Farewell RTD

I was going to write about Dr Who. Then I read Abigail Nussbaum's thoughts on the topic and decided she's got there first, though with more words.

But, what the hell. My overall feelings: positive. The finale of the 2007 season took the series in a distinctly downward direction. Then we got the Titanic Christmas special and it angled a few more degrees downwards. Then we got 'Partners in Crime', by the end of which the series was nosediving like an overweight Stuka on full throttle with no wings. And then, to my surprise, it began to pull out. The g-forces were crushing but it actually levelled off and headed up again. Not even the 'Silence in the Library' / 'Forest of the Dead' two parter could quite bring it back to the dizzy heights it was enjoying exactly a year earlier with 'Blink', but it was doing pretty well. The curve kept upwards ...

... and levelled off, a little, at 'Journey's End'. Face it, it was always going to be anticlimactic; Russell T Davies has form for setting up something so massive that the payoff can only be a letdown. But for once no one turned into a minor deity and no one got banished to Hell. My reservations about Davros were nicely dealt with when it became clear he's just the embarrassing senior relative kept in the basement; can't get rid of him but don't really need his advice either. RTD pulled off more than he let go of; even the Grand Reunion of Every Former Companion Ever just about worked, though Torchwood didn't get much to do (wasn't it nice of Jack to vanish with the only gun capable of bringing down a Dalek, leaving Gwen and Ianto with silly old machine guns?) and there was a ten second snippet that quite obviously existed for the sole purpose of bringing K9 into the mix. But, all in all, a worthy way of saying goodbye.

And definitely not quite as bad as Andrew Rilstone would have it.