FANS of Doctor Who actor David Tennant must have been relieved - and then doubly delighted - at tonight's end-of-season finale.
Last week's cliffhanger showed the Time Lord exterminated by a Dalek and then beginning to regenerate, adding to speculation that Tennant was leaving the show and causing a total hullaballoo in the Whovian fan community.
Tonight's conclusion, Journey's End, the last episode to be written by departing writer and executive producer Russell T Davies, delivered dramatic fates for the Doctor, for Donna and for his former companion Rose.
First we saw the Doctor use what he needed of his regenerative energies to heal himself and then directing the rest of the energy into the severed hand he kept on the Tardis (a hand chopped off by the Sycorax leader in The Christmas Invasion special, and regrown by the Doctor as he was in the first hours of his latest incarnation).
As companion Donna Noble and the Tardis faced destruction from the Daleks, Donna reached out to the hand, which then regenerated into a second Doctor (another David Tennant - no signs of Robert Carlyle or any of the other speculated replacements). This Doctor double was part-human and mortal, with just one heart. Some of the energy stored in the hand also went into Donna and turned her into a Time Lord with the Doctor's intellect and knowledge.
The clues to these three Doctors had been there earlier in the mention in a previous episode of the Time Lord being 'the threefold man'. Many of us suspected that severed hand would play a part. And one commenter on my earlier blog pointed out that Donna means woman, noble means lord and temp (her former job) means time, hence 'woman time lord.'
The episode was most certainly a Journey's End for many. The Daleks (and seemingly leader Davros) were destroyed; the second Tennant, along with former Doctor's companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), was sent to a parallel reality where the pair were to live happily together for the rest of their lives; and poor Donna couldn't handle the strain of the Time Lord's vast knowledge and had to have her mind wiped of all Doctor Who memories and be returned home as though she'd never stepped foot in the Tardis.
Then the Doctor - the real one, the original Tennant - was left alone again. Now we are no longer wondering if there'll be a new Time Lord but are instead wondering who will be his new companion. River Song (Alex Kingston)? Jenny (Georgia Moffatt)? Will bookmakers soon be producing a list of possibilities for the next assistant?
We also saw Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) walk away with Captain Jack, perhaps hinting that Martha will join Torchwood.
Although the episode piled on the plot twists and contrivances and you shouldn't even begin to question the physics of everything that happened with the Earth and the other planets (we saw our world towed into its correct position by the Tardis at one point!), Russell T Davies had obviously wanted to go out with a bang and clear his desk in style. It definitely gives a clean slate for the next series. And we all know the Daleks could return if they really wanted to bring them back.
What did you think of the episode? Did it deliver what you expected, hoped or wanted? Was Journey's End a fantastic voyage or a bad trip? And who will be the next companion?
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