. C’rizz and Charley rush to the console room, just in time to help the Doctor bring the TARDIS in for a rough landing – after which the ship seems to split apart, with C’rizz disappearing into the void. C’rizz finds himself in the company of a man called Aboresh, who begins to unlock abilities that he didn’t realize he had. The Doctor and Charley, in the meantime, find themselves among a superstitious people, though there seem to be hints of more advanced knowledge among some of the people there. Walled up in a compound surrounded by an energy barrier, this small society defies a creature called the Borarus, which constantly tries to break into the compound. The barrier stops it, but Aboresh – who lives on the outside with those cast out from the compound – now has a powerful new weapon at his disposal: C’rizz. As C’rizz’ powers increase exponentially, he may now be the greatest threat to the Doctor and Charley’s survival.
Devastated after C’rizz makes his exit from the TARDIS crew, and outraged over the Doctor’s apparent lack of emotion about it, Charley decides she’s had enough time travel and wants to return home – even though history records her death aboard the doomed airship R-101. The Doctor tries to surprise her by taking her to her intended destination, Singapore in 1930, but the TARDIS is drawn off course in time, depositing the Doctor and Charley in Singapore in 2008. Now more disgruntled than ever, Charley tries to leave as the Doctor tends to the TARDIS controls to see what caused the time change, instead running into a man named Byron who not only seems to know who she is, but has a gun drawn on her the whole time. The Doctor arrives to foil whatever it is that Byron’s planning, and talks Charley into one last adventure – a trip back in time to the 1940s, and the source of the temporal event that redirected the TARDIS. The trail leads them to a docked sea freighter, but even there something is making a mess of the flow of time. Charley is stuck in the 1940s with a man who looks and sounds exactly like Byron – not a day older or younger – while the Doctor winds up back in 2008, only to find that Byron has staked a claim to this ship. An elderly woman accompanies Byron, and though he initially introduces her as his mother, the Doctor learns that her name is Charlotte Pollard, age 85, and she doesn’t remember anything about traveling in time – and she certainly doesn’t remember the alien invasion force stored in the ship’s hold…at least not until they stand before her, and then she remembers a single word: Cybermen.
Responding to an Ice Warrior ambassador’s distress call, the Doctor, Peri and Erimem wind up on a doomed ship on a crash course for the planet Peladon, a world the Doctor has visited before. The Ice Warrior’s ship breaks up as it begins to enter the atmosphere, stranding the TARDIS in orbit as the crew cabin plummets to the planet below. On Peladon, a recent tragedy has left the planet without its queen, and a young prince prepares to take the throne on the eve of his wedding to a princess from Earth. But the prince, among others, has been hearing a mysterious voice, bidding all who hear it to offer up a sacrifice of royal blood – and any royal blood, from the arriving princess to Erimem, will suffice to unlock an ancient terror similar to one that the Doctor has faced before.
Notes: The Last Sontaran marks Yasmin Paige’s final appearance as a regular in The Sarah Jane Adventures, due to her school schedule. Mr. Smith sports a new appearance in this episode, possibly resulting from his reboot in The Lost Boy, though this wasn’t apparent from his appearance in the Doctor Who episodes The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End, which takes place between the first and second seasons of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Mr. Smith also appears to have a new sound effect straight from the vaults of the now-defunct BBC Radiophonic Workshop: the sound of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy being activated!
Time Reef: His TARDIS returned to him by Thomas Brewster, the Doctor is suspicious of everything, and it seems with good reason, since the TARDIS is missing vital pieces – one of which holds the timeship’s the internal dimensions in place. The Doctor backtracks to the TARDIS’ most recent destination, a “time reef” isolated in a shrinking pocket universe, where two other ships have become marooned. The missing pieces of the TARDIS are easy to find: Brewster had been selling and bartering items such as the TARDIS’ food machine to both ships’ crews. Hawklike predators from another dimension swarm around the stranded ships – including the Doctor’s now-useless TARDIS – and the Doctor isn’t sure he wants Brewster’s help to try to set things right.
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Charley – actually Mila in Charley’s body – to future Earth, where the human race is divided into a technologically and scientifically competent caste and a larger tribe of vicious nomads. Infected with something that both sides simply know as “the madness,” the nomadic humans have regressed to a feral state. The only thing keeping the madness at bay for the more civilized pockets of humanity is a vaccine provided by the Viyrans. When the Doctor and Mila/Charley are scanned by the humans for traces of the madness, the Viyrans are very interested in Mila and send a ship to Earth – a ship that also happens to contain the real Charley, alive and well. Now a number of truths must come out: that the Viyrans are terminating their support of the human race and will soon terminate the entire species, that Mila is not really Charley, and that Charley is from the Doctor’s own future – and traveling with him his created a potentially deadly paradox with implications that reach far beyond the TARDIS.