Doctor Who: The Specials - "The End of Time"

And so we come to the final story with David Tennant as the Doctor and, more tellingly, Russell T Davies' last hurrah as showrunner and lead writer... and you know that means it's going to be BIG because, right or wrong, Russell doesn't seem to believe that season finalés can be anything else, which means also that he has to top the last one (as he has each year) and in that one the threat was the destruction of all the Universes... oh boy...

So the good bits; the characters - the character pieces are great, especially any scene with Bernard Cribbins in which he practically steals every time. Russell is, and always has been, great with characters and their interactions and for that (as well as beening pivotal in brining back the show) he certainly deserves praise... I even like the 'long goodbye' scenes from the Doctor to past companions before the inevitable regeneration. The Master is suitably bonkers, the comedy 'spiky' aliens are suitably comedic without taking away from the seriousness of the impending, foretold 'death' of the Doctor, Timothy Dalton is great as an all powerful and raving Rassilon, Lord President of the Time Lords and Tennant manages to balance the fear and foreboding of his upcoming demise with his usual manic charm.
So too the overall spectacle; they really pulled the stops out for this one - Gallifrey, home of the Time Lords, is magnificent, a speeding spaceship shoots down incoming missiles (with a strong homage to the Millennium Falcon escaping from the Death Star), a whole Earth populated with copies of a single being -The Mill (who do Doctor Who's CGI) outdid themselves...

... but get beyond the spectacle and the characters and you need something to hold that all together and in going as all-out as he can Russell, as he has before, outstrips his ability to make it all coalesce and writes himself into too many corners (I have heard he didn't actually know how the Doctor would defeat the opposition until a very short time before the final scenes were shot... he only knew the details of the nice character pieces after the actual plot was wrapped up).
Bigger than the destruction of the Universes? Let's start with the end of the entire human population (incidentally solved by a very poor "click of the fingers" resolution) and, as per the title, the ending of time itself... hey, that must be better since it pretty much gets the plots of the last two seasons' finalés in one story! It's just too much...

Add to this some very unwise basic plot decisions... the Master brought back by magic potions (this is Doctor Who, not Harry Potter... there should always be some pseudo-science explanation) and gaining some sort of Marvel Superhero abilities in the process, too much reliance on prophecies is also a bit too 'magical' for my tastes and when the science of the medical machine does turn up nobody thought when they made it that it was an obvious superweapon? There are clever turns (the final reveal on "Knocking Four Times" to herald the Doctor's death for one) but just too many times, if you're not totally just riding along with the frenetic pace of the story, you're left to wonder "Why did...?" "What did...?", "How did...?" and never get the answers you need and deserve.

Overall then despite some individually moving and powerful scenes and fine acting the whole package is a great disappointment, especially following on from the excellent "Waters of Mars"... if only they'd changed the end of that episode to somehow make it David Tennant's last appearance (even if they'd added, incongruously, his visits to past companions from this one) he would have gone out on the high of a great story, just not one with spectacular bangs... but that just wouldn't have been Russell's style.