“Bad Wolf” and “The Parting of the Ways” stars Christopher
Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with John Barrowman as
Captain Jack Harkness, Jo Joyner as Lynda, Paterson Joseph as Rodrick, Anne
Robinson as the Voice of Anne Droid, Trinny Woodall as Voice of Trine-e,
Susannah Constantine as Voice of Zu-Zana, Camile Coduri as Jackie Tyler, and Noel
Clarke as Mickey Smith. Dalek Operators
were Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg, and David Hankinson with Dalek Voices by
Nicholas Briggs. They were written by: Russell
T. Davies and directed by: Joe Ahearne with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil
Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Mal Young as
Executive Producers. They were
originally broadcast on Saturdays from 11 to 18 June 2005 on BBC One.
Seeding the ending of Series One of Doctor Who
was always going to be a challenge. The
original pitch document was a two-part “Gameshow World” or “Game Show World”
and “The Parting of the Ways” very much in the form that they would eventually
be broadcast. The character of Captain
Jack Harkness was specifically created to facilitate the military tactics used
in “The Parting of the Ways” and to provide one companion death at the climax
of the episode. This very well could have
been the last two episodes of Doctor Who on the whole, so Russell T.
Davies wrote the scripts specifically to reflect a heroic sacrifice in the
climax for the Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack though a potentially optimistic
ending if Doctor Who would continue.
In early February 2005, the BBC confirmed these fears were not founded,
commissioning Russell T. Davies for a second and third series of Doctor Who
to air in 2006 and 2007 respectively, along with Christmas Specials to be aired
in 2005 and 2006. Once production began on
the series with “Rose”, “Aliens of London”, and “World War Three”, however,
trouble struck. Christopher Eccleston, unhappy
with the state of production in the first block as well as further issues with
the way production in general was handled, decided to leave the show at the end
of the production block, “The Parting of the Ways” ending being rewritten to
include a regeneration of the Ninth Doctor into the Tenth. Eccleston’s reasons for leaving are nothing
but admirable, the production of the series was very messy and abusive at points
and he had every reason to leave and step fully away from the franchise. Davies also used this as an opportunity to
add in the culmination to the recurring use of bad wolf throughout the series,
renaming “Gameshow World” to “Bad Wolf” before production began.
“Bad Wolf” as an episode is perhaps the episode of the
first series that had the largest concern of aging poorly. This is not for any regressive messaging or
Davies’ outlook aging poorly, but it is an episode whose premise is a continuation
of the messaging of “The Long Game”, though the mass media being lampooned is
game shows. The Doctor, Rose, and Jack
are separated and placed into three game shows, running and broadcasting to the
planet Earth in the year 200,100. The
three game shows featured were game shows at the height of popularity in 2004/2005
when the episode was produced, Big Brother, The Weakest Link, and
What Not to Wear, and for full transparency I am only familiar with The
Weakest Link due to an American version presented by Jane Lynch. Davies’ script does make a very important
decision on having each of the three games only last for the first thirty
minutes of the episode, giving fifteen minutes to reveal the many twists of the
episode. First it is revealed that the
Doctor’s interference in “The Long Game” left the planet Earth worse off,
humanity not pulling itself up, but immediately turning to a cruel form of
reality television where the contestants are killed. The performances from Christopher Eccleston
and Billie Piper throughout their games to the point where the first death
happens are fascinating. The Doctor
plays it as incredibly annoyed at being forced to be on the inside of this very
human game show that feels insignificant while Rose just can’t help but laugh
at having to play in a quiz show in the far future that she is going to be
helpless at winning. The deaths then
change the tone completely, sold in both plot threads by Lynda Moss and Rodrick
played by Jo Joyner and Paterson Joseph respectively. Lynda is a sweet girl who wants more out of
life, perfect companion material and someone for the Doctor to latch on to
while Rodrick is terribly self-centered and uses Rose so he can win the game. The chemistry between Eccleston and Joyner is
perfect while Joseph’s performance just makes the audience immediately hate
this guy. Captain Jack’s game is perhaps
the weakest point of the episode, though luckily it’s the game we also cut back
to the least. Barrowman is flirty
throughout with the robots on a fashion show that I am very unfamiliar with and
it’s a game without any other contestants so its just sold by John Barrowman
and feels a bit too much like an afterthought.
The last fifteen minutes of the episode recontextualize
everything that has come before in the episode and in the series. Rose loses her game just as the Doctor, Jack,
and Lynda can break in and Joe Ahearne’s direction here brings out the
tragedy. The score by Murray Gold goes
quiet and Eccleston sells the scene in complete silence as they are all arrested. Of course they escape and make their way,
guns blazing, to the control center at Floor 500 where we begin to get information
on the situation on Earth and what the Game Station is. The Controller, played by Martha Cope, had
been seen throughout the episode at the far end of the control station and
there is something disgusting and tragic about the character. Taking the technology from “The Long Game”
and advancing it so a single person is the computer and has lost their sense of
identity and autonomy. The Controller
was only a child when her masters put her in charge of the station and she doesn’t
even get a name, but she is responsible for bringing the TARDIS team
there. She is scared of her masters and
believes they can stop them. The masters
are revealed to be the Daleks, having somehow escaped the Time War and rebuilt
a fleet slowly manipulating the Earth to their devices, stopping humanity’s
expansion. Rose is alive, the
disintegrator beams actually being transmats to their ships. The final shots of the episode both bring
this sense of hope and despair simultaneously as Rose is alive but there are
too many Daleks. The Dalek ship sets are
also brilliant modernizations of some of the original Dalek city sets way back
in The Daleks. The stage is set
for the final battle. 8/10.
It is important to note the trend of Russell T. Davies
writing when it comes to finale’s for future reviews. “The Parting of the Ways” as a finale has
stakes of the Earth in the future and all of humanity, incredibly high stakes
and genuinely perfect stakes for the big picture, something that will trend
upwards as the series progresses which is where problems start. Davies also demonstrates the understanding
that while there are CGI effects and several scenes of death and destruction of
the Daleks, it is actually the small stakes of the characters we know that make
“The Parting of the Ways” work. This is
setup as an impossible scenario, a scenario there is no real way for the Doctor
to actually win. He is able to get Rose
out of the Dalek mothership, but the Dalek invasion is coming to the Game
Station and Earth itself. The actual
plot of the episode is simple but each scene is brilliant at peeling back a
layer of the mystery, first explaining how the Daleks survive. Davies elevates
the racial purity and fascist aspects of the Daleks here, the Doctor, Jack, and
Rose being able to speak with them on the mothership due to the shields outside
of the TARDIS keeping them safe. These
Daleks have come out of a single ship, the Dalek Emperor having escaped the Time
War and fallen to this period of history, the Doctor not really being able to
take the fact that the Time War was for nothing, the Time Lords gave their
lives for the Daleks only to rebuild themselves up. These Daleks also aren’t pure, something that
means that there is an inner turmoil making these Daleks more dangerous, the losers
on the game shows have been turned into Daleks.
There’s this tiny little detail in one of the mutants where the prop doesn’t
look like the prop from “Dalek”.
The Dalek invasion then begins almost immediately and
throughout all of this the Doctor is putting on the brave face that he can somehow
save everyone before the bodies begin to pile up. Joe Ahearne’s direction here builds up this
brilliant sense of dread, several of the contestants who are let out of the games
not going to fight the Daleks, attempting to stay safe in the basement. Of course, the Daleks being the Daleks it
means that they are not safe and the scene where they are exterminated, while being
the deaths of cowards the severity and emotions of the scene work. It kicks off a sequence of the episode that
just shows the destruction, elevating the already brutal destruction shown in “Dalek”. As the episode goes on, Eccleston really sells
the fact that he knows that this will be one final stand for himself. He sends Rose back to 21st century
Earth so she is safe, Jack and Lynda are on the ground buying the Doctor enough
time to build a delta wave to destroy the Daleks, and all of it is fruitless. Davies does something groundbreaking for Doctor
Who in showing the first on-screen gay kiss between Jack and the Doctor
before the fighting starts. The Doctor
building the delta wave is established as something that will destroy the
Daleks while also destroying all life on Earth.
Humanity will be wiped out. The
Emperor also has a direct line of communication to the Doctor throughout the back
half of the episode and this is an episode where there is no resolution, the Doctor
has his hands on the trigger to redo the end of the Time War, end the Daleks
but taking himself and more importantly humanity with it. You can see the Doctor’s heart breaking with
Eccleston’s performance where he cannot do it and is happy to be labeled a ‘coward’
any day if it means not killing innocents.
Rose’s plotline is also character focused with Billie
Piper giving a powerhouse of the tragedy of being sent home. Her scenes are shared with Noel Clarke and
Camile Coduri as Mickey and Jackie.
Rose, being given one last message and request to live her life while letting
the TARDIS die, cannot bring herself to forget the Doctor. Davies’ script reflects on the twelve
previously broadcast episodes of the series to show how the Doctor has changed
Rose and how she cannot just leave him to die.
There are hundreds of thousands of years between them, but time is
running in parallel and Rose is determined to somehow save him even if it means
sacrificing herself. Some fans may
complain that the resolution of the episode is a deus ex machina and while they
are right that it is literally a god from the machine, Rose absorbing the time
energy from the heart of the TARDIS established in “Boom Town”, destroying the Daleks,
and seeding the words bad wolf through the Ninth Doctor’s life. Davies sells the ending by making it an
ending with consequences for the Doctor, Rose, and Jack. Jack, exterminated, is brought back to life after
the Daleks are destroyed and abandoned as the Doctor and Rose go off in the
TARDIS. The energies of the time vortex
will burn Rose’s mind, so the Doctor takes matters into his own hands, allowing
his body to burn to save her. The final
scene in the TARDIS was set in secret and designed to explain the basics of
regeneration to new viewers while also capping Christopher Eccleston’s
genuinely iconic year as the Doctor. The
Doctor doesn’t go sadly and knows the change is coming, dying happily with the
knowledge that he and Rose were both fantastic and he has a reason to keep
going. The regeneration itself is the
best the revival has done and perhaps will ever do, Eccleston leaving on the
perfect note in a perfect episode.
10/10.
Overall, “Bad Wolf” and “The Parting of the Ways” is a
pair of episodes that bring together the end of what Doctor Who could
have been. While the show will continue,
it was produced with uncertainty if that was possible so Christopher Eccleston,
while hurt by the production team in a lot of ways, gets one last chance to say
goodbye and finish his own character arc as the Doctor. Russell T. Davies proves he has the chops to
run the show completely and deserves the two series renewal given shortly after
production wrapped on the season. Series
One has some of the highest highs of the revival and is among Doctor Who’s
best overall runs. 9/10.
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