Monday, June 30, 2008

Doctor Who S04E12-The Stolen Earth

In a sudden instant, the Earth vanishes from right under The Doctor and Donna’s feet. As the planet float in a shrouded area of space with several other stolen worlds, the problems of humanity get worse when a vast army of Daleks begin attacking the planet. As The Doctor and Donna desperately search for a way to find the missing planets, the Earth’s last remaining defenders: (Martha Jones and U.N.I.T., Captain Jack Harkness and Torchwood, Sarah Jane and Luke Smith) and one defender from another Earth (Rose Tyler) band together to confront the Dalek threat. But Jack, Martha, Sarah Jane and Rose have faced the Daleks before and know of their destructive capabilities. Without The Doctor and even with Rose’s help, can they stop the Dalek invasion of Earth? And who is the mysterious voice giving orders to the Daleks?

Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve finally arrived at “The Stolen Earth” and like most two part episodes of the series so far, it does a spectacular job of getting the blood pumping for the inevitable conclusion. With this story we see the culmination of four years worth of Doctor Who and more come together for the end all be all clash of the ages. For those of you who have followed the series since it’s resurrection in 2005 and even before that, this is one big reward for your dedication with characters and lots of series trivia tidbits, so many you will be lucky enough to catch them all. This is the start of a finale that “The Parting of the Ways”, “Doomsday” and “Last of the Time Lords” (the third one especially) could only dream of being.

I’ll try to keep this as short as possible and try to be spoiler free for those of you who haven’t watched this yet. However, there is little negativity to be found with this episode. I’ll start with my amazement of Russell T. Davies bringing Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures under the umbrella of it’s parent series and making them all work together. It was fun seeing Gwen, Ianto and Luke, who have only been mentioned in passing in previous episodes, interacting with Jack, Martha and Sarah Jane, like, well, one big happy family.

Leave it to the Daleks to come back with a bang. It is hard to believe that at one point there was only one left, but as everyone knows, you can’t keep them dead forever. The Daleks will always come back in one way or another to take on The Doctor in a battle of epic proportions. It would be one big spoiler to reveal the reason behind their return and it may even be expanded more next week. I will say, however, that Dalek Caan, the last of the Cult of Skaro has a role to play as The Doctor predicted.

Rose is back as previously mentioned. Like I said in my review of “Turn Left”, last week we saw her at her most clever and this week we saw her at her most bad ass, blasting Daleks to dust left and right with her BFG. While she only meets Jack and Donna she does see everyone else but can communicate with them and feels left out. You can hear it in her voice, her helplessness and do I dare say jealousy of The Doctor’s faith in her successors.

Possibly the saddest moment of the episode is the reason The Doctor’s companions coming together. Harriet Jones, ex-Prime Minister of Great Britain, returns to help out one last time. It is a fitting farewell to her character, sticking to the morals that got her ostracized by The Doctor and yet finding some redemption and providing a way for The Doctor to find his way to Earth. I’ll leave it at that if you can’t guess yet what happens. That’s me trying to be spoiler free for ya.

I’ll stop there so I don’t spoil anything else. If you haven’t seen “The Stolen Earth” yet, find a way to do so immediately and hold your breath for July 5, 2008 when “Journey’s End” brings us to the biggest epic we’ve ever seen.

Next Week…The Journey Ends...here's hoping this isn't the end of the road for David Tennant's fantastic Doctor.

Rating-10/10

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