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Permalink Reply by Robert Grimm on January 2, 2010 at 10:01pm

The bit where The Doctor grabs his new long hair and thinks he is a woman made me think of William Hartnell. I also liked his first words and his continued desire to be a ginger. Maybe next time.

I was disappointed by how long the regeneration took. He died from radiation poisoning twice before. Unless there was time compression in the editing, I don't think it ever took that long. He took a massive dose, so I expected the regeneration to be quicker. When he started to travel after the regeneration started, I remarked that it was like driving drunk. I did like the regeneration destroying the control deck of the TARDIS, though I was surprised it was so powerful. Maybe the TARDIS applied more power than usual since he stopped the regeneration last time it started and used a bit more the time before to regrow the hand he lost. The new set in the next series will make more sense because of that.

Overall, I was pleased with the episode. I was hoping for the return of the Time Lords, but now that I know what Rasillon had planned, I think it is best that they are time locked and Gallifrey is burning. I think we've seen the end of The Master's life, though I expect he will be back at an earlier point in his timeline.

Some may see the references to Star Wars, Star Trek, and Flash Gordon to be a bad thing, but I enjoyed them. The cantina scene (and something else I can't recall now) were the Star Wars references, The Doctor's collapse from radiation poisoning reminded me of Spock's death, and The Doctor piloting the Vinvocce ship reminded me of Flash Gordon flying the war rocket Ajax into Ming and Dale's wedding under heavy fire.

The first part left me thinking that Wilf was a Time Lord who had been through a Chameleon Arch. I'm still not convinced he isn't. I hope he turns out to be one in a future episode. I'd like him to be an adversary who forgot all about it while human. It would be great if he turned out to be Rasillon, The Other, or the unidentified woman. That could lead to a future return of the Time Lords. The Doctor's brief assumption that he was a woman shows suggests that Time Lords can change sexes when they regenerate.

Permalink Reply by Robert Grimm on January 3, 2010 at 9:08am

In the two "imperfect" cases, the watches were nearby. I'm not sure I would call that imperfect. The watch may have been making it possible that it would not be forgotten. Wilf doesn't have a watch. He may have lost it, possibly during the fighting in Palestine. Since the Chameleon Arch makes the user biologically human, it makes sense that he could reproduce and his descendants would be fully human, though it would be interesting if opening the watch turned him and his descendants into Time Lords. That could leave a possible way for The Doctor to rebuild his race in his own image, free of the corrupting influence of the Time War.

If you want to reply to this, it is probably best to start a new discussion since this seems to be drifting off the topic of The End of Time and into a theoretical discussion of Time Lord technology and biology.

Permalink Reply by Michelle on January 4, 2010 at 10:23am

I just thought it was funny that he saved the lives of two characters, verified Rose's happiness, and hooked up captain Jack, of course.
I was hoping for some Dr. Donna moments, but overall I liked the episode. The new kids enthusiasm and commitment was impressive. Tennent is a hard act to follow on that score, so it was a good surprise.
Now, maybe after we've had the same doctor for bit longer we can get a red-headed girl doctor.

Permalink Reply by Merchickety on January 10, 2010 at 4:08pm

I agree about Matt Smith. I was all ready to cry when Tennant was going through his whole thing, not wanting to go, then all the sudden, BAM! Here's the new kid, and he has so much enthusiasm from the first second he's on screen that you realize, hey, this new guy might not be too bad after all!

Permalink Reply by Seamonster on January 7, 2010 at 2:27am

I always seem to be a few days late with these but here goes.

Honestly, I thought the two parter wasn't very good. The first part really fires you up, gets you excited "Oh the Time Lords are coming back, awesome". The second part just lets you down. They got Timothy Dalton to play the Lord President, he's a total psycho, it had all the makings of something epic. What do they do? Waste it. Just as the whole evil Time Lord thing is coming together it just sort of peters out. I feel like they tried to stuff too much into two episodes and they waste almost half of the second episode on the Doctors regeneration. Any of the plot points with the Master taking over the Earth, Gallifrey falling out of the sky on Earth, the Doctor Donna could have been developed and made into whole episodes in and of themselves. In the end it's just too half baked and convoluted for me to call it "good".

The regeneration was way way wayyyyy too long. I won't echo everyone else's comments here, my main complaints have already been brought up by others. What I will say is a bit weird is how the TARDIS is getting destroyed by the awesomeness of his regeneration, but his clothes don't get ripped. Whatever, minor nitpick. Someone told me that the reason for this is because the Doctor had set the TARDIS to self destruct, but I really don't remember that.

I'm gonna watch the two episodes again, see if I pick up on some of this stuff. I might post back later.